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Jun. 14th, 2007 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikThere's a chance I might start logging my martial arts practice. Or at least logging it more... Might become a filter, might cut tag it, not sure yet. Thoughts?
A few days back I started practicing in the yard back behind the apartment building. It's large, flat, not often used and always has some shade. It's also excessively exposed and in prime view of two wings of the building. Oh well... The weather has been really good for it. Warm, but not sweltering, with a lot of wind. Muscles stay nice and soft, but you don't get overheated.
The first day I worked through all of the open hand forms that are in good enough shape to practice a couple of times each. (Yes, this took a fair bit of time.) After the first couple, my stances settled in, nice and low. Felt really good, even though a couple of forms weren't as fluent as I would have liked*, and my sweeps in Pao Chui are teh suck**.
The next day my SI joint stability was greatly improved, though I was pretty tight. Spent and hour stretching. (I love vacation. Though I'm pretty good at stretching while doing readings, and K is perhaps the last person on earth I would be embarrassed to be seen by in the contortion-with-a-book poses that involves. Someone should write "Yoga for Grad Students".) Did a bunch of Taiji, and then some Dragon. And Tiger, I think.
Losing track of chronology, but like y'all would care. Anyway, headed down for Chen empty hand forms this morning, (and then more Shaolin stuff). On the way in I asked Y if she thought, anyone would mind me doing weapons forms out back. This turned into a long discussion about Taiji and why she should probably do it, martial arts and why more women really need to learn to defend themselves, and yes, she thinks everyone will be fine with me playing with swords out back but if the cops show up put down the sword and lay down quietly.
So this evening, after finishing another 70 pages of review readings, I headed down to work through my jian and dao forms. Perfect evening for it. And I'm getting used to the space -- I think I was a little on edge at first being so visible but not only did my body feel good but I felt like my soul was scrubbed.
No one, so far, seems particularly disturbed. Several people have commented or said hi. A few kids have hung out and watched. The high point was when a couple walked by in the middle of working through pao chui at a fairly high speed, and the woman asked if I was doing Taiji. (Many people who even have a general clue don't recognize Chen as Taiji. Pao chui is even further from what most people think of as Taiji.)
I'm feeling pretty good in general, but I seem to be losing more salt than I've been replacing (which isn't surprising, warmer than I'd been accustomed to, and eating my own cooking which doesn't tend to be heavily salted). Haven't quite put a morning routine together, but that will come. My stuff arrives tomorrow. Yay! Stuff!
* Yang 24 fer crying out loud. Okay, so I don't tend to take that form seriously. I need to make sure I practice it every few days anyway.
** This seems to be in part from putting my hands on the ground. If I do the same sweep, all the way in crouch stance, with my hands up, it's fine. And when I first learned sweeps hands down was supposed to be cheating.
A few days back I started practicing in the yard back behind the apartment building. It's large, flat, not often used and always has some shade. It's also excessively exposed and in prime view of two wings of the building. Oh well... The weather has been really good for it. Warm, but not sweltering, with a lot of wind. Muscles stay nice and soft, but you don't get overheated.
The first day I worked through all of the open hand forms that are in good enough shape to practice a couple of times each. (Yes, this took a fair bit of time.) After the first couple, my stances settled in, nice and low. Felt really good, even though a couple of forms weren't as fluent as I would have liked*, and my sweeps in Pao Chui are teh suck**.
The next day my SI joint stability was greatly improved, though I was pretty tight. Spent and hour stretching. (I love vacation. Though I'm pretty good at stretching while doing readings, and K is perhaps the last person on earth I would be embarrassed to be seen by in the contortion-with-a-book poses that involves. Someone should write "Yoga for Grad Students".) Did a bunch of Taiji, and then some Dragon. And Tiger, I think.
Losing track of chronology, but like y'all would care. Anyway, headed down for Chen empty hand forms this morning, (and then more Shaolin stuff). On the way in I asked Y if she thought, anyone would mind me doing weapons forms out back. This turned into a long discussion about Taiji and why she should probably do it, martial arts and why more women really need to learn to defend themselves, and yes, she thinks everyone will be fine with me playing with swords out back but if the cops show up put down the sword and lay down quietly.
So this evening, after finishing another 70 pages of review readings, I headed down to work through my jian and dao forms. Perfect evening for it. And I'm getting used to the space -- I think I was a little on edge at first being so visible but not only did my body feel good but I felt like my soul was scrubbed.
No one, so far, seems particularly disturbed. Several people have commented or said hi. A few kids have hung out and watched. The high point was when a couple walked by in the middle of working through pao chui at a fairly high speed, and the woman asked if I was doing Taiji. (Many people who even have a general clue don't recognize Chen as Taiji. Pao chui is even further from what most people think of as Taiji.)
I'm feeling pretty good in general, but I seem to be losing more salt than I've been replacing (which isn't surprising, warmer than I'd been accustomed to, and eating my own cooking which doesn't tend to be heavily salted). Haven't quite put a morning routine together, but that will come. My stuff arrives tomorrow. Yay! Stuff!
* Yang 24 fer crying out loud. Okay, so I don't tend to take that form seriously. I need to make sure I practice it every few days anyway.
** This seems to be in part from putting my hands on the ground. If I do the same sweep, all the way in crouch stance, with my hands up, it's fine. And when I first learned sweeps hands down was supposed to be cheating.
