Finally I get some time for training again after having to have dedicated a hugely inordinate amount of time to work requirements. In that time, I kept myself connected to my training with little sets of this or that, primarily by swinging around my dadao, which I might dare to call the king of martial arts swords (perhaps unfairly? Probably fairly.).
Since I did most of my little breaks in five- or ten-minute spots coming out of the in-home office we have, my mainstay was with sets of tracing the saber back and forth, usually to the tune of a quick fifty in each hand. I started this little routine on the first of the month, reaching into the corner and picking up my cold steel sword and carrying it out into the only open space in the house a few times a day and trying to maintain a minimum of 200 repetitions in each hand each day, clustered as close together as possible.
This was partly about maintaining that minimum, partly about achieving "never zero," and partly about optimizing what little time I had to train (often working more than 15 hours a day, even on the weekends, over the past couple of weeks). We get little pockets here and there in our lives: my wife needs to use the desk for some paperwork, e-mail, etc., or the kids need it for homework, blocking much of what I needed to do, and we need to try to find/make opportunities to improve ourselves (i.e. train) in those times. It's too bad that this activity has constituted roughly 50% of my training time over the past few weeks, serving as a little anchor to training and getting stronger even though the Ivory Tower kept me chained up for the lion's share of my time (I love puns).
I've only missed one day with the saber this month, in fact, and as of this writing, I've done 2510 repetitions of tracing the saber in each hand (or just short of 210 per day, on average, in each hand or 5020 total!). Of course, the main part of this exercise is about getting stronger. I can now say that belting out a set of fifty tracing is pretty easy, although it gets tough the third or fourth time around when I switch back and forth and try to do "all" 200 in pretty much one go. That would be a kingly feat with the "king of martial arts swords."
One of the goals I have with this in the relatively short term would be to be able to "easily" do sets of 100 with the saber... and then maybe more than that? Of course, the real long-term goal is to have the saber feel "light and playful" in my hands, which is why I'm trying to put attention into the other basic drills with it again now that I have time to do weird things like "go outside" and "not work all the f-ing time." I'll periodically mention about how these goals are going, I think.
Typing this just got me uber-excited to go do a few more, maybe to get that count over 2600 in each hand for the month-to-date, so that's where I'm off to. You too? Oh, yeah... and that day I missed... I kind of finished earning my Ph.D. that day, so I think I deserve a little breathing room for that.
2 comments:
So, where were you able to find a bagua dadao?
I've been scrubbing the internet, and the only place I can find that may have them for sale (ATS) seems to be doing a simultaneous redesign and rebuild of their website.
Erick, I'd love to be able to help you with this, but mine floated out of Beijing on a piece of luck that probably outweighs me. The sad, temporary news is: you don't get one now, at least not a real, good one, unless you get it made, which requires you to have the specs and everything yourself (and is expensive). Hold tight. I've been told that by the time the Beijing intensive rolls around next year, there will be dadaos available again (hopefully). You might have to go to China to get one, though. I don't think ATS carries them any longer and probably won't again in the future.
Post a Comment