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.

Month of Thunderstorms

Not that I have the power, but I dub the month-long period from roughly May 15 through June 15 in this part of the world the Month of Thunderstorms.

Every time I get a chance to do some rocking outdoor training, it seems a thunderstorm rolls in. This has been going on for about two weeks now, sometimes more than once per day. The weather reports are, of course, no use for planning because the nature of this part of the world at this time of year is that it generates massive numbers of isolated thunderstorms that seem to come up out of nowhere and that are incredibly dense across the landscape. Right now, in fact, yet another of these exciting little events (weather.com indicates a 10% chance of rain for this afternoon) chased me indoors right as I finished doing some chores and got myself ready to train. Sigh. I'll take it as a sign that I should be focusing more on strengthening postures for the time being. It's not that I particularly mind training in the rain. I don't really get into training in heavy rain, however, and under lightning or in crazy wind is right out. Since my dissertation stole my yi on training standing postures, though, I'll be thankful for what I have (though I was really looking forward to some turning).

Tenacity

"I'm not the smartest or naturally the best, but I have the best heart. That's how I got to where I am." -He Jinbao

That's what Jinbao said to the group after he wondered aloud if I was smart enough for this art a few years ago in the dawn of my training. Later, he told me that I "have a lot of things messed up, but my heart is good," which, looking back at it now, seems like a decent complement. I'm taking that way regardless.

This art is hard. My learning curve for physical things, in my estimation, is rather steep (in the meaning that it requires quite a bit of investment on my part to get anywhere). This is something I've lived in my years of studying karate and seems to apply even more strongly to baguazhang. Putting those things together makes this art a particular challenge for me to excel at, but I want to live by the words that Jinbao said a few years ago, probably trying to soften the blow that could have been taken as quite rude. I want to make sure that I keep my heart, my drive, my yi, if you will, the best it can be. I'm not the strongest. I'm not the fastest. I'm not the most nimble or flexible. As I was reminded the other day, though, I do have a lot of tenacity, and I intend to keep it that way.

That means getting up and doing drills a lot, and it means focusing on the intended outcome despite the fact that the drill is more difficult that way. That, in fact, has been my biggest challenge over the last few weeks: making sure I'm concentrating on quality output slows me down to the point where I wouldn't be keeping up with the cadence of a group training session. On the other hand, speeding the drill up to executable speed often causes it to become mechanical and empty. Thus, I have to stay at it and not be discouraged. Then, even when I'm sore and tired and ready for something else (like a mojito), I make time to stand and turn. I don't stand for as long as I should, I'm sure, and I rarely turn as often or for as long as I intend, but I'm trying hard to keep up with life and with my intention to train as fully as is possible.

Recently I've started to put more intention into my training, as I indicated, in all aspects. I want my turning to contain the spirit of fighting. I want my standing to contain the actions and goals of the entire system as well as the palms I'm training. I want my drills to be active and alive and vividly effective in my mind's eye. I want my applications to extend from those so that I get a good result from them with a minimum of required effort. I want my saber practice to be realistic as well, not merely going through techniques and holding onto that heavy-ass thing for dear life (at least for the life of the tendons in my wrists and shoulders). I want to get it and to get good at it. There's only one way to achieve those ends: tenacity. I have to be serious enough to put myself through the physical demands and serious enough to keep my mind active and focused despite the temptations to slip into a more mechanical practice. I have to be serious enough to get up again today and train again today even when it's a sheer act of will to get started or continue. Sticking with it and paying serious attention is quite obviously the only way.

Behind all of my training, I want to be able to look back at it when I'm finished for the day and say: "therein was the heart of the Lion."

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.

Hijacked by my Brain

Damn it. My adviser found me. All this time, I thought I was cruising along in the "no news is probably good news" category, having not heard from him in a few weeks and awaiting his direction on what to fix next, but I was actually bobbing around in the "I haven't had/made time to look at your stuff this whole time" box. Now that he's looking at it, I'm back to awesomeness: my academic responsibilities turned trump on my training. I spent the first seven hours of my day, after breakfast today, looking for "careless incidences" of the passive voice and reordering things to make them less "misleading to the reader." Sometimes, the exactitude that my adviser wants from me reminds me of the degree of perfection expected of serious YSB practitioners. Then I go into this quandary where I'm taking heart that he wants things (like it and me) to be as good as they can be, and yet I'm losing heart over the fact that I might just not be that good at details until they're pointed out to me in bold italics with a note about how stupid I am attached, usually with the s-word underlined in red ink. That also reminds me, at times, of missing details in YSB.... I was definitely told at one point in the past, by The Man himself: "maybe you're too stupid to learn this," which is kind of a hard, spiky, bitter, hot-pepper-coated pill to swallow when you're doing a Ph.D. in mathematics. I get a lot of verbal shit from people at various times, but the s-word isn't usually on the list.

Speaking of brain-related activities, my brain completely hijacked my workout yesterday. I wasn't "distracted" so much as I became intensely curious. Instead of grinding out scores of repetitions of the various drills I had chosen for the day (having decided that the saber was breaking my precious skin and need not be picked up), I started to do that and then was prevented from continuing by the overwhelming need to think and feel my way through the drills. I had to understand what I was doing and why I was doing it. I did drills for the same amount of time that I would have otherwise, about an hour, but I did most of them quite slowly, as if feeling around in the dark, stopping and pondering them midway. Some of them I figured out. Some of them I didn't. Some others I invented, but only in a slow, meticulous way where I could see the application before I proceeded. I'm hoping that today will afford me the opportunity to go drill the ones I have, shelving the figuring-out of the others until after I've managed a massive sweat and feel solid and powerful in what I'm up to. Today, so far, I've had only one window in which to train (which I shouldn't have taken... I've still got five sections to get through on this run-through of my dissertation), and it was just long enough for a challenging but too-short turning session. Tonight, I have to finish those five sections (more than likely) and write a final exam (*sigh*), so I'm hoping a window will open up in the near future that lets me go bust some drills out.

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.

Buffening Up

Word on the streets is that my peeps are worried about if I'm getting stronger yet. Those peeps should rest assured that I'm working on it, day by day, and hopefully will have something to show for it despite the hee-hawing I could do about having a dissertation to write, correct, rewrite, correct, and rewrite a few more times in the intervening months and some kind of apparently serious lower-back injury that I'm only now getting somewhat out-of-the-woods on... being very tight and stiff on one side but not the other now with far less of the overwhelmingly painful and frustrating "stuck" feeling I've lived with since last summer. Today was no exception for buffening up.

This morning, after only a super-mini breakfastish snack, I hit about an hour and twenty of calisthenics and basic saber drills, followed by what sections of the form I know, along with my new favorite way to burn myself up that isn't the saber. This afternoon, I'm planning more saber drills, more saber form, some saber turning, and some zig-zag step strikes, probably with some more of my awesome strengthening drills and standing. If I can still stand after all of that, then I'll turn. If not, I'll probably get some of that in this evening. My puny weights were yesterday, so I don't expect they'll make it into today's routine.

So... this new exercise thing was kind of motivated by a few factors: 1) daoyin exercises; 2) weightlifting; 3) the overwhelming feeling of pointlessness that consumes me while I'm weightlifting, causing me to hate it not because it's hard but because it's lame; 4) little-to-no weight equipment here and a general disdain for the gym, and 5) standing postures. I'm doing weightlifting-like exercises with "extreme isometric tension" instead of actual weights. I haven't yet found a weightlifting maneuver that I can't do this way, though I'm not sure it's quite as hard as lifting a massive piece of steel, but I've also found about 100,000 exercises that I can't figure out how to do with weights that I can do this way. Isometric, by the way, isn't the correct term because there is moving in the joints. It's more like performing the exercises in super-slow motion with overwhelming internal resistance to them. Notably, I can do static strikes this way, which I'm nicknaming "mud striking" because it feels like dragging my arms through mud when I do them. Doing even ten to each side is really tough, and if at any point during the movement, there's a loss of "connection" within the body, it's immediately apparent because the strike starts to feel empty (like the mud suddenly disappeared). Mixing sets of that in with sets of strikes done normally seems to work both aspects of powerful, effective striking: strength and proper mechanics, and doing them so slowly and mindfully allows me to experiment nicely with putting my thought on various aspects of the strike or its goals.

Wicked. I'm about to go get at it again now, so for those about to rock... I salute you (with a badass workout).

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).