We’re back to talk more about weapon forms. I need to get deep into my feelings about how learning the Double Fan Form changed me. Here is my post from yesterday talking about some of my issues learning Bagua–and some of my flaws in learning martial arts. I mentioned that I was lazy in a not-good way, and while I try not to get hung up on it, it does bother me sometimes.
Back when I first started learning Taiji, I went to one class a week. I could not make myself practice at home for the life of me. I tried and tried, but I just could not do it. In order to make up for it, I started to go to another class a week, and then another (so in total, three). I still could not make myself practice at home.
I don’t know why my brain just refused to do it. Any time I tried, it would scream at me not to do it. I could not force my body to practice. At all. So I tricked it. I started by doing five minutes of Taiji stretches a day. No actual Taiji, mind. Just five minutes of stretching. For whatever reason, my brain was fine with that. It wasn’t doing actual Taiji, see. It was just stretching.
That got by the block in my head, and then I was able to slowly build up a Taiji practice. In addition to the warmups, I did the Solo Form and walked the circle with my deer horn knives. Then, when I learned the Sword Form, my practice really started taking off. I love me my weapons, and being able to do them on the daily was my happy place.
For a while, it was just the Sword Form, left side and right side. Then, a few years later, I added the Saber Form (with much grief), right side and left side. Then, Cane Form, right and left. Hm. I might have learned that before the Saber–no, it was Saber Form then Cane Form. Then, a few staff/spear drills. Then, it was the Double Saber Form just as the pandemic hit. My teacher taught me the first part of it on Zoom (I think? I’m not sure I’m remembering it correctly), but then we reached a part that she wasn’t sure of. She didn’t say that to me, but we just did not move past a certain point.
I was getting frustrated so I asked if it was OK if taught the rest to myself. Her teacher had a video of his Double Saber Form (she had sent it to me earlier), so I could do it from that. It wasn’t ideal, but it was doable. She gave me her blessing (I wouldn’t have done it otherwise), and I went about teaching myself the rest of the form. It wasn’t too bad, though I need to do some clean up on it.
I like being a human blender. And it’s the first weapon form that I have taught to myself. Half of it. I was pretty pleased with myself, too. I have not taught myself the left side of it, but at some point, I probably will. It’s not really on my top five list, but it’s there.
Then, my medical crisis. And a month or two of not doing my weapons at all. That was hard. About a week after I got home, I did try a few movements from the Sword Form, and much to my relief, I remembered them with ease. I did not want to push myself, though, so I didn’t do it for a while.
I mean, I went through a life-threatening situation. I most certainly didn’t want to die for a third and final time. In five months or so, though, I was nearly 100% and decided to teach myself the Fan Form. This was February of 2022. Was it too soon after my medical crisis? Probably. Was I overconfident? Most definitely. I did teach it to myself, but it was very sloppy, and I do mean VERY. Much later, I realized I had done a bad job of it. I didn’t blame myself for it because it really was too soon.
I had actually forgotten chunks of it, so I went back to the beginning and taught myself the whole thing over again. It was much easier the second time around, of course, but it taught me a few things. One: rest. I really should not have pushed myself to learn a new form five months after coming back from the dead. Two: repetition. I just have to keep doing it until it’s done. I have a bad habit of saying, “Oh, this is good enough” when I get about 80% done. Meaning, if I have a few mistakes, I gloss over them. I say I’ll clean them up later. And then, I don’t always get there. It’s much better to tackle it in the moment.
I’m being doing the Double Fan Form with more care these days. And I’m seeing where I’ve fudged things or skipped over things. It’s only two or three places, surprisingly, but it’s two or three times too many.
When my teacher asked/commanded me to do a weapon form for her school’s next demo (and to be clear, I am fine with it), I knew that I had to do it well. I’m not in the Asian mindset of not being able to make any mistakes or you’ll lose face eternally, but I do want to bring pride to my teacher. I want her to be able to puff out her chest a little and say, “Yes, that’s my student.” Yes, it’s nearly a year from now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start honing the form right now.
Now I can set sensible goals relating to where I should be month by month until the demo. I have plenty of time to make it as clean as possible if I start now. I don’t want to leave it to the last moment.
I have more to say, but I’m tired. I’ll write more tomorrow.