So I’m going on three days removed from some sort of “stomach thing”. I’m not sure if it’s bad food from the Chinese Festival or something that’s going around. Whatever it was both myself and Mrs. Patterson had it. The only difference is she was better by Monday night.
My days have consisted of self-medication, going to work in a haze, and sleeping about 14 hours. I ended up taking half a sick day yesterday morning but I still went in to work for meetings. Anyhow, I can officially say I’m out of the woods as of about 12 noon today.
Back at chin na…
It was good to go to class again! We had a decent sized class and did at least one new warm-up: A eagle claw grab and chambered punch drill from horse stance. The stance and punch I’ve done a million times in taekwondo. The claw part was new and kinda fun. I also see how the drill is practical. Basically you are practicing a grab and punch combination which does have practical use. We also did the grabbing contest again and once again I lost during the first round and had to do finger tip push-ups. I definately need to practice my grabbing at home!
As for the chin na I’ve now seen all 17. I’m pretty sure there’s a total of 17 at level one but that’s misleading because single and multiple finger holding have at least an additional six attached. Then there’s the fact that all of these techniques have “options” which basically means one thing can flow into the next.
Tonight we worked single and multiple finger chin na along with wrap hand one. We did not make it through all the single and multiple finger stuff but that’s OK because I’m still trying to keep it all straight.
We closed class with the infamous line drill which I really like. Basically two lines form and face each other. One side attacks and one side defends with chin na. The goal here is to keep moving and not hold up the line if you get stuck. It’s a gentle way to put pressure on you and make you learn how to flow and react.
So I just had to try a rear choke on the lead instructor. He confirmed what I suspected from an earlier post: You have to react before the choke is cinched in to have a reasonable chance of escaping and countering. I’m not sure what he put me in but he slipped the choke and had me in some sort of crazy arm bar where my spine was twisted.
My only other observation is that almost every class I’m seeing a technique from the Chinese martial arts that Japan and Korea later borrowed.
~BCP
