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May. 25th, 2004 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikGood day.
Cough isn't completely gone, but mostly -- enough of a mostly that I survived wushu, which wouldn't have been the case Sunday or Monday, I suspect. Oh -- and Shifu was back into that "just back from China" headspace. She had all the advanced students -- I used the term "advanced" here cautiously, basically anyone who isn't a beginner, who's involved enough to attend the weekday optional drills -- practicing combination 6. Over, and over... combination six is pretty basic, but it is a real form, with some really important stuff in there -- you can do a lot with it. But this time... Zach would call out "Stand straight! Ready!" (Which means, we go from standing with our hands at our sides, looking forward, to fists at hips, elbows pulled back, looking left... and everything a little more activated.) And she'd stop us. "Again! You're so slow!" We'd do it again. "Speed-power! Body tight!" and again. "Faster! Control!" and again...
And it was like that for the whole form. Which we went through at least ten times. Don't get me wrong, I *appreciate* this kind of training a lot. After spending time in China (rubbing elbows with absolutely top flight wushu athletes... *sigh*) she's decided that pretty much everyone in the US slacks on basics a lot, and that we really need to drill the fundementals more. And hey... she's right. (Of course.) And fundementals are kind of fun... (I mean, if I can spend seven years refining the same Taiji form, it should be clear that I don't bore easily, right?)
But finally she told us to take a break, and little Rebecca, who's all of seven, maybe eight years old, promptly lay down on the floor. To which Zach said "Me too." And soon we were all prone, panting and sweaty, and really wishing we had lower humidity. All too quickly, Shifu came back, looked at the bunch of us and announced "Abdominal drills! 20 slap sit ups, and twenty partner circles, each side." (Which really isn't bad at all, we've been doing sets of forty, but we were almost out of time.) I guess I'm just putting this last in for flavor, there's nothing really unusual about it. At least we didn't have to stand up...
Anyhow, I slept in a bit this morning, got called by the fertility clinic (I'm considering being an egg donor, since I don't seem to be using them myself) did house stuff and stretches, and then headed over to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
who_is_she's place for Chen, more stretching, and gossip. (Y'know it's bad when we're still gossiping as we do the form -- this is the competition form, mind, though I wasn't pushing low stances...) And then came back and cranked out a draft of the hiking article in two hours. (I think it doesn't completely blow -- but I'm avoiding it at the moment, since if I forget what I wrote now, I might be able to do a decent re-write tomorrow.) And then ran off to class... and then picked up Craig and headed back to the east side, and then Chen at Artspawn.
Oh, and the Tuesday class has the form pretty much memorized. Darn. (Kind of a unique "darn", that. Pleased, and proud, and kind of in awe, watching y'all go through it on your own...) We'll be refining back to front now... Every time we hit one of these milestones, there's a moment where I wonder if I know what to do next...
Nice to have my energy back, anyway. And nice to feel productive. May there be many more days like this...
Cough isn't completely gone, but mostly -- enough of a mostly that I survived wushu, which wouldn't have been the case Sunday or Monday, I suspect. Oh -- and Shifu was back into that "just back from China" headspace. She had all the advanced students -- I used the term "advanced" here cautiously, basically anyone who isn't a beginner, who's involved enough to attend the weekday optional drills -- practicing combination 6. Over, and over... combination six is pretty basic, but it is a real form, with some really important stuff in there -- you can do a lot with it. But this time... Zach would call out "Stand straight! Ready!" (Which means, we go from standing with our hands at our sides, looking forward, to fists at hips, elbows pulled back, looking left... and everything a little more activated.) And she'd stop us. "Again! You're so slow!" We'd do it again. "Speed-power! Body tight!" and again. "Faster! Control!" and again...
And it was like that for the whole form. Which we went through at least ten times. Don't get me wrong, I *appreciate* this kind of training a lot. After spending time in China (rubbing elbows with absolutely top flight wushu athletes... *sigh*) she's decided that pretty much everyone in the US slacks on basics a lot, and that we really need to drill the fundementals more. And hey... she's right. (Of course.) And fundementals are kind of fun... (I mean, if I can spend seven years refining the same Taiji form, it should be clear that I don't bore easily, right?)
But finally she told us to take a break, and little Rebecca, who's all of seven, maybe eight years old, promptly lay down on the floor. To which Zach said "Me too." And soon we were all prone, panting and sweaty, and really wishing we had lower humidity. All too quickly, Shifu came back, looked at the bunch of us and announced "Abdominal drills! 20 slap sit ups, and twenty partner circles, each side." (Which really isn't bad at all, we've been doing sets of forty, but we were almost out of time.) I guess I'm just putting this last in for flavor, there's nothing really unusual about it. At least we didn't have to stand up...
Anyhow, I slept in a bit this morning, got called by the fertility clinic (I'm considering being an egg donor, since I don't seem to be using them myself) did house stuff and stretches, and then headed over to
who_is_she's place for Chen, more stretching, and gossip. (Y'know it's bad when we're still gossiping as we do the form -- this is the competition form, mind, though I wasn't pushing low stances...) And then came back and cranked out a draft of the hiking article in two hours. (I think it doesn't completely blow -- but I'm avoiding it at the moment, since if I forget what I wrote now, I might be able to do a decent re-write tomorrow.) And then ran off to class... and then picked up Craig and headed back to the east side, and then Chen at Artspawn.Oh, and the Tuesday class has the form pretty much memorized. Darn. (Kind of a unique "darn", that. Pleased, and proud, and kind of in awe, watching y'all go through it on your own...) We'll be refining back to front now... Every time we hit one of these milestones, there's a moment where I wonder if I know what to do next...
Nice to have my energy back, anyway. And nice to feel productive. May there be many more days like this...
