I’ve got a lot to learn

I’ve been at the kung fu school long enough to see a few folks cycle in then quit. Lets face it: Chin Na is exquisite pain if you do it right. Then there’s the simple fact that it doesn’t look like much until you try to do it. Once you try to do it and then compare yourself to the folks who’ve done it 5 or more years it’s easy to get discouraged. Well last night the two “new guys” came back and actually paid for a month. This is good because I’ll have some people to practice with. I’ve not seen a couple of the other “old” new guys for a few weeks now so I was starting to fear the worst.

Both new guys have about five years in taekwondo and also have done a little judo. I have to say I enjoyed watching them struggle and try to unlearn stuff from taekwondo that does not fit with chin na. Putting power on target in taekwondo is a good thing. Doing it in chin na not so much. Anyhow, I’ll save my thoughts here because when I get the time I have a post in mind.

I think the testing continues. Last night they paired me with Hot Shot. Now I mean that in a good way and Hot Shot is one of those young guys with a lot of natural talent. He reminds me of Sabum v. 1 in some ways. When you watch him do pretty much anything you can see that he’s got it going on for sure. Anyhow, when we rotated into the push-up station he grinned and looked at sifu and said: “We can do ANY push-up?” Sifu looked at me then back at Hot Shot and said: “He’s been here long enough; I don’t care.”

So Hot Shot had us do panther push-ups (aka the panther walk). He called them “baby” panther push-ups which is really depressing considering how they kicked my ass. In fact, this is the first time I was huffing in chin na while Hot Shot was not even warmed up. Ironically I could not help but think of my brother in huffing, Potatoe. If you own Yang’s Analysis of Shaolin Chin Na you can see the panther walk on p. 26. Basically you get in half push-up position then use your arms and toes to shuffle forward. The catch is you never fully extend or touch the floor. So you end up hopping forwards and back. Well those sucked the way it is but then he had us go side-to-side. At this point I was huffing, my pecs were burning, and I went ’til I could not go anymore.

I suspect they are torn between pushing me and being afraid I’ll quit. I went through the same thing with my first four months back in taekwondo and in fact, I almost did quit. However, when I look back on that first year I’m proud and at the same time think I must have been insane. Pretty much every practice I’d go until I could not go and I know both Sabum’s feared a heart attack. The rub is that after 3+ years of kicking it I conditioned myself to hang with the young folks and huffed much less. So, I know given time I’ll be able to hang with these guys. Until then I’m going to look like I’m going to die on certain exercises. (thanks to taekwondo I can do the leg stuff all night long…all the arm, chest, and wrist etc. is another story) Anyhow, I’ve told Smiley that I have the bad habit of going until I can’t go so you can push me. I think I need to tell Mantis that next week.

Chin na was review because we taught the new guys some stuff. On the plate was small wrap hand 1, forward wrist press, and white crane nods. Wrap hand 1 I have done well enough to now start worrying about nitpicking pretty much everything. I’m also adding in footwork, positioning, and Mantis showed me how to use my body to break the wrist. I had the basics of forward wrist press but have not practiced it since June. Last night Mantis refreshed me then showed me “options” (pretty much all of these techniques have at least a half dozen related options). White crane I’m still having trouble with. It’s the small circle nod part that’s giving me problems. I can sorta do it with my right but my left is about hopeless. So I’ll be working on that. The good news is Mantis showed me yet another way to grip. Instead of the finger roll he uses the tiger claw from an angle. I like this grip much better so I’ll play around with that when I meet with Tornado tonight.

Martial lesson number 345: Get enough sleep before class. Since it’s the beginning of semester at la-la land I’ve been running on 4 – 6 hours sleep and I came to class last night with my head half in the game. So when Mantis used me and a demo I did not go to the ground and ended up resisting. He’s good enough to know when to stop but my fingers and wrists are sore from my brain lock.

Anyhow, I’ll write more after tonight and maybe I’ll find the time to write that post I’ve been meaning to write.

~BCP