The more things change…

Musings:

A combination of Fist in the Frost’s latest blog post and a recent visit from an old friend got me thinking about the above quote. I’ll spare you all the philosophical diarrhea about my old friend, and just leave it at: “You can’t go back to 1986.”

Now, on to the Frosty one…

My wife retires next June and I’m anxious to leave our jewel of the North to go to civilization; preferably the pacific Northwest. I’d have to get a job with the corporation that runs my current job, so the wife and I are headed down to that neck of the woods to take a look at the area a bit more and see if it’s right for us.

While I have been coming to terms with this I realized that I’ll be able to shop around for gyms, restaurants and finally martial arts.

I’ve not lived in the Outer Rim as long as Frosty has lived up in Alaska, however, I have a pretty good sense of his excitement. In remote areas you figure out how to make due with less.

In two years the job search will start again for me. The thought of this is one part excitement and one part dread.

1. My excitement mirrors Frosty’s and is due to the plethora of things a denser population area offers.
2. The dread is the job search. There is no guarantee that in two years I’ll instantly find that “perfect job” in the perfect location. This means staying here longer than two years or compromising (again) on job/location criteria.

As for that next martial art? Well, the short list in no particular order:

• Bagua
• Tai Chi (traditional)
• Wing Chun

Runner ups:

• Xing Yi Quan
• Hapkido (never landed in an area that offered classes)

This is not to say that I would not consider other martial arts — it all depends on the area and what the future brings.

Blogging:

Over the last two years I’ve noticed a significant decrease in martial arts bloggers. It could be a combination of my old feeds dying and a lack of effort on my part in looking for new bloggers. Still, I know of some long-time martial arts bloggers that no longer blog…

Exercise:

This was the fourth week of boot camp and so far I have lost 3 lbs. Weekly I pre-register for three classes, usually make two, and have never attended three in a row yet. I’m at 194 lbs and have set a goal of 185. We shall see.

Due to the recent vacation, work, and work-related travel (today) I only made boot camp once this week. This weekend I’ll hit the gym twice, hike Zen trail on Saturday, and practice tai chi and martial arts.

Operation Fatty marches on!

-BCP

Kung Fu on the decline? Perhaps…

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130520044419-kungfu1-story-top.jpg

Mrs. Patterson saw this story on CNN — here’s an excerpt:

The son of a student to Wong Fei Hung, one of the legends of the fighting style and the subject of countless films, Lam Sifu (sifu is a Cantonese term that means ‘master’) says the fighting art may be growing fast overseas, but struggles in the region where it was born.

To counter the decline, he has co-authored the world’s first English-language manual on the ancient kung fu style that he has taught for 60 years and has been his family’s trademark for more than three generations.

Called Hung Kuen Fundamentals: Fok Fu Kuen, the manual outlines scores of moves and stances that were hitherto only taught and transmitted orally.

This guy teaches his art out of a cramped Hong Kong apartment! It’s sad to hear that this style of kung fu is on the decline in the region where it was born.

Lam Sifu says modern distractions like videogames are sapping young people of the ability to focus on demanding martial art forms like Hung Kuen which can require learning as many as 300 movements in a single set.

“These days pupils can’t stand any hardship. They say practicing is tiring and they give up easily,” he says.

Still, it sounds like the art is popular in other countries so, perhaps, this and the new manual will help to keep it alive.

-BCP

10 miles of pristine river

I just finished four solid days of fishing and hiking. We had rain hit the last day and a half but past that the trip was most excellent. We divided our time between two lakes and one river. For the bulk of the river trip we hired a guide and for sure it was money well-spent.

Trout totals for the guided 1.5 days?

Bob: 25
Bob’s pal: 30

This particular 10-mile stretch of river has some tough rules including artificial lures only, a size requirement, and a one fish per-day limit. The result is 960 fish per mile with 96% of them being rainbow trouts — some in the 5-6 pound range.

Our guide STRONGLY discouraged us from taking any trout from the river. He also had strict photo rules — mainly because the longer the fish was out of the water the more likely it was to be hurt. As such, we both missed bigger photo opportunities. The largest fish caught was 22″ and that by my friend. Our dreams of five pound fish did not come true.

Martial metaphor:

Trout fishing with a fly rod is very much like a soft internal martial art. It’s more about finesse and accuracy than muscle. So, while we both caught on to casting fairly quick, we both struggled with the finesse of setting the hook in a fast-moving river. Each of us easily missed setting the hook on just as many fish as we caught.

We did learn how to float the river with strike indicators (aka bobbers) and wet flies. Also, the guide was money well-spent and was better than any class we could have taken. He had 10 years of experience on this river, had fly fished since he was seven, and was constantly switching out flies until he got us on the right combination.

This particular guide was as rough as a corn cob, however, he knew his stuff. His SUV was filthy, on the second day he reeked of B.O., and his boat and gear was worn. He also did not wear the fancy trout outfit that some guides were wearing — opting for sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt. Without the guide this trip would have been sheer disaster. The guide understood the entomology of the river, knew where the holes were, knew where the trout bunched up, and knew how to manage the boat.

Hilarious moment of the trip: Two guys in a fancy boat with fancy trout gear went through a run without a single bite. On the end of the run they both ended up with wind knots and had to bank their boat to untangle their lines. We went through the same run and both me and my pal took trout. As I was trying to land mine I noticed that one of the guys was shaking his head in disgust. We did the run two more times and pulled out two more trout while the city slickers looked on in disgust.

I also got some good fly fishing advice from our crusty guide. He advised skipping the waders and just wait until the water warms. He directed me to access points in town — one a half mile from where I live! — and said that I could wade and use strike indicators and wet flies. He also advised stopping at a local fly shop and asking for whatever fly happened to be hot at the time. The only real thing I need to manage is learning how to tie the leader. Also, the only real gear I’d need to add is some sort of cheap trout vest. Most likely I’ll try this once or twice in the summer.

-BCP