Last night I dreamed that I was having to walk the circle to please the whims of my thesis adviser (whom I think is angry with me constantly now), though he has nothing to do with bagua whatsoever. The catch was that I had to do it in a field full of tall grass, barefoot, and in the middle of the night (1:27 am, actually), i.e. in the dark. He had set it up intentionally that I'd run into a fence after a few go-arounds (?) even though the guy he watched before me had no such obstacle (and is a semi-nutter I knew in college that also has nothing to do with bagua or with my thesis adviser or even the school I'm attending for grad school). Then he yelled at me for running into the fence he put there. He also sternly bade me to wash my feet before and after doing it and sent me to this huge, elaborate fountain (conveniently located right by this otherwise desolate field) to do so.
I have no freaking idea. None.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Plantar Fascia
The bottoms of my feet are rejoicing, after much swallowing of the bitter. I hope it translates into improved training. Time (and having time) will tell.
Due to my persistent low-back pain/problem, I've sought a variety of treatment options and modalities and have found the largest degree of success so far with trigger-point release and patient yoga type stretches. Combining the two did more, it seems, in two or three weeks than anything I've tried in years. Since starting this trigger point adventure and getting more keenly aware of what one is and feels like, particularly when it releases, I decided to re-re-re-restart my quest to release my plantar fascia (connective tissue in the bottoms of my feet). For the endeavor, I enlisted a trusty sidekick, and I've used it as one of my excuses to get out of my chair (my prison: see any post where I talk about my dissertation) and get the blood flowing properly through my body. My sidekick is a golf ball. I stand on it. It hurts.. a lot.
I've done this every day in a row now for seven, save one day of rest because I went too deep (in the wrong place) and awoke a demon (like Tolkien's Dwarves, though the Balrog here is a mildly bruised heel). Otherwise, it's been a delightful (read: very awful but worthwhile) experience. My feet feel amazing, and I feel generally lighter and freer of movement. Whether due to the stretching, the other trigger point therapy, the greater mindfulness of the amount of time I spend in this chair, or just the feet (most likely some combination of all of those things), my back is slowly starting to give up on its seemingly unrelenting quest to ruin my life. It's by no means fixed, but it's much less broken. Most noticeably, I can almost stand on one foot on a golf ball on one of my feet (the other is tighter and has more work to be done still) without it being unbearable. That would have been unthinkable a week ago. The pain was in-tense.
There's a really neat secondary effect with the method I'm employing: heat. My feet get hot and give off heat like little radiators while doing the treatment and for some time afterwards. It's a very potent sensation that I'm sure is caused by "enhanced circulation" but I'm chalking straight up to qi. It's most pleasant, and my feet have this well-massaged feel for quite a while after the treatment. So here's what I do. Be warned, it takes 10-20 minutes to do the whole thing, but it's SOOOO worth it.
Step 1) Get a golf ball (or tennis ball if you want to start out lightly) and get ready to swallow bitter, probably a substantial amount. Put the ball on something relatively soft (a rug or carpet is ideal, a spongy mat like a yoga mat works too but makes the experience a bit more intense).
Step 2) Start just behind the ball of your foot in line with the split between your big toe and second toe and sink your weight slowly down onto the ball (it's nice to have a chair to lean on). Feel what there is to feel. Put enough weight down to make it quite uncomfortable but not completely awful. Stay still and wait until that spot isn't so awful (20 seconds to 2 minutes, probably). It will probably still be bad, but that's okay.
Step 3) Roll the ball a little bit toward your heel with some pressure on it, trying to follow the tendons of the feet (looking these up in an anatomy book or online is helpful). Stop and repeat the pressure above about every half inch or any time you feel any particularly bad sensation like more intense pain, a resisting knot in the tissue, little electrical crackling feelings (that kind of hurt and feel hot). Proceed until you get close to the beginning of your heel. Spend more time there like at the ball because it's an attachment area.
Step 4) Go back to the ball of your foot, this time nearer the middle (near Kd-1, for you acu-buffs). Repeat, spending time on purpose at Kd-1 (you should know it when you feel it, in the hollow just behind the ball of your foot near the middle). Go all the way down toward your heel, pausing just like before as needed and near the attachment area.
Step 5) Go back to the ball of your foot, this time nearer the outer edge but not all the way out. Repeat all the way down toward your heel, coming in a bit toward the center as you go. Just like before. Good times. Your foot will probably be quite hot by this time. I find focusing on enjoying the heat takes my mind off the pain/discomfort.
Step 6) I know there's another band of fascia in the bottom of the foot; skip it for now. Repeat the WHOLE process on the other foot and let the one you just worked rest a bit.
Step 7) Go back to the first foot and work the shorter band of fascia on the midfoot (more toward the back) on the outside edge. Give it the same attention as the main part of the foot.
Step 8) Do the same to the other foot.
Step 9) Go back to the first foot and slowly roll the ball the other way, starting near the heel and going toward the toes, stopping at knots. You'll find knots that you didn't find the first time because of the change in direction. Enjoy them. Do the outer tendon too, if you like.
Step 10) Do the same to the other foot.
Step 11) Pause and analyze: which direction seemed to benefit me more? Focus on that direction in the future (do it first and spend longer on it).
Step 12) Sit on your knees with your toes dorsiflexed (bent up toward your head, so they're on the floor and the balls of your feet are trying to get there). Sit back on your heels with as much pressure as is comfortable and deep-stretch your feet. This is important and valuable to do, though it's not fun. It's more important, I'd say, than going both ways on the tendons with the ball. Hold this stretch for as long as you can (it can be BAD, esp. at first), aiming within a few sessions for a minimum of 1 minute but preferably closer to 2 or 3.
Step 13) [I haven't tried this but it's apparently awesome. I'll try it soon and report.] Plunge your feet into cold water (icy, if you can take it) for 30 seconds or a minute. Towel off.
Step 14) Do it again tomorrow, every day until it's not awful to do it in any particular spot. As you get better and better, with time, you can do it more quickly and focus only on the tighter spots. Chances are, unless you do this kind of thing anyway, your feet are probably almost 100% trouble spots. If they're WAY sore, take a day off of everything but the stretch, maybe rubbing them firmly with your hands instead of the ball of terror. Be careful not to bruise yourself by going too deep too soon (use your chair!).
Step 15) Get to where doing this once a week, then once a month/as needed, is more than enough to manage your good foot health. Awesome. I'm not there yet.
The plantar fascia connects, one tissue to another, through the heels to the Achilles tendon, up the calves, behind the knees, up the hamstrings, through the butt and the back side of the pelvis, across the tissues that stabilize the sacrum and lumbar spine, up the spine, across the occipital, over the crown, and to the muscles that lift your nose when you crinkle it up. That's a lot of connection, and all of it benefits from treating problems in the root (which affect bit by bit everything above with every step you take). I understand that this process can help tremendously with chronic headaches, but I don't have them, so I don't know.
I also like to add hamstring stretches when I get done with my feet, seeing as that's close-kin kind of tissue. It's an interesting experiment, by the bye, to "release" one foot and then stretch before releasing the other. There's a definite difference. Oh that reminds me: this is deep, hard therapy, so it's critical that whatever you decide to do to one foot, you should do to the other to prevent imbalances from coming up (in flexibility and usage) that could make for some nasty problems if you're lazy. Drinking a lot of water afterwards seems to help too. Some people say it releases toxins trapped in that tissue, and the extra water helps flush it.
Happy standing on a ball to you!
PS: In other health-related news, I'm going to be starting my kombucha-brewing adventure within days. I've been wanting to for a few years, and now it's go-time. I really recommend the stuff.
Due to my persistent low-back pain/problem, I've sought a variety of treatment options and modalities and have found the largest degree of success so far with trigger-point release and patient yoga type stretches. Combining the two did more, it seems, in two or three weeks than anything I've tried in years. Since starting this trigger point adventure and getting more keenly aware of what one is and feels like, particularly when it releases, I decided to re-re-re-restart my quest to release my plantar fascia (connective tissue in the bottoms of my feet). For the endeavor, I enlisted a trusty sidekick, and I've used it as one of my excuses to get out of my chair (my prison: see any post where I talk about my dissertation) and get the blood flowing properly through my body. My sidekick is a golf ball. I stand on it. It hurts.. a lot.
I've done this every day in a row now for seven, save one day of rest because I went too deep (in the wrong place) and awoke a demon (like Tolkien's Dwarves, though the Balrog here is a mildly bruised heel). Otherwise, it's been a delightful (read: very awful but worthwhile) experience. My feet feel amazing, and I feel generally lighter and freer of movement. Whether due to the stretching, the other trigger point therapy, the greater mindfulness of the amount of time I spend in this chair, or just the feet (most likely some combination of all of those things), my back is slowly starting to give up on its seemingly unrelenting quest to ruin my life. It's by no means fixed, but it's much less broken. Most noticeably, I can almost stand on one foot on a golf ball on one of my feet (the other is tighter and has more work to be done still) without it being unbearable. That would have been unthinkable a week ago. The pain was in-tense.
There's a really neat secondary effect with the method I'm employing: heat. My feet get hot and give off heat like little radiators while doing the treatment and for some time afterwards. It's a very potent sensation that I'm sure is caused by "enhanced circulation" but I'm chalking straight up to qi. It's most pleasant, and my feet have this well-massaged feel for quite a while after the treatment. So here's what I do. Be warned, it takes 10-20 minutes to do the whole thing, but it's SOOOO worth it.
Step 1) Get a golf ball (or tennis ball if you want to start out lightly) and get ready to swallow bitter, probably a substantial amount. Put the ball on something relatively soft (a rug or carpet is ideal, a spongy mat like a yoga mat works too but makes the experience a bit more intense).
Step 2) Start just behind the ball of your foot in line with the split between your big toe and second toe and sink your weight slowly down onto the ball (it's nice to have a chair to lean on). Feel what there is to feel. Put enough weight down to make it quite uncomfortable but not completely awful. Stay still and wait until that spot isn't so awful (20 seconds to 2 minutes, probably). It will probably still be bad, but that's okay.
Step 3) Roll the ball a little bit toward your heel with some pressure on it, trying to follow the tendons of the feet (looking these up in an anatomy book or online is helpful). Stop and repeat the pressure above about every half inch or any time you feel any particularly bad sensation like more intense pain, a resisting knot in the tissue, little electrical crackling feelings (that kind of hurt and feel hot). Proceed until you get close to the beginning of your heel. Spend more time there like at the ball because it's an attachment area.
Step 4) Go back to the ball of your foot, this time nearer the middle (near Kd-1, for you acu-buffs). Repeat, spending time on purpose at Kd-1 (you should know it when you feel it, in the hollow just behind the ball of your foot near the middle). Go all the way down toward your heel, pausing just like before as needed and near the attachment area.
Step 5) Go back to the ball of your foot, this time nearer the outer edge but not all the way out. Repeat all the way down toward your heel, coming in a bit toward the center as you go. Just like before. Good times. Your foot will probably be quite hot by this time. I find focusing on enjoying the heat takes my mind off the pain/discomfort.
Step 6) I know there's another band of fascia in the bottom of the foot; skip it for now. Repeat the WHOLE process on the other foot and let the one you just worked rest a bit.
Step 7) Go back to the first foot and work the shorter band of fascia on the midfoot (more toward the back) on the outside edge. Give it the same attention as the main part of the foot.
Step 8) Do the same to the other foot.
Step 9) Go back to the first foot and slowly roll the ball the other way, starting near the heel and going toward the toes, stopping at knots. You'll find knots that you didn't find the first time because of the change in direction. Enjoy them. Do the outer tendon too, if you like.
Step 10) Do the same to the other foot.
Step 11) Pause and analyze: which direction seemed to benefit me more? Focus on that direction in the future (do it first and spend longer on it).
Step 12) Sit on your knees with your toes dorsiflexed (bent up toward your head, so they're on the floor and the balls of your feet are trying to get there). Sit back on your heels with as much pressure as is comfortable and deep-stretch your feet. This is important and valuable to do, though it's not fun. It's more important, I'd say, than going both ways on the tendons with the ball. Hold this stretch for as long as you can (it can be BAD, esp. at first), aiming within a few sessions for a minimum of 1 minute but preferably closer to 2 or 3.
Step 13) [I haven't tried this but it's apparently awesome. I'll try it soon and report.] Plunge your feet into cold water (icy, if you can take it) for 30 seconds or a minute. Towel off.
Step 14) Do it again tomorrow, every day until it's not awful to do it in any particular spot. As you get better and better, with time, you can do it more quickly and focus only on the tighter spots. Chances are, unless you do this kind of thing anyway, your feet are probably almost 100% trouble spots. If they're WAY sore, take a day off of everything but the stretch, maybe rubbing them firmly with your hands instead of the ball of terror. Be careful not to bruise yourself by going too deep too soon (use your chair!).
Step 15) Get to where doing this once a week, then once a month/as needed, is more than enough to manage your good foot health. Awesome. I'm not there yet.
The plantar fascia connects, one tissue to another, through the heels to the Achilles tendon, up the calves, behind the knees, up the hamstrings, through the butt and the back side of the pelvis, across the tissues that stabilize the sacrum and lumbar spine, up the spine, across the occipital, over the crown, and to the muscles that lift your nose when you crinkle it up. That's a lot of connection, and all of it benefits from treating problems in the root (which affect bit by bit everything above with every step you take). I understand that this process can help tremendously with chronic headaches, but I don't have them, so I don't know.
I also like to add hamstring stretches when I get done with my feet, seeing as that's close-kin kind of tissue. It's an interesting experiment, by the bye, to "release" one foot and then stretch before releasing the other. There's a definite difference. Oh that reminds me: this is deep, hard therapy, so it's critical that whatever you decide to do to one foot, you should do to the other to prevent imbalances from coming up (in flexibility and usage) that could make for some nasty problems if you're lazy. Drinking a lot of water afterwards seems to help too. Some people say it releases toxins trapped in that tissue, and the extra water helps flush it.
Happy standing on a ball to you!
PS: In other health-related news, I'm going to be starting my kombucha-brewing adventure within days. I've been wanting to for a few years, and now it's go-time. I really recommend the stuff.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Snow Circle
It's rare here, and the picture is ugly (no less because of the truck that ran over my circle last week and made it all warped and bumpy or for the uneven snowfall due to my circle being rather near a tree), but I can start my "a circle for all seasons" project with my first picture of a snow-circle. It's snowing here today with the snow actually sticking, which happens once or twice a year typically, usually with less snow than today, and so I took the opportunity to go turn in it, setting aside my dissertation for a bit while I toiled in the cold and wet. At the end, I took a picture of my circle. Here's the result:
The goofy left side is where the truck's massive-assive tires ran through it, leaving ruts that I've tried to pound down a little bit and wrecking some of the hard-earned symmetry of my circle. Still, I now have a snow-circle photo. I'll see about creating an album on here over the next year: a circle in all seasons. Maybe I'll follow through on that, and maybe I won't take time to take the pictures.
The goofy left side is where the truck's massive-assive tires ran through it, leaving ruts that I've tried to pound down a little bit and wrecking some of the hard-earned symmetry of my circle. Still, I now have a snow-circle photo. I'll see about creating an album on here over the next year: a circle in all seasons. Maybe I'll follow through on that, and maybe I won't take time to take the pictures.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Letting it Get This Way
I got the humbling again today. Usually, the humblings of this magnitude are reserved for when I work out in the presence of Matt or Jinbao, but this time, it was from my (thesis) advisor. He dressed down my dissertation again, which didn't bother me so much -- he wants it better and will get it that way, and he wants me capable of producing it on my own. I'm thankful for that.
The part that does bother me is that apparently, as has been indicated to said advisor by several of my previous teachers, nearly all of my coursework over the past six years as a graduate student has suffered from a consistent feature that is quite undesirable and is the primary shortcoming of my thesis now. Instead, though, of correcting that in me and garnishing in me the ability to present the material in a way that is acceptable, the practiced approach is to never tell me about the problem and to wait for my advisor to address it, rather harshly, some years later after the habit and design are well built into me, as if I should have realized by now that it was an issue by some incredible feat of self-examination. It is definitely something that could have been corrected, and proper habits could have been nurtured and developed instead of the ones I now have and am fighting to change.
What bothers me most is that it was let go for six years, never addressed before now, though clearly complained about. How did it happen that this much time went by simply allowing me to do things in a way deemed problematic? Hell, I think it was even, at times, encouraged as identifying my "style" or "voice." If this was a job, then certainly I would have been reviewed before this. If this was my education... oh wait, it is my education. Hmm....
What does that have to do with training Yin Style, i.e. what justifies its presence here? It makes me grateful for the corrections and efforts that are plainly extended by Matt and Jinbao (primarily) as well as others to correct me (and others) as well as possible as soon as a problem is evident. With my education, I'm left feeling a bit cheated, but with YSB, that's not a problem because, though tough, Matt and Jinbao don't let us slide (I hope... I'm a little mistrustful of such things for the moment). Thus, this is a call to everyone who has ever had their little egos smashed in seeing how far they have to go in Yin Style and how hard it can be to get there (and even how ugly they might be making it): at least someone is telling you, so be thankful and take the suggestions (not as criticism) to heart!
So, to anyone that wants to teach me: you can be tough on me any time. I know you're doing it because you want to see me reach my potential. Just don't do me the discourtesy of letting me continue to suck for years without mentioning it to me, or if you do, do me the courtesy of not being pissed at me when I'm not what I should be.
The part that does bother me is that apparently, as has been indicated to said advisor by several of my previous teachers, nearly all of my coursework over the past six years as a graduate student has suffered from a consistent feature that is quite undesirable and is the primary shortcoming of my thesis now. Instead, though, of correcting that in me and garnishing in me the ability to present the material in a way that is acceptable, the practiced approach is to never tell me about the problem and to wait for my advisor to address it, rather harshly, some years later after the habit and design are well built into me, as if I should have realized by now that it was an issue by some incredible feat of self-examination. It is definitely something that could have been corrected, and proper habits could have been nurtured and developed instead of the ones I now have and am fighting to change.
What bothers me most is that it was let go for six years, never addressed before now, though clearly complained about. How did it happen that this much time went by simply allowing me to do things in a way deemed problematic? Hell, I think it was even, at times, encouraged as identifying my "style" or "voice." If this was a job, then certainly I would have been reviewed before this. If this was my education... oh wait, it is my education. Hmm....
What does that have to do with training Yin Style, i.e. what justifies its presence here? It makes me grateful for the corrections and efforts that are plainly extended by Matt and Jinbao (primarily) as well as others to correct me (and others) as well as possible as soon as a problem is evident. With my education, I'm left feeling a bit cheated, but with YSB, that's not a problem because, though tough, Matt and Jinbao don't let us slide (I hope... I'm a little mistrustful of such things for the moment). Thus, this is a call to everyone who has ever had their little egos smashed in seeing how far they have to go in Yin Style and how hard it can be to get there (and even how ugly they might be making it): at least someone is telling you, so be thankful and take the suggestions (not as criticism) to heart!
So, to anyone that wants to teach me: you can be tough on me any time. I know you're doing it because you want to see me reach my potential. Just don't do me the discourtesy of letting me continue to suck for years without mentioning it to me, or if you do, do me the courtesy of not being pissed at me when I'm not what I should be.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Stuck
Well... I'm stuck. Before I talk about being stuck, I want to talk about my circle again a little.
I haven't walked on it since the truck hit it. In fact, I haven't walked on it in months, turning either on something paved or indoors (usually in the small, unheated room we have with the windows open to get the pseudo-outside experience). It was and is a mud hole. Currently, it's a very bumpy mud hole. I did plod around it a few times to get the new feel of it. It's going to need some work before it's workable again, but it's not as trashed as I thought it was on first examination.
So... stuck. My training is only kind of stuck in that I usually have less than an hour a day that I can give to it (often enough much less). Still, there is training every day. My dissertation is my training, mostly, and it's not training me in bagua. Still, significant progress is being made on that, so that seems well enough.
What's stuck is my frigging back, or more accurately, my sacrum. It feels stuck, all the time, and has for months. This has the direct result of limiting mobility, limiting training intensity, and causing pain (sometimes severe and surprising), all of which cut into my training terribly. I've been working trigger points, and many of the symptoms of the back pain seem to abate but I'm still stuck. Chiropractic essentially hasn't helped, but it doesn't mean I haven't found the right doctor. Incidentally, that's a component of the "stuckness:" even a fair chiro used to be able to make my low back pop, but now it just stubbornly resists (and twinges with pain at the forced effort to get it to release something). Stretching seems to help some symptoms but not others. Meditating and releasing is the same way. The prevailing "stuck" feeling and subsequent shooting pains (particularly any time I lean back and to the left) persist. I wake up in a fair amount of discomfort every morning, and silly things like rolling over in bed hurt tremendously (compare that with doing squats, which doesn't hurt at all). It's most frustrating, to be sure.
I hate to be negative on here or anywhere, but honestly, it's starting to bug me that nothing seems to help this issue. In fact, I would rate myself as worse than I was six months ago despite a variety of expertly recommended and diligently applied tools that should help the matter. I desperately want to kick my training up, using what spare time I have around my thesis, but this problem has been and continues to hold me up severely. I've had enough, and I'm ready for it to be over!
Sigh.
I haven't walked on it since the truck hit it. In fact, I haven't walked on it in months, turning either on something paved or indoors (usually in the small, unheated room we have with the windows open to get the pseudo-outside experience). It was and is a mud hole. Currently, it's a very bumpy mud hole. I did plod around it a few times to get the new feel of it. It's going to need some work before it's workable again, but it's not as trashed as I thought it was on first examination.
So... stuck. My training is only kind of stuck in that I usually have less than an hour a day that I can give to it (often enough much less). Still, there is training every day. My dissertation is my training, mostly, and it's not training me in bagua. Still, significant progress is being made on that, so that seems well enough.
What's stuck is my frigging back, or more accurately, my sacrum. It feels stuck, all the time, and has for months. This has the direct result of limiting mobility, limiting training intensity, and causing pain (sometimes severe and surprising), all of which cut into my training terribly. I've been working trigger points, and many of the symptoms of the back pain seem to abate but I'm still stuck. Chiropractic essentially hasn't helped, but it doesn't mean I haven't found the right doctor. Incidentally, that's a component of the "stuckness:" even a fair chiro used to be able to make my low back pop, but now it just stubbornly resists (and twinges with pain at the forced effort to get it to release something). Stretching seems to help some symptoms but not others. Meditating and releasing is the same way. The prevailing "stuck" feeling and subsequent shooting pains (particularly any time I lean back and to the left) persist. I wake up in a fair amount of discomfort every morning, and silly things like rolling over in bed hurt tremendously (compare that with doing squats, which doesn't hurt at all). It's most frustrating, to be sure.
I hate to be negative on here or anywhere, but honestly, it's starting to bug me that nothing seems to help this issue. In fact, I would rate myself as worse than I was six months ago despite a variety of expertly recommended and diligently applied tools that should help the matter. I desperately want to kick my training up, using what spare time I have around my thesis, but this problem has been and continues to hold me up severely. I've had enough, and I'm ready for it to be over!
Sigh.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Attachment and Change
All things change. That is a primary lesson of the Yijing and a primary (philosophical) lesson of bagua. As a result of this uncomfortable truth, attachment is to be let go of or never formed, which is an easier feat to accomplish academically than in reality, like so many other things. Today, fortune has brought to me a change and the opportunity to feel an attachment in a real way, and so I should be grateful. I think I'm sad, though.
We have a couple of trees in our yard that have needed to come down for a while... these not accessible to my sawing powers. In fact, the one I sawed down last summer by hand has decided to mutiny and is growing back as a vibrant and eager bush, so that needs dealing with too. That brought the tree people. Money convinced them to take the trees down. Doing that job the way they do things led to the destruction of something I am apparently quite attached to.
This story doesn't start properly with trees, though. It's starts with rain, lots of rain. It has rained here at least five out of seven days for a month, usually hard. Late last week, for instance, it varied between raining steadily and pouring heavily for around thirty hours straight, followed by some drizzle for half a day and more rain that next night. The river, viewed on my drive to work, which is lowered (via the dams) in the winter was full to its banks. It's rained so much that despite the years-long drought we've been suffering, almost everyone I know wishes it would just stop raining. Rain has consequences less dire than flooding, which due to our mountainish terrain hasn't been a serious problem for the most part. One of those consequences is mud.
I've talked about mud before and how mud ruins my circle. It becomes slippery and dangerous to walk on, besides being an utter mess, our soil being essentially 121% red clay. As everyone knows, clay of any sort, when it gets wet, gets soft and pliant. Pliant enough so that when a big, heavy truck drives across your well-tended, hard-earned circle, it FUCKS IT UP BIG TIME.
So that's that... the circle is in bumpy ruins with tire-tracks all through. What can be done? Dunno... I probably should turn more and think about it.
We have a couple of trees in our yard that have needed to come down for a while... these not accessible to my sawing powers. In fact, the one I sawed down last summer by hand has decided to mutiny and is growing back as a vibrant and eager bush, so that needs dealing with too. That brought the tree people. Money convinced them to take the trees down. Doing that job the way they do things led to the destruction of something I am apparently quite attached to.
This story doesn't start properly with trees, though. It's starts with rain, lots of rain. It has rained here at least five out of seven days for a month, usually hard. Late last week, for instance, it varied between raining steadily and pouring heavily for around thirty hours straight, followed by some drizzle for half a day and more rain that next night. The river, viewed on my drive to work, which is lowered (via the dams) in the winter was full to its banks. It's rained so much that despite the years-long drought we've been suffering, almost everyone I know wishes it would just stop raining. Rain has consequences less dire than flooding, which due to our mountainish terrain hasn't been a serious problem for the most part. One of those consequences is mud.
I've talked about mud before and how mud ruins my circle. It becomes slippery and dangerous to walk on, besides being an utter mess, our soil being essentially 121% red clay. As everyone knows, clay of any sort, when it gets wet, gets soft and pliant. Pliant enough so that when a big, heavy truck drives across your well-tended, hard-earned circle, it FUCKS IT UP BIG TIME.
So that's that... the circle is in bumpy ruins with tire-tracks all through. What can be done? Dunno... I probably should turn more and think about it.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Growing into TKD
I was at a meeting for work yesterday and I ended up in a conversation with a fellow in his mid-50's that was explaining to me, for whatever reason, the virtues of staying active as we age. He indicated to me that he still runs regularly, hikes and backpacks with a heavy pack somewhat infrequently, and practices martial arts. That piqued my interests, but I didn't really ask anything about the martial arts initially because he was on a bit of a roll there on his soapbox of staying fit. Eventually, he got to the part where he encouraged me, which I knew was coming sooner or later, and he told me that based on my build, in his estimation, as I got older, I might find similar interests and enlightenment, and "who knows, I might even be drawn to the martial arts, like taekwondo," which is apparently "a good one" and what he practices.
I didn't say anything about it except that I thought it was neat that he did martial arts and that it was extra impressive at his age. He went on about it a couple of more times before the meeting commenced and our conversation died. I still didn't say anything about it, choosing to divert the conversation by focusing on his running instead. I guess, though, I have the good fortune of looking forward to growing into a phase in my life when taekwondo will be what I'm after.
In the meantime, I'll be practicing my YSB. This week's project, at least for the first half, will largely be the blocking strikes of the Lion System. Coming up with combination drills with them is quite a bit different in some ways than it was for the other striking methods. I figure that's part of their nature, though. Here's to exploring (in what time I have since my thesis advisor reinstalled "The Fear" deeply into me)!
I didn't say anything about it except that I thought it was neat that he did martial arts and that it was extra impressive at his age. He went on about it a couple of more times before the meeting commenced and our conversation died. I still didn't say anything about it, choosing to divert the conversation by focusing on his running instead. I guess, though, I have the good fortune of looking forward to growing into a phase in my life when taekwondo will be what I'm after.
In the meantime, I'll be practicing my YSB. This week's project, at least for the first half, will largely be the blocking strikes of the Lion System. Coming up with combination drills with them is quite a bit different in some ways than it was for the other striking methods. I figure that's part of their nature, though. Here's to exploring (in what time I have since my thesis advisor reinstalled "The Fear" deeply into me)!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Becoming the Rooster?
While I was practicing my lying step drills for a while today, someone came up and started watching me. After a bit, the woman said: "You look like a rooster." I took this, immediately, as a compliment on my technique and was excited to have heard it. Then it sank in how ridiculous that comment would be to someone who had no idea about Yin Style Bagua, and so I stopped what I was doing to ask her if she had meant her words the way I had taken them. Immediately, she clarified the situation by saying, "I wasn't saying it to be mean. I grew up on a farm, and that looks a lot like how roosters move." I was excited, to say the least. After all of these months of hard work on those techniques, someone accused me of looking like a rooster.
Other news in training has been, again, that it's not my dissertation, so it's been limited. What there has been has been focused almost entirely on the Lion hooking strikes for the week, doing various drills with them, some of which I thought were rather inspired though surely basic. This week is to follow up on last week's rather weak attempt at working the chopping strikes. The main thing I got out of last week's lesson was that it's a shame I didn't have more time to put into the chopping strikes because I think they're probably really effective. I'll address that later with my new-and-improved training regimen, to begin (and to be explained) once life gets back to "normal."
Other news in training has been, again, that it's not my dissertation, so it's been limited. What there has been has been focused almost entirely on the Lion hooking strikes for the week, doing various drills with them, some of which I thought were rather inspired though surely basic. This week is to follow up on last week's rather weak attempt at working the chopping strikes. The main thing I got out of last week's lesson was that it's a shame I didn't have more time to put into the chopping strikes because I think they're probably really effective. I'll address that later with my new-and-improved training regimen, to begin (and to be explained) once life gets back to "normal."
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