Am I back to talk more about my weapon forms? Hell, yes I am! Or Taiji and Bagua in general. Here’s my post from yesterday. I’m stoked to be doing a weapon form for my teacher’s demo (don’t worry. I’ll be terrified later on. I jsut have nearly a year to work on it, so the negative feelings won’t settle in until, hopefully, months down the road). Will I be terrified before doing it? Yes.
I used to do dance when I was a kid and acting/performance whwen I was in my twenties. I got nervous/stage fright/sick to my stomach every time. I’ve forgotten lines while on stage (what actor hasn’t?), and I have survived it. The one thing that I know I need to do before the demo is do the form facing different walls and in different places. It’s too easy to rely on where I am facing in the room I always practice in. I know from switching rooms in the past that it confuses me.
Ideally, I would be able to practice in the actual room where I’ll be demoing before the day of the actual demo, but this probably won’t be possible. so the best alternative is to practice in different rooms facing different ways.
The other thing that I need to do is clean it up. I’ve already tightened it up some, but I need to go back through the form and make sure I have all the postures right. I would not be surprised if I was off on half-a-dozen of the postures. I also won’t be surprised if I’ve forgotten one or two postures. I know my brain isn’t working quite as well as I did before my medical crisis. My memory used to be stellar; now it’s at best adequate. It’s partly getting older, yes, but it’s also the stroke.
It’s funny. I rarely think about the stroke, even though in most cases, it would be a really serious thing. I am still incredibly grateful that I was able to recover from it with nothing more than my memory going bad, some problems doing math in my brain, and occasionally forgetting a word. I will take that over what a stroke usually did to you.
I rarely talk even think about the fact that I had a stroke, but I have. I’m not saying that as an excuse; it’s just facts. I had a stroke during my medical crisis, and I think that sometimes, I do need to pay more attention to it than I do. Not that I have to think about it all the time, but just to take into account that it did happen to me.
I think part of the problem is that the medical crisis I had, which by all accounts, should have knocked me down for the count, was something I walked away from less than a week after I woke up from a week-long coma. I still can’t believe it happened, even though it’s been four-and-a-half years.
Because I walked out of the hospital on my two feet and was not wheeled out in a body bag (as a friend of my parents not-so-delicately put it), people* quickly forgot that I was actually in a life-threatening situation. She began treating me as she always had by the third or fourth week I was back home. (That meant dumping all her emotion angst on me, regardless of whether I wanted to deal with it or not. Plus, pressuring me to put on a show for her friends that I was ok.)
The one thing that stuck with me from that time was when my mother told me that she was glad I had survived because she needed someone to talk to about my father. Yes, that was the reason she gave for being glad I hadn’t died permanently. And she meant it. She’s said it to me a few times since. She’s also mentioned that she had to do it because she didn’t have a therapist.
So it’s easy for me to forget that I did die (twice!), which changes a person. My body went through hell during that fateful half hour. And while I’m seemingly recovered, that didn’t mean that it didn’t leave a mark on me. I was checked out a month after, and I passed with flying colors. However. That’s within an acceptable range of numbers, I presume. Meaning that in some areas, I was probably ctloser to just passing. Although, the PT did say Day 2 of me being able to walk again that she had nothing left to teach me.
Don’t get me wrong. It was a horrific experience that really took its toll on me, but…how do I say it. Let’s put it this way. I died. Twice. I was in a coma for a week, and I was not expected to get out. My brother was told by my mediccal team that he had to think about pulling the plug (but, I presume, more professionally), and then I woke up. Like, that day. I’m a stubborn bitch like that. You tell me that I’m done? I’ll show you who’s done. No one tells ME what the fuck to do!
I am being jocular about it, but it’s true, really. I do NOT like being told whaat to do, and I will do everything in my power to thwart people’s expectations. I know that says something about me, and it’s probably not great, but it worked in this case. Even as I was unconcious, I responded to the doubters and the haters. Yes, I know my medical team wasn’t my enemy, but they were doubting me. (With good reason.)
The three things that I credited with keeping me alive was love, luck, and Taiji. Love because my friends and my brother carried me through. Luck because I should have stayed dead. For real. Like 100% should have remained dead. I was just damn lucky not to stay dead. Extremely lucky. And then there’s Taiji. I’m not saying it saved me; I’m saying it did its best to prepare my body for what it went through.
Several years ago, I went through a car accident. It was minor, but my whole front fender/bumper were crushed. On the passenger’s side.
I’m done for now. I will write more tomorrow.
*My mother.