Beast Mode: Post-burnout workout, promised and delivered

It's only been about three hours since my last post (which will challenge you if you're a one-a-day kind of reader). That post was about burnout keeping me from maintaining my Beast Mode status so well over the last week. It also suggested some tips for you to beat and overcome your own burnout issues when training too frequently and too hard gets you down. This is a continuation, delivering on my promise to update you with another Beast Mode workout that I'm using to improve myself and celebrate the ongoing 2011 Beijing Intensive for Yin Style Baguazhang.

Beast Mode -- Heavy metal workout and line-stepping drills into infinity

Beast Mode continues! Much of the workout stuff is the same as the last several Beast Mode posts -- lots of turning and standing, then lots of striking and forms drilling, and then hard-ass conditioning workouts, pretty much every day. It's fun. Our group training session from this past Monday is worth noting, and I'll take this post to finally get around to describing my heavy metal (a.k.a. heavy weapons) conditioning workout that I toss in there every third day or so, usually before or after some hard-labor-style yard work involving a shovel and moving a lot of earth, mulch, and other yard rot (compost pile).

No reasons to cut corners

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's something about my cultural approach to training that I just can't shake, but at least a couple of times each year, despite things that I might write (and mean and stand behind) in high-press articles, I get all into researching "other" forms of "complementary" exercise. I'm not even sure why, and after doing it the other day and realizing something, it just seems kind of futile.

As far as cross-training goes, it can be a benefit to training in Yin Style Bagua or any martial art. The proper proportions, as indicated by those in-the-know are suggested by the following: Train what you are training for 2 hours for every 20 minutes of cross-training that you do. That way you can keep your focus on your training -- where training implies more than just working out, getting stronger, or getting in shape. Training implies skills-building. The thing is, with a martial art like Yin Style Baguazhang, I'm left strongly with the feeling "why bother" in regards to cross-training exercises when I really think about it.

You see, Yin Style Baguazhang is a very, very complete art that is very, very well thought-out. Not all arts are. The upshot of this completeness and intelligence in design is that YSB has everything in it that is needed for great development. You can add weights, stretching routines, cardio, caveman workouts, or what-have-you to your regimen, but the training is designed so that you don't even have to consider it, a major contrast with many arts.

Here's what got me the other night. I was hunting around on the web, researching wrist strengthening exercises since I and many other folks that talk with me seem to injure their wrists on the rock that is the bagua dadao. I've currently got some tendinitis (in the other wrist this time), and it's pretty common. If you've never hunted around for wrist-strengthening exercises, let me save you some time: not much that goes on in the gym does a whole hell of a lot for wrist strength. You can do forearm curls one way or the other, you can roll up a rope with a weight on it, you can rotate a dumbbell back and forth, and you can hold heavy things, particularly heavy things with thick bars. That's about it.

I was kind of pissed that all I could find about gaining wrist strength was a bunch of crap that I already knew that clearly didn't help with what I was needing help with. Then I thought about it for a minute... the saber's already perfect for this. Then I thought about it more. Do a hard seizing-palm-strengthening posture with one hand and feel the tendons and structure in the wrist with the other. I think we have a winner. Then think about grasping palm posture and all of the ox-tongue palm postures and all of the closed-fist postures. Compared with the silly stuff I was reading on the internet, the case was simply closed. YSB FTW.

So... pick your favorite exercise-related goal... think about it for a while. Yin Style trains that. You want stronger shoulders? stronger legs? stronger back? stronger arms? more endurance? more cardiovascular health? weight loss? (muscular) weight gain? enhanced tendon strength? functional strength and fitness? better grip? improved health? better balance? deeper flexibility? ass-kicking skills? to impress people with a giant-ass sword? Yin Style Baguazhang trains that, probably better than much else that you can find. One word comes to mind: superior.

Should you complement your training to develop certain goals more quickly? Sure, in relative proportions and if you really enjoy those complementary exercises and/or feel like you get a lot out of them. If you want a reason to avoid doing complementary exercises that you don't care for that much (or hate... read: running), then here's your excuse -- you can better use that time training something that Yin Style Bagua already offers and do it even better than you could with your complementary stuff.

Battle saber proves I'm weak

I train hard.

I got to thinking the other day, though, how much more ridiculous training with the saber would be if going to battle with the saber was a realistic possibility, supposing I was somehow such a soldier as my training with the saber somewhat suggests I pretend to be. Here's some of my realizations:

First, it's hard for me to do drills with the saber for a long time. In fact, it's hard to hold the saber for a long time. By a long time, I mean maybe a quarter or half of an hour. If I was training for battle with the saber, I'd have to hold and use the saber for several hours at a time without the option of putting it down and taking a little drink while my muscles feel like they're about to bust out of my skin.

Second, I'm getting better at the saber, but I'm by no means great. If I was going to battle with it, because I'd prefer not to die in such an engagement (which I surely would if I went to battle with it right now against anyone that knew how to fight with some kind of comparable armament), I'd have to be blinging great with the saber. "Eh, that was pretty good," just wouldn't cut it.

Third, I can put out some power with the saber on some techniques for a few techniques (see "first"), but if I was going to battle with the saber, I'd have to be going balls-to-the-walls for hours with it to be successful. Good Lord.

Fourth, did I mention not being able to put it down???

Why am I writing about this hee-haw-dom? Well, because it makes me think about what kinds of goals to have in saber training. To be really great with it by my standards now would be to be mediocre according to going-to-battle standards. I just thought it was something to try to keep in mind while training with the saber... imagine really using it for what swords were used for. Here's a picture of me doing one technique in a short series and doing it rather poorly at the best of my ability.
Disclaimer: I'm aware of the history of the bagua dadao as being designed to be a training implement and not necessarily a true battle weapon, although it quite clearly could be used as such. Whether or not it ever saw real combat or even if it would, that doesn't change the mentality that might (or should) underlie its training.

Armchair Training

Training in an armchair? What the hee-haw? Before anyone salivates like I'm about to throw out some crazy awesome secret tip for how you can achieve development without having to get out of your comfy lazy-boy recliner (such tips do not exist in real martial arts or development practices of any sort), let me point out to you my predicament and the reality of this. I'm injured in a way where standing and walking are kind of out for the moment, except for bare-minimum requirements. It's absolutely amazing how much pain and impediment a toe can cause you, let me just say that.

So I have this rule: never zero that I've talked about before. How can I hold myself to "never zero" if I can't really even move around? Standing postures? Nope, not with this injury, at least not in full. Standing with wide legs or toes digging into the earth (especially that second one) is blinding pain right now. That's out until I'm healed up.

Well, while development is considerably lower, there are modifications of lots of the exercises that can be done while sitting. I even trained the saber! Several of the isometric postures with the saber can be trained without having to get up if your feet, knees, or legs are in no shape to let you train properly. Please note: this is not a substitute for proper training, you hee-haw, this is making the most of a crappy situation. While holding your body in an active, upright posture, the saber can be held out in a variety of ways to strengthen various parts of the arm and hands. Here are a few examples:

• Hold the saber overhead as in "green dragon shoots to the sea;"
• Hold the saber out in front, as in "black bear carries the mountain on its back" or "rooster stomps into battle;"
• Hold the saber out in front or directly out to one side as if completing a chop or stab;
• Hold the saber in front vertically, as in "monkey king offers incense;"
• Slowly move the tip of the saber from horizontal to vertical by flexing only the wrist, usually done out in front;
• Slowly rotate the saber from pointing left to pointing right, and vice-versa, using primarily the forearm;
• Hold the saber extended and turn the blade over without moving the saber much, as if working a screwdriver, as far as it will go one way and then back the other, trying to keep the tip stationary.

Other things you can do don't require the saber if you can't get on your feet but are otherwise healthy and able. For instances:

• Focus on other activities like strength training (using weights) or stretching (preferably both);
• Watch some YSB instructional videos and make notes. If you're training properly, this is an activity that is usually hard to make time for (if you're like me, you're more time-limited than anything else in terms of what limits your total training);
• Review your notes from previous training sessions, video viewings, seminars, or intensives. Reviewing them can mean compiling them as well, which is harder but very useful;
• Train your mind. Try to do techniques, particularly combos, forms, and applications vividly in your mind. Research shows that this kind of training is nearly essential for greatness in a skill. The mind should be central in your training anyway, so if your body is telling you that you can't train any other way, train this way;
• Do modified versions of exercises that accommodate your injury. For instance, standing normally isn't too bad for me now that I'm on the mend (but not fixed), so I can do isometric standing strengthening postures without putting any hard effort into my legs, and this practice isn't causing me pain. It is, however, giving me some development in my upper body and building skill in doing the exercises correctly on that half.

As I'm learning, letting yourself heal from an injury before pressing foward is critical or you'll lose more training time than you would by doing a bunch of halfed training sessions. I learned the hard way, when this injury was initially on the mend and got to "mostly feeling better but still injured" that doing a hard session too soon on an injury makes the injury worse. Instead of having to take another day of careful, controlled stuff like I mentioned above, I made things way worse and have lost nearly a week of good training time. One workout isn't worth losing six or seven (or more, depending on the injury)!

Mirrors and Training Martial Arts

I think a lot of folks are hoping for something different for my first real-content post after our seminar, but since we trained in an indoor facility equipped with mirrors, a first for me in training baguazhang, I was able to pause and think for a while about how the mirror was helping my training... and messing with it.

Here's what I've decided: mirrors are a great training tool as long as you can ignore them.

Mirrors are awesome for checking yourself out, so you can correct abnormalities in your posture that perhaps you can't feel so well. Once you correct them, you can learn what the proper posture feels like, be those standing strengthening, striking, or otherwise, and that gives a tremendous advantage in being able to get into the correct position or movement later on. A quick glance at the mirror can tell you if your wrist is bent incorrect, arm is too high or too low, hips are cocked one way or the other, or lots of other little mistakes that are really easy to make and make into habits. For that kind of correction, nothing short of video of yourself training or direct, hands-on corrections from a more senior practitioner can compare.

On the other hand, mirrors are awesome for checking yourself out, and don't we all like to see how awesome we look when we're training? That's really the problem with them! I found myself checking myself out far too often during the seminar, mostly because I could. That really started to help me after a while, not because of the little tweaks to my training it provided but rather because of the amount of extra attention it forced me to place on watching my hands while I trained instead of my sweet reflection. Mastering myself to that change in focus, however, was really difficult, so I can conclude that ignoring a mirror is far harder than it seems!

As far as other martial arts go (since I like reaching a broader audience), I know that in karate we are usually told to look straight ahead, instead of at our hands, as if we're staring at the opponent (during kata/basics practice) and at our opponent during sparring practice. I have no commentary on whether that's right or wrong at this point -- they're just different methods of training, each surely with its advantages. I also know that an awful lot of students doing both of those exercises are enchanted by their reflections, so I know it's just a dangerous and helpful a thing in many other arts to train near a mirror.

My verdict on the matter, then, is that mirrors are a good tool to help you train, but ultimately, you have to learn to master yourself an ignore it completely once you've used it for its purpose, and added difficulty comes from the fact that most people are quite fascinated with watching themselves do things.

How a Timer Can Help Your Training

Someone's going to jump up and down about this, particularly after my recent post about tips for circle-turning practice in which I had a subject heading labeled

Do Not Base Your Turning on a Clock, a Number of Revolutions, or Some Other Crap that Isn't Worth a Damn.

I hope not to be flamed about this because a timer can be and is a helpful training tool if it is used correctly. Here, I endeavor to describe more fully what role a timer plays in my training and how it could help or potentially hinder yours. Here are some proper uses of the timer in training:

Convenience
You can easily set a timer and decide to do an exercise, class of exercises, or exercise routine until the timer goes off. This is convenient if you have a known, limited amount of time in which to train ("my roast is done in an hour, time to rock out some training without worrying about burning it!") or if you need/want something external to really push you. Be sure to get a timer with an alarm that is loud enough so that you don't have any desire to go running over to it to check it periodically which is a sure sign that your mind is not fully on your training. A good use of the timer is to take your mind off of how long you have to train and let it do the worrying-about-that for you. This, by the way, is a distinct difference from using a clock, which you'd have to continually check.

Accountability
A timer is a funny little object in that it has no mind, no authority, and no power whatsoever as it is only measuring an arbitrary duration with arbitrary (but agreed-upon) units to some debatable level of accuracy, and yet it's pretty easy to hold yourself accountable to those little bad-boys. Set the timer, do whatever you've decided to do until the timer goes off, and let it be keep you on task until the time goes off. You can always do more if that wasn't enough or if it lit your fire, with or without the timer. Remember one of my golden training rules, though, when you set out on this kind of practice: things are easier to write down than to do.

Challenging Yourself
Let's say you have a good idea of how many such-and-suches that you can do effectively and roughly how long that takes. Using a timer to tack on a little more time ("a little" is defined in terms of the exercise you're doing) than what you are pretty sure you can do well and committing to trying your damnedest to perform through that whole time. If you can, then it benefited you. If you can't, then remember that the goal is quality, not quantity, and so you can do what you can do with quality, rest a bit, and then pick it back up to finish out the time (you might stop the timer while you're resting) when you've had a little break to regain steam. Since it's easy to be accountable to a timer, this is an excellent use of the timer in your training. After convenience (because I have a lot of crap to do in my life too), this is my primary use of a training timer.

Keeping Your Mind On Task
This really falls under "convenience" and was mentioned there, but it's so valuable and important that it gets its own little separate place too. If you're doing strikes or turning or whatever, and you're measuring what you're doing by counting them, which is totally natural, commonplace, and fine for certain things, then your mind isn't entirely on your training. It's great for group training, but then again, the timer serves the same function here. You can set a timer to a rough number by knowing roughly how many strikes you can do in a minute if you're doing them at the right speed (~30, btw). How can you find that out for yourself instead of comparing against my numbers? Do some strikes, count them, and time it. Figure out strikes per minute by dividing the number of strikes you did by the number of minutes it took (Math Note: There are not 100 seconds in a minute, and thus there is a meaningful difference between "one minute and twenty-three seconds" and "1.23 minutes." You can avoid having to convert to correct for this kind of thing by setting the timer for something like five minutes, doing your strikes, and letting the count be as it will). The same goes for turning if you're a revolutions-counter. Make sure to keep the timer out of view while you train, or this aspect probably goes right out the window as the timer becomes a distraction instead of a tool to increase focus.


There are also improper ways to use the timer and should be watched for and avoided: letting it be your cop-out if you're not pushing yourself hard enough when you have the time to train more than you are (the timer went off, so I was done), allowing "how long" you did something to matter in any way to you whatsoever other than as a rough measure of progress or conditioning, and allowing your training goals to start to center more on time (quantity) than on quality, for some examples. These insidious little problems are easy to let creep in, so you want to stay aware of them and let them pass.

Here are a couple of examples of how I use a timer to get in some really nice little workouts (ignoring the obvious "convenience" factor labeled above):

• Turning: I set the timer, put it "over there" and turn until it goes off. If I cannot maintain the posture even by switching sides often, then I rest my arms by bringing them down or picking another posture to turn in (lower posture, chopping posture as a counter to the Lion posture, "tripod posture" for strength, Rooster posture because I got told to do it sometimes when I was in London, etc. There are lots of postures to choose from). After a bit, I go back to the Lion posture (or whichever you're currently focusing on) and do it as well as I can again. This process repeats until I use up all of the time.
• Saber: A favorite new drill of mine is to set a timer for a fixed time (usually 20 minutes) and then "not put down my saber" in that whole time. The real goal is, of course, to do drills for the entire time, and it's a wicked workout. There are drills, sections of the form, turning postures, and standing postures to choose from, and none of them lasts for a terribly long time with that beast, so it's a varied and exciting workout. If I "can't think of another drill to do" at any given moment, I do tracing the saber until something comes to mind. It doesn't ever take long. I do most of the drills as equally as possible in each hand to give one a rest while the other gets some work. It would be far harder to do it otherwise.
  
• Basic Drills: This applies to any martial art, actually, not just Yin Style Baguazhang. I pick one drill, set a timer, and try to do the best I can with it until the timer goes off. I usually pick a time period that pushes me a little but that isn't so hard that I have to really cheat to finish. For example, today I did tracing the saber for five minutes, switching hands whenever I needed to. It worked great. I got about 100 on each side, so now I have a rough timing mechanism too (40 traces per minute, roughly). I do this with strikes and forms as well. Strikes, I think, is obvious in method, and forms go by setting the timer to several minutes (5 or 8) and doing a particular form repetetively until time runs out, trying to make it as good and powerful as I can throughout. It's kind of sad to think about, but eight minutes straight of a form is kind of hard, and that's really not that long of a time period.
• Standing Practice: Obvious. Stand for a set time on a side, switch (helps to have a person working the timer for you). Do it again until you don't want to do it any more (two or three times on each side is usually pretty good). Alternatively, set a time (5-10 minutes is hard) and stand, switching sides as needed, until time runs out.

Be careful not to let tools turn your training sour, but don't throw them out arbitrarily!

Train FOR Something: Skills-Oriented Training

I've mentioned this kind of thing before, but it bears mentioning again and again. When you train, go train for something specific, in particular to get better at something specific.

Here are two examples of exercise-related/training-related goals, phrased in a fairly generic sense:

1. I'm going to work this exercise until I can do it 150 times without stopping!
2. I'm going to work this exercise until I'm very good at it, trying to pay attention to find and learn the proper mechanics and execution along the way!

Obviously, the second goal is a superior goal for a number of reasons. The first goal, first of all, is easier to meet because it's very specific. That's great if you're totally new to exercise or just trying to get some cosmetic results, but it's total crap if you want to actually master a technique, which is usually the goal of martial arts training. Who cares if you can do a technique 150 times without stopping if you can't do it once correctly? If what you're training is martial arts, then doing something wrong 150 times (while somewhat better than doing it none) is not going to do you much good if the (hopefully) unlikely situation that you have to use it comes up. Granted, if the exercise is something like squats (great for strengthening the legs and butt), you probably don't have to "use" it ever except as an accessory to a technique you're trying to perform, but still, doesn't it seem to mesh so much more deeply with the idea of training an internal or even just an intelligent martial art to extend those ideas to everything we do, exercise included? Of course it does!

Making your goals skills-oriented makes for a harder, more rewarding road. If you work hard and honestly to get good at something, chances are pretty good that you'll be able to do it several or many times in a row, but you'll have obtained more along the way: a deeper understanding of the technique or exercise. It's a difficult goal to meet, however, because it's abstract and lacks a clear finishing point. You know when you can do 150 squats without stopping (body-weight squats, of course), but you cannot know when you've honestly mastered a technique fully. Of course, that can be discouraging, but for a mature, serious person (like a good martial artist has to be), it's more of an opportunity than an impossibility. "Cool! I'll always have room to develop in this practice!" is the way you can look at it instead of "Shit! I'll never completely get this!"

Basically, any exercise you choose to do as part of your training can have benefit. The question you have to ask yourself is how much benefit a given exercise per unit of time that you have to train. Dr. Xie Peiqi apparently used to say something like "we're all given the same twenty-four hours in a day, so what matters is how we choose to use them." Realistically, with jobs and family and living, most of us might have an hour or two a day on average to dedicate to our training, which really isn't much (ten or fifteen hours out of 168 in a week, i.e. less than 10% of our time). That means our choices on how to spend our training hours have to be optimal. No matter which exercises you pick: standing strengthening, turning, striking, drilling, forms, dadao practice in any of those dimensions, applications, or accessory training like cardio, weight training, stretching, or what-have-you, you have to look at your goals in terms of developing certain skills. Stretching might seem much more valuable if you're too stiff to do certain movements (lying step, anyone?), and weights might really help you if you're weak. Weights can help you if you're strong as long as you're creative and serious enough to focus your weight training on meaningful exercises and routines that actually enhance your training, determined enough to make sure you put your mind into those exercises, and mature enough to drop the silly, empty, bullshit exercises that make up the majority of what is done with weights in the wide world of exercise -- no matter what they might make you look or feel like if you do a lot of them (is bench press really going to make you a better fighter? I somehow doubt it...).

Most importantly (in fact, so importantly that I'm going to repeat it even though I already wrote it), put your mind into your training, even if it's not a martial technique. If you're jogging to increase your wind, then put your mind into your breathing while you're jogging. That's the reason you're jogging, right? If you're lifting a weight to increase your ability to hit hard, make sure that the exercise you choose somehow uses the same muscles that are involved and that you focus on feeling those muscles, imagining how their strength translates into striking power. If you're stretching, then put your mind into your body and try to feel your tightness... and then try to let your mind help you release it. Bring your internal to your external, and you can really maximize what you're getting out of your training time.

Accessories Workout, With Pictures!

I figure it's about time I start putting some pictures on here. So... I did a workout today and took some of the process. Since I didn't have a photographer and didn't want to goof around with the timer and all of that, they're all from my perspective. That makes them probably quite a bit different from what you're used to seeing... awesome. I'm definitely the "different" sort of guy. The only pictures I took were of some of my saber stuff and some accessories, although my workout integrated those kinds of things with yard work and empty-hand drills -- standing, some turning, and striking drills. All-told, I went at it for about two hours before I decided I was too excited about putting up some pictures and too thirsty to continue.

Here are the tools of my trade today: saber (freshly polished), twenty pound dumbbell (for accessory exercising), and Heavy Gripper 200 lb (also for accessory exercising). They made for quite the little workout.



After the photo opportunity, I launched into some standing and striking and then picked up my saber for some harder work. The goal was to turn in the Green Dragon Shoots to the Sea posture for fifty revolutions in each direction, however many times I had to go in each directly to accomplish that goal. This picture is a perspective shot of me in the posture. Notice that the saber tip is at eyebrow height.

I followed that exercise up, which was hard, with tracing the saber to the count of fifty in each hand and then dumbbell shoulder presses (two sets of twelve) to further tax the muscles that hold the saber up, although my hands were way more taxed by the posture than my shoulders were. Here's a perspective shot of the "closed" position with one of my lovely maple trees in the background.


After the dumbbell, I did a set of ten with the gripper. Actually, I did a set of ten with it after each of my three turning exercises with the saber. It's really hard to close. Two hundred pounds is a lot of required force. Then again, four people in London told me that they believe that I have, in the words of the Iced-JohannesBerg himself, "the bone-crushing strength in my hands." I only use these things about once a week and only after crazy saber and crazy ox-tongue palm workouts, which I think do more for the grip anyway (unless I do seizing and grasping postures... I'll do grippers after those too... whew, burner).


After doing some yard work and some more empty-hand drills and another round of standing Lion (I'll have to take a perspective shot of that sometime... I can't believe I didn't think of it), I decided I should turn with the saber in Lion posture. Good thinking. That was hard. It took four sets, but I went thirty times in each direction. Can someone say shoulders? I almost couldn't by the time I was done.


Since the Lion section of the Nine Dragon Saber form seems to have a lot of chopping in it, I think more than any section except the Rooster one, I decided to do hook-chop after that: twice in each hand so that I ended up with 30 total on each side (18, 12 for the breakdown). That was kind of hard. Here's a perspective shot of that, which was hard to take because I posed for it after the sets. I followed that up with lateral and front shoulder raises with the dumbbell (ten each in each hand) and then the gripper again and then more empty-hand striking drills of the zig-zag stepping variety.

Okay, so what would I do after that? A short turn in the Lion posture, of course, and then... good times of all good times:
You're damn right you know what that is. Turning in the Qilin (Unicorn) posture. That sucked bad at that point, and so I only went twenty times around in the right and fifteen in the left (my left wrist still isn't 100%). That took four sets to get to. I've really got to turn more with that thing, seriously. I don't even think that I'm twisting my arm under far enough since looking at the picture indicates to me that the blade isn't pointing straight up. Damn, yo. The followup to this monster is the most Qilin/Unicorn feeling of the basic saber drills that I could think of: arcing. I can do a bunch of those, so I did fifty on each side in one go. Then I picked up the dumbbell and did curls and then forearm curls (one set of twelve of each) and threw that thing on the ground because my forearms felt like they were going to pop. In response, I did another set with the gripper and tried not to cry.

Afterwards, I busted out some more striking drills, working striking combinations from the Lion System basics and did a little more yard work before deciding to hang it up for the day and get to other things. I'll probably do a bit more in a little bit now that I've had plenty to drink and a little to eat, and then I'm planning to stretch and do my Taoist energy exercises that I've recommited myself to (for the third time) before bed.

As I went out, my wife saw me, and so I showed her how shiny my newly polished saber is. She snapped a picture of me admiring it. By the time my workout was over, I was as shiny as it... probably shinier. So... that's how I rolled today. What fun!

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.

Mayhem

Following the clever titling protocol of a friend from high school (note what month it is!), I'm engaging in (continued) Mayhem in my training. I'm also, apparently, cool all of a sudden, my saber having earned me a little notoriety and neighborhood celebrity. The neighborhood kids (actually in my mom's neighborhood, where some of my working out has been going on a -- while my brother was in town, and b -- while they're putting a new roof on our house) are all duly impressed with the guy down the street with the "giant pirate sword." Sigh. I suppose, though, it's better than the guy down the street that keeps banging his giant pirate sword into the ground, because, happily, I'm not doing that!!!

Mayhem, which started a couple of weeks ago, is rocking my socks, though. My hands ache in one way or another constantly. One of the requirements is that I do at least an hour with my saber every day, although I'm reasonable enough to let myself rest at least once a week if I feel like I really need it. I'm also drilling standing and striking, poking my nose at some forms (with recommendations both for them and against them -- hedging my bets a little and trying to learn something at the same time), and learning some of the Phoenix stuff that I heard I should take a look-see at. It turns out that the Phoenix posture hurts.

On the side, after/between my drilling, throw in some calisthenics, yard work, and some serious visualization, contemplation, and meditation, and you pretty much get an idea of what this month is going to be like for me. It's fun and awful at the same time, and I'm totally blessed for the opportunity (and taking it). Hopefully, it's making me better too.

So, mayhem, anyone?

Dogwood Winter

My tribute continues with harder workouts involving more resistance: I got a saber, like a real one, finally, at long last, with many thanks due in probably a dozen directions. I'm also incorporating a lot of body-weight resistance type exercises and general strength builders, in addition to the usual. This is partly due to my high desire to develop a lot more physical strength at the moment and partly due to the fact that we're having (another) Dogwood Winter right now. The weather here in the spring is pretty variable with lots of rain and temperature variations, and at the moment, it's finally starting to warm up from the last blast of sub-40 temperatures. It's also clear for the first day in a few, yesterday spitting snow on and off all day and the day before cold rain and sleet. Today looks better, but at the moment, I'm trapped in the office (with no immediate assignment).

Feeling rather creative and not wanting to waste the hour that I'm stuck here (waiting on a student), I decided to do some more of those body-weight exercises including plenty of squats and pushups... but nothing too "weird" in the office. Then, I was struck by an interesting/clever notion. I took a box filled with books and slid it to the middle of the floor, picked it up (it weighs around 60 pounds), turned around, carried it across the small room, and put it on top of the filing cabinet, which is about at shoulder height. Then I stepped back, went back to the box, and proceeded to put it back in the floor. After standing back up, I repeated the exercise a few dozen times. I don't know if it was a great one or not, particularly since I didn't work up a mighty sweat (which suited me just fine here in the office), but it was different and interesting and hopefully building some kind of functional strength, as opposed to just doing repetitions of routine calisthenics.

Hopefully the weather will persist today so that when I get home I can go spend time with my saber (and other drills, outside) again. My hands are mightily sore, though, since I've hardly put it down since I got it. I don't know if that means that I should ease up or not, but I'll push myself a little more first to find out.

Tributing Still

I did the 6:30 thing a few times, but by no means every day. Mostly, I would focus on daoyin and standing exercises that early in the morning, but it always kind of devolved into stretching and meditating. I have been managing pretty solid workouts through the afternoons, however, and given that my time's been a little crushed by my desire to finish my dissertation soon, I've done a fairly decent job at starting to learn some of the strikes from other animal systems, though I'm nowhere near where I had hoped to be by this time. My dissertation, however, is in the "last lap" phase.. all written, proofed through, and awaiting the next (final?) layer of corrections and editions from the adviser. With so little as a temporary check mark from him, I should be able to ramp up the intensity to something more like "intense" than this simmer phase I'm caught in, just as the weather turns nice. I have a grim feeling, though, about the upcoming defense and the amount of preparatory work that might be required.

I've caved, though, feeling like I'm only getting marginally stronger with the fake saber I have. I've increased the protein in my diet and regularity of my workouts with it, to the sad exclusion of other parts of my training, but the development seems slower than I'd hope for. Now I alternate exercises with the saber with exercises with a weight, adapted from full-body kettlebell workouts that I've seen other people do pretty well with. Primarily, I need to strengthen my back and shoulders, which have always been pretty weak for me. As long as I stay on it, I seem to make progress. Maybe I'm coming further than I think I am, but that blade is, as they say, a "real burner."

Integration

A number of things are going on. I have trigger point work steadily improving the dilapidated state of my low back to the point where I feel *mostly* normal again. I'm still leaning forward somewhat, but sooner or later, I'll get that released. My (outer) body is feeling more integrated.

I found a book on my shelf on "Internal Exercises" that looks totally crappy because it has no artwork and is mustard yellow, and I've been reading it. It's really freaking cool. The exercises I've been up to with it for the last few days seem to have made me feel generally better, are helping my back along more quickly, and seem to be improving my myopic eyesight. My inner body is feeling more integrated.

I'm doing a fairly powerful intestinal cleanse. I feel lighter. That's all I want to say about that.

I figured out a great way to "integrate" the saber into training as well as into life. First of all, when I make my "rounds" in the yard (checking on the various plants we're cultivating), I carry my proxy saber around with me until my arm burns so bad I want to drop it. Then I switch arms. However long my little yard adventures last, that carrying around does as well. That's day-to-day activities. Secondly, I just did a fantastic workout where I alternated between saber drills and empty-hand drills. I'd do some standing or striking or forms work without the saber, and then I'd pick up the saber and do a basic drill or turn or go through the three sections of the form that I know. Back and forth, back and forth, one or two drills each time. It was pretty nice and kept me busy for roughly 90 minutes straight. If I sucked wind in between, instead of standing there and waiting, I walked around my driveway (which is a little loop) at a brisk pace, in a low stance when my breathing wasn't terrible and in a relaxed manner when I was huffing and puffing (some of those low-stance saber drills wipe me out still). The only thing I didn't "integrate" was turning. I'll do that in a little while.

So this is the beginning of my humble tribute to my friends suffering and improving in Beijing, since I couldn't go with. They should be sleeping now, but I'm sure they're dreaming about the warm spring sun I was just soaking in while I sweat, keeping them in mind.

Saber Circuit

Even though we don't have *real* sabers yet, we've embarked on doing a circuit-training routine with our proxies, and it is kicking my butt. It only has seven exercises on it: most of the basic drills we covered last fall in Vermont, and the idea is to get through the whole routine three times and reduce the overall time spent while maintaining/increasing quality. Today was the second time we did it, and it wrecked us again (last time it ripped a bunch of skin off my hand, so I had to put it up for a while).

Basically, the first time through the routine, it took us about 12-13 minutes to complete all of the exercises, resting as little as possible between them. We essentially failed on the third time through, with 43 minutes on the clock, but we weren't done with all of the exercises yet (last time we only made it through twice, and only kind of on the second go). The lack of rest is a killer. Even now (about an hour later), typing this is brutal on my exhausted hands.

The goal, which seems reasonable enough, is to get through the routine three times in under forty(-five?) minutes without compromising quality. At that point, we'll be qualified to up our training to "Level 2," which is the same routine with more repetitions of each exercises. There's a "Level 3" also, which will be worse (more repetitions again and a reorganization of the drills to be in a more demanding order). It's going to take a while to get to that point, particularly at the two-days-a-week training pace on the circuit.

According to my sheet, I'm not done because I didn't turn yet today. I'd better get on that.

Changes

Finally, after what has seemed like almost three months of stagnation, I feel like I'm moving forward. First, my advisor set a fire under my ass, and so my dissertation is coming along better. That's well and good for my life but bad for my training. Second, I'm most definitely getting stronger. My proxy saber and I are getting along at least 3-4 times a week, and particularly with my right hand, I'm noticing rather dramatic increases in my ability with the tool, although I'm still nothing to Carl "Hungus." Third, my back seems to be letting up somewhat. The "stuck" feeling has remitted tremendously in the past week and a half thanks to an odd combination of serendipity, yoga, and highly salubrious bagua exercises courtesy of my friend from across the Pond. I've been stretching on my own quite well, my wife wrangled the living crap out of me in a rather uncomfortable position that I thought was going to kill me or maybe break me but seemed to "turn the key in the lock," and then I suffered unbelievably at the edge of my abilities through a couple of the health-building exercises of Yin Style, which led directly to my back crunching around and eventually letting go! The "stuck" feeling has, for the moment, left me, although the musculature on my left side (primarily my iliacus, psoas, gluteus medius, multifidous, and serratus posterior inferior -- looking these up helped release some of their anger) is very knotted and fly-by-wire. Still... my training can now, finally, resume at the level that I had this summer, at least as long as I pretend that my advisor will still be happy if I choose that road. In theory, though, a quarter of a year later, I feel stronger, not weaker, and moving forward, not stuck.

The moral: do your exercises regularly and within your capacity, not pushing yourself too hard too fast, and anything is possible. Also, sometimes you have to burn through your injuries, not overprotect them. That balance is difficult to find.

One and a Quarter Pounds

Thanks to a friend of mine, who happened to call my proxy saber "cool," I now have a sweet 1.25-pound weight added to it, right behind the five pounds I had already placed there. I didn't do much with it but feel the extra weight yesterday, when I took it apart, smashed my finger somehow, and put it back together with the extra weight, because I had already done a decent saber-related workout and didn't feel like over-cooking it. Today, though, I went to feel it in a variety of drills, and I was pretty shocked. It was a LOT heavier....

The thing is that I don't know if it's too heavy now or not. It certainly felt too light with just five pounds on it, but not when I first put it together. With just five, at first, I was surprised about how close it seemed to the real thing, and that was almost immediately after getting back from working with a real thing. I was pretty sure it was too light from some fluke accident of hearing something along the lines of that the real dadao weighs close to eight pounds (or just over). In any case, I've developed with it a little since then, and I got to where I could move it around with the five pounds that were on it with some degree of grace, though certainly not ease, and even the grace was failing in several of the basic drills. The lack of grace, I'm starting to realize, has something to do with the distribution of weight being very different when all of the weight I've added is in one place (near the balance point of a saber proper) versus more spread out through the steel of the saber.

I can't tell with any certainty now, though, if the thing felt right before and I was getting better at using it, hence the difference I feel now is truly that my proxy is too heavy or if, instead, the thing was too light before and the difference I feel now is just the difference, be my proxy too light or too heavy (theoretically, by my remembering, it's still too light). When I went to worth with it this afternoon with the additional pound and a quarter, I was very surprised as to how much harder the drills seemed. I haven't really been counting too much, just going until my form totally sucks and then quitting, and since I worked out pretty hard with it yesterday, I don't know that it would have mattered much because I might have residual soreness from then that would make it so I could only do fewer today anyway.

In any case, it's incredible the difference that a pound and a quarter can make. I'm somewhat eager to find out the true weight of a saber to be absolutely sure of that, and if I'm still too light, I'll probably go straight to adjusting that and learning to swallow whatever bitter comes along with.

Hammers, Hatchets, and Triggers

For the past two weeks, I've barely been able to train, which sucks. I noted that I was suffering from what started out seeming like a mild low-back-pain episode but which actually manifested as being just about the most long-lived one that I've had. It was never exceptionally severe as it has been in the past, but it never got much better either, which was frustrating and, obviously, uncomfortable and limiting. I'm *mostly* better now, 18 days after the day when it all went to pieces, though long-period turning sessions (more than 20 minutes at a time), most vigorous static posture practice, and many of the strikes are still right out of my ability set -- stuff starts cramping. It's strange, sad, and motivating. I want to train. I want to live without this for the first time in about a decade. I'm going to have to fix it.

The other night I was looking into the matter further, reading up on it via a slough of articles hunted down off of the internet with no real way to know for sure what was accurate and what wasn't among what I studied, and I found a bizarre article that talked a lot about trigger points in the sacroiliac region. I thought there might be something to it after seeing where this guy got his ideas and how he's used them. I poked around in my psoas muscles, which I'd already been stretching intensely from as soon as I was able to get into the positions, and instead of feeling what I expected (muscles, most likely tight ones), I felt what the author was talking about: trigger points, dozens of them. Probably scores, actually, were in there. It felt quite a bit like a sack of pellets stuffed very tightly, in fact. Immediately, I climbed in bed and started working them out even though it was far later than I usually like to stay up now, but I fell asleep after an hour and a half or so in my right side and had barely touched my left. I woke up the next morning and went directly back to it, working a little in my left but almost entirely in my right, again going for more than an hour, and when I went to stand, I felt several times better than I had all along in the preceding weeks, even after chiropractic. My psoas muscles also felt remarkably different. In the days since, I've worked more into those (the article said it might take two weeks to two months to work all of them out of the pelvis, depending on how bad it is in there) and made significant progress. I've also explored around and found trigger points in the other hip muscles, lower abdominals, and some into the low-back region, though it's HARD to reach and work on. My hands are quite sore, having dug deeply into my flesh to push out knots of tension for about 5-6 hours in the last three and a half days, but I'm feeling almost better than I usually do (generally better than usual, though there's still a stiff spot that isn't usually there). That keeps me going; well, that and the idea that my hands are going to be very, very strong from this. I think that this combined with stretching and a little chiropractic will actually heal me as opposed to just keeping me at a barely acceptable status quo (which is where mediocre attempts at stretching and some chiropractic was keeping me).

Interesting little things come up, like sudden releases of a tiny knot, no bigger than a grain of rice, followed by an intense sensation like hot water flooding down and spreading out through the inside of my leg. That comes up a lot. Relief usually follows. I'm having very bizarre dreams, which the author suggested might come up since his belief is that trigger points are primarily "stored-up fear-based emotions." When you release the point, apparently, the emotion starts working its way out. Hence, I rub into these painful little areas with a mantra of "am I willing to let this go?" Sometimes it seems to help. Sometimes it doesn't do much. Maybe that's my subconscious answering yes and no, respectively. Maybe it has nothing to do with it. I like it, though, so I'm keeping it up. As a weird side-effect, I'm in a wholly better mood than I have been in over the last four to five years (length of Ph.D. program?).

In any event, Sunday, the first day I was feeling much, much better, running around with a bit of a gleam in my eyes, I went to the store to get some duct tape to finish off my Proxy Saber, v. 2, which is superior in nearly every way to the original by following Ket's design. While there, since I have some yard work to do that requires a hatchet that I don't own yet, I went to look at the hatchets. Some I liked but wasn't willing to pay so much for, and some I didn't despite their bargain price. Eventually I was holding one, feeling its weight and balance, trying to decide if the price for it was right when all of a sudden three teenagers dressed in a vaguely counter-culture way came into the aisle. One was smaller, maybe 115 pounds, and a young man. One was bigger and clearly not as sharp or at least less of a leader but probably no older, maybe 15 or so. The third was a girl that was running around with them, skinny and frail looking with a falsely tough exterior. The smaller guy stood a few feet from me and picked up a eight- or ten-ounce ball hammer off the rack and eyed it for a minute, bouncing it a little in his hand to get used to the weight. Then he turned to me and said the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, particularly seeing as I was still holding the hatchet and bigger than him by at least 50-60 pounds and almost a foot of height: "Hey mister, have you ever been hit in the head with a ball-peen hammer, and would you like to experience it?"

I would love to know what the kid was thinking when he said that. I'm guessing that he was trying to be funny, which he, of course, failed at. I turned to face him, still holding the hatchet, and grinned at him, almost looking excited, and said, "you wanna go?"

He looked like he was going to soil his pants in response and then tried to play it off all nonchalantly: "Nah, man, I was just kidding around." I put the hatchet back on the rack as he put the hammer away. Then I looked back at him and asked him if he was sure, now that I didn't have an ax. He told me he was just kidding again, his friends laughing like I was the stupid one and missing some hilarious joke, and used a tone that indicated the same. I went to pay for my tape, and though they were laughing, they made a rather quick exit from the store.

Weird story, huh? Good thing I didn't have to break it down on some kids. I'm not entirely sure of the legality of that kind of situation, seeing as they were minors but that they, I think, technically threatened me with a weapon. I guess it's an equally good thing that the kid didn't find out my opinion about feeling a hammer in a more direct way, asking me after he tested it out. The moral, I think: kids these days are punks, i.e. I'm getting old.

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!