day 206: adventures & misadventures

concepts:

• shaolin
• thinking too much
  

lessons:

• bagua fist form
• kyudo

we had another wet Saturday today. very wet. and cold. as a result, things were a bit unsteady--not for any reason, other than rainy days always seem to be this way, like some psychic disturbance in people's collective (un)consciousness.

bagua fist form

we went a little further in to the fist form. we got to a part that was eerily reminiscent of shaolin styles, particularly in terms of a sweep and a kick. Sifu mentioned that parts of the fist form were influenced by--if it didn't directly come from--shaolin.

he also noted that we were now approximately 1/3 of the way through the form, which is a bit shocking, considering that it takes about 2 minutes to get to where we are now, suggesting that the entire form is around 6 minutes. this makes it in the same category as the chen tai chi long form. no big deal, except that you also have to consider that the fist form is only 1 form out of many bagua forms, while the chen long form is traditionally the only chen tai chi form (the short form is a rather recent creation, and not part of the traditional chen curriculum).

i made a video of where we are, since it's now becoming long enough that i'm having trouble remembering everything. i think i'm going to have to make this a regular occurrence.

kyudo

kyudo today was a continuation of misadventures. this was the 1st day that i wore japanese dojo clothes (i.e., tabi, hakama, obi, dogi). this turned out to be quite a bit more complicated to put on that i had expected, and i ended up getting out of the locker room quite late for the sutra. i can see this is going to take quite a bit of practice to get down to a more manageable speed.

Sensei also observed that some of my clothes were a little mis-sized--in particular, my hakama was several centimeters too short. he said this is something we can rectify in time, but that we'll have to live with this for now.

as for the rest of the evening, i actually am starting to get a little more comfortable with the general pattern of the art--cleaning the dojo, preparing the equipment, dressing the self, meditating, and then pulling on the glove and lining up to shoot.

but i should note this is only up to a point. i'm still struggling a bit with the act of shooting, and i'm still tensing up and making mistakes in performance of the form. in particular, i can tell my shoulders and scapula, along with my elbows and spine, are still entirely discombobulated. i think i'm trying to concentrate on too many things at once, and am not at a stage where i can just let things flow naturally. Sensei admonished me at one point, saying: "you're thinking too much."

ah yes, so goes my ongoing education in the bow and arrow. this is going to take some work.