Learning to Suffer

Today's turning was agony almost from the word "go." I suffered through it for a total of sixty-one minutes, satisfying this ridiculous "hour per day" requirement that we're sticking with until we either adapt to it or realize that it is, over time, too much for the body to handle. I was in pain today from about the fourth minute, and there were several times that I tried to talk myself into a shorter session. Still, I persevered.

The thing is, I don't think real development can occur in Yin Style Bagua, or really in anything for that matter, without enduring overwhelming suffering in one aspect or another. Turning like this leads to breakthroughs, if not breakdowns, and, inter alia, changes a person's outlook on what is and isn't possible. I think to make progress in Yin Style, sometimes it is just necessary to deal with it.

I realized immediately that heroics like those of yesterday were going to be nearly impossible today. The suffering and soreness were too intense for it to be otherwise. I decided to try to do fifteen minutes in each direction, at which point I would choose how to finish it. The first direction was rough, but the second direction sent thought after tempting thought my way, almost convincing me that what I didn't do "to the right" could easily be made up for the next time to the left. I didn't give in. In fact, I said at one point, fully aloud and to no one in particular: "Suffer, bitch!" Forty some-odd times around the circle later or so, I changed sides again. Almost instantly, it was agony. My course was then set: ten to the left, ten to the right; five to the left, five to the right. I stuck to it after that, save that I did six to the right on my final go-around. I kept the posture; I sucked it up; and I pushed through what I wasn't sure I could push through. Now I just have strikes and forms to do before I stand and go to bed.

Oh.. and I've come up with what hopefully is a partial solution to the mud issue on my circle: sand. We have a pile that I've been meaning to put to the purpose for almost six months, but for the past few days, I've been hauling a small bucketful of sand over to my circle and depositing it in the "yin side" before I walk. Hopefully, grinding lots of well-draining sand into the earth on that side will help keep the mud issue to a minimum. I can, though, turn indoors if need be.

Three days, almost two hundred minutes on the circle. I'd be lying to say I'm not feeling it, but I think I'm feeling it in a good way as much as I am sore.