Things change, and we move on

Life has got in the way of blogging lately, as it’s wont to do! I think this is a moment of big shifts – things from now on are not going to be the way they have for the last year  or so. Here’s a quick roundup:

• Events, lectures, meetings and wotnot have prevented me from meeting Master Zhou for the last three weeks. It’s a big pity, but unavoidable. On the other hand, I’ve been practicing his form on my own, and it’s taking root – I think, and at last! I’m looking forward to class next week…
• I’ve been attending the qigong classes  at the Nam Wah Association regularly, and feeling more and more benefits every time. My posture is noticeably improving (to me, at any rate).
• Big changes with my Saturday night bagua: we are now moving into a purely revision mode. I’ve already mentioned that I’m re-doing the sword form for revision. The empty palm class is now stopping new work, though. Any class will naturally suffer attrition, and there are very few of us left from the group that started together in August last year. Some have joined from other classes, and that’s kept our numbers up. However, a few are coming less and less regularly, and with me due to leave next year, I think Madam Ge has decided that the class numbers have dropped below critical mass. So, we’re moving to a revision program until February, by which time a class that started after us will have caught up to where we’ve reached, and the two groups can merge and move on together. I, of course, won’t be here then.
• I may not do much more even of the revision schedule, though. I’ve just noticed that the Korean Zen school down at Lavender, which I’ve visited a few times, will be running a new course on Zen Meditation (link to PDF file) from early January. These don’t happen all that often; I’ve wanted to take part before, but always decided to stick with the bagua classes instead. I’d like to take this one though – I don’t know when I’ll get another chance!
• My Drunken Broadsword teacher is still not well, so classes haven’t resumed. I’ve never been very good at this, and i suspect that once he’s better I would be starting from scratch again. I think that I may not start again – at least until after I get back from Beijing next year… Partly it’s that I have so much to do in preparation and partly…
• … I’m getting more and more keen on a certain lady, and weekends are pretty much the only time we get to meet…

So, much is about to change. Where it goes from here, I’ll have to wait and see…

Dazed and confused

It’s been another heavy week and I’m tired. As in, really tired. However… I’m not working tomorrow and, with nothing in particular to do in the morning, I’ll be sleeping a lot. Yay me!

My site traffic is going through the roof, and I’m not able to tell why – WordPress’ s statistics isn’t giving me any clues – why has the number of visitors trebled recently?

Anyway, events in the last week…

- Back to class with Madam Ge, where I also started a revision class in the sword form.

- My Drunken Sabre teacher was unwell, so no class last Sunday.

- Qigong class on Monday night, and this evening were very interesting. The Nam Wah Association is participating in the Singapore Sun Festival. As a result, this week’s classes have been held in the Colonial District, outside the Asian Civilisations Museum, looking across the river to the towers of the CBD, and Boat Quay. It’s been very cool We’ve moved on to more focused qi movements, and to the ‘vibration’ exercises to soften and relax the internal organs. I have a very long way to go here before I even get back to where I was before. Nevertheless, I know I’m on the right path because I’m getting flashbacks to times and places I haven’t thought about for years: an emotionally charged visit to Welshpool; a happily melancholic day at Portmeirion; galettes and mead in Rennes. I’ve already written about how I think these qigong exercises have many similarities with Vipassana meditation, and for me this week’s lesson have only reinforced that. Very encouraging…

So, tomorrow, sleep and random stuff, before heading for class with Master Zhou in the evening…

Looking death in the face

Only on a small scale, and death wasn’t looking at me on this occasion, but it was close enough to see.

I went along to my Drunken Sabre class this afternoon, as I mentioned – but my teacher didn’t show up. Jono arrived while I was warming up, and we wondered where he might be, since it’s totally untypical for him to be late. The security guard – we practice outside a building where a retiree works as the guard for a 12 hour shift, at just a couple of dollars/hour; he always comes out to watch and chat – suggested that because there was rain earlier in the afternoon, our teacher might have thought there would be no class. It seemed feasible, so we carried on, chatting and doing some practice – me, taijiquan and bagua; Jono, wing chun. These are our main styles; we should, I guess, have worked on the Drunken Sabre, but, well, we didn’t.

A bit later on, Master Ku came along with his student, P. – who I mentioned before. Jono talked for some time to Master Ku in Cantonese; I chatted to P. A pigeon landed by one of the trees nearby – and didn’t see one of the feral cats that roam the area. The cat jumped, and started to maul the pigeon. A woman who was walking past whistled, shouted, chased the cat away. The pigeon stood, stupefied, for a while. The woman watched it, and eventually went on her way. The cat returned, its gaze fixed on the bird. The pigeon, unable to fly, waddled towards us, and came as close to us as possible, plainly hoping that our proximity would keep the cat at bay. It worked; the cat sat on its haunches, its gaze fixed on the bird; if ever I’ve seen malevolent death, it was in that cat’s glare.

The bird stayed close; so close that Jono, deep in conversation, took a step backwards and almost trod on it. The crippled pigeon only just managed to step out of the way. It looked around in fear as the cat prowled, circling, not looking directly any more, but never going far…

Then… I don’t know. I was deep in conversation with P. about Wing Chun and bagua techniques, about Zhou Lao Shi, etc, etc… and then I realized that the pigeon wasn’t there any more. Neither was the cat. I don’t know what happened; but I will remember that cat’s gaze, and the promise of death that it contained.

Much later, our teacher arrived. A friend of his had been mixed up in a car crash across the border in Malaysia, and our teacher had gone to help him out. He apologised to us repeatedly for not being here for class, but there was no need: when a friend is in trouble, you help them out – true or not? (as they say here…)

Week in review:confidence wobbles a bit

Not much activity here, this week: I find that my blogging energy tends to alternate between here and my other blog, and recently I’ve been active there rather than here.

I haven’t practiced so much this week either. On Wednesday, one of my normal solo practice nights, friends from Beijing were in town, so I went out to catch up with them. Last night, Madam Ge was in Malaysia so there wasn’t any class. Instead, I went to the cinema to catch Resident Evil: Extinction. Hehehe, it was entertaining enough, though probably won’t appear on anyone’s list of the 21st century’s greatest films. I’m absolutely terrible when it comes to suspense in films, so I was jumping in my seat all the way through, much to the entertainment of those next to me.

I did make it to class with Master Zhou on Friday. He was late, so he says he won’t charge me for that class, which is very good of him. As usual, we went through the form and on to some new material. However, we spent a lot of the lesson talking theory, about the importance of the number of steps, and issues relating to the time of day that you practice. One of his Chin Woo students had come along as well, and helped a lot by translating, which made things a lot easier! He also showed me some more attacks, particularly to the throat; one point on my windpipe is actually still very tender. It just goes to show how deadly bagua can be! He reiterated, strongly, that I need to be practicing every day, otherwise the lessons will ultimately be of no value. So true. Sigh…

The Drunken Broadsword is continuing as well; I’ll be leaving for today’s class shortly. It turns out that some of what our teacher had us working on before was just introductory moves, not part of the actual set; unfortunately, that means I’m having to un-learn those moves, which I’m finding a bit confusing and demotivating. This, I guess, is just one of the consequences of not being able to understand what your teacher is saying. Hehe, I should mention that last week, one of our teacher’s friends came along to watch. He’s a Hung Gar Preying Mantis master, and showed us how he can easily drop into the splits, body facing forward, not sideways; he did this onto a sheet of paper, then asked Jono to try to pull the paper from underneath him. The paper tore: his whole weight was directly on it. He’s 82 years old.

Yesterday, I bought myself an iPod Touch. I’m hoping to load all the clips I have of my various teachers onto it, so that when I go to practice solo, I can use this for reference whenever I’m hazy about what to do next.

Ouch, ouch, and thrice ouch!

Today’s Drunken Broadsword took us into a some new moves: another hands-free forward roll, followed by spinning on the back on the ground, passing the sword beneath the body, then up into a jump and slash.

The spinning on the ground hurt first, as I seem to be grinding my left shoulder blade. The worst was when I decided to face down my fear, and try the forward rolls on the concrete, rather than the soil. The first few attempts went well, but then I got my angle wrong, rolled over onto my right side, and managed to really grind my ribs, especially the floating rib. It hurts already, and I know from past experience with bruised ribs that this is going to hurt like crazy for the next few days as it stiffens up. Ouch; well, such is the price we pay for our skills!

Focussing on the details of drunkeness

Just back from today’s Drunken Broadsword class. It was just me today, which was quite beneficial – we were able to go slowly, and repeat a lot of the same steps over and over, and over….  Luckily, Uncle Cheong came along to watch, and was able to act as translator! I’m happy to learn this form slowly, as long as I get the details right. So, while I have them fresh in my mind:

• When ‘drinking’, keep the thumb and forefinger rounded in order to form the ‘cup’; don’t let either straighten out – especially when coming out of the forward rolls;
• When ‘drinking’, step high, with the foot pointing down;
• Also, when ‘drinking’, bend the knees, so that the weight is down low;
• The knees are also bent during the ‘flower sword’ advance and retreat, so it looks almost like chicken-stepping;
• In the ‘Golden Rooster’ and ‘splits’ stances, the fingers are together, and the thumb tucked in, much like Yin bagua’s ox-tongue palm
• During the ‘drunken’ side-stepping, as one foot touches down, the sabre snaps down and up, and the other foot simultaneously rises.

I’m sure there was more, but those are the points that stick in my mind just now!

I had an audience today – or, I should say, several. There were a couple of bar girls looking down from a balcony for a lot of the time, and several Chinese ‘aunties’ stopped and talked to my teacher for some time while I practiced. There were also the usual guys, young and old, who stopped to watch the ang moh being ‘drunk’, and wondering what the heck was going on…

One thing that  my teacher mentioned is that this is a northern Shaolin form (actually, he’s mentioned it a few times before, now that I think of it), and the stepping is slightly influenced by Monkey Boxing (which, it turns out, he also knows; he gave a quick demonstration).

Once again , I’m amazed by the depth of martial arts knowledge available in Singapore! But…. the Straits Times today had a spread about Muay Thai, and how that is really taking off in Singapore. Not that I’ve anything against Muay Thai – I studied it a bit myself while I was doing my first Master’s degree – but it’s a shame that traditional Chinese martial arts are being neglected here. The article compared Muay Thai to ‘aunty’ style taijiquan, and to wushu, which I think is contributing to giving the younger generation the impression that Chinese martial arts are ‘boring’ and ‘useless’. Of course, many probably also think that the serious Chinese schools are ‘too hard’, whereas Tae Kwon Do, and Muay Thai, give visible results very quickly…. It’s sad, but I think a lot of the Chinese skills and knowledge are going to vanish from Singapore over the next decade or so.

Week 29 roundup

Another crazily busy week, so not so much time for blogging!

Last Sunday’s Drunken Broadsword went pretty well; we’re at least half-way through the set now. Rather than progress too fast, I’m trying to focus on details at this point; how many hops in which direction, which way does the sabre slice the figure-eight, this kind of thing. Our teacher is reminding us all the time to relax our wrists so that the sabre can swing fluidly… There’s one sequence where we are supposed to get up from a forward roll, go into a jump, then land in a splits position, before springing back up to stand upright: eerrmm, no. I cannot do the splits, and although I’m doing stretching exercises, it will be a LONG time before I can simply fall from a standing position into the splits!

My bagua classmate Guo Liang came along to watch; after the class was over, we tried a bit of bagua sparring, which was pretty fun. Of course, we need to be careful – I accidently caught him with a palm strike to the side of the head, he accidently caught me with a kick to the knee. These things happen, but I wish he’d told me before we started that he was wearing steel-toed boots!

On Thursday, I had to work a bit late, so I couldn’t get to xingyiquan class. Time is very tight for this: it takes me 90 minutes to get from my office to where we have class, and I have to leave bang on time. It takes another hour to get home. The class is only an hour long, so leaving twenty or so minutes late from work means that the trip just isn’t worth it.

Friday night’s class with Master Zhou was great, as usual. We started off with a lot of stretching exercises. He can go down into a deep squat (pubu) and rest his forehead against the ankle of the extended leg, and he obviously intends that I should be able to as well. So, lots of painful stretching ensued, which is pretty beneficial. He’s very specific: he sees a lot of the stretching exercises I’ve been doing in the past, and stops me with a brusque “bu keyi – meiyou yong!” (“You can’t do that, it’s got no use!”). The exercises have to be done just so, in the right manner.

We worked on some new moves; the movements from our past lessons are now shaping up to form a sequence, which does include a bit of circle walking. He’s telling me off for taking steps that are too long and too round: in his form, the steps are short, and the moving foot always brushes against the static foot. We practiced some new attacks, including head locks and throws, drawing the usual stares from passersby As normal, we had a constant audience of three little girls, whose age I guess ranges between 4 and 7. They’re the daughters of one of his Chin Woo students, and seem to have adopted him as a father-figure; he’s really good with them, and our class is occasionally interrupted as he stops to banter with them, or pretend to chase them. Sometimes, he’ll try to get the eldest to translate something he’s trying to communicate to me, and she’ll make a valiant attempt, but it’s a bit of a challenge for a 7-year old

Neither of us can make it next week, so there’ll be a break for a while. After I’d finished training with Master Zhou, I went my regular part of the park to practice solo. As with Thursday’s xingyi class, I have to go directly from work to class, although the distance is less. On Friday, I’d remembered to take my sabre to work, so I was able to do some work on the xuan xuan set for the first time in a few weeks. I also worked on the Yang-24 and CMC-37 for a few sets. After that, I worked on Madam Ge’s ba mu zhang, and Zhang Sheng Li’s long xing set. I haven’t practiced the bagua jian set for some time now, and I’m a little concerned that I’m beginning to forget it – something I need to attend to ASAP.

Last night’s bagua class with Madam Ge gave me the oportunity to ask about the needles. In fact Jono had already mentioned it before I got there, and yes: she does know the the form. I asked her later whether she plans to run classes and she said (make allowances for my bad Chinese here, I may have misunderstood) that yes, she will be teaching it, but we need to learn the deerhorn knives first, in order to get experience with using a weapon in each hand. The needles are a subtler weapon than the knives, so we shouldn’t try to learn them first. Seems reasonable, so we’ll just have to be patient, I guess! She also said that she’ll bring the needles to xingyi class next Thursday to demonstrate the form. Jono did ask if she could demonstrate using the marker pens that we use to draw our circles on the concrete, but she pointed out that the bagua needles have a ring that’s used to spin them around the finger, so ordinary pens can’t be used.

I’ve noticed recently that when I go to class on Saturday night, I’m making a lot of mistakes in some of the moves – even though I usually get them right when I practice on Friday evening. Not sure what’s happening there…. One good thing is that I’m beginning to be able to sink my weight and sit low in the posture again; for a while, I was having trouble with that.

Madam Ge told me off for stepping too short: she wants us to take long steps. Every bagua style is different! I need to be careful to keep each one distinct – I can start mixing and matching when I’m an expert in each one, not before

After class, I had a chat with my classmate who came along to talk to Master Zhou the other week; he’s now started xingyiquan lessons with a couple of friends, and is obviously pretty impressed with Master Zhou’s style of demonstrating applications…!

It keeps me on my toes

Just back from Drunken Broadsword, covered in bits of grass and earth from practicing forward rolls in the park. A nice, fun session, going over what we’d done previously and then adding on a couple of new moves. I think I’m gradually getting the hang of the rapid “Flower sword” sequence, and I’ve filmed my teacher going through the set from several different angles – hopefully, I’ll find time to review these clips and practice at home before next week’s class.

The new moves we covered today include a second hands-free forward roll. This is bugging the heck out of me: I still am really nervous when I try this, fearful of breaking my neck! I’m tending to roll over my sword a lot, which naturally isn’t optimal: thank goodness I’m now using a bendy wushu sword, rather than the other, heavier one!

My teacher keeps on reminding me that all of the ‘drunken’ steps are done on tip-toe: he compares it to ballet. Easy to say, easy to remember, not so easy to do consistently. Practice, practice, practice… The arches of my feet are actually starting to feel quite sore as I write this. My teacher’s son came along to watch: he mentioned that Jackie Chan (whose ‘Drunken Master’ films I haven’t seen, btw) doesn’t do this, he just keeps his feet flat on the ground, and the style he uses isn’t as traditional as the one my teacher knows. I have no idea: I’m just glad to be learning it.

Week 27 roundup

Well, it’s been a pretty hectic week all round, so I haven’t had much time for blogging.

Last Sunday was my first lesson in Drunken Broadsword since coming back from Beijing. It was mostly revision, and working on finer points of detail, but we did learn some new moves. We’re at a point where we move from the ‘drunken’ swaying and ‘drinking from the cup’ into a sequence of rapid broadsword slashing whilst moving forward then back, leading into a jump… and it goes a bit too fast for me to see the hand movements, so today I’ll take along my camera to film it so I can study the moves at home.

Thursday night’s xingyiquan is moving into the first moves from the 12 animals. One of these, the ‘long xing’ movement involves a jump from the back foot into a simultaneous kick and sequence of palm strikes. I’m doing something wrong here, because the landing wrenches my knees a bit, and the move overall is straining the old injury on my achilles tendon. Hmmm, more practice needed. I’m really still trying to catch up in this class, as they made quite a bit of progress while I was in Beijing.

Friday night’s bagua class with Master Zhou was once again excellent. We looked at a lot of applications, and he’s happy to be a punching bag so that I can practice the moves – though as usual he demonstrates a lot more than I can absorb. No bruises this week, though! We’re moving from the single palm change into circle walking now, though I’m still doing both badly. More solo practice needed, but I’ve been too tired recently to do much. We’re also working on a bagua qigong set for body strengthening but, as with the drunken sword, I’m having trouble remembering the exact movements.

After class finished, one of my classmates from Ge Chunyan’s bagua class came along with a friend; they wanted to talk to Master Zhou about studying xingyi with him. We chatted for a while, and then I went on to solo practice in another part of the park. However, they passed me later on, so we talked again about their conversation with Master Zhou. Like me, they were impressed by his knowledge and understanding of the applications. Since they speak Mandarin, they were able to talk to him in more depth than I can. One thing that struck me was that they had discussed the connection between studying the Chinese internal martial arts and longevity: apparently, Master Zhou said that, according to the evidence, taijiquan and xingyiquan practitioners live longer than bagua players. Yikes!

Then, last night, bagua class with Madam Ge. We learned a few new moves, and reviewed some that we had started learning before; these are gradually getting fixed in my memory – at last! Guess I’m just a slow learner… One great thing about my Saturday night classes is that they’re a great cure for complacency and vanity – Madam Ge is always calling me on mistakes in my posture and stepping, and my classmate Bao Tai is always telling me I’m too fat!

Actually, both Master Zhou and Madam Ge repeatedly remind me that I don’t extend my lead arm enough. Master Zhou pointed out that my shoulders are too tense, and that’s probably the cause. Well, changing the body is a slow process. I’ve noticed that guys from the UK and the US tend to have extremely tense and bunched-up shoulders; I certainly did when I first came to Singapore, and I’ve spent the last few years trying to relax them – and still have a long way to go, though I’m much better than I was.

Roundup

Drunken Sword again this evening. I spent a fair bit of time practicing my hands-free forward rolls. These are meant to be done with the right hand, holding the sabre, tucked under the left armpit; left hand up next to the right shoulder. My sabre is inflexible, and I’m always rather worried that if I get the roll wrong I’ll impale myself, so I’m not holding it when I roll at this point… I’ll probably get one of the ‘bendy’ swords after I get back from Beijing, It just feels wrong at this point to go into a forward roll without using my hands at all; I’m still very nervous. We’re practicing on the earth, which is sandy-to-gravel and takes off skin every time, but it’s better than the concrete… I think I’ll have bruises on my back from some heavy landings, though…

My teacher has been telling more stories of the long-bearded wandering monk he studied with, who came from the Northern Shaolin tradition. We – as in, my fellow-student Jono and I – queried whether it was this monk who also taught my teacher baguazhang, and it was… There’s more to be learned here, I think. We got diverted for a while into discussing the bagua form, and looking at its combat applications (which I was perfectly happy to do!) before our teacher said enough, back to the drunken form… This is just getting cooler and cooler…

Speaking of bruises, I have a big, black, bruise on my arm from where Master Zhou hit me on Friday night; he was demonstrating the difference between the punches of northern styles, and southern styles… These lessons are fascinating, but I have a nagging element of worry – like I mentioned after the first lesson, we can’t really communicate: he has no English, and my Mandarin is nowhere near adequate for this. As I said before, I’ve grown accustomed to this with my other teachers, but it’ seems to be a new experience for him, and I think he’s finding it hard going. To be fair, he really does want to teach, and to explain everything he knows, and it must be incredibly frustrating to have a student who just can’t understand what you’re trying to say.

I fly to Beijing on Thursday. I’m really, really, excited; it’s been a year and a bit since I came back from there to Singapore, and I just can’t wait to get back to meet my friends and revisit my old haunts. I’m trying to get a few baguazhang lessons arranged with Master Sun Zhijun and Master Liu Jingrun… not sure if this will work out, but it will be very cool if it does!

Madam Ge has just got back from Beijing, so we had class last night. I’d asked her to bring back more copies of Pride’s Deadly Fury if she could,and she came up with the goods: three copies, on DVD this time (previously I got a VCD version). I watched one today, very cool film One I want for myself; another for a gift; perhaps I’ll sell the third on eBay!