two parts of three

[ironymaiden]

fourteen kung fu classes down, seven to go. except for the part where i can't imagine quitting at 21 anymore. (thinks of being sidelined by injury, knocks wood.)

i have a full uniform now, and shoes. everything is super-comfy. giant clown pants, little soft elf shoes, t-shirt, tightly wrapped sash. and it's all black except for the yellow school logo on my shirt and the yellow tips on the sash. i feel fine wearing the whole thing on the bus on Saturdays.

at this point, doing horse is still rough when i have to hold it for too long. the more i read, the more i understand that everyone who comes to it as an adult has trouble. one of the translations for qi is "breath." like yoga, you hold the awful awful position and visualize sending your qi (in yoga it's breath) to the pain. and like yoga, sometimes i fall into the proper state and shunt energy to the weak places, and sometimes i'm dominated by it. i'm riding the edge of what i can do.

i have ten-sided turn down. it's like being the oblong spirograph piece. (i may need to see if i can draw the foot pattern, i think it would be pretty.) but with blocks and punches.

now i'm working on so sau/fu jau, a circular block and tiger claw combo. it's the thing that inspires the wacky swirly hands things people do when they are pretending to be someone from the movies. but in a practical sense, it's protect groin, smack opponent arm out of way, grab arm.

i'm happiest when i'm in motion. so much of what we do feels like dancing. my legs are leaf springs, and my arms are clicking into place. somehow i do better when my arms and legs are both going than i do when i focus on just arms or just footwork. i'll start to do a ten-sided turn on my own and find that i've done twenty sides or more, i just keep rotating.

my knees are my one concern, with the wear they're getting. both parents have had surgery. i (gods help me) went to a trainer this weekend to get a set of exercises to complement the kung fu and build up the leg muscles that will protect my joints. i was amused that i'm not supposed to do the routine more than once a week because otherwise i won't get enough rest. he had to keep adding weight to the one machine before i was doing any work. (freakishly strong, i am. i swear that freakishly strong was a description used for Anya in BtVS, but i can't find the quote, so maybe i am imagining things. also, why would i assign that to Anya when B would make more sense?) i do the full routine for the first time on Thursday. (also, kung fu plus gym is only ten bucks more a month than yoga alone. and the gym includes yoga classes anyway. this tickles me.)

i enjoy all the different types in the class. the retired guy, the dancer, the club impresario, the teen sisters who kid around with si hing T (en español), F who also works for My Corporate Masters, the kitten-who-will-kill-you, the three daddy/daughter pairs... retired guy J also volunteers at SAM. we ran into him at the Impressionism exhibit the other night, doing his docent thing. i don't work directly with F at all, but now we always say hi if we pass in the hall. (the first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club.) sometime i need to put together a happy hour expedition to sifu's restaurant.

Comments

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

If I can answer any of-a-certain-age weak-knee questions, I stand ready to do so. Mine hurt like hell for the first year I climbed, badly enough that I could barely walk into the gym where I would then spend two hours doing further terrible things to them, before creeping back to the car. I learned some coping mechanisms and useful tips, but I can't remember what I've told you before this, so I'll leave it to you to ask if interested.

I'll have to have knee surgery someday and maybe you will, too, but even people who don't do amazingly cool things with their bodies get knee surgery, and wouldn't you rather use your body in a way that makes it happy until that time?

It makes me happy when people find something they love this much.

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

I have no idea if this helps or has any effect for you whatsoever since don't know about your specific knee problems, but I live and die by glucosamine. Everyone in my family has bad arthritis. Except me. I started taking glucosamine when it first cropped up in my late thirties, and I can't describe the difference. I'm on horse doses of it now, and I'm just, just beginning to have problems in my left hand again.

Others in my family have serious problems and that's the difference between us. I swear by it.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Make sure you get the combo of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate.

[buhrger]

i have a full uniform now, and it's all black
aha! you're really training to be a ninja, aren't you? and now that i know the truth, you're going to have to kill me, aren't you?

i'll start to do a ten-sided turn on my own and find that i've done twenty sides or more
i think this just means you've been playing d20-based games for too long :-)

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

So at what point do you learn how to use a flying guillotine?

[shellyinseattle.livejournal.com]

Glad you're having so much fun with it.

Knees--even without the family history, this is where I saw the vast majority of adult injuries.

There are a couple of things that I'd suggest for TKD students that may apply to kung fu: 1) watch your foot pivoting position and 2) be extra careful when doing jumps (more specifically, the landing), even avoiding them when you're too tired.

[sinthrex.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun.

Like everyone else said, watch the knees. I damaged mine about 10 years ago and it's been touch-and-go since.