Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: weapons

Bagua brings out the beast in me

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When I talk about Taiji, it’s really difficult to convey the feeling of flow that I get in when a weapon form is going well. I have said that holding a sword was like having an extension of my hand, but that’s a very clumsy way of phrasing it. And trite. I can talk about how it feels like dancing, but that’s incomplete, too.

Bottom line. You really do have to experience it to know what it’s like. As with anything, really. It’s a fact of life that we can’t know what anyone else feels. That doesn’t stop me from trying, though. Taiji and now Bagua are so important in my life, I want to share that with other people.

It’s interesting, though, how when I was on Twitter (yes, TWITTER), I used to tweet about my love for Taiji weapons. Inevitably, I got very different responses from people based on their gender. This was back when people identified mostly in the binary. Men would respond by saying how hot it was, either implicitly or explicitly. Some were very explicit.

Women, on the other hand, were appalled and horrified by what they saw as  me being violent. Because of course that’s the only reason someone could be interested in weapons would be because they had a violent nature. One woman even said that she didn’t think I was like that. Like what, I didn’t know, but I could guess.

Both of these responses irritated me and reeked of sexism. With the former, they just wanted to get with me and it was titillating to think of me as being good with weapons. It’s much like female cops often have a hard time dating because men were either intimidated by them or arroused by the fact that they wielded a gun.

In both cases, they weren’t seeing the policewoman as a person but as a woman with a gun. It’s the same with guys who want to fuck me because I do martial art weapons. Although, I guess, to some extent it’s similar to dudes who just looooooove Asian women. It’s not seeing a person as an individual.

I’m not necessarily saying it’s bad to think someone’s hot because of any one thing. Everyone does to a certain extent. I mean, we all objectify others (well, those of us who want to have sex with others), and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It only becomes a problem when it’s all a person can see in the other person. Or in this specific case, when a dude thinks that me doing martial arts weapons is for him somehow.


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Waiting it out

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Today, for the first time in a long time, I did not do any weapon form practice. Why? Because the last COVID booster kicked. my. ass. I mean, it happens every time, but I always forget how bad it is. Or maybe it’s the worst this time. I will try to do some weapons later, but I was breaking out int a a sweat, and I seem to remember my teacher telling me that if you’re lightly sweating, it’s fine, but if it’s a heavy sweat , to stop. When you’re sick, I mean. Not in general.

I’ve been sweating profusely the last two days. Alternating with having the chills. I don’t get the chills unless I’m sick, and I do not like it. I like the sweating even less, though. It’s just gross. I feel weird not having done any weapons. I think I’ll sprinkle them throughout the day. I haven’t gone a day without doing the weapons forms since about a month after coming home from the hospital. Intellectually, I know that I’m not going to forget everything I know if I don’t practice for a day or two, but it’s suc a big part of my daily routine and of me, I don’t want to not do it.

But I’m worn out. When I did the stretches and the bagua, I started sweating. Now, I’m chilled. I know that it’s important to get the booster. I was planning on getting my flu shot in a few days as well, but if I do that, then the chances that I’ll be in good enough shape to go to my brother’s for Thanksgiving are slim to none. Here is my post from yesterday about me and shots.

The first time I got a Covid shot, the welt lasted until next time I got the shot. That was three weeks and a day later. Yes, they shot me again on the small bump that was still there. That is not an exaggeration. Today is day four and my arm is still hot, burny, and swollen. I have no energy, and I keep flashing cold and hot. I am actually more weirded out by being cold because I don’t get cold. In fact, that’s how I know I’m sick–when I actually feel cold. Chills, to be more precise. It’s a very strange feeling, and if I weren’t sick, I would actually find it interesting.

I hate being sick. That’s not a controversial statement or even that observant, I know. But I especially hate it when I intentionally did it to myself. I know it’s better to be boosted. I know that I should get my flu shot. But it would help if the powers that be would acknowledge that for some people, it comes at a cost. by powers that be, I mean doctors.

I really feel like it’s worse this time. I wonder if it’s because it’s a different brand. I got the Pfizer in the past, but this time it was the Moderna. Apparently, it’s fine to mix-and-match, but maybe the Moderna is particularly potent.


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I was kung-fu fightin’!

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I attended my first Taiji Zoom class in four months and it was both familiar and not. The first thing I had forgotten was that it was an hour-and-a-half, not just an hour. That was a change made just as I had my medical trauma and I never attended one of those classes. Class started late and I was nervous because I wasn’t getting in. It took ten minutes before I was invited in and then I remembered why the classes were so frustrating. For whatever reason, her connection is not strong. That means that I have a hard time hearing her. It was also partly a problem because I had done something dumb. I switched my audio to headphone/speakers because I don’t know why. I have a Lenovo Bluetooth speaker that I thought was hooked into headphone/speakers. It wasn’t until after the class that I realized, no, it’s just headphone. I don’t know why, but that’s the way of the Lenovo speaker.

I was the only person on Zoom. I have a hunch that’s the way it is most classes. I don’t know why, but it just seems like most people have moved on from the pandemic. I need to get my booster and then maybe I’ll feel comfortable going to an in-person class again. I wouldn’t before then, for sure. When I got to Cubs, there are maybe a quarter of the people other than me and the workers wearing a mask. I know people are tired of COVID, but it’s not done with us yet.

It started with warmups. It was as if no time had passed at all because it felt so familiar. And yet, I had forgotten more than one warmup in the process. Plus, there was an added one. Or maybe it was later. At some point, there was a change, which was exciting. Plus, during the Long Solo Form, the counts are different in a few places. It was the first thing I learned and yet, I still don’t like it. It’s gotten better over time, but I still will choose to do just about anything else before the Long Solo Form. It’s never felt comfortable or relaxing. It’s the basis for everything we do and it’s something I’ve done hundreds of times if not more. I should know it like the back of my hand and yet, I don’t. It’s partly because it’s been changed several times and I don’t know where it stands as of now. Changed by my teacher’s teacher. I was teaching myself the left side–ok.

Let me explain. Everything we learn in class in the right side. All the forms, I mean. And then we’re supposed to teach ourselves the left side. I have taught myself the left side of the sword and he saber, but not the Long Solo Form. As I said, it’s partly because my teacher’s teacher has changed it periodically. I taught myself 2/3rds of the left side of the Long Solo Form when my teacher’s teacher  started really messing with it. He was changing so many things, I decided to wait until he was done before I finished teaching myself the left side.


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A dangerous time

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I’m full of energy today, which is a change for me. Since I got out of the hospital, I’ve gotten a solid eight hours a night, waking up only once during the night. I’ve woken  up and not been exhausted, but my body is still mending. All that sleep is going into the deficit I’ve carried with me for decades. I know that’s not how sleep works, but that’s how I think of it, anyway. I’ve had a lifetime of not getting enough sleep and then I had a very traumatic day followed by two weeks in the hospital. The first two weeks at home, my body was just mending itself and recovering from the trauma. The next two weeks, the sedation and narcotic meds were (finally) completely leaving my body, which meant I could feel all the little aches and pains that a body has.

Then, I hit a plateau of frustration because I wasn’t getting any better. Intellectually, I know that it can’t always be peaks. There are going to be plateaus, and, yes, valleys. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. Part of Taiji is accepting things as they are, which is not my strong point. I come by it honestly as my parents are both major worriers (in vastly different ways). I used to joke with K that her mother was very much, “Whatever choice you make, you’ll be fine” whereas my mother is more, “Whatever choice you make, it’ll go drastically wrong”. We both laughed at the time, albeit ruefully. In my case, it meant that no matter what I did, I always regretted it and thought about how different life would be if I had done x, y, or z. This is more my mother than my father, but he’s prone to it, too. When I had a minor car accident several years ago, I was clearly in the right. The witnesses and the cops agreed with this. So did the young woman who was driving the other car. I, too, knew there was absolutely nothing I could do. I was going straight on a local road when she suddenly turned left and slammed into my car. I saw her coming, instantly thought, “There’s nothing I can do” and instinctively relaxed. I walked away from it with a massive bruise on my stomach from the seat belt, probably, and nothing else. My car was totaled, but I was fine. Later, my father started questioning if there was anything I could have done to avoid it. I was getting pissed because there really was nothing I could do. I picked up a stuffed soccer ball my father had made in Home Ec and threw it suddenly at my father. He didn’t even flinch as it hit him. I asked why he didn’t try to catch it and he didn’t even register that I had thrown something at him. It wasn’t nice of me and I felt like shit afterwards, but it made my point–at least to me.


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Taiji–what I love and what I hate about it

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I love taiji weapons. I probably don’t have to say that by now, but I want to make it absolutely clear. If I had the stamina to do it all day long, I would. I’ve raved about how it’s helped me through the pandemic and how I’ve pushed ahead with it at a clip that has surprised me. In comparison, doing the Solo Form is like pulling teeth with me. Even the Medium Form, which I like well enough, is not something I would choose to do if I had other options–like weapons.

We need to talk about Master T. T. Liang’s Long Form because it has been my nemesis since day one. It’s roughly 20 minutes long and is split into three sections. The third section is nearly as long as both the other sections put together and the entire form is filled with repetition. In addition, Master Liang loved the performative aspect of taiji so he made every movement an even-number of counts so the whole thing could be set to music. That means there is filler, which is strange for a medium that is predicated on exerting the least amount of energy necessary in any given situation.

I have to get into the weeds a little to explain some of the differences between the Long Form and the Medium Form so my apologies in advance if some of this is a bit abstruse. Hah. I first typed obtruse–which is my mashup of obtuse and abstruse. Anyway! In the Long Form, the bow stances–oh dear. A bow stance is when one foot is forward and pointed straight ahead. The back foot is shoulder-width apart (and usually the toes are at a forty-five degree angle NE, if front foot in north). Usually, the feet are a foot/foot-and-a-half apart front to back, but that doesn’t matter as much as the shoulder-width apart side-to-side. There can be a forward bow stance and a back bow stance, but it’s usually forward–meaning the weight is forward.

In the Long Form, the weight is 2/3rds and 1/3rd, but it can be rounded up to 70% and 30%. In the Medium Form, the weight is 100% forward, and it’s 60/40 on the back stance. The benefit of the Long Form bow stance is that you’re not exerting extraneous energy and it’s good for health reasons. The benefit to the Medium Form bow stance is that prime for martial arts applications. At least, that’s my understanding of the differences. The Long Form is considered the beginner’s form and easier to learn. The Medium Form is the advanced form and more difficult. At least this is what my teacher has told me. Her teacher wants her to teach the Long Form to the beginning classes and the Medium Form for the advanced classes. In prep for this, she has been going over the Long Form in all Zoom classes.

I’m trying to keep an open mind, but I still do not like this form at all. It used to give me crippling back pains when we did it on the regular. They would start at the end of the first section and by the third section, my back was screaming in agony. I’ve had to stop more than once during the third section because my back had clenched up so badly. In addition, my knees…oh my poor knees. I was able to clear up the latter problem with the help of my teacher looking at my knees as I demonstrated a part of the Long Form to her. She deduced that I was collapsing my knees and counseled me to make sure that my knees were over my toes. That helped tremendously with the tendonitis in my knees, but the issue of my back pains still continued.

Fast-forward to now, roughly two years after my teacher’s teacher switched from the Long Form  to the Medium Form. I am now 100% back pain-free because of the stretches my teacher suggested I try. In starting the Long Form again, the pain has come back. Not nearly as intense or as often as before, but it’s there. I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s talk about the Medium Form instead. Yes, you still have to make sure your knees are over your toes, but it’s easier when 100% of your weight is on one foot.


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A mélange, a potpourri, and an olio–but mostly Lil Nas X

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My brain has been jumping all over the place and my sleep has sucked, so this post is going to meander more than usual. I’m going to pull back the curtain a bit on how I write posts. Not on the writing itself because that’s usually just put down whatever is in my brain. No, it’s about how I decide what to write about. Normally, there’s something pressing on my brain and I let that flow from my fingers until I’ve said all I need to say on the subject or until  I lose interest. Sometimes, it’s both, but sometimes it’s one or the other.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been struggling with my concentration for reasons I don’t want to get into. Suffice to say, it’s not as easy to get shit done as it used to be. Most of the time, I just grit my teeth and force myself to write the post. It may not be as long as it normally is or very good, but I get it done, damn it. Today, however, I’m going to write about whatever is on my mind with no attempt at coherency. Here we go.

Lil Nas X. I didn’t know he existed until yesterday when I read something about Satan Shoes, his new kicks. That he’s selling. Oh, and he’s a rapper? Singer? Both? Anyway, there are 666 pairs and they contain drops of human blood. That’s all I knew when I made this tweet:

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I’m slicing and I’m dicing

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Thumb update: doing better, but still tender and sore. I’m stretching it daily, icing it and heating it alternately. I’m using the splint less because I don’t think it’s helping as much now. More to the point, I don’t do much with my thumb on the daily so there’s no need to splint it. I do wear it while I sleep because I toss and turn while I sleep; I don’t want to knock it into something. In addition, if I type too long without it on, the base of my thumb and part of my palm closest to it actually starts hurting. Then, I put on the splint and it’s better in five or ten minutes. It’s frustrating how long it’s taking to get better, but it *is* getting better.

Weapons. Let’s talk weapons. Wait, where are you going? I know I’ve become a one-note wonder on this, but it’s been consuming me for the past few weeks. Ever since I got the twin broadsword set, that is. I love them so much. They’re lighter than the escrima sticks I’d been using as a substitute and more ergonomically friendly for my hands. They don’t aggravate my thumb and they move like a dream.

I don’t know how to explain this, but each weapon has a different feel to it. When I hold one in my hand, there’s an energy that is distinct to that particular weapon. The sword is an elegant weapon as it dances in the air. It is the scholar’s weapon and it’s all about finesse. It’s lethal, yes, but it’s more about showing that you are a master over the weapon. The saber, on the other hand, is more about bonking people very hard. It’s a strong, powerful weapon that makes me feel like a warrior as I wield it. Spear is back into the finesse category and it’s both solid and delicate. It’s over six-feet long, which makes it interesting to maneuver it indoors. Cane is pure Broadway. I can’t help it. I just want to tap my way across the room. Karambit is fast and not-so-furious, and I feel like a proper rogue when I wield it. Stealth mode activated!

Moving onto the double sabers. Doing the drills with the escrima sticks, it felt weighty and almost meaty. The steel is thin and flexible, which results in making a swishing sound if I move it too quickly. That’s a bonus because I tend to hurry through my movements. My goal in moving the twin broadswords at the moment is not to trigger the whooshing sound. Also, not to hit myself. I’ve done that more than once because when you pass the blades behind your back, you’re supposed to actually touch them to your back. Which is fine and good, but there’s a thin line between touching and hitting. Fortunately, it’s with the back of the blades and not the front, but still.

Deer-horn knives. These are on the backburner right now. I walk the circle once a week, but I have so many other things on my plate that I haven’t pushed myself to learn any more of it. I just finished teaching myself the Wu-Li Wudang Sword and the left side of the Sword Form. Both of these were fairly easy to teach myself (at least the forms in general. Nowhere near polished, of course). Next up is the last row of the Karambit Form, which I’m sure will be more difficult. I already knew the right side of the Sword Form and have done it probably close to a  thousand times. With the Wu-li Wudang Sword, I already knew the different energies being displayed.

Alright. I’m struggling with this post. My mind has not been sharp the last week or two, so I’m going to wrap this up for now.

The long road back to recovery

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I’ve been thinking about my thumb a lot for obvious reasons. It’s funny how much you take things for granted until it hurts like fucking hell. well, to be more precise, it aches like hell. It doesn’t hurt, per se, except the time I slept without the splint because I foolishly decided I didn’t need to wear it at night any longer. That’s where my background comes in because my mom is the same way. The second something feels better, she decides she can go 100 again. She recently had surgery on her shoulder (which had issues that made me so angry at my father and the doctor, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it because she was in Taiwan) and she was upset when she wasn’t back to her normal self in a month. She complained, saying her doctor said that’s how long it would take.

I doubt he said that exactly because she has a habit of hearing what she wants to hear, but even if he had something similar to that, it doesn’t make any kind of sense to think that you’d completely heal from a major surgery in a month. That’s the thing about being a perfectionist, however, and I know this from experience. We don’t have much resource for dealing with ongoing frustration. In my brain, I should be able to think my way to a solution. Also, despite my contrarian nature, I am a rules follower for the most part. So, in my brain, if I am actively working on improving my thumb, then it should get better. And it is, but on such a slow schedule. First week, I just tried to massage the thumb and take it easy. While wearing a splint. I do stretches for my thumb every day and today, I received my heat/ice therapy assists (gel patches, gel finger splint, gel mittens. The gel packs can go either hot or cold). I’m going to do some heat/ice therapy and see if that helps as well.

On the taiji front (because you know I can’t go a post without talking about it.

Side note: When I first started studying taiji, I would notice how much my teacher talked about it and how she had made it central to her life. We are friends as well as teacher/student and in the Before Times, we used to hang out while not in class sometimes. It was clear to me that taiji was her life. Which, good for her, but I didn’t understand it. I was doing it begrudgingly and not really wanting to be there.


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The more things change….

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I gave up coffee. Again. Maybe not for good, but I switched back to green tea for my caffeine. Why? Because my sleep has been terrible since I started drinking it again. Green tea didn’t seem to have that effect and it’s delicious, especially with pomegranate. I haven’t had this bad of sleep in some time and it’s really messing with my head. Yes, my migraines have been kept at bay, but is it worth it? I don’t know. With the absence of the migraines, I would say yes. But, in the middle of a migraine, I would say no. It’s the duel of the conflicting health issues!

On the weapons front, I loaded up today. I did the beginning of the Double Sabre Form, sword drills, the whole Sabre Form, the Karambit Form, and spear drills. Oh, I forgot to do the one row of the Cane Form I know, so I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m still thinking about about a music/form mashup and we’ll see if I have the energy for that. One thing about going to the demo is that it fills me with possibilities–much like a kid with her nose pressed to the window of a candy shop. I want everything I can see and all at one time. My teacher likes to say that there’s a lifetime to learn things so there’s no reason to rush.

She’s right, but that doesn’t stop my brain from whispering that I’m behind and need to catch up. Not that kindly, of course, as my brain is really mean to me most of the time. Actually, I have to check that. It used to be horrid to me. I had a constant tape of negativity that looped in my brain and it just felt normal. I called him (and it was definitely a him) The Dictator and he was a cruel master. He had so many rules and regulations, it was impossible to keep them straight and not mess up.

Side note: Quick background about the Dictator. I grew up being constantly told, mostly by implication, that my feelings were not valid. They constantly got minimized and ignored, and I was not allowed to show any kind of negative emotion. Negative meaning anger, sadness, depression, etc. Only my father was allowed to show anger because he was king of the castle and allowed to do whatever he wanted. The rest of us had to tiptoe around him and catered to his every whim.

I internalized those messages to such an extent that even now I have difficulty showing human emotions in a natural manner. It’s one reason I prefer writing because it’s easier to mimic through written words than through speaking. I’m better at it, but it’s still not something I can do without thinking. In the past, I’ve been able to mimic the emotions because I’m observant and I used to do some  acting in my youth.

I want to be clear. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the emotion on some level. If a friend told me they, say, got a great new job, then I felt happy for them deep down inside. The problem was that I had wrapped my emotions in multiple layers of cotton that I could no longer feel them. Not only that, I couldn’t even access them.

I had a flat affect at the time because I was in a deep depression and I felt as if I could never get out of it. Now, I’m still not as emotive as ‘normal’ people, but I can more easily  pass. And I have access to my emotions, albeit muted versions.


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Feeding my addiction

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Weapons. Let’s talk about them. Why? Because I’m obsessed with them. I mean, I’ve always loved my weapons, but in the last few months, they’ve really become deeply meaningful to me. As much as I love taiji in general, I would not have said the same for the Solo Form. I’ve really struggled with the Solo Form. I hated it from the beginning and, honestly, I didn’t know why I stuck with it especially since I had a disastrous experience the first time I tried taiji due to a terrible, manipulative, shady teacher.

With my second teacher, I fought her every step of the way. I was recalcitrant and grumpy, pushing back hard on whatever she said. I hated the Solo Form. I hated it so much that I didn’t practice it at home. In fact, I added a second class a week because I wouldn’t practice at home. Why didn’t I quit especially as it was not mandatory in any way? I’m still not entirely sure. Something inside me kept pushing me to go. I needed something to do as exercise as I hated nearly every other form of it.

In addition, I wanted to have a way to defend myself if I ever needed it. I have been in harrowing situations in the past and never want to be in one again. Or rather, I never want to feel as helpless as I have in the past. Indeed, I have already seen the fruits of my labor in other ways. Such as my minor car accident in which I saw the other car coming towards me. I thought, “I’m going to get hit,” and my body immediately relaxed. I didn’t will it to relax and I didn’t consciously think that I had to relax–it just happened.

But did I ever learn to love the Solo Form? No. I still don’t. I don’t hate it any longer, but I don’t love it. And yet, there was something in me that kept pushing to do it. I resentfully started practicing at home for five minutes a day. Just the warmups and maybe a bit of the Solo Form. Oh, I also did the weight-bearing set that is in taiji as well.

Against myself, I started incorporating more and more of taiji into my daily life. I added a third class and my home routine stretched out into ten minutes, fifteen, and now, up to forty-five minutes with the expansion being on the weapons side. I’ve had to cajole and trick myself into doing more taiji because that’s the way my brain works, but whatever it takes.


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