(no subject)

[tylik]

So yesterday I started putting together my own Chen form. Kind of by accident -- twice in two days I'd transitioned from the brush knee twist step to repulse the monkey, so I figured I might as well see where it was going and maybe get it out of my system. So, it just kind of happened. The first version turned into a nice energetic mid length form mostly drawn from Laojia Yilu. Today I took the same basic structure but threw in a few sequences from Cannon Fist just for fun. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I suspect I'll continue to kick around my toy form for a while. Might make a nice exhibition piece if nothing else... (not that I'm planning on performing at all at the moment.)

The last few days, my energy hadn't been that good. Yesterday was a bit better, but on the whole I still felt like I'd prefer to be back in bed. Today, though, I woke up with the distinct sensation that I'd prefer to be upping the training intensity a lot. So I got up early, and spent extra time stretching (but mostly because I've decided to start pushing splits again -- and my front splits aren't bad, which is surprising as I haven't been practicing them) and then headed down for an early and hopefully extra long session. Weapons day.

Got off to a nice start, warming up with open hands forms. Everything tracked well. Eventually worked around to Dao, which was definitely in line with my mood. (Hacky-choppy!) I was going to follow up with Pao Chui and then finish... except one of the guys who walks through the parking lot behind where I practice every morning stopped to chat. (He's been watching me pretty openly, and we'd been waving to each other for a bit.)

It turned out he's the Chinese language Professor at Case. We ended up talking for about 45 minutes (there went the rest of my morning plans!) about everything from language to medicine to politics. Mostly in English, though I spoke a bit of Chinese, and he spoke rather more to me. Neat guy. I'm now invited to come and sit in on any of the Chiense languages classes whenever I want to, as well as to come to him with any question I have about Chinese language. I mentioned having taken a bit of guwen, and about some of the material we covered. When he asked how I felt about Mengzi ("Interesting, and not too difficult in terms of language, but kind of uptight.") he recommended I read Zhuangzi. (Eep! Zhuangzi is well known for being difficult.) I confessed that this was one of my current translation projects, though it was slow going. (Because it's hard! Also because I've been inconsistent.) However, knowing I might have someone to go to who could critique my translations (and possibly help me out of any holes I dig myself into) might be inspiring. I'd like to keep that all up.

Heh. More stuff to study. But maybe one evening a week? It uses a very different part of my brain. I could drag out Bing Fa too -- which is really easy going, and makes good bedtime reading.

Oh, and pet peeve -- I keep having people tell me that they know I'm such a good student because I'm bright (which may be true but often has made me a worse student) and because I'm so disciplined. Y'know, because I practice every day, and because I study weird and unrelated things like Chinese and Poli-Econ. I *really* don't think this makes me disciplined. Studying weird and unrelated things makes me a dilettante. Which I am, and I'm pretty much interested in everything, too. I practice every day because I like to practice every day, and because it makes me all perky and cheerful, which is pretty much on the instant gratification side of things.

Another day in the annals of "Practicing in Public is Weird"...