It is a month and a half since I got three shots on the same day. My second shingles shot, my pneumonia vax, and my regular blood work shot that I have to get every year. That was NOT a smart idea, especially as the second shingles shot was notorious for being an extra-impactful one. Or rather, I had heard that everyone who got the shingles shots felt one or the other disproportionately hard. K had difficulty with the first one and thought she would have to go to the emergency room after getting it.
I am sensitive to shots in general, anyway. When I got my first Covid vax, I had a swollen bump until I got the second shot–six weeks later. It was pretty small and not hot by the time I got the second one, but it was still there.
I got the first one and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t bad–for me, anyway. Yes, I reacted to it. Yes, my arm was hot, swollen, and throbbing for a week or so, but that’s what I expect when I get vax shots. Yeah, I was a bit feverish, too. But, again, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was at half-mast for maybe three weeks in total.
The second shot? My god. It was brutal. Absolutely brutal. I have never had a reaction like that to a shot before. Again, it did not help that I had gotten my pneumonia vax on the same day (different arm), but that was a walk in the park compared to the second shingles shot. It wiped me out, and I didn’t do any Taiji for several days. Then, I started to cautiously add to my practice day by day, and it’s only yesterday that I finally felt ready to teach myself more of the Double Fan Form.
Before I get to that, I have to mention that on the day of the three shots, I got one in each arm and one in the back of my left hand. About a decade ago, I d discovered the wonder of butterfly needles. I don’t remember how, but probably a phlebotomist suggested it once, and now, I bring it up whenever I need to get a shot. It’s not always viable, but when it is, it makes blood drawing easy-peasy. I don’t want to insult any phlebotomist, but I know that using a butterfly needle is going to make it so much easier for both parties.
Even before I had to take time off to recover from my shots, the Double Fan Form was kicking my ass. I am used to learning weapon forms with ease. Yes, the Saber Form was difficult as my second form, but that was because I was looking at it like it was just a bigger sword. Once I realized that it was its own thing, I was able to learn it in a brisk fashion.
Foolishly, I thought I couuld do the same with the Double Fan Form. I had some diffiuclty teaching myself the Fan Form, but once I went back and retaught it to myself, it was not a problem. I love the Fan Form, by the way. It’s actually the weapon form I wanted to learn first for several reason. One, I can carry a fan with me wiouth trouble. I now use a bigger fan for both the Fan Form and the Double Fan Form, but I learned the Fan Form with a normal-sized fan that can fit in my purse. Two, sharpened tips on the ribs dipped in poison. I’m just going to leave that there. Three, it’s so elegant and feminine, yet strong. I just love everything about it.
There is no Double Fan Form in my lineage. I asked my teacher about it, and no, her teacher does not have one. I scoured YouTube, but I could not find a Double Fan Form that wasn’t Chen-style or not Taiji. And, believe me, I looked hard.
I thought about giving up and doing a different form. There are several I want to teach myself. I could move on to something else, right? Wrong. that’s not how my brain works, sadly. Or maybe not sadly. Something inside me said that I needed to find a Double Fan Form that I could teach to myself, even if it wasn’t Liang-style Taiji.
I found the video above, and I decided this was the one. I’m pretty sure it’s Chen-style because of the very deep knee bends, but I’m just adapting it with much less knee bending.
Before I got my shots, I had taught myself 39 of 48 postures. I started teaching it to myself over six months ago, and I naively thought I’d be done in three months. Why? Because no other weapon form had taken me longer than that to learn.
I was so wrong. I also naively thought because I had learned the Double Saber Form quite smoothly, it would be the same with the Double Fan Form. Oh, how wrong I was. I have to remind myself that I taught it to myself before my medical crisis, and it’s easier than the Double Fan Form.
I just checked. Apparently, I taught myself the Fan Form months after my medical crisis. No wonder I had to go back and reteach myself parts of it. Huh.
Anyway, I went into the Double Fan Form thinking it would take me three months to teach it to myself. Ha! Even before my shots, I was sitting on on four-and-a-half months; I still had nine postures left to teach myself (plus the conclusion). In other words, I was not anywhere near done.
It’s only been about four or five days that I’ve been practicing the Double Fan Form up to the point where I’ve taught myself. I was a little shaky and had to clean some stuff up. There is more I could tweak, but I want to finish teaching the whole form to myself first. My teacher has said it’s more imortant to learn the whole form first and then go back to refine things.
I’m trying to keep that in mind because my impulse is to refine as I go. It’s the same when I write; I edit as I go. That’s why I have several unfinished manuscripts–I drop them before I can finish them. To be fair to me, I have finished dozens of novels, but I have started so many more.
Yesterday, I taught myself two new postures. They were fairly simple, and they flowed logically from the previous postures. I’m pretty pleased about it and now I have seven postures left. The end is in sight (before the refinement, of course), and I’m marveling that I’m this close. Back at the beginning of the form, I feared I would never learned the whole thing. I know I have said this several times, but it’s so fucking hard.
The reason it’s hard is because–look. I’ts like this. In the Double Saber Form, the sabers are mirroring each other for the most part or one is doing something while the other is at rest. Very rarely (if ever) do the two sabers do something differently at the same time.
In the Double Fan Form, it happens fairly often. Because of my dexterity issues as well as my reflex issues, not to mention a few other issues that resulted from my medical crisis, it is really difficult for me to learn to do two different things at the same time.
I’m done for today. More tomorrow.