Friday, March 28, 2008

A long time turning

Today, for the first time in a long time, I broke the one-hour mark on my circle, and my shoulders and hands are currently paying full price for my hubris. My turning was not balanced, not even by my usual 3:2 standards, as I accomplished 401 revolutions, at just over 50 minutes, in one direction followed by a short, painful 63 revolutions in the other, at which point my right arm essentially collapsed from the effort. Today I'm forcibly reminded, yet again, of He Jinbao's words, spoken in Vermont in September 2006: "Training in Yin Style Bagua is difficult, and these skills are not easily attained. To develop real skill, a person must endure a lot of suffering." That word, endure, was my mantra as I turned through the last two hundred revolutions, and though I continued to say it as my arm steadily dropped through 56... 57... 58... to the right, eventually a mantra apparently cannot carry me any further.

I am better for the effort, to be sure, but I definitely suspect I will not feel that way in the morning.
"The most important thing when studying the martial arts is not to be lazy. These skills are not easily attained. For them, one must endure a lot of suffering." -He Jinbao