With difficulty, I’m going to wrench myself away from talking about weapons, at least for one post. The reason is because I need to talk about something else important in my life–my mental health. It’s in the shitter, and I’m really struggling. There are many reasons for it, but I want to focus on a… Continue Reading
I had my private lesson today and even though it was only forty degrees out (felt like thirty-five or so), we decided to have it outside. It felt warmer than that, probably because we’d been in single digits for so long. Kind of. We were supposed to get get snow today, but the snow front… Continue Reading
I am now able to say I have finished the Swimming Dragon Form–for real. I went through the whole form today, and I did pretty well. I was a bit hesitant towards the end (there is still one movement that I am a bit confused on), but other than that, I think I did ok.… Continue Reading
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I graduated from the Swimming Dragon Form. That simply means that I taught myself all the movements in the form. Have I mastered them? No. Am I confident that I will be able to reproduce them faithfully tomorrow? Also no. I mean, up until the last five or six… Continue Reading
I finished the Swimming Dragon Form today. My teacher calls it graduating when a student finishes a form, which I find charming. It just means you’ve been taught all the postures in the form. It doesn’t mean you are a pro at them or that you will remember them perfectly if at all. My teacher… Continue Reading
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my teacher told me that her teacher (Sifu) had mentioned that you could do the Sword Form with two swords, one in each hand. I have a feeling that she told me this before because when I tried it, I felt a sense of deja vu. Which might be… Continue Reading
Today in class, my teacher mentioned that her teacher (Sifu) had been talking about the Sword Form and how important the helping hand was. He said that you could do the Sword Form with two swords instead of just one, so she suggested that to me because I’d told her that I wanted to do… Continue Reading
I’m going to talk more about weapons. instead of meandering as I normally do, I’m going to try to be more methodical about it. We’ll see how long that lasts as I am tend to wander down several side roads at one time. I did a bit more clean up on the Cane Form. There… Continue Reading
One thing I need to remind myself is that I can’t learn it all at one time. Martial art weapon forms, I mean. There are so many I want to learn, and it’s sometimes dauntting/discouraging to realize that I probably won’t learn them all in my lifetime. Something I want to talk about first, though.… Continue Reading
I am so close, I can taste it. From the minute my teacher put the practice Deerhorn Knives in my hands (hers, which she then so generously gave to me), I knew that I wanted them in my life forever. Side note: Hilariously, I don’t think I will ever have a longterm romantic relationship, but… Continue Reading