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. It was what I brought up previously about taking this long to feel like I’m actually not a newbie/novice with the weapons. I talked about why that might be, but one thing I did not bring up was my suspected neurodivergence.
I knew from a pretty young age that there was something wrong with me. Or rather, that I didn’t fit in with society around me. There are several reasons for it–notably, being 2nd generation Taiwanese American in a VERY white suburb in Minnesota–but one I did not figure out until relatively recently is that my brain doesn’t work the way other people’s do. I mean, I knew at a young age that I thought differently than other people, but my conclusion was that my brain was broken or that I was wrong.
As a result, I studied people around me and started mimicking them. This wasn’t a conscious decision at the time, but a way to survive in a world that was very much not made for someone like me. It’s called masking, a term I learned in the last few years as I’ve researched neurodivergency.
There are many ways that I mask because I belong in several different minority categories, plus the way I think is weird in general. I don’t see societal norms as a positive, but I have learned to keep that to myself. What do I mean by that? I mean that I never wanted to get married and have children as an example. This is something that is venerated in both of my cultures (Taiwanese and American) to a ridiculous degree. My mother drummed it into my head at a very early age that my only value as a (perceived) woman was to get married and procreate. Oh, I had to go to college and get educated, but that was as a backdrop to me meeting the man (had to abe a man, of course) of my dreams and popping out the children soon thereafter.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. My mother mentioned that she had my brother at my age when I turned twenty-six and then would not stop pushing me to have children for the next fifteen years. Almost every time we talked on the phone, she would somehow push her agenda. One time when I had a serious boyfriend (and I had been very vocal about not wanting children) who said that maybe he wanted to have children (after initially saying he didn’t want them), my mother said that maybe we could compromise and have one child.
After I stopped gaping in astonishment, I noted that there was no compromise between having kids and not having them. She brushed that aside as if it was an inconvenient fact. I knew that she and my father had conpromised on having two kids because she wanted four and he wanted–none maybe? Probably none, even if he wasn’t going to say it. He never had any interest in being a father, but he was one to at least give the outward appearance that he was following societal rules. He was all about saving face and making sure that he appeared to be doing the correct thing in the eyes of society.
Yanking it back to the subject at hand, I grew up believing that what I wanted/thought/cared about didn’t matter. Anything I told my parents (mostly my mother) was met with disinterest, disdain, disgust, or other negative d-words. It started when I was twenty-two and told her I was bi, and it has continued throughout my life.
I was a slow learner, and I kept hoping/wishing/thinking that it would be different this time if only I could explain it perfectly. I could never quite accept that there was nothing I could say that would make who I was palatable to my mother. It’s only in the last year or so that I have truly internalized that she will never change. I mean, I knew it was true from the time I was in my thirties, but I still held out hope.
There is a truism that people get more conservative as they get older. I’m not sure that’s true, but it has been the case with my mother. Not that she was ever liberal in the first place. I have no idea why I thought she was, but I’ve been painfully disabused of that in the last five years or so.
I don’t think it’s true in general, though. What I think is truer is that whatever you are at your core, you become even more so as you age. I’m including the good and the bad in that statement. Change is harder the older you get, and you’re more likely to drift towards inertia without prodding.
I am twice as liberal as I was twenty years ago–and I was already a progressive at that time in my life. I was what I would have challed a pragmatic progressive, and while I still am, I am also extremely angry and ready to burn some shit down.
Back to the weapons. I am so close to the end of the Swimming Dragon Form, and it’s making me antsy. It’s that classic ‘the closer I get to finishing, the more impatient I get’. Not that I’m not enjoying it, mind, but I’m ready for the next thing. What is that going to be?
Well, I have a few things in mind. One, I’m going to finally start with the Double Fan Form. Probably using the video I included in this post. There are four or five that are similar, and I might study them further to see which I want to use as my guide.
Secondly, I’m going to clean up my Double Saber Form. There are a few parts that are a bit sloppy, and I need to clean it up as I said. I’m surprisingly forgiving of my brain not remembering everything, and it’s becauseof my medical crisis. My memory is shit now, yes, but that’s just the way it goes.
That’s all for now. More tomorrow.