A little accountability: January's progress report on turning goal

For those of you that have been following along with my training, you know I'm doing a project this year involving turning the circle. Specifically, I'm aiming to get 200 hours on the circle in 2012. This post is a short report on how I did with the project through January. For those of you that aren't interested in my personal training, this post isn't probably worth much to you, so you can skip it.

Volume ladder training protocol for massive development

There is a particular key to training a martial art well, and that key is repetition. In Yin Style Baguazhang, things are no different, and as every practitioner knows, massive repetitions of the basic drills and exercises are expected and required to move forward. Of course, these repetitions cannot be performed blindly if development is desired; there must a be a constant endeavor to improve coupled with smart training techniques and constant refinement. Still, doing huge numbers of repetitions is a daunting task that can begin to feel like grinding, possibly leading to burnout, stagnant training, or frustration. A bodybuilding protocol called the "volume ladder" can be implemented, however, to help with this situation.

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).

Ask Dr. Jimberly -- "Humongous Godzilla Sword" -- What's with the dadao anyway?

Here's another edition of Ask Dr. Jimberly, where I share questions and answers that I get about Yin Style Baguazhang with a wider audience: What's the deal with that "Humongous Godzilla Sword" (read: the Yin Style bagua dadao)?

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.

Overtraining

This is a martial art that I'm training. Martial arts bring up the idea of boot camp, as do the seminars that we go to in Yin Style Baguazhang. Boot camp is a popular notion these days (see over a million pages on Google about "weight loss boot camp," probably the latest craze in the fad-driven weight-loss program industry), and I think folks training in the martial arts like to envision themselves in a boot-camp like situation in which they come out highly trained, skillful, and chiseled. This mentality, unfortunately enough, leads to the easy potential for overtraining, which I think I'm suffering from to some degree right now despite a relatively low number of total (physical) training hours in the last month (about 35 since Nov. 1). You can check out some of the signs and symptoms of overtraining syndrome here.

My problem comes directly from deciding to focus almost exclusively on one or two things, which rapidly builds the potential for overdoing it in those one or two things. In particular, I've been overcooking myself with the large saber, committing myself to hundreds of repetitions of tracing the saber each day (nearly 7000 in each hand since Nov. 1 actually... I kept track) in addition to a fair sampling of the other basic drills that I know whenever the weather permits. Here are some of the symptoms I've noticed:

• I can do way more tracing of the saber per day now than I could at the beginning of the month (400 in each hand each day isn't a ridiculous request on myself now), but the first few sets are literally painful until I'm "warmed up" and the number I can do in any given set has actually decreased over the month. Near the beginning of the month, I'd do mostly sets of 50 with an occasional 60, 75, or 80 thrown in there (and 100 straight once!). Now, a set of 50 is very hard, but I can do 6 consecutive sets of 40 or 30 with relative ease. I'm not sure that's how I want things to be going. To my mind, both of these numbers should be going up over time.
• Turning with the saber, particularly in bear posture (one that's relatively easy to do regardless of working a lot or bad weather because it fits in a relatively small space with no special ceiling needs) went from being hard to easier to really hard. After an initial increase in both total number of go-arounds I could do without having to stop/switch hands and an increase in total number of go-arounds I could do in a workout, switching hands as needed, I've seen a marked decrease in both of those numbers over the past few days (I've only been doing this one daily for about a week now). That can't be good. I'm seeing similar results with turning in the dragon posture (from the form) because I'm doing it kind of maniacally and daily right now too.
• Other drills with the saber are kind of similar. I've had tendinitis in one of my wrists for a while, so a good many of them have been kind of on the back-burner, but as I've gone back into doing them, I'm seeing similar results with the ones I do essentially every day. I'm getting cooked by them so that each subsequent day is worse than the day before it.
• I'm showing a number of the "stagnation" kind of symptoms given on that list of overtraining symptoms from above plus some compulsion to do tracing and to do it a lot.
  

I keep pushing myself thinking that I'll train through this, or more specifically, that if this was real military "saber camp," I'd be picking that thing up for hours a day and sucking this up big-time or else. The thing is, while I'm feeling stronger in lots of ways from the workouts, I'm blatantly less able to do them now than before. Boot camp mentality or no, that's simply not how this thing works. Days off aren't just important, they're critical, at least for my physique.

I'm thinking that taking days off of using the saber completely isn't actually necessary, but a more complementary set of exercises should be arranged so that the same kinds of things aren't being done day after day after day. Besides the dangers to the tendons in some of those exercises (chops and stabs, in particular, for us little-wrist people), overtraining syndrome can eventually actually cut into baseline performance so that we could end up worse at what we're doing for having done a lot of it, basic skills improvements aside. The two things I've seen suggested to help deal with overtraining issues that aren't "put it down," which is the main advice, are to intentionally do "light days" as well as to shake things up by doing things that are completely different on different days. That's the plan, I think.

The funny thing is that with an art like Yin Style is that the drive to really get good at things through heavy repetition and single-purposed focus creates the compulsion to overtrain so strongly that it can put you in the problematic situation where it somehow feels inappropriate to train something different to "shake things up." Ironically, this occurs in an art in which there is certainly enough material in it so that many practitioners mention at one point or another that there's "too much stuff" in the art to give full attention to. Doing something else, some of that other "too much stuff," is just what's needed, though. I think this is probably how it has to be: Train a few things very dilligently and primarily, but incorporate other things for variety, interest, and to give your body something to work on while you recover from your primary training goal(s) (which should, of course, change over time and with changing interests). You must respect that your body will need time to recover fully from each exercise you do, anywhere from 12 to 72 hours depending on your fitness, your genetics, the muscle group in question, your diet, your level of hydration, the amount of sleep you get, and a multitude of other factors. Yeah, it's that complicated (actually more complicated than that!), and it can be different for each muscle group or system in your body!

The basic truth of how your body reacts to exercise as an adaptable organism is as follows: You have a starting level of fitness that I'll refer to as your "starting point." When you exercise or train, you stress your tissues, which takes away from their full capacity for a time for a variety of not-fully-understood reasons. This time is called the "recovery" phase and takes an amount of time that is very difficult to determine from the list of above factors. Following the recovery phase, your body adapts to the stress by elevating the particular tissues involved in whatever you did to a level that exceeds their original level of fitness. This is called the "supercompensation" phase. The supercompensation period decays exponentially back to your original "starting point" over a time period that is influenced by all of the above factors (including the myriad that I didn't mention).

The thing is, to sound smart and technical, that your tissues kind of deal with this sitaution in a Markovian way, in other words, when you workout again is something like your new "starting point." You enter a recovery phase that drops your level of fitness temporarily based on the intensity of your workout (harder workout; bigger drop). That, in turn, causes an overcompensating swing into a supercompensation phase (bigger drop swings to bigger peak, it appears). Thus, this is all about timing. If you work out again before you get "out of the woods" of your previous recovery phase, then you're starting from a lower point on the curve than if you would have waited a little while longer. If you work out again during your supercompensation phase (particularly near its peak), then you reap maximal benefits. If you wait too long, then it's essentially, in terms of your tissues (not your developed skills), essentially like you never worked out the first time. The tough part is that these time periods are very difficult to determine and variable on about a bajillion variables. Thus... be pragmatic: If you feel overtraining symptoms setting in, back off, slow down, and cross-train; otherwise, keep on keepin' on.

Some ideas for shaking things up include:

• Putting the saber down for empty-hand practice, if you're overdoing the saber;
• Picking the saber up if you're not doing so much of that;
• Turning more (always good?) and/or in different postures (try the various strengthening postures or what you know of different animal postures);
• Changing palms if you're focusing on a certain palm or small number of them;
• Picking up a new form (from the videos) and drilling it;
• Hit the gym or go running (worked for me yesterday... shook me up out of my normal mentality of how I "have to train" and had me moving at the same time -- plus made be suck wind like I ran an f-ing marathon even though I only did a rather slow 800m);
• Trying something out from another animal system (if you have the videos) for a couple of days to vary things up;
• Training the same stuff with intentionally and markedly lower intensity, focusing on some different requirement(s) of that technique or mentally "using it" more than just drilling it in the body;
  
• Something else that you've thought of that I'm not right now (leave a comment!).

To put things plainly, I suppose, the science says that if you're exhibiting symptoms of overtraining, more training will not make you better. If you're really lucky and really determined, you might improve in skills while you deteriorate your physical ability to improve, but more than likely, the built-up fatigue (unfinished recovery) will cause you to be sloppy and less precise than taking some time off and coming back to it another day. If you're less fortunate, you could actually end up simultaneously developing bad habits, getting weaker, and even possibly seriously injuring yourself (tendinitis, tweaked joints, repetitive movement/stress injuries, etc.).

The Invisible Saber

Hopefully I'm not going to get flamed for this or start some kind of ridiculous trend of sissiness in the ranks of my loyal followers.

Due to circumstances somewhat out of my control, the time of day today when I really wanted to work out with my saber left me limited and unable to do so. I did some tracing with it because I can do that in the house without fear of wrecking things, but that's pretty much where the indoor saber line is drawn other than standing practice. Thus, I did a bunch of empty-handed stuff, mostly of the striking variety, and some calisthenics for about an hour and a half for my workout earlier.

In the process, because I wanted to do my saber and work on some of the fundamental drills, particularly some of the ones I feel less good at and a few that I've decided I really like at the moment, I started going through the motions of them without a saber in hand. Some of them only went okay, but on others, I really got a depth of understanding of the movements that I don't think I've had before, particularly in the use of the waist to drive the saber and generate power and economy of movement with it. Some of these "drawing back" and then "bursting forward" or "secretly marching" kind of techniques are particularly benefited, at least in my practice tonight.

I might encourage folks looking to build their ability with the basic skills of the saber to throw this kind of drill into your saber training. When you're working with the sword itself, being that it's a bit heavy and awkward (until you're ninja-good with it, like Swedish-powdered-steel good), it's more difficult to focus on the body movement. With it laying nearby, awaiting to ride the improved ride, you can refine your technique with otherwise difficult to access precision and attention to detail -- looking for the proper way to move the blade. Then you can wrestle the huge blade up and apply what you learned with almost surprising results if you've sought the movement carefully and honestly until you're pretty certain you really found something.

Of course, more time with saber than without is my advice for getting good with the saber, but as with anything: training means refining.

The Bagua Dadao: King of Martial Arts Swords and Training Anchor!

Finally I get some time for training again after having to have dedicated a hugely inordinate amount of time to work requirements. In that time, I kept myself connected to my training with little sets of this or that, primarily by swinging around my dadao, which I might dare to call the king of martial arts swords (perhaps unfairly? Probably fairly.).

Since I did most of my little breaks in five- or ten-minute spots coming out of the in-home office we have, my mainstay was with sets of tracing the saber back and forth, usually to the tune of a quick fifty in each hand. I started this little routine on the first of the month, reaching into the corner and picking up my cold steel sword and carrying it out into the only open space in the house a few times a day and trying to maintain a minimum of 200 repetitions in each hand each day, clustered as close together as possible.

This was partly about maintaining that minimum, partly about achieving "never zero," and partly about optimizing what little time I had to train (often working more than 15 hours a day, even on the weekends, over the past couple of weeks). We get little pockets here and there in our lives: my wife needs to use the desk for some paperwork, e-mail, etc., or the kids need it for homework, blocking much of what I needed to do, and we need to try to find/make opportunities to improve ourselves (i.e. train) in those times. It's too bad that this activity has constituted roughly 50% of my training time over the past few weeks, serving as a little anchor to training and getting stronger even though the Ivory Tower kept me chained up for the lion's share of my time (I love puns).

I've only missed one day with the saber this month, in fact, and as of this writing, I've done 2510 repetitions of tracing the saber in each hand (or just short of 210 per day, on average, in each hand or 5020 total!). Of course, the main part of this exercise is about getting stronger. I can now say that belting out a set of fifty tracing is pretty easy, although it gets tough the third or fourth time around when I switch back and forth and try to do "all" 200 in pretty much one go. That would be a kingly feat with the "king of martial arts swords."

One of the goals I have with this in the relatively short term would be to be able to "easily" do sets of 100 with the saber... and then maybe more than that? Of course, the real long-term goal is to have the saber feel "light and playful" in my hands, which is why I'm trying to put attention into the other basic drills with it again now that I have time to do weird things like "go outside" and "not work all the f-ing time." I'll periodically mention about how these goals are going, I think.

Typing this just got me uber-excited to go do a few more, maybe to get that count over 2600 in each hand for the month-to-date, so that's where I'm off to. You too? Oh, yeah... and that day I missed... I kind of finished earning my Ph.D. that day, so I think I deserve a little breathing room for that.

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!

Fire and Ice

"Sometimes you've got to think about presentation; you've got to make it look good for people."

He Jinbao said that to us while discussing variations on the Nine Dragon Saber form in our seminar in London this summer, and the extra little kick thrown in by Matt was "You've got to think about fire and ice sometimes." Since I don't speak Chinese, I don't know if Matt or JB said "fire and ice," but I'm assuming for now that it was Matt. I could be wrong.

I do know that Matt made "The Billionaire" and I do a fire-and-ice drill one day, and today I brought that drill to Bradley. The drill itself is completely insignificant to this post and almost insignificant to training: it's one drill out of several dozens and probably one that most people that work the dadao are have done: stab forward and then pull back, squatting into a low stance and supporing the saber arm with the back of the wrist, using the waist to drive the movement, of course.

The point here is really that doing this fire-and-ice drill made a normally "boring" drill a lot more fun, in other words, it increased the excitement that we had for the drill and encouraged us to do more drills in a similar way -- more drills, in fact, than we would have done had we not walked down this road. The basic idea for "fire and ice" is that you and some partners get together and do the drills a bit like a synchronized swimming team, so to speak. For us, we stabbed directly at the points of each other's saber so that they ended a few inches or a foot or so apart (measured ahead of time). Then we moved in step with one another. This drill would be particularly cool with a larger group also. I know for sure that it drove me to do more of them and gave me something different to focus on while I was doing the drill, so it really pepped it up for me.

The thing is, group training in Yin Style is an interesting phenomenon. As far as I can tell, it has some very useful purposes:

• Introducing the art to less-experienced practitioners or helping to advance their practice;
• Group accountability/encouragement to do more and better drills;
  
• Commeraderie;
• The ability to see and be seen, primarily for correction's sake;
• Share ideas and training tips;
• Practice applications.

There are surely others, but making an exhaustive list of such a thing on the spot is difficult, particularly when you get familiarity blindness (meaning we all know the benefits of group training and are so familiar with them that it's hard to see and say those things clearly sometimes in an exhaustive list). One thing that is particularly good about Yin Style (although it's true for every martial art, even if it's not explicitly encouraged) is that solo drilling really takes center stage, and the hard truth of the matter is this: you don't need a group to do it or to do it well (although for the corrections/learning aspects it's really helpful). Thus, why use your group meeting times for focusing primarily on the things you should be doing at home, training on your own?

That's where doing drills with the fire-and-ice mentality comes in. The drills are the same, but they feel and look different. If we all stand in rows and just do them, that's fine, but it's very similar to what we are experiencing in our solo practice just with more people around (who might be added distractions?). Fire and ice gives a different kind of purpose and a certain novelty to the exercises, and it is certainly not something you can do on your own. As far as training practicality goes, more attention to distance and positioning are required for the drills, so those aspects of training become more realistic than when drilling solo, say out in the middle of your driveway (in case you don't want to tear up your grass or something).

Apparently, fire and ice can be applied to the form as well. In fact, it was mentioned, since we were doing the form in fours, how cool it would look if we all did the "boatman plunges his pole" maneuver so that our saber tips all pointed to the middle of the room at the same time. Then it was suggested that we should all think about our positioning and movement so that we could accommodate that goal. Then we didn't do it, not even once. Looking back at it now, I think of it as a missed opportunity. Putting some thought into these kinds of things, not as a center of your practice but rather as a peripheral sort of drill can add depth and fun to what otherwise might seem tedious, repetitive, dry, or even boring. Plus, when we do it, we get to look cool, and how cool is that?

Stirring the Ashes

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

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

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

My Saber, My Wrist, and My Remedy

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

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

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

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

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

Good news, bad news continued

Since when did doing things like taking a saber to the UK get so ridiculously expensive? Holy pants! I just found out (and I'm glad I found out ahead of time) that taking the good ol' dadao to Londontown would run me $300 each way on the plane. HHHHHWwwhat? The conversation I had with the lady at the airline convinced me that logic cannot triumph over policy:

Me: "I need to take a bag with me on my trip that contains a big steel thing, so my bag measures a total of 86 linear inches. I understand this is going to incur an excess baggage fee."
Rep: "Yes, sir, it will. That's a very big bag. It will be $300 each way."
Me: "Three hundred dollars! Holy moly. Well, it is a snowboarding bag. Do you have a sporting equipment proviso on the policy?"
Rep: "Yes, as long as it is a snowboarding bag or ski bag containing only snowboarding or ski equipment, it can be checked as regular baggage."
Me: "First, I don't have a snowboard, just a snowboarding bag. I have to take a thing that is very long. Second, if I was taking a snowboard, are you telling me that if the bag contained anything at all other than snowboarding equipment, then I'd be subject to the same fee?"
Rep: "Yes, the fee would apply."
Me: "Even if I just put a pair of socks in there?"
Rep: "Yes, if we opened your bag and saw that there was something other than snowboarding equipment in your snowboarding bag, then you'd be subject to the fee."
Me: "That's ridiculous."
Rep: "It's the policy, sir."
Me: "So the charge is $300 each way, correct?"
Rep: "Yes sir, $300 each way to put a bag of that size on the plane. That's a big bag."
Me: "Is there any way around the charge?"
Rep: "No sir, the fee cannot be waived for any reason. That's stated clearly in the policy and on the website. Most people don't take bags that big. Maybe you could fold whatever this thing is that you're taking and fit it into a smaller bag?"
Me: "I can't fold it; it's made of steel. I mean, perhaps I could fold it, but I don't think I could unfold it if I did. Maybe you can help me understand this, though. I'm having a hard time reconciling things here."
Rep: "What can I help you with, sir?"
Me: "I can take two suitcases that measure up to 62 total linear inches at no charge, right?"
Rep: "Yes sir."
Me: "And 62 plus 62 is 124, so I can take up to 124 linear inches with me for no fee provided that I pack it into two bags each no larger than 62 linear inches, but I cannot take one bag that is 86 linear inches despite the fact that it's one fewer bag to handle and 86 is less than 124?"
Rep: "That's correct, sir. I don't make the policy. Most people just don't pack bags that big."
Me: "It's a snowboarding bag. Many people pack this exact bag."
Rep: "Then they pay the fee."
Me: "I apologize for that, then. It's not your fault that your policy fails against logic. Do you realize the policy also states that you can take two fifty pound bags at no additional charge, a total of one hundred pounds, but if you try to bring a single bag over seventy pounds, they won't put it on the plane?"
Rep: "Yes sir, that's the policy."
Me: "That also makes no sense."
Rep: "I don't make the policy, sir."
Me: "Again, I'm sorry. I'm a bit annoyed by the policy and the quandary it puts me in. I'm sure you have to hear more venting about this than you should have to."
Rep: "No, sir, nobody really says anything about it." (Feel free to say something about it here).
Me: "What would you suggest I do, then, because I'm not giving you $300 each way to carry this thing. I could bring another person with me according to current rates on a competing airline for just $30 more than that, and that person would be bigger, more unweildy, much heavier, and likely to carry their own pair of heavy, bulky bags than would be my one bag containing a single big thing that isn't so much big but is inconveniently long but not as long as skis."
Rep: "You should ship it to yourself via some cargo company such as DHL, FedEx, or UPS."
Me: "Thanks."

I looked into packing the saber as my second bag, separately, but the total linear inches are still bigger than 62, so I end up paying $150 each way for that... except that the airline doesn't accept packages in cardboard, so I'd have to go get another, much smaller but still big enough bag for the sword. Then I called FedEx. $115.50 to mail the damn thing to myself. WTF? It came back from China in a bag identical to the one I was going to pack it into for a surcharge of $35. I also found out that some airlines won't even fly a bag large enough to contain the saber, and some others will but not to the following airports: "..., all London airports, ...."

Hello Londoners: sharing is caring?

Good news, bad news

I've had a few recent confirmations about some progress being made on my part with the dadao, which is good news. A corollary to that is that I'm now competent enough to tell that I'm sloppy as all hell with it (sloppy beats clumsy?). It's exciting after all this time to have some confirmation of improvement, though. I've kind of got this lasting mental block that I suck royally with the thing, and evidence that helps me change my mind on that point is always nice.

I'm also training (still hard) in adversity right now. My allergies are killing me, which is kind of a new thing for me. Usually, I barely have them, if at all. This year, however, they're much more aggravating. Furthermore, to kind of let the cat out of the bag, I broke my toe last Saturday, and it kind of hurts, particularly on movements that involve twirling around or stepping particularly sharply with that foot. It seems to be healing remarkably quickly, though, which is really good news because I'm headed to the London intensive here in just a few days (!). It should be a rocking learning opportunity, and I'm stoked, of course. Seeing as I got a little note that Jinbao wants to be "wowed," though, I'm feeling a little pressure. I don't even know if that kind of thing is possible. The "sloppy" that I identify with my dadao training probably isn't going to cut it for him, I'll bet. We shall see... we shall see.

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?

The Saber Two-Step and Poison Ivy

I went out for my daily saber workout today, and at the beckoning call of my wonderful wife at the perfect moment of "I'm not sure I can hold onto this thing anymore right now," I turned my attention after a while to "Number 2," my trusty little saber-toothed saw. We have an area of brushy crap in our back yard that's trying to climb and wreck our majestic holly tree and is choking a couple of azalea bushes (not that I really care, but apparently the neighbors have beseeched us strongly to not destroy the lovely pink azaleas -- I'd bushhog the whole area if I had one). Some of it is wild grape vines that have gotten out of control and some of it is very aggressive, ugly, domineering honeysuckle, those being the main targets of my saw. Unbeknownst to me until I grabbed onto a furry vine and yanked, there was also one or more poison ivy vines so big that I mistook them for limbs of an unidentified tree. I got quite a bit of it out of there in five minutes or so, and then I ran for the shower. Hopefully, I'm not going to come out all covered in poison ivy. I'm already itching all over psychosomatically (I hope). It might even be on my face and all over my hands. Ugh. Just as I got out of the shower and dressed, I went out for my saber, which I left figuring I didn't want urushiol (poison ivy's poison oil) all over my pommel (I left it until that point because I figured I'd only "rest" with the saw and then go back to the saber). Then I brought it in, and just as the door closed behind me, it started to rain. I had left the saber in a slightly sheltered area, but I'm really glad I got it in all the same. After wiping it down and cleaning it a little, I came in to talk about what I learned with it today.

First, I suffered through the form, as much of it as I know, without stopping. I'm still seriously impressed by people that can do a full saber workout and then get through the whole form in one go. Starting fresh, I can get through as much of it as I know, but I'm usually struggling by the end of that, which isn't even the end of the form. I've still got a long way to go, but as they say, "it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll." I am distinctly better this week than last, though, which is encouraging.

What I think has brought about this change for me is drilling again. After going through a section of the form, usually a few or several times, I've been taking a handful of techniques out of it and doing them repetitively as a means to get better at them. It's helping a lot, particularly on some of the more challenging techniques and series. More interestingly, I like it, but I think that's because I don't have to do the ridiculous numbers that might be expected out of me at a seminar or intensive. If eight of them kicks my butt, then I do eight. If I can handle thirty, then I might do that many. It depends on the drill (e.g. sparrowhawk penetrates the forest hasn't gone double-digits for me yet). These drills are one side of what I'm calling (for the purposes of this post only) the "saber two-step." Some of them are a one-two kind of thing. Most are more steps than that.

So what did I learn? With the saber, as heavy as it is, it seems there are two major facets that are both very important to training it, though this could be my inexperience talking. First, there's gross strength and endurance, which it seems are to be gained by working through the full extent of the form, turning through all of the postures as many times as can be, and doing drills, in some sense for numbers. On the other hand, there is a strong need to develop skills-based practice with it. Thinking about what I'm trying to achieve with the thing, paying attention to the finer points, and really trying to do the techniques right, even very slowly (though only to make sure I'm doing them right) is very important as well (actually, much more important). I know a lot of guys that train in a lot of things in a lot of different ways, and one thing I've noticed is that guys tend to like to get strong and then define themselves by that, paying very little attention to finer details. The finer details, though, seem to make the techniques more efficient, not to mention effective, and tend to make the overall practice simultaneously easier and more fulfilling. I think the weight of the thing drove that aspect from the front of my mind.

I also called myself "sloppy" at several points, which I think is important to recognize and admit when it happens. We all get tired, we all have learning curves to deal with, and we all should be struggling to get better. Verbalizing to ourselves when we're doing things in a sloppy manner is a keen reminder of the big picture: the goal is to get good at what we're doing. If anyone out there takes tips from me, that's my theme of the week (or for however long I train, really): remember with redoubled focus to train to get better and to get better at specific things, not just to train.

Tape

I've used a lot of tape lately. As strange as it may seem, as crappy as I still am with it, my muscular ability to cope with the saber is growing significantly faster than the coping ability of the skin on my tender mathematician hands. I had been getting blisters, some quite bad, some that tore the skin off before I knew I had them. Now I'm getting callouses, but I'm also rubbing my skin completely raw. Part of that might be due to the deep, unending, vague throbbing exhaustion in my hands from working with the thing day after day -- my grip kind of poops out on it after a bit and it slides ever so slightly around, giving me raw skin. The rest of it is a time-in-contact issue: I'm spending lots of that. Since my skin shits out on me long before my drive or ability to continue (not in any one particular drill... those still kick my butt), I wrap them with athletic tape and go back at it with hands looking like a boxer's before getting gloved up. New tender spots come up as a result of the extended training and slightly modified usage of my hands due to the presence of tape, so at the moment, I have at least seven such places between my two hands. It's awesome.

Today, I think, I will not pick up the saber on those grounds, and that perhaps will be the case tomorrow as well. My empty-hand training is suffering a bit as a result of wanting to get reasonably solid with the saber (which is a very slow-going process), so I'm planning to take the next couple of days to let my skin recover and my striking/turning endurance to get a little piece of the pie. Between my dissertation and the saber, turning has really suffered (to the point where a half an hour straight is pretty brutal for me instead of a relatively "pleasant" walk outside). That's got to be remedied... at least until my adviser gets back on me about other things to work on. My striking is, in my opinion, okay but nowhere near where it could be. I tend to tire-out pretty quickly, which isn't so good. Standing is alright, but my thighs are constantly wiped out from the low stances with the saber, so alright is as far as it goes. Forms... I'll get back to those one of these days, I promise... at least back to those that don't involve a giant sword.

Oh, I'm informally compiling a list of the initial questions I get when people see me with the saber. Here are the three most popular so far:

1. Where did you get that?
2. Is it heavy?
3. Is that thing real?

I think the third one is my favorite. I'm not even sure what to tell them because it's pretty obviously real. Almost everyone asks if it's sharp too, but that comes out later. I suspect that's what people mean by "real," though. It would be a complete nightmare if it was.

Thinking It Through

Since my main partner in crime has been half a world away, I've had to turn off my "testing it out" engine almost completely and sink into total visualization to achieve my applications designs. This isn't too far from normal, really, since we really put a strong emphasis on visualizing what we're doing and how to make it work, including, when we really try, a subtle tactile understanding even though we're not making contact. It's been fun, and today, though not with Bradley, I got to give some of these things a go. I was pleasantly surprised again.

These techniques that today I was able to test/feel out for the first time on another person were surprisingly effective... much better than a lot of the half-forced drivel that I normally have to pass off as applications work. Things were smooth and effortless with a definite "one-two-three" feel to their balance going out from under them. The coordination was almost immediate on my part too. I was most happy to see it bouncing a 220-pound willing subject around a little with nearly the same, small amount of effort as it worked on the 115-pound other willing subject. The feedback that gave me made it more clear in which situations to apply those kinds of techniques as well as, in one case, the proper kind of stepping to use with it, and now I feel confident about drilling those moves ad nauseum, whereas before I wasn't entirely so sure.

For those of you that can do it, let me urge an active imagination. It serves as a brilliant proxy when a partner isn't around, and it's probably entirely necessary even when one is. In fact, it almost feels as if the partner is more of a "check" than a required part of the equation.

As for my tribute... it still continues, even though the intensive is winding down. Now it's a quest to get mighty as well as competent. Part of that involved taking a conditioning class last night, which was a pretty decent workout, though some of the exercises seemed to aggravate my hips. Once they're feeling better (hopefully in a matter of hours), I have a feeling that the saber and I are going to go have a few more rounds, even though I've got a pretty decent bruise on my right hand now (probably from the saber).