Dragon Dance & Other Stuff

So the practice on Saturday at the school gym (thanks to sifu bryant) was awesome.  We worked on the stack (very high ceilings at the school gym) and after a number of attempts got the bugs worked out and it looks awesome.  What a relief!

Worked on a Tai Chi demo that we are putting together and it is starting to look pretty good and the timing of the performance is coming together.  Hope it gets put into the chinese new year celebration!

I must admit I am excited and anxious about the chinese new year performances ... got butterflies in my stomach and as a result I am scattered.   Left half my stuff at the studio on Saturday and have not been able to focus on things very well this weekend.   I keep reminding myself to breath deeply to see if that will help but not so far.  This is always the scariest thing,  for weeks I am anxious, I loose my focus, rush my performances.  And then after I get through it I am ... well that wasn't so bad, no one died or got injured, I didn't humiliate myself too badly, no one laughed, and I tell myself next time I will be less scared it will be easier.  But it dosen't, I do it anyway and go thru the whole cycle everytime.  Sigh!

Beat the battle of the germ

So I got sick on Friday. Really ... why not Tuesday or Wednesday, at least it wouldn't mess up my weekend when the cool stuff is going on and I could stay home from work instead. Essentially all I did was sleep for two days straight. Yuk! Of course it messed up the numbers ... I am attempting to get things back in line.

The good thing about winter is that there are fewer distractions ... not tempted to go out to the garden or go for a spin on the motorcycle, or sit out on the deck and have a glass of wine and enjoy the quiet, things like that. However it does mess with some practice because going outside in two feet of snow to work on a form is not really an option. Fortunately for me I am spoiled and can practice inside in the shop (at work) where it is a heck of alot warmer and not much I can damage. So I certainly have no excuse for being behind on my form reps ... which I still am but it is looking better than a month ago so progress is being made.

I have been reviewing the bokken form and I must admit I lost most of the sequence of the thing while focusing on other forms. I keep adding moves from the broadsword form too it so its become a hybrid. Master Brinker did warn us about things like this so I am trying to not beat myself up about it and just fix it.

Reading, Mediation, Gardening, Art

I love to read and quite often will have several books on the go at the same time.  Right now its 'Being Peace' by 'Thich Nhat Hanh'  ,  the '50 Best Ways to Simplify your Life'  and 'Meditation for Beginners' by Jack Kornfield.  I have read all of these books before in my usual speed read type of way but what happens when I do that is I fail to incorporate some of the really important stuff that these various persons wrote about.  I picked these three because they compliment each other from a number of different directions.  Mr. Hanh is very 'eastern' in his approach, Mr. Kornfield says the same kinds of things in a more western approach and the people who wrote 'the 50 best ways...' are very how to step by step and so its kind of interesting and cements the philosophies more strongly in the mind.  I am doing a single chapter per week in each book and will work on absorbing the concept they are try to teach.  This will prevent me from speed reading and allow time to process.

'Being Peace' by 'Thich Nhat Hanh' 

1st chapter something important I forgot 'smile'

Breathing in I calm my body
Breathing out I smile
Dwelling in the present moment
I know this is a wonderful moment

I struggle with mediation so its been a challenge but I forgot to smile!  I admit at first I felt kind of like the Joker in the batman movie looked .... rigid and pained but its getting easier.

Meditation for Beginners by Jack Kornfield

1st chapter talks about being mindful, and developing the 'art of living'.  It does not specify any type of meditation other than finding one that works for you and sticking with it.  For me its something active, like gardening .... grubbing around in the dirt gets me away from myself and all the 'important' things I have to do, I am in  the moment, loving the smell, the feeling, the giving, its pretty awesome in a weird sort of way.

Simplfy your Life by Fanning & Mitchner

Simplicity is not a state of rest, it is dynamic.  The goal is not to arrive at a static balance in your life but to become skilled  at the process of shifting the center point so that the whole asymetrical structure of your life remains in balance.    Personally I don't work well with the word balance and will be changing it into 'harmony' in my mind.  Balance implies some sort of measurement of equaility which I don't believe is fair or even possible most of the time ... however harmony can be achieved without always being in balance.  If that makes any kind of sense.  In addition there is a project for my art journal where I map out various aspects of my life which is supposed to assist me in finding harmony.   Will be working on that this week.

Cool Dragons

It was awesome doing the dragon dance practice with two dragons ... we have named them 'Smog' and 'Draco' and we have roughed in two teams although it may change as we need a good mix of small and big people on each team for some of the showy stuff that is being planned.  Its going to be spectacular I think doing this at the new venue where we have more room and integrated with the lion.   I sure hope somebody is planning to record the performance at the promotion/new years ceremony ... I will be buying the DVD.

So this has been a week of catching up ...  at work and on my numbers.  We were travelling and hotel rooms really don't have enough room for forms, especially not weapons but hey I did imaginary ones.  Meaning going through the moves without the actual weapon in hand,  it lacks the power but as I was fixing some stuff in the cane form that has to do with hand positions and I have a great imagination I think it worked okay. Both Stick and Part One and Two of the cane form go straight forward and back so I could even do the footwork for those however the third part 'points' or pokes as I think of it was a little cramped but worked. So I am not as far behind as I might have been if I had been trying to do mu long koon which is huge.

Saturday

This Saturday I am going to help with the little leopards and they are a riot.  Yes you have to be on your toes and for a group of people that are 1/3 of my size (if that) they can be pretty overwhelming in large groups. Its sure not boring!  If you get the chance you should help out!    Then Tai Chi ... breakfast ... dragon dance practice ... and a bunch of us are going to get together to spar afterwards.   Could you have a better day?  I don't think so!  Look forward to seeing you there.

As promised the post

The tiger challenge went really well!  I am very proud of the I Ho Chuan team, the dynamics of tasks and people all came together very smoothly.    It can be very tough to get that many people who are all very different with different skill sets to work on a project like this.  It bodes well for the Chinese new year and promotion ceremony in January.   As disappointed as I have been in my execution of the cane form  I took Sifu’s advice and thought about what would benefit me more, doing a favored old standby (safe) or performing the form I have been working on for the year  and have been very frustrated with (riskier) and getting the feedback on my execution of the form.  So I did the form ... I got scored.  What is the feed back in this.  As I am always really nervous when performing I cannot remember who the judges were, in fact I can’t remember most of the performance.  What I want is the feedback so that I can continue to improve ... was it better than before?  Has progress been made?  Have the different things I been working on perfecting in the form helped or hindered?  So I am asking because I really do want to know.  Please judges or anyone else feel free to comment. 

I will attempt the hyperlink on the mirrored blog

On to better things

At the I Ho Chuan Meeting on Saturday Sifu Brinker called me on my unwillingness to share (blog) when I believe that I have nothing positive or enlightening to share.  The past few months have been very challenging and it is the responsibilites in my personal life which has pushed out pretty much everything else.  So my hubby, kung fu, dancing, my job, it all got pushed aside.  It was very frustrating, blogs were roughed in but never posted because they were me venting rather than seeing anything positive in the experience.  I am not like a lot of members on the I Ho Chuan team who really 'THINK' about whats going on in their lives and ponder the intricacies of the moment.  I am more the head down, plow forward and get through it!  It was a difficult experience, a task to be endured, resolved, and once completed, buried as quickly and efficiently as possible.  So its over ... possibly I just need more time to appreciate the opportunity for learning.

On to more exciting things!  I am really enjoying the I Ho Chuan this year ... especially the dragon dance team. I like the people on the team,  I like the challenge of it!  Its a performance that I can do and not freak out as I am not up there alone.  Anyone who has the opportunity to be on the team and has not taken it ... well you are missing out big time.   I was really hoping that we could do the double dragon at the chinese new year event it would be awesome.