Off to an okay start

I wish I was off to a good start, but taking off all of Thursday through Sunday and half of Monday put me so far behind that I'm only just now coming up for breath. I've trained some since I've been home, but never in that hard, fierce way I prefer to. Yesterday, I worked the saber drills I learned with a broom and then holding 5 lb. medicine balls in my hands, and I worked them several times -- enough to be notably sore today. I even did them with my katana, which was okay for a couple of the drills and for looking kind of cool with the form, but it's too light and short. It's no comparison. It's not the same as a dadao. I need to get one.

I'm going to try to turn again here in a few minutes, but I don't know how long it will last. I was up past two last night grading and out of bed again at about 7:45 this morning to pick up the torch again. Grading sometimes takes forever and can be extremely draining. I'm almost physically itching to get back to my real training, but I'm not sure I'm going to be capable of much today. I'm even vaguely dizzy and sick feeling at the moment, and I know that taking a nap will last well into the night (and therefore be a bad idea!).

What I have worked on is increasing the precision in my stepping and coordinating my body to this new pattern. I worked so hard all last year adapting my stepping to the one I noticed was most common in doing many of the drills we practice, and in doing so, I made a mistake that now just seems plain foolish. I assumed it was the proper way to step doing baguazhang. Why should it be? Bagua wouldn't paint itself into a corner with only one way to step, but that's sort of what I've done, and changing it is hard. I'm having a particularly tough time remembering to swing my leg in on a cutting-in step, especially in the Lifting and Holding forms. I blatantly see its usefulness and importance, though. I'm going to trust to what they say: hold the requirements in your mind, try to meet them, practice a lot, and your body will catch up to your intentions. I already believe it since it's not a problem really in the Lying Step.

As I'm sitting here, I'm thinking of yet another post I want to make, but I'll wait until I play with the idea in my body a little more before saying anything. Let me just put it this way: what I discussed above and what I'm thinking about (and have made a note of due to my overfull, overtired head) really impress the idea that if a person is really interested in learning Yin Style Baguazhang, that person cannot be lazy: (s)he wouldn't have time! There's so much to learn, so much to train, so much to study... missing even a day without contemplating, experiencing, testing, feeling, and working it is an opportunity beyond recall!