Notes about sparring--a two-edged sword

Yin Style Baguazhang does not spar as a functional part of its training. Some folks might try to paint this as a black mark against the art, believing that "pressure testing" in the ring is the only way to make or prove a fighter, but this is incomplete thinking. I'd like to elaborate on the topic of sparring a little bit here, then, to give a more complete picture, one that illustrates sparring as a training method that has two edges that cut both ways.

Sam Harris weighs in on self-defense in an excellent article

I almost never do this. In fact, I don't think I've ever done this on this blog before, but this blog post by Sam Harris (of The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, all New York Times bestselling books, and being one of the so-called "four horsemen" of the New Atheist movement fame) is about practical self-defense. It is very good, and anyone interested in martial arts or self-defense owes it to himself to read it, as should their family members. Anyone stumbling upon this site looking for something to do with African cats should probably read it too.

Working, working out, and training -- Exercises aren't created equally

Since it seems that I've had a bajillion things to do around the yard this summer, mostly involving a fair amount of physical labor, I've had some time to reflect upon how working, meaning hard, physical labor, working out, as in the gym, and training are similar and yet different. As it is easy to get caught up in substituting labor or a workout for training, particularly since both make you feel like you've accomplished something physical and eat into your training time and energy, I thought it might be worth putting something down about some of the differences, at least in my understanding.

I just can't get into MMA but keep feeling like I should... wtf?

I feel like I should be into MMA (mixed martial arts). After all, I fit the demographics pretty well, and worse, I feel tremendous passive social pressure to be into it.

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.

The Best Martial Art

No question in the martial arts world is more likely to bring about a controversy than that of "Which martial art is the best?"

There are dozens of sites and forums floating around out on the internet, perhaps most popularly Bullshido.net (which isn't designed exactly around the question but seems to center on it), begging the question and fighting about the responses, often presenting this argument or that for or against whatever martial art they feel like talking about, defending, or decrying. Often these arguments get quite heated, becoming flame wars and escalating to the point of trying to call out practitioners for a head-to-head battle to determine which art is really supreme.

Of course, this same question has spurred several popular television shows coming out of every "learning" type cable channel in the world, for examples Fight Science, which used pseudo-scientific means to investigate the question, Human Weapon, which kind of approaches the question directly but in a high-glam-low-realism way, along with several others of the sort, all of which I'd grade as being "interesting" but only semi-educational and starkly unscientific about their approach to quantify or legitimize the question at hand.

It's possible as well that one of the most popular fighting movement in the world today (and probably the fastest growing movement in terms of popularity, passing boxing and kickboxing some time ago), the mixed martial arts (MMA) movement, got its start in the no-holds-barred arenas first widely popularized in the West by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). This, of course, is not a single martial art, but it seems to be the case that its original conception was to take fighters at the top of their games from different backgrounds and pit them against each other to see which fighters and styles reigned supreme. As is well-known, there are certain standouts: notably Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), but almost always in some kind of combination.

From what I've seen, this is how I think it works: essentially every style thinks that it is the best style, if not universally at least for some specific purpose. That makes sense, if it wasn't true, these styles would have died out long ago because people would have just pitched the study of them for better things. Furthermore, the question seems not to be one that can be answered because while all arts have the same overall goal, each hopes to achieve it in certain different ways that work better in some specific circumstances than others. Wing Chun (Wing Tsun), for instance, is pretty good for fighting in the tight, closed-in spaces that it was designed for, but in other circumstances, calling it "The Ultimate Art" seems a little inappropriate. BJJ is similar in that in some situations, it's pretty hard to argue with its effectiveness, but in others (on asphalt in a situation where your opponent might have a buddy or two lurking), it seems not to fit so well.

Incidentally, this "Ultimate Art" thing comes from a rather popular t-shirt that I see floating around a lot of BJJ programs that reads: "BJJ, the ultimate art," often with a picture of someone getting choked out or something alongside it. That claim seems a little too substantial, in my opinion, for anything. Still, I've heard similar statements (even from the top) about baguazhang and Yin Style Bagua in particular. Are they true? I think context has a lot to do with it.

Instead of delving into why I think one art or another is great or not so great, I would rather raise some questions for anyone interested in the pursuit of knowledge of this kind. Maybe these will spur discussion, and perhaps they'll just sit in people's minds.

First, what would qualify an art as the best?
Since there are many factors and goals to be considered within any art, this is difficult to address directly. Obviously, the ability to win fights against trained and untrained opponents should definitely be considered. Should the level of physical (or other) development of the body, mind, mind/body, qi, etc., be taken into account? Suppose, for instance, that there's an art that develops the body tremendously well but produces relatively poor fighters. How does that compare with an art that produces fantastic fighters whose bodies are fit only for wear, tear, and eventually destruction over time? There are too many goals and directions to be considered here to answer this clearly unless there is some art out there that is superior in most if not all of these regards: building the body (strength, flexibility, balance, movement, etc.), improving health, fostering longevity, developing the mind and internal systems, as well as obviously creating adept fighters. It seems scoring highly in all of these would be a requirement of any art contending that it is "the best."

Second, how do you measure?
The UFC and its likenesses present one method of measurement: take rather seasoned fighthers from a variety of backgrounds and let them beat on one another until we see who comes out on top. Of course, the modern UFC breaks this up by weight classes and includes a number of reasonable rules to make it more and more sporting (and so they can make more and more money off it). Is this a good measure of an art, though? At least in terms of ideals, we'd like to think of martial arts as giving the little, weak guy an edge over the big, strong guy... so weight classes aren't so good. Also, it seems that this approach measures the ability of the art to develop good sport-fighters, not the actual depth and effectiveness of the art itself. I know that BJJ guys can poke people in the eyes and add that kind of thing to their game, but this aspect of measurement does not take that into account in any realistic way.

Fight Science tried a different approach: quantifying various aspects of the art to see who can hit harder or faster, move more nimbly, or what have you. It didn't really do anything from the perspective of actually fighting one another, however, and it certainly didn't do what it did scienfically. For instance, the boxer, kickboxer, Tae Kwon Do, and karate guys on that show were all pretty big guys. The "kung fu" guy (practicing Shaolin) was comparatively tiny. I was kind of put off by the obvious discrepency when they tested punching strength (the boxer won, of course, and probably should/would have in a more scientific approach). The kicking strength evaluation was even more ridiculous since the folks threw different kicks, including the TKD guy running halfway across the room to throw his kick. This makes for cool tv, folks, but shitty science. More uniform conditions, larger samples, averages, and statistics would have said a lot more about things than that relatively influential show could hope to.

Third, when/who do you measure?
When should the effectiveness of an art be measured in terms of judging its practitioners? I often hear about a guy doing this art for six months beating up a guy that did that art for a year. So? This is no good for a few reasons: What if the one guy just sucked? What if the one guy trained less in that year than that other guy did in six months? What if [insert any of the dozen or so reasonable arguments the loser would contend makes it unfair]? On the other hand, should it be measured by comparing people at the very top of their arts? That seems equally not good: what if this guy is better than that guy regardless of which art they studied, i.e. if they had studied the same art with the same intensity, the one that won still would have won because he's just better. Again, this would require averages over large samples to have any real meaning, and the samples would all have to be standardized for effort, size, strength, training duration, and a host of other factors that can't really be standardized very well.

Honestly, most people that do something aren't really that good at what they do, and therefore those people probably aren't very representative of the art. On the other hand, it seems unreasonable to judge the matter only in terms of the outliers because they are, by definition, atypical and would likely excel in any art they worked at. Basically... I don't think this can be measured.

Fourth, who the hell cares?
This question of superiority in arts reminds me of the question of superiority in religion. It's maybe slightly more likely that you'll convert someone than from one faith to another, but in either case, it probably requires you to use force. If you like your art, I say train it. If you don't like your art, find a new one. If you feel like your art bottomed out on you, look for a deeper one or one that fits you better. If your art is too complicated or difficult for you, find something you can handle. We're all supposed to be doing martial arts because we like it, right? It's not like martial arts have a huge military meaning any longer (cf. the Boxer Rebellion), so do what you like to do.

Essentially, my opinion is that this question is kind of crap to begin with. Certainly there are some arts that do not offer practitioners as much as other arts would. Those arts might be considered worse than others, but even the content offering is difficult to quantify objectively making even this difficult to measure meaningfully. Certainly also, there are just exceptional people who can do exceptional things even with a crap art, so almost any martial art, save perhaps totally made-up ones (what I like to call Redneck Ryus), could potentially create good or even great fighters.

From what I've experienced, for those interested, Yin Style Baguazhang seems incredibly thorough and complete. It seems to contain a startlingly deep amount of potential development in every arena I can think of that a martial artist would possibly be interested in: physical development, skills development, health building, fighting ability, self-defense quality, training diversity, internal growth, mental challenge, physical demand, etc., combined with a high degree of realistic practicality to its methods and theory. It is deep and complete with nothing seeming to be lacking. That much is true. Would I expect most of its practitioners to be able to go win a fight against people that train other stuff? Not really... but I wouldn't expect that out of any art.

Will I say it's the best? I'm unqualified to and therefore loathe to say anything is objectively the best, but He Jinbao will happily say it is. Of course, he's the boss of the style, so he really should be saying that: it's his, for the time being, and he is it, in some sense, as he is its true representative in the world right now. I agree in that it offers, in some respects, far more than many other arts do. From what I've gathered, its reputation in China supports his claim as well, but reputations are hardly an objective basis.

For me, what's most important is that I like it and feel that I get a tremendous amount out of training it. If that doesn't earn it some points where they matter: for me, then nothing really does.

Belts and the Martial Arts

Since Yin Style Baguazhang is such a tight niche within the martial arts, as I've mentioned before, I'm going to try to expand the audience of this blog by posting topics on occasion that relate both to Yin Style and to other martial arts. Nearly ubiquitous in the martial arts are belts, usually of varying colors to indicate level, or some equivalent: I've seen colored shirts, pants, uniforms, sashes (which I consider belts), and necklaces all to the same function, and I'm sure there are even more variations on the theme. For the purposes here, all of these "equivalent" indicators will be considered in the same pile and referenced as being "belts" and will mean "rank-distinguishing belts." Now for the particularly interesting bit that makes this post worth making: belts are "nearly ubiquitous" in the martial arts world... but in Yin Style Baguazhang, they are not used at all. I'd like to discuss some of my thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages surrounding belts since I've spent considerable time and made considerable observations on both sides of this fence.

A quick history, if my information is correct, on this practice is that thin cords of various colors were worn in Japan by swimmers to help distinguish them at some point in that sport's history, and this practice was observed by Kanō Jigorō, the founder of Judo, and observed to have merit for ranking students, since the judo gi required a belt to hold it properly closed as it was. The practice then spread to other martial arts, and then all kinds of ridiculous legends about where the colors came from arose, such as the following: "In the beginning, everyone's belt was white, and then it yellowed with sweat over time and got grungy. Due to being thrown in the grass repetetively, it took on green hues, and then eventually grime built up until it was mostly brown from dirt, grass stain, and sweat. Eventually, the stains were so substantial that the belt appeared black, and hence a black belt meant someone who was accomplished." This story, given the meticulous clenliness of the Japanese alone, is absolutely fantastic. Belts could be washed and surely were, and the amount of rotting and degredation to fabric for it to turn black from that kind of soiling would have caused diseases that just didn't happen. Furthermore, why are students only thrown in grass at first, preventing dirt stains on their belts from arising until it's so grass-stained that it is largely green? If you throw someone down a bunch of times in one spot, the grass dies and there's dirt, usually before there are all that many grass stains. Honestly, I can't believe this kind of thing has been spread through time, continues to be spread (obviously without actually thinking about it), and (worst of all) was something I actually believed made sense when I heard it the first time.

Advantages of Belt-Ranking Systems
Ranking markers have a few distinct advantages, some of which are objective and some of which are subjective, or, rather, cultural. For the purposes of the ensuing discussion, unless otherwise noted, assume that the belt-ranking system is ideal and genuinely meaningful in an objective way. Points about how it is, in practice, sub-ideal will be discussed primarily in the "disadvantages" section below.

1. Objective Advantage: A ranking marker like a belt has the distinct advantage of indicating hierarchy within the system in a clear way, which is useful for instructors to keep tabs on the general level of the group and of individuals without requiring extensive observation. It provides a level of expectation and allows a level of assumption that facilitate the process of instruction. It also gives a clear indication to lower-level students on which people from which they should be able to expect to gain valuable insight.
2. Objective Advantage: The belt-ranking system is a clear and effective external/extrinsic motivator. Students are likely to be able to identify with and find value in the promotion from one belt to the next. Sometimes, a little extra motivation is very helpful in getting a body out there and training. The method, for the beginners of an art at least, has a strong effect in both short-term and long-term goal setting. These situations, of course, have their downsides, discussed below.
3. Subjective Advantage: Students are likely to take pride in and elevate themselves to a perceived level of practice indicative of the rank they hold or belt they wear, particularly in the lower/initial phases of training.
4. Cultural Advantage: Prospective students and even students themselves place cultural value in the symbol indicated by the ranking belt. In what I've seen, belts and sashes are held in largely equal esteem culturally, since they are, in fact, essentially the same thing (belts carry the idea that they are for holding your pants up, but martial arts belts are no good for that purpose and are indeed used more appropriately as a "sash" to hold closed a kimono or gi, a typical traning uniform in Japanese-derived martial arts). It's often enough easy for the students to make the "leap" from belts to colored shirts or pants or even necklaces, and so there is a perception of value in any ranking system that lends credibility to the art and its instructor, since there is a perception of some objectivity in the promoting of students to various ranks (although no such objectivity truly exists in any meaningful way across the board). A high-ranking belt held by an instructor is therefore, objectively, a valuable marketing tool.
5. Cultural Advantage: Particularly prospective students, but indeed many students of the martial arts in the West, at least, associate belts with a "real" martial arts program. The concept of "black belt" is so deeply ingrained in the iconography of West that literally a program without belts, or some equivalent, is often deemed to be a charlatain operation -- a real and present challenge for recruiting to Yin Style Bagua study groups since we do not wear or use belts or any equivalents, at least not to my knowledge and certainly not officially. It is possible that the growing attention to MMA (mixed martial arts) which seems to discard this line of thinking may change that perception, but as there are also no rings, octagons, widespread media outlets, or multi-million-dollar cash purses for training YSB, I doubt we'll see much positive effect from the MMA-loving community. Time may change that, but we shall have to see about that... in time.

That pretty much ends my list of advantages, unless we want to talk about advantages to school owners/operators, which I've only barely mentioned above. Those advantages look like this, details sparing:

• Marketing, as mentioned above;
• Selling belts (or equivalents), typically at a steep profit;
• Belt testing (or equivalents), typically with steep testing/promotion fees, i.e. profit;
• Student retention, via goal-setting, though this usually eventually backfires;
• Marketing again, in a more insidious but increasingly popular way: Many schools now offer an all-inclusive, pay upfront deal "this much (usually thousands upon thousands of dollars) money now and all of your lessons until you earn x belt/rank (usually black) are paid for in advance, good for your whole life or until you achieve said rank." This is particularly insidious because only about 0.01 (one in a hundred) students make it from beginner to black belt even in a fairly watered-down program and would usually have therefore paid less to have tried it until they didn't like it, quit, and then paid out the remaining of their training contracts (another typical vestage of martial arts schools in the West). This kind of program is obviously manufactured to the owner's advantage or else it wouldn't exist, particularly because it starts to give off a strongly rotten stink of "buying a (black) belt," see below for more.

Disadvantages:
The disadvantages of belt-ranking systems in the martial arts world are probably more substantive than the advantages, although from a martial-arts-as-a-business perspective, I don't believe they're genuinely outweighed.

1. The belts are arbitrary: This is pretty clearly true to anyone that doesn't buy into them, and more strangely seems to be held simultaneously true and false by everyone that wears a belt for long enough in many of the martial arts programs I've seen. "The belt doesn't matter," people say. "It's what you know that counts, and you still know it when you take off your belt." Right. Then why are you holding it when you walk around and demanding people call you by your rank-given title? Why do you put stripes on it? Why do you care what color it is? One problem with this situation is that eventually people either realize this fact and lose some faith in the belt system and are kind of forced to believe in double-speak or they never realize it and live a proud, empty life centered on their rank and title (see below for more). Another problem is that the entire system, because there isn't an infinitely large rainbow and because there isn't an infinitely long belt, is that this system is inherently limited. That puts a "finish line" on the process for many people, and for most, that finish line is "black belt." Look at the attrition rate of almost any commercial martial arts school's black-belt level students compared with its rate among students that clear the first half of the "under black belt" ranks. I'm pretty sure more people quit within a few months of earning black belt than otherwise. That seems a bit disturbing and is obviously centered on the belt-awarding system itself: "I achieved this goal, so now I'm done with this." What an empty practice.
2. Ego and pride: I've met an awful lot of people that believe they're very important or, in some cases, some of the best martial artists in a town, state, region, country, or the world based on the fact that they wear a particular belt and umpteen-three people signed a certificate saying that they deserved to wear that belt. Many of them might deserve some recognition for what they've done, but as often as not it seems to grant more self-importance than anything else. It certainly doesn't grant martial skill, even in the case where it's warranted, and in fact seems, often enough, to grant just the opposite in a way (see the next point).
3. Sense of having accomplished: Possessing a sense of accomplishment about one's training is very important, I think, and valuable to the continuity of it. This, in fact, is one of the advantages of a belt-ranking system. This disadvantage, which is different -- a sense of having accomplished, which is in the pluperfect (past perfect) tense, is very common, as I've seen it. I've even been guilty of it. It can be summed up by the following attitude: "I am a Glory Belt; I have accomplished; I no longer have to accomplish," although the last part of that attitude is only actually expressed in regards to things like doing basic exercises and whatnot. For myself, after earning a black belt in karate, I essentially stopped the practice of stretching all together and lost a huge proportion of my once rather impressive and quite valuable flexibility. I figured that warm-ups and stretching were optional for black belts, and so I didn't really need to do them any longer. I had arrived, if you will. The prevalence of "coffee dans," as they're somtimes called (dan means black-belt-level ranks in the world of Japanese-based martial arts, usually with an ordinal number given before it to indicate rank and can be taken to mean "__-degree black belt," where the __ indicates the ordinal, like third) is pretty high. I'd guess more folks with 3rd degree black belts and higher don't do as much working out/training as they do talking and "instructing," as compared with how many do train regularly and honestly, and even fewer still work hard on basic developmental exercises. While that's a subjective proportion, I think I'm probably qualified in making that guess from my observations and experiences. I've also noticed that as the ordinal increases, particularly past "fifth," the amount of doing seems to decrease proportionally, though this is not a universal situation. In my opinion, though, higher rank should indicate more work, not less, but it usually goes the other way.
4. Extrinsic motivation: The motivation conferred by belt systems, because they are ultimately arbitrary and actually rather empty of meaning, is entirely extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation can only take you so far, particularly in a system where faith is lost in the motivator as time passes because of its obvious arbitrarity.
5. Non-objectivity: There is no, and really can be no, universal board that indicates meaningfully what the level of black belt means. It varies widely from style to style, system to system, and school to school within any given system. Of course, these requirements are typically a huge source of pride for people at each school, usually all of whom believe their belt requirements are the best, most comprehensive, most meaningful, etc. That means that one of the main values of a belt-ranking system is only valid in the microcosm: the tiny world within a particular martial arts school, occasionally a larger martial arts system of schools, or a necessarily rather small organization of similar martial arts schools. The rectification of this issue is a nearly impossible goal to realize, even on the small scale, because as everyone knows, the more rules, regulations, and beaurocracy that enter into any system, the more sluggish and ineffective it becomes. Furthermore, people in terms of both students and instructors are different people with different opinions on what is passing quality and what isn't, on what is important and worth ignoring, and so on. The only way to really make objectivity work is to have a central testing board with well-written, clear, objective proficiencies that must be obtained, and that is strongly limiting in terms of how large such an organization can hope to become. It also turns the higher-level practitioners into administrators instead of active participants in the art. They just can't possibly have time for both. That's going to lead to a degredation of the objective quality over time all by itself. Subjectivity is the rule in this regard, but it further renders the ranking system meaningless.
6. Money talks: It's commonly said and largely true: if a school is commercial and wishes to retain its students, eventually rank promotion has to occur. That means eventually, almost without regard to proficiency so long as some very basic requirements can be satisfied, people move forward if they've played for long enough, unless the instructor is so high in his/her standards that (s)he is willing to sacrifice his/her own business to adhere to principles. In this world, most people can't afford that kind of austerity, and those that can frequently aren't willing to. That further degrades the objectivity of rank in a deeper and more meaningful way than from school-to-school: it really means that a belt rank is meaningful only in context to the individual. This, of course, is the only real measure of performance that actually matters, and so this could be a good thing hidden within a bad one except that the rank is still billed, particularly within the school, as being substantive in an objective sense. Students aren't universally sheep and can see this kind of thing, which makes it clear that there is some level of double-speak even within the confines of a particular school. Of coruse, the ability (or perceived ability) to "buy a belt" at "McDojo" is perhaps one of the biggest injuries to the spread and growth of martial arts that's out there, turning off perhaps the most valuable sector of the population from training -- those that think training should be about getting good at something, not just about getting, earning, or wearing a belt (or equivalent).

To as well as I can think of them, that's a rather inclusive list of advantages and disadvantages of belt-ranking systems in the martial arts, according to what I've seen and experienced. As mentioned, it's difficult for YSB groups to grow without them, but with all told, I don't grudge their absence in the lesat. I'd love to hear some commentary about this topic, including especially points that I might have missed on either side of the fence.

Yin Yoga -- Fix It If It's Broken

This post is about supplementing your Yin Style (or any martial arts) practice with a form of yoga called Yin Yoga. Yeah, yeah, I know... supplemental practices! Yeah, yeah, I know... I've mentioned this before! The thing is that this particular branch of yoga is really helpful for putting you back together after hard training, particularly when your joints are aching and sore or if you have any kind of chronic pain. The practices are primarily suited for the lower body, probably from the ribs down -- particularly in the hips and lower back, and they're really, really helpful (though difficult to do because they're so easy and somewhat uncomfortable) for helping fix tension in those areas. I'm a big fan of the practice... I just wish I could find/make time (will?) to do more of it.

Here's the basic rundown of Yin Yoga if you've never heard of it. First of all, this "Yin" is Yin like Yin and Yang, not like Yin Fu. The basic idea is that a few carefully chosen poses are selected, primarily for their ability to affect connective tissue in the "yin areas" of the body, practiced according to three basic rules (that need attention to prevent injury), and are held for what seem to be ridiculously dangerous amounts of time. The theory is that this gives the body time to stop resisting the stretches and allows the connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, fascia, dura, etc) to be directly affected. Furthermore, the theory is that the qi meridian systems of the body are also directly affected (removing blockages and stimulating flow, for instances).

The rules are simple enough:

1. Find your appropriate position, which means making sure that you've chosen yin-suitable postures, that you've entered into them correctly, and that you've appropriately found "your edge," discussed briefly below, and not exceeded that;
2. Breathe deeply and relax, focusing the attention inward to the tissues being affected;
3. Wait.

"Your edge" in Yin Yoga means finding the place in the posture for which your body starts to feel some affect but is not being taxed. There are particular cues that you can read up on or become educated on (if you take a class in it... good idea if you've never done it or don't have a helper) that will tell you if you've gone too far in most poses. The best rule of thumb, though, is to remember that it's "YIN" Yoga, and therefore the proper position is usually where your body will go without having to put in any extra effort. That means you don't pull yourself into poses, you let yourself fall into them (Yin... check). Gravity (Yin) is the main operator once you're in position. You should be mostly "comfortable" in these poses (though I wouldn't describe it that way), apparently.

"Wait" in Yin Yoga means that you hold the pose until the natural resistances of the body and mind stop. That means that you're going to be there for a while, maybe two or three minutes, maybe twenty in a more advanced practice (I've never exceeded about six, actually, but I'm not serious). It also means that in a class or a single practice session, you can't expect to do too much and should probably plan out what you intend to do with specific goals in mind ahead of time. The natural resistances of the body are some forms of tension or discomfort that the body will relax through. Those of the mind are boredom, thinking it's futile or stupid, a wandering mind (off the given task and affected tissue), and that sort of thing. Pushing through these boundaries has to be done with some caution, though! Specifically, you want to learn to distinguish between a tension that you can let go of and a signal (or cry!) from your body to let go and back off. Your body's signals have to be respected here or injuries will result, but at the same time the resisting tension in the body has to be perservered through, so some listening skill (to your own body now) has to be present to do this practice safely and well.

How can it enhance Yin Style practice (or any other martial art, for that matter)? It first of all helps cure chronic stiffness and pain and seems to naturally stimulate the flow of blood and qi in the body, removing blockages and the like. It should also increase flexibility, mental focus, internal awareness, and meditative capacity while serving as a form of meditation in and of itself. It can help you learn about your body and get to know it. It can put you back together when training makes you sore or gives you lasting muscular or connective-tissue-based injuries. As long as it's done safely, the only danger I see in this practice compromising progress in a martial art is the amount of time it takes, though it's very easy to train this right before bed and greatly enhance the quality of sleep that you get.

For those of you that follow what I say about trigger points or know about them on your own merits, I'm starting to suspect after taking a Yin Yoga class today with my wife that practicing the stretches in this style of yoga might work to deactivate trigger points in perhaps a heretofore uninvestigated way. Stretching, it's well known, can cause trigger points to get worse, not better, and frequently does just that. Spray and stretch, however, is a technique to treat trigger points that uses stretching (after an administering of cold to the area) that has a good deal of efficacy. I strongly suspect that yin yoga, given the time frames in which the poses are held can have a similar effect on trigger points and the muscles that contain them (if done safely in a responsible, intelligent manner that honors and respects the body doing them!). I don't know, but if I ever go into that line of work, I will probably make it one of my research tasks to find out. Maybe I'll even get a second Ph.D.... (yeah right... those SUCK to get).

You might consider it, anyway. The website linked to above, I'm told, is one of the best, containing much of the information of the book Yinsights, which is probably the best book on the subject. I'm going to keep at it; that's for sure.

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

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

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

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?

Thesis Adviser

Last night I dreamed that I was having to walk the circle to please the whims of my thesis adviser (whom I think is angry with me constantly now), though he has nothing to do with bagua whatsoever. The catch was that I had to do it in a field full of tall grass, barefoot, and in the middle of the night (1:27 am, actually), i.e. in the dark. He had set it up intentionally that I'd run into a fence after a few go-arounds (?) even though the guy he watched before me had no such obstacle (and is a semi-nutter I knew in college that also has nothing to do with bagua or with my thesis adviser or even the school I'm attending for grad school). Then he yelled at me for running into the fence he put there. He also sternly bade me to wash my feet before and after doing it and sent me to this huge, elaborate fountain (conveniently located right by this otherwise desolate field) to do so.

I have no freaking idea. None.

Plantar Fascia

The bottoms of my feet are rejoicing, after much swallowing of the bitter. I hope it translates into improved training. Time (and having time) will tell.

Due to my persistent low-back pain/problem, I've sought a variety of treatment options and modalities and have found the largest degree of success so far with trigger-point release and patient yoga type stretches. Combining the two did more, it seems, in two or three weeks than anything I've tried in years. Since starting this trigger point adventure and getting more keenly aware of what one is and feels like, particularly when it releases, I decided to re-re-re-restart my quest to release my plantar fascia (connective tissue in the bottoms of my feet). For the endeavor, I enlisted a trusty sidekick, and I've used it as one of my excuses to get out of my chair (my prison: see any post where I talk about my dissertation) and get the blood flowing properly through my body. My sidekick is a golf ball. I stand on it. It hurts.. a lot.

I've done this every day in a row now for seven, save one day of rest because I went too deep (in the wrong place) and awoke a demon (like Tolkien's Dwarves, though the Balrog here is a mildly bruised heel). Otherwise, it's been a delightful (read: very awful but worthwhile) experience. My feet feel amazing, and I feel generally lighter and freer of movement. Whether due to the stretching, the other trigger point therapy, the greater mindfulness of the amount of time I spend in this chair, or just the feet (most likely some combination of all of those things), my back is slowly starting to give up on its seemingly unrelenting quest to ruin my life. It's by no means fixed, but it's much less broken. Most noticeably, I can almost stand on one foot on a golf ball on one of my feet (the other is tighter and has more work to be done still) without it being unbearable. That would have been unthinkable a week ago. The pain was in-tense.

There's a really neat secondary effect with the method I'm employing: heat. My feet get hot and give off heat like little radiators while doing the treatment and for some time afterwards. It's a very potent sensation that I'm sure is caused by "enhanced circulation" but I'm chalking straight up to qi. It's most pleasant, and my feet have this well-massaged feel for quite a while after the treatment. So here's what I do. Be warned, it takes 10-20 minutes to do the whole thing, but it's SOOOO worth it.

Step 1) Get a golf ball (or tennis ball if you want to start out lightly) and get ready to swallow bitter, probably a substantial amount. Put the ball on something relatively soft (a rug or carpet is ideal, a spongy mat like a yoga mat works too but makes the experience a bit more intense).
Step 2) Start just behind the ball of your foot in line with the split between your big toe and second toe and sink your weight slowly down onto the ball (it's nice to have a chair to lean on). Feel what there is to feel. Put enough weight down to make it quite uncomfortable but not completely awful. Stay still and wait until that spot isn't so awful (20 seconds to 2 minutes, probably). It will probably still be bad, but that's okay.
Step 3) Roll the ball a little bit toward your heel with some pressure on it, trying to follow the tendons of the feet (looking these up in an anatomy book or online is helpful). Stop and repeat the pressure above about every half inch or any time you feel any particularly bad sensation like more intense pain, a resisting knot in the tissue, little electrical crackling feelings (that kind of hurt and feel hot). Proceed until you get close to the beginning of your heel. Spend more time there like at the ball because it's an attachment area.
Step 4) Go back to the ball of your foot, this time nearer the middle (near Kd-1, for you acu-buffs). Repeat, spending time on purpose at Kd-1 (you should know it when you feel it, in the hollow just behind the ball of your foot near the middle). Go all the way down toward your heel, pausing just like before as needed and near the attachment area.
Step 5) Go back to the ball of your foot, this time nearer the outer edge but not all the way out. Repeat all the way down toward your heel, coming in a bit toward the center as you go. Just like before. Good times. Your foot will probably be quite hot by this time. I find focusing on enjoying the heat takes my mind off the pain/discomfort.
Step 6) I know there's another band of fascia in the bottom of the foot; skip it for now. Repeat the WHOLE process on the other foot and let the one you just worked rest a bit.
Step 7) Go back to the first foot and work the shorter band of fascia on the midfoot (more toward the back) on the outside edge. Give it the same attention as the main part of the foot.
Step 8) Do the same to the other foot.
Step 9) Go back to the first foot and slowly roll the ball the other way, starting near the heel and going toward the toes, stopping at knots. You'll find knots that you didn't find the first time because of the change in direction. Enjoy them. Do the outer tendon too, if you like.
Step 10) Do the same to the other foot.
Step 11) Pause and analyze: which direction seemed to benefit me more? Focus on that direction in the future (do it first and spend longer on it).
Step 12) Sit on your knees with your toes dorsiflexed (bent up toward your head, so they're on the floor and the balls of your feet are trying to get there). Sit back on your heels with as much pressure as is comfortable and deep-stretch your feet. This is important and valuable to do, though it's not fun. It's more important, I'd say, than going both ways on the tendons with the ball. Hold this stretch for as long as you can (it can be BAD, esp. at first), aiming within a few sessions for a minimum of 1 minute but preferably closer to 2 or 3.
Step 13) [I haven't tried this but it's apparently awesome. I'll try it soon and report.] Plunge your feet into cold water (icy, if you can take it) for 30 seconds or a minute. Towel off.
Step 14) Do it again tomorrow, every day until it's not awful to do it in any particular spot. As you get better and better, with time, you can do it more quickly and focus only on the tighter spots. Chances are, unless you do this kind of thing anyway, your feet are probably almost 100% trouble spots. If they're WAY sore, take a day off of everything but the stretch, maybe rubbing them firmly with your hands instead of the ball of terror. Be careful not to bruise yourself by going too deep too soon (use your chair!).
Step 15) Get to where doing this once a week, then once a month/as needed, is more than enough to manage your good foot health. Awesome. I'm not there yet.

The plantar fascia connects, one tissue to another, through the heels to the Achilles tendon, up the calves, behind the knees, up the hamstrings, through the butt and the back side of the pelvis, across the tissues that stabilize the sacrum and lumbar spine, up the spine, across the occipital, over the crown, and to the muscles that lift your nose when you crinkle it up. That's a lot of connection, and all of it benefits from treating problems in the root (which affect bit by bit everything above with every step you take). I understand that this process can help tremendously with chronic headaches, but I don't have them, so I don't know.

I also like to add hamstring stretches when I get done with my feet, seeing as that's close-kin kind of tissue. It's an interesting experiment, by the bye, to "release" one foot and then stretch before releasing the other. There's a definite difference. Oh that reminds me: this is deep, hard therapy, so it's critical that whatever you decide to do to one foot, you should do to the other to prevent imbalances from coming up (in flexibility and usage) that could make for some nasty problems if you're lazy. Drinking a lot of water afterwards seems to help too. Some people say it releases toxins trapped in that tissue, and the extra water helps flush it.

Happy standing on a ball to you!

PS: In other health-related news, I'm going to be starting my kombucha-brewing adventure within days. I've been wanting to for a few years, and now it's go-time. I really recommend the stuff.

Growing into TKD

I was at a meeting for work yesterday and I ended up in a conversation with a fellow in his mid-50's that was explaining to me, for whatever reason, the virtues of staying active as we age. He indicated to me that he still runs regularly, hikes and backpacks with a heavy pack somewhat infrequently, and practices martial arts. That piqued my interests, but I didn't really ask anything about the martial arts initially because he was on a bit of a roll there on his soapbox of staying fit. Eventually, he got to the part where he encouraged me, which I knew was coming sooner or later, and he told me that based on my build, in his estimation, as I got older, I might find similar interests and enlightenment, and "who knows, I might even be drawn to the martial arts, like taekwondo," which is apparently "a good one" and what he practices.

I didn't say anything about it except that I thought it was neat that he did martial arts and that it was extra impressive at his age. He went on about it a couple of more times before the meeting commenced and our conversation died. I still didn't say anything about it, choosing to divert the conversation by focusing on his running instead. I guess, though, I have the good fortune of looking forward to growing into a phase in my life when taekwondo will be what I'm after.

In the meantime, I'll be practicing my YSB. This week's project, at least for the first half, will largely be the blocking strikes of the Lion System. Coming up with combination drills with them is quite a bit different in some ways than it was for the other striking methods. I figure that's part of their nature, though. Here's to exploring (in what time I have since my thesis advisor reinstalled "The Fear" deeply into me)!

Changes

So since admitting to myself a recipe for healing and following it rather determinedly, though not flawlessly, and since implementing even more information about dealing with the lumbar spine and hips, things have been coming along. I'm better than usual, although things are still different, still feeling "stuck," but they aren't holding my training back in any case -- not nearly as much as my dissertation and family-in-for-the-holidays are.

Training is changing too, mostly with the weather. In the past few weeks, we've trained together out in temperatures well below freezing, in sleet, in snow, in the frustration of people not able to meet up with us, and in the excitement of new folks joining our ranks. I'm convinced that training outside is an amazing thing for the body, as I used to loathe being outside this time of year, claiming that I was more of a warm-weather kind of person, but now I find it entirely bearable to endure being outdoors for long periods, if at least mostly properly dressed, and over short periods, I hardly notice that it's cold except in my fingers. A similar turnaround happened for me two summers ago when training outside every day all summer long -- despite loving warm weather, eventually it would be hot enough and humid enough for me to write off on being outside. That situation is no more. I think it's important to live this way too because it just feels all unnatural to remember how sensitive to heat and cold I used to be and how strongly I rejected those natural phenomena.

More specifically, within my training, I've decided I need to learn to root better. I'm moving fairly well, my agility and strength are increasing, my understanding and application of the techniques is seeming to get slowly better, and if I had to isolate a single aspect that is holding me back most in applying the techniques, I would have to guess that it is in my rather limited ability to root myself. When experimenting with strikes the other night with a partner, I noticed that he was able to apply a sudden pushing force to me that would cause me to step back several steps. When I'd repeat the experiment on him, he'd step back one or two, but so would I. I established clearly through that experiment that my root is still too high, or it's not set, or some other terminology that means that I can't root myself well. Since in VT this year I heard the admonition "get heavy" about 1100 times and since throughout my entire martial arts life (extending back well before baguazhang) I've had a problem with achieving proper and heavy base (as my BJJ friends have happily exploited for years), I think I've been in denial of the fact that I never properly developed this particular skill.

When I stand calmly, say before turning or standing practice or just during qigong or while trying to relax, I can palpably feel "sinking qi" flowing like a wave down my body, almost from head to feet and sometimes below. I think that's what I'm looking for, but I believe I need it in a more dynamic sense. When I turn, I can get and stay low, but I'm now thinking there is more to sinking the qi properly, particularly while turning, than just getting and staying low in my stance. When I strike, I sometimes feel fairly rooted, particularly during static striking, but when adding stepping, I only feel somewhat rooted. I think I should be rooting into my legs at the conclusion of every step, every strike, every shift of the weight, and indeed, every movement -- not staying permanently rooted but rather being able to deeply root in an instant, by choice or automatically through disciplined training.

The thing is... how do I get where I need to go? I may apply a technique I use when teaching that is perfectly obviously the way to solve essentially any problem. If I'm given instructions to
get somewhere specific, even if all I have is the name of that place and some details about its location, then my first step is to procure a map. In training, the map is laid out by the requirements and the methodologies of the art, so I have a map, even if it's rather incomplete. Secondly, I have to figure out both where I'm going (which I laid out above) as well as where I am (which I also discussed above). In my case, I believe I might need more details on both of those facets before continuing. Once that is all in hand, so to speak, it's merely a matter of using the map to chart a course (training regimen) that is designed to get me from where I am to where I want to go. To summarize the method: Consider a reasonable representation of the situation (Map); identify where you are/what you have (You Are Here); identify what/where you need to get/be (Goal); draw course (Plan); follow it (Follow-through). As it's always a good idea to seek difficulties and pitfalls ahead of time whenever possible, I'll take a moment to note the largest of them in this particular case. Here, a main difficulty is that many of the roads that exist are not on the map, and since they're not physical roads, I may or may not be able to see them, much less where they go, as I come near them. It is always a good idea to reflect at the end to decide if you're really done getting where you wanted to get and to consider whether or not the path you took was the best one, but I have to walk the road before I can do that.

Interesting Reaction

I was at the university yesterday and ended up in a chance encounter with a Chinese colleague in which the topics of learning Chinese and traveling to China came up. I admitted to him that I strongly want to visit China and that next April would probably be one of my best chances for a while unless I get into a different line of work entirely because I always have to teach without the opportunity to take a couple or three weeks off in April. He asked, of course, what university I wanted to travel to in which city in China with the recommendation that if I had a sufficient *mathematical* reason, I could probably get leave from the department to do it. I told him I wanted to go to Beijing, but that there was no university I intended to visit and no mathematical collaboration would be on the agenda. That made him ask what would make me want to go to China, then.

I told him that I train in baguazhang, and his reaction was surprising. He stopped, almost about to say something but cutting himself off, and stood there for a moment. Then he said, "baguazhang?!" and wrote the three Chinese characters for it on the chalkboard next to us. I nodded, indicating that was exactly what I had meant, and he paused again before adding two exclamation points (!!) after his characters and saying, "Ohh... that's good martial arts." Though not exactly the same, the flavor of the exchange was similar to how I think I would probably have reacted to find out that some dude I was chatting with happened to play previously in the NFL, being that I don't really give a crap about football but can really appreciate what that means. I was pretty surprised to see his reaction.

Incidentally, I just found out from work that my 2009 China hopes are not to come to fruition. I've been scheduled, with an approved teaching overload, to teach this coming spring as "my skills and experience shouldn't be wasted." Ah, well, at least I'm appreciated. In any case, there won't be taking two or more weeks off this spring.