I am studiously ignoring waves ot the world around me, well, everything. Glances at news and shudders in rage, disgust, sadness, and anger. There is only so much I as an individual can do, and I am just done. I have never been a super partriot because that’s just not my style, and now, I’m really disdainful of America. Not just the president, but also the people who voted for him or did not vote at all. I am feeling fury like none other, not even the first time he was president.
That’s not the point of this post, though. If I start on that, I. Will. Never. Stop. And nobody wants that–not even me. Instead, I want to talk about something that makes me feel good–Taiji. And Bagua. I will note that my teacher had said about a month before the election (after Biden dropped out, whenever that was) that there was no way Harris was going to win. I thought she was being unnecssarily pessimistic, but as I told her in our private lesson (Thursday), she was spot on. She said she hated being right, and I agreed–but it was stil impressive.
Anyway. My goal in martial arts in this year was gonig to be learning new forms or teaching myself the left side of forms I already knew. I started by teaching myself the left side of the Fan Form, but then realized about halfway through that I wassn’t fudging some of the movements in the right side of the form. Like, badly.
Side note: We all do this in Taiji–fudging movements we don’t know. Why? Because it gets worse and worse over time if you don’t correct it. Now that I’ve been looking at videos of my teacher (and her teacher) doing different forms, I can see where I’ve gotten sloppy. I’m big on watching the videos now, especially since my memory suuuuuuucks. I can watch it and then immediately forget what I just saw. In fact, I can watch a clip three or four times in a row and still have to watch it once more.
I’m very happy with how I’m cleaning up my forms. I still have a few things to iron out with the Cane Form (my least-favorite form), but I’m feeling pretty good about the Fan Form (fast becoming one of my favorite forms). I’m still marveling at how much of the Fan Form I had fucked up the first time around. it’s a lot, by the way. I fucked up a lot. I’m not too hard on myself about it, though, because I was just recovering from my medical crisis so I’m astounded that I remembered any of it at all.
As I was teaching myself the left side of the Fan Form, I got stuck. I reached a place about 3/4ths of the way through that I could not even fudge my way through on the left side. I watched the video–and I saw that I had made a half-dozen mistakes earlier on.
Because of that, I went back to the beginning on the right side and started all over again. Could I have just done that section and shored it up? Yes. Would that have been the smart thing to do in the long run? No. Look. If the base of the form isn’t solid, then there’s no reason to teach myself the left side. Or even just shore up that one section late in the form. It was much better to fix the smaller issues in the beginning than to let them go and fix them after.
Also, I felt that I was messing up a high enough percentage of the form that I did not want to teach myself the left side until I smoothed out the right side. I’m not upset with myself about it, which is a change for me. Normally, I am mad at myself for the smallest thing. Taiji has really helped with that as well, for which I am grateful. Also, I can use my medical crisis as an excuse for so many things! Well, not an excuse, exactly, but a reason for certain things liike my memory being shit.
I’m asking my teacher to help me brush up on my Solo (Long) Form as well. Her teacher is constantly revising it, and recently, he’s added several tweaks. Sometimes, I get frustrated at how constantly he’s tweaking it, but in the end, I like 99% of the tweaks he’s made. I just wish he would chill the fuck out with it and not go whole hog.
It’s interesting. When we walk about the masters in our lineage, there’s a mythical tinge to them. But, at the same time, they were human men with very human foilbles (yes, men. All of them). I try to keep that in mind when my teacher tells me about her teacher’s foibles, but it’s disappointing. Not that I expect him to be perfect, but maybe a little less shady male human than other men? Is that too much to ask?
I have a decent (I hope) fan on the way. I am excited to practice the Fan Form with a good fan instead of the cheapo ones I have. It’s funny to me how I went from being really excited about learning the Fan Form to being a bit subdued about it to thinking it was ok to really loving it. I would say it’s either my favorite or second favorite weapon form (Double Saber in the other one), and I am eager to learn the Double Fan Form. I haven’t decided which one I want to teach myself, but I’m not too worried about that.
In my last private lesson, my teacher and I did some sparring. I love the application of the movements, and as she was showing me the changes in the Solo (Long) Form, it made sense to show why the changes were made. And we did some Bagua chicken pecking which is just fast and furious, and it makes the opponent think about defending rather than attacking.
I love the combat applications so much. Nothing excites me more (in martial arts) than learning how I can break someone’s arm. Would I ever want to use it? No. Would I be able to use it? With practice, hopefully. That’s the point of sparring–to get it in your body so that if you actually have to use it, you don’t have to think about it.
Another of my favorite moves is unfolding and folding. This may have been in the last lesson and I may have already mention it, but it’s a technique that allows you to keep going if your first attack doesn’t work. So if someone comes at me, then I can elbow them. If that doesn’t work, then I ‘fold’ my arm and shoulder them. Unfolding is the opposite. If I elbow them and it doesn’t work, then I ‘unfold’ my arm and hit them with the back of my fist, say on their nose. If that doesn’t work, I can ‘unfold’ even further and poke them in the eyes with my fingers.
I love how this is no longer an anathema to me. When my teacher first showed me applications for the postures (this was over a decade ago), I had no idea how I was supposed to learn that. Now, she’s shown me a few drills that are the basis for combat, and I thought, “Yeah, I can do that.” When I first learned Pushing Hands (one of the basics for sparring), I was so stiff and uncomfortable with it. You have to be really close to the othre person, and you have to have your hands on them. We Americans are not used to either of those things.
That’s all for today. I’ll write more on this tomorrow.