Differences and Similarities

By request, I'm going to address some of what it is that I "got" about the similarities and differences between the sweeping and hooking palms as mentioned in my article. Really, the two palms are quite different, and that's important to note. In actuality, when you look at all of the forms of the sweeping palm and the hooking palm and take a careful look at the striking methods, you'll see that they're pretty diverse in both cases. Still, they're quite overlapping as well. Something similar exists for the cutting and chopping palms, I think. These things, it seems to me, are done particularly in the basic strikes, which are chosen to be representative, so as to help reinforce the ability to find and execute the forces of the strikes (which in lots of ways are similar in the big picture and yet different in the details).

The big themes of sweeping and hooking, in theory, are, I believe:

• Sweeping endeavors to create a sticky, scraping force and moves in a wheeling fashion. An opponent hit by a sweeping strike, particularly one that glances off or that is used to open the opponent, should be dragged off balance a little by the strike. This is accomplished by an idea of wheeling and scraping. Sweeping strikes also hit directly, cutting into the opponent like a sword.
  
• Hooking endeavors to move the opponent as if they were being snagged by a big hook. The name is dual in meaning: the arm is shaped like a hook and the arm is used like a hook. To use a hook well, one would have to stretch out and then come back, push and then pull, if you will. The idea is that the arm should be carrying the opponent somewhere as if he's been snagged by a hook, so there's a real idea of moving the opponent around with a hooking strike.

A couple of examples, I think, are useful to make things more clear. Ideally, what you need to do is pick a couple of the really similar strikes and do similar applications with them, trying to find how it feels different. First, let's think of inward sweeping and inward/severing hooking in the simple application that you've opened the opponent already and stepped in to throw him, leg behind his leg. The sweeping strike moves in a wheeling motion and therefore should turn the opponent some, but since it seems to hit more directly, I tend to get more "straight back" in terms of reaction from my opponent unless I *really* try to spin them around. It's not as straight as something like a chop, but it's pretty straight. In contrast, severing hooking seems to really spin the opponent because it's almost like you're lifting him up with the structure of your arm and really thinking about moving him out and away from you with a slight jerk back at the end. The opponent's reaction is very round.

In the second example, there's an application that's relatively accessible using any of rising sweeping, rising cutting, or opening hooking (the first and last on this list being quite similar in execution with that same slight difference) where the opponent's arms end up crossed while you stand behind him and put pressure on his arm and throw him down. It's in the Forcing Hand dvd, for instance, but the exact move isn't important to this discussion. Doing that move with sweeping until it's relatively comfortable, then with hooking until the same, and then going back and forth really underscored the difference. Hooking has a very strong "I'm carrying this guy around" feeling to it where as sweeping does not. Sweeping has more of an idea of knocking the guy out of the way but in a manner where there's still connection.

I don't think this is very clear, but I'm going to let it stand. It's quite difficult, I'm sure you can appreciate, to discuss movements and kinesthetic sensations in text, and as far as applications go, they never come out well when written down (at least I don't seem to think they do). The point is that the two palms feel different even though they have techniques that are done very similarly, and that those similarites boost development in the gross skills while those differences hone the mind to pay attention to and use subtle differences to achieve different results in the same or different situations. As far as I know, the only way to "get" it is to realize there's a difference, train how you believe that difference might manifest, try it out, revise, refine, and then train it and try it again and again. Baguazhang is not redundant (that would be inefficient and unneccessary), and so if they feel the same to you, then you're doing something wrong, i.e. it's incorrect to say or think or feel that "opening hooking is just like rising sweeping with a closed fist and slightly more bent arm." While on the outside, gross level that's largely true, there's different intent there that can only come about by looking for, focusing on, and then training the subtle difference in strategy and technique between the two strikes. Still, the similarity is strong enough to achieve the following two goals, in my experience: 1) getting beginners started with the hooking strike, and 2) to have a strong overlap in the "finding the force" effort in both strikes.

Published

For the first post in my second centi, I'm glad to announce I'm published:
http://yinstylebaguazhang.com/lindsay_london2009.html.

That's my experience in London this summer nearly as well as I can say it. It's pretty clear that getting the opportunity to go to a seminar like that and taking it is really an unbelievable chance that would be awfully hard to pass up!

Cooking with JB: An Odd Subject for my 100th Post

Even though this is my 100th post and should therefore be commemorated with some tale about how I did everything I know how to do in Yin Style 100 times on each side, I have no such tale to tell. I did realize, however, that I'm also currently writing a blog about things that I cook and that since while I was in London, I was staying with Matt and Jinbao and thus got to eat a lot of JB's cooking, which I'm now trying to replicate, and I bet some YSB folks would have interest in. On that blog, I've been documenting my attempts, when successful, at some of the "hash that JB would sling," if you pardon the slang. It's all traditional Chinese home-cooking, nothing fancy, and it's all quite good. Here's where to go to see some of those recipes (as well as a couple of my own), look for the ones with the keyword "JB" in the title. For the record, I didn't actually get any of JB's recipes, but I do pay a lot of attention to the things I eat (very slowly) and have been cooking long enough to do a fair job of recreating things that I try. Most of these are very close or spot-on.

We did train hard last night: sweeping, cutting, and chopping strikes primarily, along with a nice round of standing strengthening, a little bit of forms practice, and a little bit of saber practice, so this post isn't completely devoid of training news.

Yin Style Baguazhang International in Knoxville, TN

I can hardly believe it's almost here! Yin Style Baguazhang International is going to be doing a first-time seminar in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the end of September, and getting it organized is really starting to eat up some of my attention, even though I'm not the main organizer. This has caused me to pause and think... and that has caused me to pause and remember... this is an amazing situation, an amazing opportunity, and an amazing responsibility.

First of all, in Knoxville and the surrounding areas (I live in Maryville, TN, just south of Knoxville), there are a lot of martial artists, but there are very few Chinese martial arts being practiced. I suspect those things go hand-in-hand. First of all, a few of the big karate men from the Okinawan occupation period following WWII brought Okinawan karate here in the 1950's, and it's grown steadily in popularity. There is a fairly large concentration high-ranking karate folks here, and in fact, one of the biggest get-togethers in the Isshin-Ryu Karate System, the Isshin-Ryu Hall of Fame tournament and shiai, is held in the greater Knoxville area (this year in Knoxville itself). There are also a few prominent karate associations here, notably the USIKA (United States Isshin-Ryu Karate Association), and that's no particular surprise since two of the four American progenitors of Isshin-Ryu karate moved to the Southeast, one to Knoxville, after their duty with the Marines. That's made a pretty good reputation for Isshin-Ryu in this area, which was great for me because practicing Isshin-Ryu is what led to me running into a guy that also practiced Isshin-Ryu that ended up introducing me to Yin Style. Perhaps unfortunately, what has passed for Chinese Martial Arts in the Southeast has largely been a bit of a joke, particularly among the rather pragmatic karate fighters, and so the CMA scene in the Southeast is rather bad, to speak generally.

There's been a huge upsurgence recently in the Southeast, particularly in Knoxville, among people interested in practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and mixed martial arts (popularly, MMA) since the UFC gained in popularity through the 1990's and first decade of the new millennium. People here are usually "no-bullshido" kinds of folks: what works is okay, what doesn't work sucks, and that's how it is. The UFC has convinced people of the effectiveness of combining striking and BJJ, largely thanks to the Gracie family, at least in comparison to what martial arts training most people do. This growth hasn't helped the Chinese martial arts scene in this neck of the woods since much of what passes for Chinese martial arts is flowery "kung-fu" stuff that tends to get people beat in tournaments really quickly. Baguazhang is almost a complete unknown in and around Knoxville, and that's probably mostly to do with the strong karate history, growth of BJJ/MMA, and general pragmatism of the people, to say nothing of bagua's relative obscurity and "bizarre" practices (like walking in circles for maybe hours on end holding "weird" postures).

So here we are about to host YSB International: Yin Style Baguazhang is about to happen big-time in Knoxville, and there's some duty on our part to showcase this art to the Southeast and hopefully start changing perceptions: Chinese martial arts can be effective, even standing up to popular giants like BJJ and MMA in the public eye. Who better to convince them of the prowess inherent in baguazhang than He Jinbao? No one, of course, and so we've got to figure out how to get these folks interested in checking out what we're doing.

Though people in the Southeast, particularly in and around Knoxville, carry a stereotype for being backwards and country (we are kind of country, for the most part, and rather proud of it), that probably sheds an unfair light on us as far as martial arts is concerned. The trend I've noticed in the area is a strongly growing attitude of curiosity and exploration, realizing that karate isn't the whole world and that branching out into other knowledge can help, not hinder, development of both people and the arts they love and train. That attitude marries very nicely with the Southern love of the practical: if it works in the martial arts world, people in the Southeast are probably about the most likely to become very interested in it once they become aware of it, not so much as a marketing tool but out of genuine interest in developing the most effective, high-quality martial arts training that they can find.

We're hoping that this spirit makes its way to our little seminar on the last weekend of September, showing this area about a truly effective, beautiful, deep, and difficult Chinese martial art that is indeed martial while ending up with a terrific seminar for both the students and the teachers. Now... just to organize it all....

Stirring the Ashes

I went out to work out this evening. I decided that my wrist could deal... I just wouldn't let my left hand play much. I started out with the saber, as I usually do, and did tracing in my right. It felt nice but like I haven't done it much lately (I haven't). Then I decided to test my left hand (having no sense or indomitable spirit or some such) and did fifteen repetitions of the exercise. That compares very favorably with yesterday's zero. It still hurt a little, but a little is not a lot. Then I did some chopping drills with my right hand, some turning with my right hand, some standing with my right hand, and then took my saber for a walk down my really long driveway to get the mail, which earned me some awesome stares from people driving by. I came back from the mailbox and did a couple of sections of the form several times and decided that I was really forcing the workout: I really just didn't want to do it. The momentum of half-assed workouts that have been mostly all I've done since getting back from London had killed my spirit. I put my saber away, kind of disheartened, and then I forced myself to go back out and work on strikes.

I got outside and started doing some striking drills: standing in place method -- not interested; box stepping -- not interested; zig-zag stepping -- not interested; standing in place method again -- not interested; think of applications and work on homemade combinations drills with those -- not interested! I almost gave up at that point and then, for some reason, I started doing the zig-zag stepping method again, only striking with my right as I went (and stepping through and "parrying/redirecting" with my left on the interim steps) -- very interesting. I did a ton of those, right hand one way down the driveway, left hand on the way back. I varied it across several strikes that I feel have things in common but interesting differences, and almost a half an hour later, I felt like I'd really stirred the ashes. It fired me back up.

Habits only take a few days of ignoring to break, so if you want to train well, I think that means you have to be consistent.

My Saber, My Wrist, and My Remedy

Every person that does something physical needs this book: The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief, Section Edition by Davies and Davies. Seriously. Get it. Use it. Love it.

I'm not here to be a commercial; I'm here to talk about training. Well, as many of you have read, my wrist is still pretty well wrecked from maybe overdoing it a little bit in London (or being weak, however you read that). Well... I went out to work with my saber today and did a drill about forty times in my right hand (described below) and felt pretty damn good about that. Then I went to do it in my left (the wrecked-wrist side) and nearly dropped the saber in extreme pain on the first attempt, which was obviously piss-poor. That's not acceptable, and it's holding my training back. Then I tried tracing the saber back and forth. I did a bunch in my right and a whopping two in my left before I couldn't really hold the saber up any more. I'm secretly to the point with my wrist "right now" where I can't unscrew a jar (not a new, sealed jar, but one that's been opened many times) in the morning without some real difficulty and pain. That's screwed up. I can't do cutting strikes worth a crap, my standing and turning postures in Lion are a partial failure due to the external rotation of the bottom hand that I can't really do, and a number of the qinna strikes are also wrecking me or largely inaccessible. That is unsatisfactory.

I came directly inside after tracing and put the saber down earlier and picked up the book mentioned above. I re-read every page that related to wrist pain of the kind I was primarily experiencing and within about ten minutes had identified the most likely areas that are causing me trouble. I spent half an hour working hard on them (painful) after that, and function is improved probably by 60% in one session. I'm still not going to man-up the saber in my left hand until I'm more near 90-95% improved, but the jar is no problem, seizing and grasping seem to be much better, and cutting only hurts a little. External rotation: check. I did some standing strengthening in the Lion posture to celebrate. Nice.

We all get sore from training, and if we're training correctly, we're probably sometimes getting some repetitive-use injuries. Many of those can be treated by following the instructions in this book and enduring a little pain. That means we can train more, harder, longer, more frequently, and sooner if we end up injured. Awesome.

The drill: the first series of movements from the Monkey-King section of the Nine Dragon Saber form, up through TaiGong Goes Fishing, snapping the saber back into the Monkey-King posture after going fishing. Since I can't do that whole series forty times, I interlaced it with repetitions of turning around the circle once in Monkey King and doing the first movement (Fair Maiden ... Buddha), then stepping back onto the circle for another go around. I probably did the full-to-fishing sequence every fifth time, once facing forward, once facing backwards.

Some Yin Style Bagua Training Tips

It occurred to me last night that most of this blog is kind of an adventure in describing my trials, errors, and tribulations with training Yin Style Baguazhang, and since it's kind of giving me a slightly authoritative voice (or so I hear), I decided it would be nice to provide some tips for training. None of these will be too fancy, and it will certainly not be a comprehensive list. It's just a short catalog of some of the things that I've done that seemed to help me. I think it would be great, in fact, if anyone that's interested would post some of their own successful tips as comments to this post. I also think that many of these training tips would help folks that practice any martial art, or with a little more creative stretching, any endeavor whatsoever, so feel free to pass it along if you know someone that might benefit from it, inside Yin Style or out.

1. Never Zero
This is a rule that I've lived by for almost three years now, and what it means is that I do not let a day go by with no training. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that I'm throwing strikes or turning or even sweating every single day. Sometimes I'm sick. Sometimes I'm working a lot. Sometimes I'm busy or traveling (no, I didn't practice my sweeping strikes on the plane to London). Sometimes I'm just tired. On those days, I have videos I can watch, notes I can review, and an active imagination that I can tap into. All of that counts as training too as long as it's not the main body of your training. Of course, never-zero usually means sweating for me, at least thirteen days out of a fortnight.

2. Do Something
Yin Style Baguazhang has umpteen thousand things to train in it. There are four pillars, each of which is huge, plus saber. There are scores of forms, hundreds of strikes, at least a dozen stepping methods, eleventy billion postures to stand or turn in, and who knows how many ways to put them together. Sometimes that overwhelms me, and then I just start doing something. Almost always, I get into something that I really want to train, and things go great. It doesn't have to be organized every time you set out to train, and with so many things to choose from, sometimes it just comes down to choosing something and going with it.

3. When it Works, Capitalize On It
Some days, I feel like hot potatoes with my sweeping strikes, for instance. On those days, I work the crap out of sweeping strikes, and I tend to get a lot of benefit from it. Also on those days, I sometimes decide to work on something else that I'm not feeling so great at, and I've noticed that I don't get as much from it. Then, when I'm smart, I go back to sweeping strikes, or whatever it is that I'm rocking out, and crank it. Yin Style Baguazhang has a lot of things that need getting good at, and those things have to be developed one at a time. Working on things that are working for you is a great way to develop a lot in a short time, capitalizing on your gains for future gains. It's like compound interest of training.

4. When It Doesn't Work, Make it Work
I don't know how many times I've sat there and thought about it for a while, and then, with a look of disgust on my face, decided "I suck at such-and-such." I used to get discouraged by that. Now, I see it as an opportunity. "I suck at cutting strikes, so I'm going to go do cutting strikes until I don't suck at them," I might tell myself. Then I go do a lot of cutting strikes, looking for why I suck at them and trying to make them better. Eventually, usually over the course of drilling them like that for days, I don't feel like they suck any more and I start to like them instead of feeling discouraged. Then, I can go back to Tip #3 and make some serious progress.

5. If You Like It, Then You Should Get Good At It
Most of us are into Yin Style because we like it, right? That means there's something in Yin Style Bagua that we enjoy, and if we enjoy something, then we should do it a lot (that's what enjoying something means). When we do it a lot, we should be getting good at it. So, if you like something particular, like in Tip #3, do it a lot, get good at it, and capitalize on your interests and fancies. You don't have to train things that you hate all of the time. Eventually, we're each supposed to start making Yin Style personalized to ourselves, which means focusing upon and using mostly the things we like and the things we're good at. It's best if those things are the same things.

6. If You Hate It, Train It More
See Tip #4 for this... really, it works.

7. Concentrate Your Training
For me, it's been much more effective to spend most of my training time over several days or even weeks working the same form or strikes a lot of times. It seems like that would be dry and rote, but it's kind of the opposite. It really helps make the techniques improve which makes them likable which makes a feedback loop on training because it puts you back into the realms of Tips #3 and #5. It also seems to speed development more than choosing lots of different things and trying to work all of them. That latter method just feels too scattered.

8. Be Details-Oriented
The devil's in the details, particularly here. Pay attention to the details of the requirements of the things you practice, going over the checklist and trying to kinesthetically feel them for yourself. If you don't feel them, then they're probably not there or lacking. Look for proper form, execution, and economy of the movements, and you'll be on the right track. Ask yourself if it feels right: e.g. "does this form really feel like it's windmill?" or "this strike comes from the Lion System... my force should be heavy and full... would I describe it that way?"

9. Be Purpose-Oriented
Why are you doing the things you're doing? To get good? What does that mean? Looking back at Tip #8, you should be constantly asking yourself why you're doing what you're doing. Every part of every movement should be economical, efficient, and make sense in terms of use and application. You cannot get good by trying to get good; you can only get good by trying to develop your training to the point where it achieves specific goals that you are aware of: get stronger, more rooted, balanced, more powerful, develop a heavy and full force, be cold, crisp, and fast, etc. If your purpose is "to get good like Matt and JB," you'll never get there because their purpose was to develop each technique according to the rules with an active, alive, refined execution.

10. Watch Yourself
Pictures or (better) videos of yourself training are really valuable. You'll see that in a lot of ways you're lacking more than you think. Some folks post their training in private or public venues on YouTube or other such places. You don't have to. Just check yourself out and see what needs to be seen. No technology? No problem: try a mirror.

11. Train Themes
This is a training method I feel I've had a lot of success with: training material that's related by a theme. Maybe I'm into cutting strikes. I stand strengthening in cutting, do some turning in cutting (it feels different if you've never done it), do oodles of cutting strikes, and try to learn and practice several or all of the cutting forms from the videos. I might spend a few weeks or a month just on cutting strikes, and at the end of it, I have a new and real appreciation for cutting strikes. It really works. Maybe instead your theme is an attacking method, i.e. a particular kind of form. Fine... you're into Lifting and Holding? Do as many Lifting and Holding forms as you can. Try out different palms within an animal system, or, if you have the videos and a little background, try out some of the Lifting and Holding forms of a different system. It's adventurous and teaches a theme, and afterwards, you'll have a better grasp of the idea of Lifting and Holding, its use, its applications, and even, in this case, some small insight into the Dragon System. Cool.

12. Make a Routine and Do It
Write down what you want to train in a day and then go out and train it. You can get a really well-organized training session that way and develop a lot. Just be warned: writing down training ideas is far easier than executing them! Example: "Today's goal: 1000 tracing the saber in each hand." That was easy. Now go do it. Yeah right.

13. Mini-Intensive
Get your crew together occasionally for a mini-intensive. Plan it out ahead of time and make it long and hard, similar to a normal intensive or workshop day. Start early on a weekend, say at 8 am, and train until lunch. Come back after lunch and bust it until dinner. Try to cover all four pillars and make it as much like a day pulled from an intensive or workshop as you can manage.

14. Four-Pillar Days
Sometimes you should concentrate your training on just striking or just forms or just something. Sometimes it's great to try to hit all four pillars in a day and feel like you've really accomplished something.

15. Be Complementary
Yin Style Baguazhang is a complete martial art, so nothing extra is needed to develop. Still, in the words of The Man, "how could more strength be bad?" Add in complementary exercises to your routine. I, for instance, noticed that my shoulders were a particular sticking point for me in terms of dadao development, so I would do drills with the dadao and then lift medium-weight dumbbells in routines that benefit my shoulders. Then I'd pick the dadao back up and go again. Some movements and drills can even be replicated in slow motion using weights or semi-isometric contraction. Another particularly beneficial exercise I've incorporated is to hold dumbbells at shoulder height and do slow squats, starting off with holding a low horse stance and then holding it again every fifth or tenth (depending on the weight) repetition to increase leg strength. I've also incorporated jumping jacks and short sprints between sets of strikes to increase my aerobic capacity slightly. As long as the complements don't take away from the primary, these things can only help your training.

16. Turn a Lot
You knew it was coming. Turning is the cornerstone practice of Baguazhang, and it is in some sense the most simple and yet most profound exercise in the art. Training turning seems to benefit every aspect of development, and it should take years of hard practice with it to get really good (meaning you and I both need to turn more!).

Hopefully these tips are of some use. If you have some to add, please leave a comment. As I think of more, I'll make another post of this sort in the future.

Back to Drilling

Last night was great. Our group got together, and things went really well. I started to share some of the drills we did in London, which was an awesome intensive for being able to build solid curriculum for practitioners both new and old, and we were so excited by them that we used up almost our entire two hours working just on a couple of them. That's the kind of old-fashioned, hard, focused training that really seems to make a difference in terms of development.

Unfortunately, one of the drills we worked was a cutting-strikes drill, and thus I did point cutting and was unwilling to purposefully mess it up on my left to accommodate my angry wrist. On the up side, I know for sure that point cutting is the culprit that gave me tendinitis because for the first time in two weeks, despite use of the saber, it's worse today than it was yesterday. On the down side, it's worse today than it was yesterday by a fair margin (it's hard to do the dishes again... darn).

I think today I'm going to work on chopping because it seems to bother my wrist not at all (alone of the first four striking methods of the Lion System). That should be good.

A Testament to Incorrect

Since I've been back from London, I've been doing what little turning I've been doing in places other than on my increasingly famous circle, which is worn into my yard and has been consistently muddy since I got home. I got on it tonight after a long day of not doing much of training value and decided to put into action some of the things that I learned about turning while in London, particularly involving the role of the waist in the process. I quickly noticed that my circle, which takes about seven steps to get around, is too big.

I've never put the proper amount of emphasis into turning my legs using the waist, mostly because I don't think I had the faintest idea of how to do it. Now that I'm more able to do it, I am keenly aware of the fact that my circle is about a foot's width too large in diameter, a problem not particularly helped by the fact that while I was gone, the very vigorous grass in my yard seemed to encroach further than ever into the annulus that I've walked, suffering, so far upon... incorrectly, if only a little.

This is a reality of seriously training an art that requires constant refinement: over time patterns in our training may become quite evident and then become evidence of the mistakes that we've been making or the attention that we've been lacking. I have to admit, though, that I didn't really expect to find this lesson so palpably underfoot.

It Works....

Oh the excitement! Oh the joy! Oh the enthusiasm! Oh the training that is to come!

I did some striking practice today and found out that finally, seemingly at long last, my body works again. I've trained lightly almost every day since I got back from London, but it seemed that while my head and heart were in it, my body just wasn't. In fact, it intended to have no part in the entire affair. That was a bit discouraging, to say the least, because it made me feel like I was half-assing when what I really wanted to do was get in a rock-solid workout that allowed me to expand upon and review what we covered in the London intensive. Wants aside, my attempts at striking and forms practice up until now have consistently resulted in feeling fairly week, somewhat uncoordinated, and too stiff or sore to accomplish much.

Standing and turning haven't been much better, though they have been better. The problem there is primarily that my left wrist is still too angry to turn properly, which is particularly irksome while turning. I have to say that it's much better today than it has been, but it's been a long road to what I'd call 60%. The best that I can self-diagnose is "repetitive use injury," i.e. tendinits as I claimed. With a hard, consistent effort in self-massage (and a little help from my therapist wife) and a relative avoidance of twisting it too far even when I was training (another source of feeling like I wasn't putting in my all), I've finally made some real progress on it. Furthermore, my toes are considerably less numb than they were, so I think being on the mend is definitely in my future. My calves still don't feel right, but they're another story all together....

In about an hour, I'll have a chance to really go get a good test-run in on striking and forms practices. I'm really looking forward to it and carbing up (on some beautiful multigrain porridge) right now. Honestly, I'm so excited that I can barely stay in this chair. Woot!

Easing Back In

So I'm officially easing back into training, which means that I've admitted to myself that I cannot physically train as hard as I was before and during the London intensive yet and have decided that the situation will not hold me back entirely. I pushed myself last night, however, and tried to have a more vigorous training session and almost undoubtedly injured myself -- my hamstrings and leg adductors are too tight and I seem to have pulled something right around where those things become my ass on the left-hand side. Hopefully that won't interfere too much with my recovery and eventual return to what my friend described as "attempting to become a beast." I believe the cause was trying to train on muscles that had been subjected to a weekend of torture in an emergency trip to visit my wife's family on literally no notice that kept me in a car for over twenty hours out of fewer than sixty. Much of the remaining time was spent in a stiff, uncomfortable chair in a hospital waiting room, and I believe it pretty much wrecked everything from the bottom of my ribs to my knees. Dehydrated and essentially fresh out of the car from a solid eight-hour stretch in it, I went straight to training with a will that outstripped my means. Now I'm paying for it.

Still, the tendinitis in my wrist seems to be improving daily, though I still cannot properly twist my left arm out to even properly execute the Lion's representational posture with the left hand as the lower. The point cutting strike, which I believe is the donor of this tendon issue, is still more or less completely out too, unless I completely ignore one of the main corrections I was given and thereby do the strike somewhat incorrectly. I've opted to do that since I'm aware of where I'm cheating and at least 90% of the mechanics (particularly the body movement) don't involve the use of my wrist and can therefore be done as long as I'm somewhat judicious and don't force myself too far too soon.

Finally, the numbness in my toes seems to be slowly clearing up, though progress there is much, much, much slower than I had hoped. I'm working on the apparently afflicted area two or three times daily with a penetrating, rather vigorous massage, and I'm being a little less aggressive with my stances and stepping until feeling returns to full in them.

Of course, some of you reading this might be thinking: "Shit, look at him.... If everything in here it true (it is), then this guy trains pretty damn hard and the intensive broke him. I'll never go to one of those!" I will be going to one of those again, however, and I do not feel that the London intensive broke me, though I'm certainly not performing optimally after about two weeks of recovery with light training. The injuries I've sustained are quite minor, I'm sure, and the amount I developed while there and learned in the process, which will fuel a huge amount of development in the coming months and year(s?), vastly outweighs some temporary discomfort and reduced training capacity. It gives me a really good reason to take time to seriously mull over the art and how I want to train it as well, preventing me from falling into a rut where I train and train and train and eventually find myself essentially training just for the sake of training, which is no good at all.

A Thick-Skinned Grapefruit

Something Jinbao said in London has been sitting in my mind a lot, particularly as I work out the soreness/injuries that are keeping my training far sub-optimal (thanks to point cutting, the Lion posture, and a touch of Phoenix stuff, I still can't supinate my left wrist without fairly sharp pain and doing things like the dishes is kind of agony -- darn, I can't really do them...). He said that you have to "work through a lot of bitter to get to the sweet" in Yin Style.

As I think more and more about it, considering the difficulty of the art and the fact that Jinbao readily says that he "gets sore too," I'm convinced that the analogy that might fit best is that of eating a very thick-skinned grapefruit, only without the luxury of being allowed to peel it.

The peel, of course is harsh and foul tasting, which is probably the experience that many new folks have when they first meet the art: the postures, the training, the turning... all of it burns and hurts and is rather miserable in many ways. Eventually, we get used to that, which would be a bit like getting into the pith of the fruit, I think. It's dry, it's bitter, and it contains many of the "nutrients" of the art. This is the tough part... persevering in the pith, and it lasts for a very long time, it seems, in the quest to become skilled. In fact, it seems to be more and more fibrous and bitter the further in we proceed. Finally, at last, the pulp of the fruit is waiting in the middle... the sweet. I've chosen a grapefruit, rather than an orange, for my analogy, however, because I have a feeling that "the sweet" is still poignantly bitter in a variety of ways. Grapefruit, though, is an acquired taste that once obtained tends to be a particular favorite.

Well... now I've got two things to do: keep working on my wrist and foot so I can get back to proper training and go get some grapefruit (so I can make one of my all-time favorite beverages: grapefruitade, which is the most refreshing drink possible).

Recipe (good post training, particularly if made a bit thin): Freshly squeezed juice of 1 or 2 grapefruits of any color.
1 or 2 parts water (where 1 part is the amount of juice from the fruit) or more to taste
Sugar to taste (a quarter cup per pint of juice is my usual, but that makes it quite sweet requiring more water for me).
Mint for garnish if you're into that kind of thing.
Serve cold or over ice.

Back from London

I made it back from London, remarkably enough in one piece. It was quite a trip... definitely too much to detail here in any salient or appropriately brief way, but it is at least fair to say that it has made and will continue to make an absolutely tremendous difference in my training and ability to use the art.

In fact, I'm itching to put my new understanding to use in some serious training, but I've figured out that my body isn't completely willing to go along with all of that yet. I've got a little tendinitis in both wrists and a general fatigue and stiffness that I figure will take a few days to work its way out. Still, I spent about three hours yesterday training at a medium pace, trying to review briefly as much of the intensive as I could remember, which is a lot because of the effectiveness of the repetitive drills that we did.

All-in-all, I have to say that the seminar was excellent. The London group did a spectacular job of organizing the thing, and then Matt and JB did a top notch job of executing it so that it seemed very systematic. Thus, I feel I was able to build up a lot in the places that I most needed to, and furthermore, I was able to retain a lot of the information that was being passed (even without the 39 full pages of notes that I took).

Hopefully, in the coming week or so, I'll be back up to full-gear again and will have more to report as I start to train this material myself. Then I should have more to say!