day 1: starting a path

so my first session was about as basic as i thought it was going to be.

stuff covered today:
stances (only 4 out of 10):

1) horse
2) 60-40
3) 70-30
4) bow-and-arrow

i didn't do much, except work on basic stances. there are 10 basic stances. and then apparently several other lines of stances which are variations of these 10--or i'm inferring from what i heard. i only spent time on the 4 above, but they were deceptively hard, and ended up taking the better part of the 3 hours to figure out and learn.

my teacher was Art, who is a lawyer and a long-time student of the Sifu Jason Tsou. Art is a senior student, and one of the several in the group who is studying for what he termed "Sifu Certification." Art told me he's been studying with Jason since the 1970s, which would make it around 20-25 years (?) he's been studying, and from what he told me he's been concentrating on Tai Chi Chuan (Chen and Yang) as well as Bagua. he may have studied other styles, but i don't know.

Art is a pretty good instructor himself. patient. very low-key. but very hands on and very willing to explain things, covering not only proper form but also concepts and the rationale behind both form and concepts.

being the beginner, i ended up spending all my time off to a side with Art while the rest of the class spent time learning technique and concepts with Sifu Jason. but that was actually good, as i really want to have time to focus on the basics and have someone give me attention to make sure i am doing things right.

i've heard from numerous sources that the martial arts are the kind of thing that really depend on precision and technique, and that without precision or technique they are rendered virtually useless. i've also heard that everything builds upon what is learned before, and so ability is based on how well you learned lessons earlier. as a result, it is imperative to learn the basics correctly, otherwise everything you do later will be ineffective.

it's really similar in a way to what i learned with triathlon. there, it's said that your level of conditioning and athletic performance is analogous to a house. the higher and bigger you want the house to be, the bigger and stronger you need the foundation to be. likewise, the better you want--or need--your physical conditioning to be, the stronger and bigger you need your base level of aerobic conditioning to be. only with a strong base of elementary aerobic conditioning can you proceed to develop a strong level of anaerobic conditioning and muscular endurance, and everything combined together is needed for superior athletic performance.

i'm guessing it's much the same way with martial arts. the greater the level of proficiency you want, the more important it is to have a strong foundation in fundamentals, since the fundamentals will be the basis for developing more advanced techniques and abilities.

i think my difficulty today was in part me having to learn new means of movement different from what i'm used to, and having to think through things to work out my physical coordination. it is definitely different from the movements i've been doing in triathlon, and i suspect that my muscle memory is very much attuned to the technique involved in swimming, cycling, and running (and trust me, there's a very fine technique to each of those events). i'm suspecting that i am going to have to take my time and let my muscles adapt and acquire familiarity with new movement patterns, until the muscle memory takes effect and i can start to do things more unconsciously.

as for the class...i am a single beginner out of a group composed largely of advanced students and an assortment of intermediate and recent students. i'm guessing out of the 12-15 people today that 8 of them have been studying with Jason for at least 10 years, 3-4 have been studying for at least 4-7 years, and the rest for around 1-2 years. but everyone is pretty friendly, and they're all willing to answer questions, so it is a very hospitable and comfortable environment.

i feel good being in the group, although painfully aware that i'm the lone beginner.

hopefully, i can get up to speed and be able to start training with everyone else more regularly.