![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylik"How long have you been practicing wu shu and taiji? How did it come into your life?"
Seventeen years ago I studied Hayashi-ha shito-ryu karate for a while. This was somewhat accidental -- I'd been wanting to take a martial art for some time, but I'd intended to take Aikido, being attracted to its internal emphasis and non violent philosophy. Instead I ended up in a completely hard core, pared down, hit and kick the shit out of them until they drop (not that one wasn't supposed to be polite) style... and I loved it. I studied with them until I ran out of money (classes through the community college were cheap, joining the dojo was, for me, then, quite expensive, but the CC classes could only take you so far) and then reluctantly quit. I always meant to go back...
Meanwhile, a friend of mine got me into bellydance, which became my main movement thing for the next several years.
Anyhow, fast forward to ten years ago. I'd managed to get a pretty bad knee injury (four years of it never quite healing later I finally had surgery) and had to take some time off of dance. Craig and I bought the house in Woodinville and moved out there. He was looking for a new martial arts school, and was interested in Taiji, so he asked another friend of ours for recommendations, and that friend referred him to our first instructor. He'd previous pointed out the silliness of studying a Japanese martial art when I spoke Chinese. I'd visited his previous school, though, and didn't like it. But Taiji sounded intriguing, and I figured it might help balance out my new career at Microsoft...
A few years into that, our teacher, Shoko Zama, took some time off from teaching. About that time Craig and I (Craig was back studying at his old Kung fu school as well, then) had gone up to a tournament in Vancouver, and while we were there we saw one woman perform a Chen form so well that our chins just about hit our toenails. After some asking around, we found out that she was teaching in Seattle... and we were looking for a teacher, too ;-) (This is how we ended up at CWTA, our current school, though for some years we studied with Shoko as well, and might again, someday.)
Then about four years ago, I was leaving Microsoft. I was only partially recovered from a fairly severe spine injury, I was terribly uncertain about my future... so of course I decided to take up wushu as well. The first six months were utterly brutal, but I think it's one of the best things that ever happened to my body.
Seventeen years ago I studied Hayashi-ha shito-ryu karate for a while. This was somewhat accidental -- I'd been wanting to take a martial art for some time, but I'd intended to take Aikido, being attracted to its internal emphasis and non violent philosophy. Instead I ended up in a completely hard core, pared down, hit and kick the shit out of them until they drop (not that one wasn't supposed to be polite) style... and I loved it. I studied with them until I ran out of money (classes through the community college were cheap, joining the dojo was, for me, then, quite expensive, but the CC classes could only take you so far) and then reluctantly quit. I always meant to go back...
Meanwhile, a friend of mine got me into bellydance, which became my main movement thing for the next several years.
Anyhow, fast forward to ten years ago. I'd managed to get a pretty bad knee injury (four years of it never quite healing later I finally had surgery) and had to take some time off of dance. Craig and I bought the house in Woodinville and moved out there. He was looking for a new martial arts school, and was interested in Taiji, so he asked another friend of ours for recommendations, and that friend referred him to our first instructor. He'd previous pointed out the silliness of studying a Japanese martial art when I spoke Chinese. I'd visited his previous school, though, and didn't like it. But Taiji sounded intriguing, and I figured it might help balance out my new career at Microsoft...
A few years into that, our teacher, Shoko Zama, took some time off from teaching. About that time Craig and I (Craig was back studying at his old Kung fu school as well, then) had gone up to a tournament in Vancouver, and while we were there we saw one woman perform a Chen form so well that our chins just about hit our toenails. After some asking around, we found out that she was teaching in Seattle... and we were looking for a teacher, too ;-) (This is how we ended up at CWTA, our current school, though for some years we studied with Shoko as well, and might again, someday.)
Then about four years ago, I was leaving Microsoft. I was only partially recovered from a fairly severe spine injury, I was terribly uncertain about my future... so of course I decided to take up wushu as well. The first six months were utterly brutal, but I think it's one of the best things that ever happened to my body.
