I am so close. SO CLOSE. One more posture, and I’m done with the Double Fan Form. Well, I mean, I’ll have to refine it and make it all spiffy, but I will have taught all 48 postures to myself. 48! I still can’t believe I made it to the end. Well, I can because that’s the natural result of teaching myself a posture every so often, but, my god, it’s taken so fucking long. I honestly had my doubts that I would get here because I thought about giving up back in the early days.
Let me be real. I was never going to give up, but there were days when I really wished I could let myself do so. I had no reason for teaching myself this form other than I wanted to do it. There were times when I really did not want to do it. But I kept doing it because I’m fucking stubborn. And because it’s a beautiful form. When I can get in the flow, I love it. Here is my post from yesterday.
The way I got through it was by not thinking how much I had left to teach myself. If I had thought about it when I was in the low teens, I would have been depressed as fuck. Now that I’m one posture away from finishing it, though, I’m just in awe.
It’s a lovely form, and it seems deceptively easy. At least it did to me before I started teaching myself the form. I have included one of the three videos I used to teach the form to myself, and it was so helpful. It showed the form from the front and back at the same time, and it’s very slow so that I can catch everything about each movement. I really apppreciate that it’s from both back and front at the same time. I mostly used the back view because it’s the way I’m situated so it helps me visualize the way to do the movements.
That’s the one thing I struggle with when watching most videos. The vast majority only show them facing forward, which means I have to mentally reverse the image when I’m trying to teach the postures to myself. I mean, when you’re learning in class, you’re behind the teacher, right? That’s the way it should be in videos as well. I know why it’s not that way, but I’m just appreciative that in the video below, they show both viewpoints.
I started this form back in April–on my real birthday*, as a matter of fact. I thought it would take me three months, and here we are, eight months later. Subtracting one month because of my three-shot day, that still leaves me with seven months of teaching this form to myself.
What do I want to do next? I’m not sure. I mentioned before that I’ll probably make 2026 the year of refinements in order to make my forms as beautiful as possible, but I would like to teach myself one new form as well. I’ve messed with a Karambit/Fan Form in the past for funsies, and I’m thinking of picking that up again. There’s also the Double Sword Form that I would like to teach myself, but I would have to actually find a good Double Sword Form in order to do that.
Side note: I have got to get a grip on my sleep schedule. It’s so bad right now. I don’t know what to do, but it’s going to be drastic.
Anyway, I’m ready to move on to a new form. I’m not sure what it’s going to be–oh, the Swimming Dragon Form with Deer Horn Knives (Bagua). That’s the whole reason I started Bagua–because of how much I love the Deer Horn Knives. I was so disappointed when my teacher told me that I had to learn the Swimming Dragon Form with hands only before I could learn it with the Deer Horn Knives. I wanted to do the latter so bad, but I knew better tahn to argue (much) with her about it.
I’m glad I learned the hands only version first, honestly. It makes sense to learn the basic version before tackling the weapon form. Which, in this case, is not an actual form. My teacher explained that once you got the basics down, you could do whatever you want with it. Her teacher has a Deer Horn Knives Form, but it’s not the Swimming Dragon Form. Video, I mean. On the school’s website.
I will have to ask my teacher if he has a Swimming Dragon Form with Deer Horn Knives. If he does not, then I will have to trawl YouTube to see if I can find a good one. Or, I could just create one myself. To be honest, I have wanted to create my own weapon form for quite some time. I have not thought I had the gravitas/mastery/stones in order to make my own form. Also, the wrong gender. There is only one woman from my teacher’s school who has created her own form (that I know of). The rest are men. I’m not going to devolve into a rant against the patriarchy, but I’m thinking it hard.
In fact, one guy created his own Sword Form after studying for maybe a year or two? It was… a form, I guess. I’ll leave it at that.
So, yeah. while I may think I don’t know enough to create my own form, I certainly know more than some others who have given it a go. I may try to do a whole Karambit/Fan Form because why not go big if I don’t want to go home? It would be just like me, honestly. If I’m going to do something, it might as well be the hardest, most elaborate option possible. That’s how I roll, and why should I give it up at this point?
That’s all for today. I’m going to try to go to sleep early and get back to this tomorrow.
*As opposed to my re-birthday, which is in September. That’s the day I died twice. I should have made it the day almost a week after when I awoke from my coma, but it works either way, really. Plus, it’s too late to change it now.