Dogwood Winter

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

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

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

Keeping it Up

Two days in a row now have given me workouts that, though shorter than expected, brought me to the point of complete fatigue. I'm turning with my saber, and I'm turning without it. I'm doing strikes and forms and standing, and I'm tossing in body-weight resistance and some light weight training with dumbbells for overall fitness and increased strength, I'm stretching deeply with integrated massage and patting, and I'm doing daoyin (for the first time in my life pain-free in my back, though it hurts a little again now that I'm sitting down and cooled off). In this way goes my tribute to the China intensive, which isn't so intense surely as what my friends in the East are getting.

I'm not sure I'm pleased with my circle at the moment. The wreckage wrought to it earlier in the year by a truck on wet earth has been repaired with a shovel and about fifty pounds of sand, but now it feels a little bit like the beach even after a couple of good hard rains and a fair amount of walking on it. It's not the same feel that it used to have, but I might be quasi-paving it in the process, which is kind of cool. I hope that a few dozen more miles on it will pat it down and bring back the good feeling I had with it last summer. It feels all strange and awkward now, and as often as not (mostly because of the mud but partly because of the feel), I find myself turning indoors or on pavement instead, when my dissertation life provides me time to turn properly at all. I miss the days of feeling like I cheated myself if I hit fewer than five hours on the circle in a week. Right now, and probably until I graduate, I am lucky to get a third of that, most of the time I'd have spent strengthening my body being replaced by sitting in a chair that may be slowly debilitating me instead. I look forward to them being on the horizon again. Maybe by then my circle will feel more normal again, and I won't be adding my current last exercise to my list any longer: sweeping up the sand when I come in the house (because I keep forgetting that it's still on/in/all over/part of/inextricably linked to my shoes, which I lazily only take off sometimes and only rarely when I'm tired, sweating, and wanting something to drink.

Tributing Still

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

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

The Tribute Continues

While I'm sure it pales in comparison to the Beijing intensive, I'm keeping my tribute going. I haven't missed a day (actually in a few weeks) where I didn't do something fun with my fake saber. I've also been much better about getting in some solid turning time (which has been more spotty than I'm used to due to my Ph.D. thesis and the variable weather of my adviser's mood on that matter). Top it off with a renewed dedication to drills, and I feel like I'm doing them some justice. Now all I have to do is decide to get up and start it all off at six in da mornin' to top it off (or train for something like twelve hours a day, which I don't think I can make happen so long as there's this jobby-job thing). Maybe I'll try 6:30 or something tomorrow. Sometimes you dive in; sometimes you put a toe in first.

So, my (half-dozen) readers around the globe, send salute and tribute to your YSB comrades that are either in Beijing or heading that way soon by upping your workouts until the end of the intensive. Feel free to comment and put some publication on what you're up to!

Integration

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

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

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

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

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

Been Meaning To

I've been meaning to post again, I really have. I just haven't had much time. I've been desperately trying to figure out what else to do for my dissertation (without hearing a peep from my adviser, which is making me nervous again) and therefore chasing wild tails that go nowhere but take a long time, doing tremendous side research because my wife's planning to have a surgery in May, and, of course, training. Thanks to a little "detox" tea (involving senna), I have time right now that I can't use for training, I figure I've researched up enough for my wife, and I just don't know what else to do for my dissertation. Thus, I'm finally posting.

Here are some of the posts I wanted to make but didn't:

• Turning With the Saber: After finally getting access to the saber basics dvd, I learned to do this properly. What a tale.

• Proxy Saber Under the Worm Moon: I went outside near midnight on the night of the full moon this month and turned in the bright, pale moonlight, carrying my proxy saber. Then I did some drills with it. Then I turned without it, but only for a few minutes. It was late.

• It's Not Cold Now, You Pussies: Now that spring is arriving, I was considering changing the small online ad for our study group to include this line based on the fact that our group has grown essentially none through the cold months, though some interest was expressed until people found out that we practice outside (even that one night when it was 12 degrees F out, which kind of sucked).

• No Sleep Till Saber: I'm feeling the itch and burn for the real saber I'll have in hand in about three weeks, after Bradley comes back from Chink-a-Chink-a-China. In the meantime, I'm burning up my proxy to prepare for the training I want to do that will do justice to the Silver Snake once I have it.

• Yijing: This would have been the exciting emotional rollercoaster that tells the tale of how I spent a long time compiling a nice list of how the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing might correspond with or lend theory to each of the forms in YSB, even though I'm totally ignorant of the vast majority of those. It was long, it was interesting, it might have been worth something (or not), and my computer ate it after I finished it. All was lost. There was almost crying, but I laughed and let it go instead. I might redo it piecewise (instead of all at once) in a more secure way.

If I gave a different title to today's post, it would have been along the lines of "Kicking it Up and Branching Out." Besides the increased practice with the proxy, loving some of the drills from the video (and hating others!), there's been a general increase in all things training. There has also been an increased emphasis on practicing three-strike drills with applicability and intent foremost in our minds, some of which are borrowed and some of which are o.g.'s (i.e. original), designed particularly to help our new guy (note: singular) develop with the Lion basics. That covers the "kicking it up" part.

The "branching out" is partly in reaction to the posted curriculum from Beijing and partly in reaction to something I read on our forum that indicates that a stronger feel and understanding for the Lion system comes from tasting the other animals a little. Since I have all the basic-drills videos now, the idea was to start learning some/all of the basic strikes from the Dragon, Phoenix, and Bear systems, though not making those a foremost part of our practice. I've only done so up until now with one palm in the Dragon and one palm in the Bear, but I have four palms total (2 Dragon and 1 from each other) that I want to look at this week. The new drills are making me sore in new ways and forcing me to think about emitting force differently, which is interesting. It's also already changing my approach and thought about the Lion System, which is rocking cool, though slight at this early hour.

Another post I might have done today might have been "The Fifty-Six." Bradley and I have decided that it's high-time that we sat down with the videos (figuratively sitting) and learned all 56 Lion System forms. At our peak, we knew roughly 30-35 of them, but we've forgotten most because we didn't know how to train them properly and didn't make time to practice all of them frequently enough (we often wonder how it is that one is able to do all of the training that we should as well as "maintain" 56 forms while drilling certain ones really hard to get good at them.. then we realized that there are certain forms that we'll probably never forget now and are getting better with.. realizing that what made that happen is intense drilling with intention and analysis). We've realized we can probably intensely drill two or three forms at a time, maybe per week, which should get us all fifty-six within a reasonable amount of time. We've also conjectured that we can speed this up and benefit more (win-win or two-for-one) by focusing on one attacking method at a time and working those, since in theory, at least, there should be some overlap.

That gives some idea of what's been going on and what will be going on. With luck, I'll have time to keep updates on here. With more luck, I'll graduate soon and no longer have the fear of a dissertation hanging over me and will have more time for all things good. In any case, Bradley leaves for China in less than a week, and so I'll have to figure out how to deal with my separation anxiety while he's gone. So ronery....

Saber Circuit

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

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

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

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

Bronchitis

Bronchitis sucks. Freakin' kids.

Thanks Berry

Last night was awesome. Scott Berry was making his way through from Michigan to Florida for some work-related fun-times, and he stopped by in Knoxville to treat Bradley and I to how much improvement our basics need. It was way good. Everything hurts vastly more than it did before (particularly the next morning). I also have a SUH-WEET new YSB hoodie (cf. Matt Bild modeling a sweet YSB hoodie on top of a mountain in Vermont holding a shiny DaDao).

Scott, or anyone else that does YSB, feel free to stop by and share your wisdom or borrow from ours (if you're newer to this than we are) any time you pass through Knoxville. Good times will be had by all, and I might bring more beer-infused peanut brittle.

Snow Circle, Mark 2

It snowed again today. I took advantage to make a better snow circle, since it snowed (read: still is) harder today than last time, making a nicer picture for my winter-themed bagua hijinks.


An observant person will notice a few things: first that this picture is taken from the opposite side as the previous snow circle since the gash made by the truck is on the right now. It's hard to see that gash, but I stepped on it and slipped about four times in the twelve minutes I turned (the slipping got old, and painful). The truck left a rut through part of my circle that makes a sudden, sharp drop of a few inches, which when wet (seeing as our "soil" is clay) is very slippery/dangerous. Cuidado! Circulo mojado! Further, the twelve minutes will likely be called into question because of the smatterings of snow all over the circle (particularly on the left). Lo, it was snowing (hard) when I turned, and in the two minutes it took to grab my camera, the snow did some damage to my muddy rut. Here, in fact, is exactly (I timed it) five minutes later:


Even the quite unobservant can see here the mark of the tire, most damaging in the upper right (northeast corner) of my circle. Some of the contour is also visible along the entire eastern edge. Awesome. As of now, it looks like I never stood on it, save for a red-orange-brown spot in the northeast corner where the wet earth keeps bleeding that staining mud up into the still-falling snow.

The crazy part is... it was almost 70 F here yesterday. The sad part is that it might stop us from being able to get together to train tonight....