After over 6 years I have officially finished working for the ANU College of Law. It is amazing how scary that is. It has been a good job with reasonable pay for many years, and now it is no more.
I am onto bigger and better things though, better pay closer to home, overseas travel. It should be good times for both Kung Fu Fist and Tea!
Sunday 23 September 2007
Unexpected visit
When you're giving a Kung Fu demonstration your mind is somewhat occupied. So when you see your sisters who live in 12000 km away standing in front of you it makes for a great amount of confusion. It turns out they were down visiting their father (not mine). If he lived less than 400km away this would have made perfect sense I am sure. I gave up trying to understand this and instead spent some time with my long lost (haven't seen in over 12months) sisters. I also saw my former step-father. This was quite interesting, but civil so that was nice...
Demonstration
What fun that was, two full demonstrations 2hrs apart. It was a long day but a good result. I think that very few people were able to see the errors that were made and even less were able to say exactly what was done wrong. We seemed to pull about 100 more people together than any of the other displays for the day so that must be a good sign.
I've been told that I will be getting copies of photo's taken by students etc so I will post those asap.
I've been told that I will be getting copies of photo's taken by students etc so I will post those asap.
Tuesday 18 September 2007
Getting back
Not happy. Two Chinese exams down and both had major errors! Though I did do lots of study and I have learned a lot from it I do wish that I was able to get it right at the time. The good part is that the total of the two exams are only 2o% of my final mark so I still can get an HD!
Condolences:
Oral;
I did well in my questions though I wasn't able to follow my notes due to lack of full "rehersal" I take partial responsibility but there was a time factor to consider.
Written;
The lecturer said that the exam was too long for the time given partly because we started late and had to finish early! However I do know however that I answered more of the written exam than many of my peers. So that makes me feel good!
Condolences:
Oral;
I did well in my questions though I wasn't able to follow my notes due to lack of full "rehersal" I take partial responsibility but there was a time factor to consider.
Written;
The lecturer said that the exam was too long for the time given partly because we started late and had to finish early! However I do know however that I answered more of the written exam than many of my peers. So that makes me feel good!
Tuesday 7 August 2007
NAS round 3
Many moons ago I told my students about a tournament that was being held last weekend. Unfortunately for me some remembered and wanted to enter! My rotten luck!
I don't know why, perhaps to satisfy my own standards for the competition or at least know how the event was going, but having students in the comp made it necessary for me to judge.
It wasn't a bad competition but I did have to spend a lot of time not doing things like study (still the reason I'm not getting this site updated regular like).
The results, Xiao Mao, 2 firsts and one disqualification (just but came from bad understanding not true misconduct/malice. DaGe 1 Second for one of the better performances of his form I have seen him do (though he did muff it up a little). In the end we came away well ahead.
Now to blow my own horn, I also had someone come up and say that they were happy to have me judging their students and that I was an exemplary judge. I like it when that happens.
I also got recognized by a heap of people afterwards, that I didn't think would have seen me there. That was interesting. Eg, my office mate said his friend told him that I was there. Why in blazes would he... I live in a small town.
I don't know why, perhaps to satisfy my own standards for the competition or at least know how the event was going, but having students in the comp made it necessary for me to judge.
It wasn't a bad competition but I did have to spend a lot of time not doing things like study (still the reason I'm not getting this site updated regular like).
The results, Xiao Mao, 2 firsts and one disqualification (just but came from bad understanding not true misconduct/malice. DaGe 1 Second for one of the better performances of his form I have seen him do (though he did muff it up a little). In the end we came away well ahead.
Now to blow my own horn, I also had someone come up and say that they were happy to have me judging their students and that I was an exemplary judge. I like it when that happens.
I also got recognized by a heap of people afterwards, that I didn't think would have seen me there. That was interesting. Eg, my office mate said his friend told him that I was there. Why in blazes would he... I live in a small town.
Monday 30 July 2007
Hmmm, been a while...
It may have been noted that I haven't been updating very much lately, this roughly coincides with starting back at uni, taking over my bosses job while she prepares to go to America and taking over my teachers classes while he goes over to America with his second senior student, sister and my boss (all the same person). This was complicated when I was sparing/fighting her in preparation for the trip and broke her arm... It wasn't much more than bad luck and good technique. My block landed with the maximum possible force given the attack and had the maximum affect possible for the situation. That does not happen too often... when it does you hope it is on someone that you want to hurt, this time it wasn't...
So I will take up regular blogging again when I am happy with my Chinese, some time after my teacher comes back from America and possibly when by boss comes back from sick leave. (She wasn't able to go as she was supposed to be getting surgery on her arm when the plane left.)
So I will take up regular blogging again when I am happy with my Chinese, some time after my teacher comes back from America and possibly when by boss comes back from sick leave. (She wasn't able to go as she was supposed to be getting surgery on her arm when the plane left.)
Friday 20 July 2007
Thought while blogging
Principle,
If you know the attack you can make the defense fit.
Exercise,
Work on defense, understand defense then see how long it takes you to work out application to any attack. Speed up the process of thought/learn what doesn't work and don't do it, build up useful reaction speed.
If you're out there and read this before next class, remind me so I can test principle... Should be interesting...
If you know the attack you can make the defense fit.
Exercise,
Work on defense, understand defense then see how long it takes you to work out application to any attack. Speed up the process of thought/learn what doesn't work and don't do it, build up useful reaction speed.
If you're out there and read this before next class, remind me so I can test principle... Should be interesting...
Wednesday 11 July 2007
三次课
Say after me, "isn't it interesting how this month misses the days 9-13, those days do usually appear in this month, must be some kind of leap year type of thing..."
Isn't it wonderful how time flies when you are so busy you can't blink.
星期六的课
Looking at using obstacles to redirect momentum. E.g. using a tree to turn on pursuers without having to about face. The fun part was watching the attackers stopping on damp grass.
星期一的课
Centrifugal power, it is a great thing. Spinning as a recreational activity is good on its own not to mention looks cool when you through in a couple of kicks to the mix, but when you can use it in an effective way to add strength to your body, it is better than chocolate. I spent a good amount of this lesson playing with spinning strikes and things that allowed you to disguise your direction to the person you were moving in relation to by showing a forward movement with your upper body while making a backward movement with your lower body, or using a defensive movement to disguise an attacking movement. The majority of these techniques rely on the person being able to spin much further than their opponent thinks they can. This means that they don't see the attacks coming or don't guard the angles that they can approach from well enough.
星期三的课
I took the spinning lesson further this time to look at balance and how to spin into someone else's space and take their feet out from underneath them. I then put these moves back in to the context of one of our beginning forms and played with the new applications this made possible. It is amazing how much reverse engineering techniques teaches you stuff!
Isn't it wonderful how time flies when you are so busy you can't blink.
星期六的课
Looking at using obstacles to redirect momentum. E.g. using a tree to turn on pursuers without having to about face. The fun part was watching the attackers stopping on damp grass.
星期一的课
Centrifugal power, it is a great thing. Spinning as a recreational activity is good on its own not to mention looks cool when you through in a couple of kicks to the mix, but when you can use it in an effective way to add strength to your body, it is better than chocolate. I spent a good amount of this lesson playing with spinning strikes and things that allowed you to disguise your direction to the person you were moving in relation to by showing a forward movement with your upper body while making a backward movement with your lower body, or using a defensive movement to disguise an attacking movement. The majority of these techniques rely on the person being able to spin much further than their opponent thinks they can. This means that they don't see the attacks coming or don't guard the angles that they can approach from well enough.
星期三的课
I took the spinning lesson further this time to look at balance and how to spin into someone else's space and take their feet out from underneath them. I then put these moves back in to the context of one of our beginning forms and played with the new applications this made possible. It is amazing how much reverse engineering techniques teaches you stuff!
星期六的課
As a rule my Saturday classes are an informal event. No uniform is needed no sash (of rank) required, they are as informal as you can get. This doesn't mean that you should turn up in clothes you don't want to get dirty!! In the students own defense "my other jeans were is the wash". However this aside it was a great class, we worked on getting hit from behind (among other things) the exercise that this lesson brought about was where you have one person walking away from their partner and then have the partner progressively harder push them from behind. This ended up being all students walk toward one end of the park and slowly position themselves behind each other to give someone a hit who was not expecting it. Depending on the angle of attack the best responses seemed to be rolling away or landing in a long stance turning and kicking with the closest leg. Worked well, will teach again. There were a couple of downsides to the rolling response however, apparently your clothes tend to get a little muddy...
Times for Teas, cause and effect
This is a post that I have been thinking about for a while now. It is an experiment that I have been doing on what tea's work best in my Gong Fu class.
There are three teas on the table for consideration at the moment; Pu Er Cha, Tie Guan Yin and Long Jing. All of them are great teas that I can get in reasonable quantities, practically free. They are my payment for my Gong Fu Cha demonstrations at the OuZhouChaGuan.
The Pu Er Cha is a very nice 8 year old bamboo cooked Pu Er, it is a great tea and the worst thing that I have ever served in my class. Consistently makes me and students flat and unbouncie. It does well as a tea however the leaves are so not done by the end of class and it is a shame to through it out after only about 5 serves. I think that this goes to prove that Pu Er Cha is best to drink before bed or after dinner. This is how I always recommend Pu Er should be drunk and I stand by this as testimony. I noticed how this affected class quite by accident. I taught class one day and I brought along this tea and wanted to try it. I did and the tea was great! However the class was a terrible class. Students were as flat as I could imagine and I was not much better, so irritation started. It was not the best class I have taught. I put this down to a couple of things but I didn't at the time consider the tea. The next time I served this tea, I had a similar class, flat, uninspired, unresponsive, so I started to take note... The next lesson I had Tie Guan Yin, this is a partly fermented tea that I absolutely love! It was a good lesson. The tea has a little caffeine and it class hummed away like it should, was lovely. Shi hao gong fu cha. I did this for another lesson getting students to drink a cup on arrival. Again, good class, attentive students. I tried the Pu Er one more time, I had half of my students drink the tea before the class started, the other were control. I was right, the students that drank were all flat well before the end of the evening, that night I packed the PuEr into my bag and took it home to drink before bed. As I am still doing. I have since started to take note how all my teas affect the people I can monitor who drink them. I have decided that even though it is slightly more effort (in preparation and longevity of leaves), Long Jing is best. It is fairly high in caffeine as it is a green tea and it shouldn't be steeped in boiling hot water, so it is easier to manage the water side of things from that end. It doesn't last as long as Tie Guan Yin though and doesn't taste as good when it isn't quite hot anymore, which happens often as I get taught teaching. The best properties of this tea for teaching is probably the caffeine that it has for the added jumpy without the jittery that you get from things like instant replica coffee etc. I also find that after about 4 serves it looses some of its kick and becomes more mello which makes it easier to sleep afterwards as the bounce element is well used on bouncing around the class.
So my cha of choice for Gong Fu Quan is Long Jing. Feels Good, Tastes Good, Mmmm Good.
K thnx by now.
There are three teas on the table for consideration at the moment; Pu Er Cha, Tie Guan Yin and Long Jing. All of them are great teas that I can get in reasonable quantities, practically free. They are my payment for my Gong Fu Cha demonstrations at the OuZhouChaGuan.
The Pu Er Cha is a very nice 8 year old bamboo cooked Pu Er, it is a great tea and the worst thing that I have ever served in my class. Consistently makes me and students flat and unbouncie. It does well as a tea however the leaves are so not done by the end of class and it is a shame to through it out after only about 5 serves. I think that this goes to prove that Pu Er Cha is best to drink before bed or after dinner. This is how I always recommend Pu Er should be drunk and I stand by this as testimony. I noticed how this affected class quite by accident. I taught class one day and I brought along this tea and wanted to try it. I did and the tea was great! However the class was a terrible class. Students were as flat as I could imagine and I was not much better, so irritation started. It was not the best class I have taught. I put this down to a couple of things but I didn't at the time consider the tea. The next time I served this tea, I had a similar class, flat, uninspired, unresponsive, so I started to take note... The next lesson I had Tie Guan Yin, this is a partly fermented tea that I absolutely love! It was a good lesson. The tea has a little caffeine and it class hummed away like it should, was lovely. Shi hao gong fu cha. I did this for another lesson getting students to drink a cup on arrival. Again, good class, attentive students. I tried the Pu Er one more time, I had half of my students drink the tea before the class started, the other were control. I was right, the students that drank were all flat well before the end of the evening, that night I packed the PuEr into my bag and took it home to drink before bed. As I am still doing. I have since started to take note how all my teas affect the people I can monitor who drink them. I have decided that even though it is slightly more effort (in preparation and longevity of leaves), Long Jing is best. It is fairly high in caffeine as it is a green tea and it shouldn't be steeped in boiling hot water, so it is easier to manage the water side of things from that end. It doesn't last as long as Tie Guan Yin though and doesn't taste as good when it isn't quite hot anymore, which happens often as I get taught teaching. The best properties of this tea for teaching is probably the caffeine that it has for the added jumpy without the jittery that you get from things like instant replica coffee etc. I also find that after about 4 serves it looses some of its kick and becomes more mello which makes it easier to sleep afterwards as the bounce element is well used on bouncing around the class.
So my cha of choice for Gong Fu Quan is Long Jing. Feels Good, Tastes Good, Mmmm Good.
K thnx by now.
Monday 9 July 2007
星期三的课
I was looking to cover some basics this lesson, but for random reasons I only had 3 students. So I did some other stuff. I looked at movement interpretation. I took a move out of a form and told those who were there to give it meanings beyond its appearance. Once they had made a couple of different combinations I showed them some other strikes and techniques and then got them to practice some application of those techniques, then linked those techniques back to the original technique. It ended up a very well rounded lesson, I was very happy with the journey that we took.
The technique in question was stepping forward with your right foot into a back weighted stance bringing your hands up together in a large clockwise circle starting at 6 and dropping straight down from about 2 ending with your lead hand over your lead leg.
The technique in question was stepping forward with your right foot into a back weighted stance bringing your hands up together in a large clockwise circle starting at 6 and dropping straight down from about 2 ending with your lead hand over your lead leg.
星期一的课
This lesson I introduced some old techniques. The class that I attended the Thursday before showed me (again) a different way to appraise someone's balance and take it. What they do is look at the place on the ground that the balance is over then not letting them shift their feet, put their balance on the same spot. This means that the other person can't stand. It was a good lesson and involved a lot of stepping on feet! It carried onto involve ways to take someone's space.
Sunday 8 July 2007
Something Different
This is an interesting youtube that I happened across looking for Pai video's. For those not interested in martial arts it might still be interesting but what I like the most is the attitude of those in the center. They are so relaxed it is great.!
Winterfest 3
Having just posted my first written filk song (yesterday), I thought I might explain it a little for those who weren't there. The organiser of the event is a ninjitsu (bujinkan) teacher and he had several of his students helping him. Some of whome were at times given to me to help with different tasks, I was also told there would be ninjas available somewhere when needed for what ever. Being ninjas there is a running joke in the club about jumping in and out of trees. So on my first real day of Winterfest I met the ninjas in question so I could call on them when needed.
Otherwise this day was mostly getting a few things prepared, finding things for archery targets and handing out fliers.
The second day of Winterfest was the Friday, this was spent for me getting a couple of things sorted in Paramatta, like hotel and stuff for next two days + handing out fliers... At 2pm however I was on site with hammer in hand laying out the grounds for the event. It went well, once we got methods for straight fences down... (I am from the country, there is only one type of fence, straight) Then we put up a couple of tents for different groups without their own and went home. That night I was pretty tired and had some work to do so I stayed in and made use of the mini bar in the room, was good.
The third day of Winterfest started about 8am back on site sorting areas and administration etc, went well had fun, then gates opened and I didn't have time to scratch myself from then till close. I did have to stop archery for things like birds of prey and horses as they don't mix well with arrows at times. This usually meant that I was needed for various other things though and still didn't get much of a rest, it was usually on the run from A-B.
That evening I had planned to go out. After gates were closed and money accounted for it was 8pm ish, I went to my hotel, had a long bath... That over I went out on search for dinner, I wanted Japanese and there was a tepinyaki across from the hotel but I thought I would go for a walk first and see what I would do afterwards. I found it. I first noticed the flaming entrance, then saw the projections on the side. It looked great! There was local live bands followed by DJs afterwards and it looked hot! (Will post mobile pic) But first dinner. It was great! I had sushi and stuff, followed by sake... Was good, found my way back to my room and hit the keys a little longer and then woke up! I fell asleep! Detailed plans of raging and stuff and I fell asleep! (or I had such a wild night that I can't remember it...) I did start keying on the King size bed however, I can see how the former might have happened.
The fourth day of Winterfest was Sunday morning. ( I know not a whole day but it did feel like it) This was setting up again after putting things away out of the (potential) rain. However it started badly before I even arrived on site. The night before as I had arrived home late, I forgot to pump my tyre... When I got to my car in the morning, it was not pumped up... So out I got my little foot pump and to work I set. I got 10psi into it and drove as slowly as I could to the nearest petrol station, this worked and I was back on the road... Set up happened slowly, and once I had people organized I got money sorted and once that was done the people I had organized... weren't there. So that was great! Enter coke here as comfort drink while trying to pull out hair. This seemed to fit well into the rest of this day.
The fifth day of Winterfest was from 12:30 - 5:30. This was my afternoon shift of organizing archery and other events while archery was on hold. This went ok till started youngsters comp, of 38 kiddies shooting at targets for prizes. All was well from my end at the beginning, but they were mistakenly given twice the amount of arrows and suddenly... it was going to take a very long time. So we finished after the gates had officially closed, but in the end the winner had by everyone's standards won and the runner up had done well enough to satisfy, all was well.
The last day was from 5:30 - 1am the next morning. This is me driving home after counting money, checking money and looking back a forward in time for improvements and other events. It was good but ended with a long drive and a small kip at Lake George to help me staying on the road.
If you want to see clips etc of the event keep an eye on this page www.winterfest.com.au . At the moment it hasn't changed orientation to project next years event. But it will (might be 5-6+ weeks).
Otherwise this day was mostly getting a few things prepared, finding things for archery targets and handing out fliers.
The second day of Winterfest was the Friday, this was spent for me getting a couple of things sorted in Paramatta, like hotel and stuff for next two days + handing out fliers... At 2pm however I was on site with hammer in hand laying out the grounds for the event. It went well, once we got methods for straight fences down... (I am from the country, there is only one type of fence, straight) Then we put up a couple of tents for different groups without their own and went home. That night I was pretty tired and had some work to do so I stayed in and made use of the mini bar in the room, was good.
The third day of Winterfest started about 8am back on site sorting areas and administration etc, went well had fun, then gates opened and I didn't have time to scratch myself from then till close. I did have to stop archery for things like birds of prey and horses as they don't mix well with arrows at times. This usually meant that I was needed for various other things though and still didn't get much of a rest, it was usually on the run from A-B.
That evening I had planned to go out. After gates were closed and money accounted for it was 8pm ish, I went to my hotel, had a long bath... That over I went out on search for dinner, I wanted Japanese and there was a tepinyaki across from the hotel but I thought I would go for a walk first and see what I would do afterwards. I found it. I first noticed the flaming entrance, then saw the projections on the side. It looked great! There was local live bands followed by DJs afterwards and it looked hot! (Will post mobile pic) But first dinner. It was great! I had sushi and stuff, followed by sake... Was good, found my way back to my room and hit the keys a little longer and then woke up! I fell asleep! Detailed plans of raging and stuff and I fell asleep! (or I had such a wild night that I can't remember it...) I did start keying on the King size bed however, I can see how the former might have happened.
The fourth day of Winterfest was Sunday morning. ( I know not a whole day but it did feel like it) This was setting up again after putting things away out of the (potential) rain. However it started badly before I even arrived on site. The night before as I had arrived home late, I forgot to pump my tyre... When I got to my car in the morning, it was not pumped up... So out I got my little foot pump and to work I set. I got 10psi into it and drove as slowly as I could to the nearest petrol station, this worked and I was back on the road... Set up happened slowly, and once I had people organized I got money sorted and once that was done the people I had organized... weren't there. So that was great! Enter coke here as comfort drink while trying to pull out hair. This seemed to fit well into the rest of this day.
The fifth day of Winterfest was from 12:30 - 5:30. This was my afternoon shift of organizing archery and other events while archery was on hold. This went ok till started youngsters comp, of 38 kiddies shooting at targets for prizes. All was well from my end at the beginning, but they were mistakenly given twice the amount of arrows and suddenly... it was going to take a very long time. So we finished after the gates had officially closed, but in the end the winner had by everyone's standards won and the runner up had done well enough to satisfy, all was well.
The last day was from 5:30 - 1am the next morning. This is me driving home after counting money, checking money and looking back a forward in time for improvements and other events. It was good but ended with a long drive and a small kip at Lake George to help me staying on the road.
If you want to see clips etc of the event keep an eye on this page www.winterfest.com.au . At the moment it hasn't changed orientation to project next years event. But it will (might be 5-6+ weeks).
Friday 6 July 2007
Winterfest 2
On the first day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me a ninja in an oak tree
On the second day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me two tents a raising
and a ninja in an oak tree
On the third Day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the fourth day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me four cans of COKE!
three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the fifth day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me 5 rings... (hahaha I am so funny)
four cans of COKE!
three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the last day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me a whole bunch of stuff from FSF,
5 rings...
four cans of COKE!three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the second day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me two tents a raising
and a ninja in an oak tree
On the third Day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the fourth day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me four cans of COKE!
three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the fifth day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me 5 rings... (hahaha I am so funny)
four cans of COKE!
three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
On the last day of Winterfest the shidoshi gave to me a whole bunch of stuff from FSF,
5 rings...
four cans of COKE!three bows and arrows,
two tents a raising,
and a ninja in an oak tree.
Tuesday 3 July 2007
Winterfest 1
I have a very good friend Sir Angus McBane, (or something like that) who was planning, when last I spoke to him to run the greatest medieval event that these lands had ever seen. This was several months ago. So the 3 days before the event, I finally get in contact with Angus, it is still going ahead. So I make plans Wednesday night to get into my car and drive up to Sydney after class and do what I can to help out.
The first part of my plan is to get my car serviced so that it won't stop half way to Sydney and leave me on the side of the road. $450 later I pick up my car and drive home. This was Tuesday night, Wednesday morning... flat tyre, not happy.
It wasn't flat flat just mostly deflated so I drove to a service station and pumped it back up, I knew that this was going to be a problem, but at this time there was nothing I could do about it. Went to work, had day of... working, come back out to my car, slightly less than almost flat... So 8 hrs from pumped to mostly flat, that means that a 3hr drive should be ok will test again after class. Pumped up again at 5:15pm 50psi
Teach class, I am sure it was good, however I can't remember it very well. I didn't take notes or teach from notes, so it is lost in a haze of driving up to Sydney, I should ask some of my students what I taught, they should remember...
After class once packed ready to drive out 9:45, go to service station check tyre; 20psi, that's 30 psi in 4 hours 30 minutes... I think I'll be stopping on the way... I stopped at a couple of places along the way tyre behaved, all was well.
Arrived in Sydney 1:15am 1hr after planned.
The first part of my plan is to get my car serviced so that it won't stop half way to Sydney and leave me on the side of the road. $450 later I pick up my car and drive home. This was Tuesday night, Wednesday morning... flat tyre, not happy.
It wasn't flat flat just mostly deflated so I drove to a service station and pumped it back up, I knew that this was going to be a problem, but at this time there was nothing I could do about it. Went to work, had day of... working, come back out to my car, slightly less than almost flat... So 8 hrs from pumped to mostly flat, that means that a 3hr drive should be ok will test again after class. Pumped up again at 5:15pm 50psi
Teach class, I am sure it was good, however I can't remember it very well. I didn't take notes or teach from notes, so it is lost in a haze of driving up to Sydney, I should ask some of my students what I taught, they should remember...
After class once packed ready to drive out 9:45, go to service station check tyre; 20psi, that's 30 psi in 4 hours 30 minutes... I think I'll be stopping on the way... I stopped at a couple of places along the way tyre behaved, all was well.
Arrived in Sydney 1:15am 1hr after planned.
星期三的课
This lesson is a blur, I can't remember what I taught as I drove to Sydney afterwards... It was a long night. Will post on Sydney soon!
星期一的课
This lesson we practiced the technique that I learned the day before, I also worked on a defense, the only one that I could find was an application of the first form that we learn, stepping in and bring arms down to open for an attack. (won't work unless you know what I am talking about.)
This is all I can remember from this lesson without digging out notes or attendance lists...
This is all I can remember from this lesson without digging out notes or attendance lists...
Tuesday 26 June 2007
Drinks at the Pen
After Sunday training, which was working on a nice technique for opening up a guard and then some form work, I managed to catch up with M at the Pen. It is good to know bar people... I also happened to come across my SCA household, Quinteria, (ender long story here about what Quinteria is within the bla, bla who really wants to know). So needless to say, my friends in garb were surprised to see me and there was much fun catching up.
The result on this is that I have now got people willing to come out to my place and have a yurt making session! Yea, my misery will have company, not to mention help! There is something magical to having a yurt however. It is a portable house with an instant sense of history. There are somewhere pictures of my yurt n its full glory but I don't know where they are. For a guide, my yurt is 6m across and 3m high in the center, it has a green canvas roof and will have a red gum door frame. Inside there is space to safely have a fire and separate areas for dining, sleeping and relaxing. Not bad for a fancy tent!
The result on this is that I have now got people willing to come out to my place and have a yurt making session! Yea, my misery will have company, not to mention help! There is something magical to having a yurt however. It is a portable house with an instant sense of history. There are somewhere pictures of my yurt n its full glory but I don't know where they are. For a guide, my yurt is 6m across and 3m high in the center, it has a green canvas roof and will have a red gum door frame. Inside there is space to safely have a fire and separate areas for dining, sleeping and relaxing. Not bad for a fancy tent!
Wine and Cheese
Saturday night was Styley's wine and cheese night and what a night it was. There was a heap of people there (for the space) which was great! Lots of whine and cheese and even a 4 shiraz tasting comp, aim, guessing the price order of four bottles of wine. We were told that the prices were about $5, $10, $15 and $20. It was an interesting result, all but one put the most expensive wine as the worst. It may have been that it was the youngest, and was meant to be cellared, it may have been because it was over priced. The one person who got the more correct order of anyone else had never drunk wine before, also interesting.
Another interesting point of the evening was it was the first time I had been in the same place with Xiao Ma in social company, it was painful... The worst thing was she acted the same as she always had, but I wasn't in the same place... so when she was casually flirting with other people, I was slowly/inwardly, going insane. We talked the next day, I got a lot of things out, we still get on, I am still not happy... The party was great however, and there are pics avail at here
Another interesting point of the evening was it was the first time I had been in the same place with Xiao Ma in social company, it was painful... The worst thing was she acted the same as she always had, but I wasn't in the same place... so when she was casually flirting with other people, I was slowly/inwardly, going insane. We talked the next day, I got a lot of things out, we still get on, I am still not happy... The party was great however, and there are pics avail at here
Monday 25 June 2007
星期六的课 and soccer.
This lesson was preceded by gong into town to buy mu Chinese tutor soccer boots! At the request of his uncle, we were going into town to buy soccer boots and clothes with $100. It didn't make too much sense to either of us as I have posted under the title Soccer all the times that he has played in the last ten years! If you check the logs his boots haven't caused any problems at all! Anyway we went and boots and ball were bought though no clothes as they were too expensive on our budget. This meant that when we went to training we had a brand new soccer ball and boots to trial. It was the first time in about 4 years that I have kicked such an object and nothing much has changed, after half an hour I am still good to kick on but my partners are tired of running.
So once warmed up with ball kicking, students started to arrive. Most of the lesson was devoted to forms and their brake down. The focus of this was on loading up a punch to be powered by the legs. I did this by pairing off people and getting one to push (punch) and one to resist. The pusher took a cat stance as low as possible allowing their weight to be carried by their standing leg only. The resister would then smother the pushing hand of their partner and apply as much force as necessary/possible to help their partner direct their force, up, out, and under their partners center of gravity.
I then put this into a technique/response to a left right boxers attack.
Many spills and thrills were had.
So once warmed up with ball kicking, students started to arrive. Most of the lesson was devoted to forms and their brake down. The focus of this was on loading up a punch to be powered by the legs. I did this by pairing off people and getting one to push (punch) and one to resist. The pusher took a cat stance as low as possible allowing their weight to be carried by their standing leg only. The resister would then smother the pushing hand of their partner and apply as much force as necessary/possible to help their partner direct their force, up, out, and under their partners center of gravity.
I then put this into a technique/response to a left right boxers attack.
Many spills and thrills were had.
Sunday 24 June 2007
A dinner with a difference!
Friday night I took out two of my tutors. One of the BeiJing JingCha and my Engineering student tutor. It was an interesting dinner. We went to Lisboa in Woden, it was interesting to see two Chinese people eat dips and bread. Not the normal fare on the mainland of China! I decided to order the dips because after 10 minutes of explanation I couldn't get across exactly what hummus was. They don't teach abut chick peas in professional English at university in China it seems. For dinner we had a series of starters, mostly finger food as it covered the greatest number of categories of "food never before seen". I then learned that Chinese don't usually eat with their fingers in fact it can make them quite uncomfortable, though not so bad they chose to starve.
While we ate there was the usual conversation about this and that, only all in Chinese! Of what I could hear however I was able to understand about %60! I was chuffed. This was mostly because the get to know you chit chat is a large focus of what I have learned all semester. It was good to know that I have learned a useful set of vocab!
While we ate there was the usual conversation about this and that, only all in Chinese! Of what I could hear however I was able to understand about %60! I was chuffed. This was mostly because the get to know you chit chat is a large focus of what I have learned all semester. It was good to know that I have learned a useful set of vocab!
Monkey King!
Thursday night I found myself at a loss. I had three and a half hours till the start of class and I didn't want to go home and waste a heap of petrol. So I ended up going to see Hou at the Cha Guan. It was good, though as seems to be usual he was on his way out. This time he was going to the Asian Book-room to serve tea at a book reading of the Monkey King. (the text that became a tv series ages ago). Though I hadn't read the book I enjoyed myself greatly. I was able to contribute due to my Chinese philosophy teaching through martial arts and my knowledge of the series shown on the ABC. The only problem was that the reading/reviewing went on for a couple of hours longer than I thought it would, and I had promised dinner to Hou to go through some of what has been going onto me the past couple of weeks.
This meant that I basically missed training. I wasn't happy about this but there are certain people who need to know what is going on with me for my benefit so when I get a chance to tell them I feel it is prudent to do so.
Over dinner (jellyfish, followed by fried jiaozi and shang tung chicken then Singaporean fish) we chatted about out plans for the future, looking at food, tea, industrial materials and other things. It was good to catch up properly. The upshot of this meeting is a tea tasting scheduled for the 7th of July! It will be good. I am going to Sydney next weekend and will also be able to get some more tea stuff in then.
This meant that I basically missed training. I wasn't happy about this but there are certain people who need to know what is going on with me for my benefit so when I get a chance to tell them I feel it is prudent to do so.
Over dinner (jellyfish, followed by fried jiaozi and shang tung chicken then Singaporean fish) we chatted about out plans for the future, looking at food, tea, industrial materials and other things. It was good to catch up properly. The upshot of this meeting is a tea tasting scheduled for the 7th of July! It will be good. I am going to Sydney next weekend and will also be able to get some more tea stuff in then.
Wednesday 20 June 2007
星期三的课
Suprise!
On arriving at training I was greeted by a very familiar face, 阿蛇 was standing at the gate to welcome me. He is my senior student that I haven't seen in a while because of life issues that kept him away and then he suffered an attack of cognitive dissentience that made training impossible for him to continue until his circumstances changed. I don't know if they have yet changed enough but having him turn up at the hall was a good sign if ever I saw one. He stayed for tea and left when I started class, but it was good to see him again.
I used this lesson to expand some of the material taught in the course into different applications and principles. Alternative ways to get to some of the same points, using some of the principles frequently taught by the Shifu Dave of BFD at the yearly multy style camp, organized by Bai Long Zai Xia and Shifu Dave.
On arriving at training I was greeted by a very familiar face, 阿蛇 was standing at the gate to welcome me. He is my senior student that I haven't seen in a while because of life issues that kept him away and then he suffered an attack of cognitive dissentience that made training impossible for him to continue until his circumstances changed. I don't know if they have yet changed enough but having him turn up at the hall was a good sign if ever I saw one. He stayed for tea and left when I started class, but it was good to see him again.
I used this lesson to expand some of the material taught in the course into different applications and principles. Alternative ways to get to some of the same points, using some of the principles frequently taught by the Shifu Dave of BFD at the yearly multy style camp, organized by Bai Long Zai Xia and Shifu Dave.
How cool is this guy!
I have recently started listening to a lot of Ben Kweller, and I came across this clip about 5 minutes ago.
When was the last time you saw a performer walking through an audience because there wasn't a sufficient stage?
When was the last time you saw a performer walking through an audience because there wasn't a sufficient stage?
星期一的课
The majority of this course was devoted to course revision. Went over forms and pressure points that were discussed and put some of them into practice.
Tuesday 19 June 2007
Finished My Exam! First Semester OVER!
Think I went well, will find out after exam release date... Will post again then! (on this topic).
Monday 18 June 2007
六月十七日的课
Bai Long day course,
Was a good course. It had some good techniques and some new methods of getting to pressure points that I liked, learned two new forms Hung 1 and Hung 2 and had a great time. One of my followers on the path of Gong Fu Cha brought along a set and we partook in some quite enjoyable Tie Guan Yin at the lunch time break (for me between grading one of my students and cutting sticks for techniques later in the day). A good time was had by all. Grading was successful! I now have another white sash!
What I can post about however is the dinner after the event, not a great big event only 5 of us chose to kick on (I had planned to organize it but I was studying). It was a great meal with good company. I have pictures!
The top three are the food after some attacking on the first and last. We were at a SiChuan restaurant, that serves very nice traditional food.
The first is the remainder of Chilly Chicken, 4 different kinds of chilly with 3 different peppers and carraway seeds very nice, quite hot the chilly was flamed so had a caramel characteristic to the flavor. V. nice will order again. Next on the order is SiChuan Beef. Not as hot as I would like but it the spices were quite strong. However they didn't interfere with the flavor so much you couldn't taste the meat. The third was sliced pork in hot pot. It was a lovely broth with a good texture of vegies to balance the fall apart in you mouth meat. Was a very good meal.
These three are of us! The first two are three of my students who came along, the one in the middle graded that day. The last is of me and one of Bai Long Zai Xia's students, who brought along the Gong Fu Cha to the course.
The evening ended at my place over more cha and Gong Fu (general) talk!
I might expand this post to detail some of what we learned but not so as a guide to teach anything, I don't do that over the web, not good practice in my mind.
Was a good course. It had some good techniques and some new methods of getting to pressure points that I liked, learned two new forms Hung 1 and Hung 2 and had a great time. One of my followers on the path of Gong Fu Cha brought along a set and we partook in some quite enjoyable Tie Guan Yin at the lunch time break (for me between grading one of my students and cutting sticks for techniques later in the day). A good time was had by all. Grading was successful! I now have another white sash!
What I can post about however is the dinner after the event, not a great big event only 5 of us chose to kick on (I had planned to organize it but I was studying). It was a great meal with good company. I have pictures!
The top three are the food after some attacking on the first and last. We were at a SiChuan restaurant, that serves very nice traditional food.
The first is the remainder of Chilly Chicken, 4 different kinds of chilly with 3 different peppers and carraway seeds very nice, quite hot the chilly was flamed so had a caramel characteristic to the flavor. V. nice will order again. Next on the order is SiChuan Beef. Not as hot as I would like but it the spices were quite strong. However they didn't interfere with the flavor so much you couldn't taste the meat. The third was sliced pork in hot pot. It was a lovely broth with a good texture of vegies to balance the fall apart in you mouth meat. Was a very good meal.
These three are of us! The first two are three of my students who came along, the one in the middle graded that day. The last is of me and one of Bai Long Zai Xia's students, who brought along the Gong Fu Cha to the course.
The evening ended at my place over more cha and Gong Fu (general) talk!
I might expand this post to detail some of what we learned but not so as a guide to teach anything, I don't do that over the web, not good practice in my mind.
星期三和星期六的课
These classes were basics classes, aimed at getting a couple of people ready to grade, at the course the next day. For methods etc, see previous lessons.
Basics are so much fun!
Basics are so much fun!
It doesn't hurt to ask.
Friday night, no real plans... I have run out of white tea I'll stop at the Canberra center and cruse around and see what pick up at the tea shop (not the one I usually go to as it was out of bai cha also at last check).
Well I went to Dendy and checked out what movies were playing, did this and that finally decided to go by the tea shop...
While closely examining some yixing tea pots I heard a voice from behind me talking in Chinese... to me... That doesn't happen to me very much, who...
I turned around and saw who it was. It was another Chinese student, from third year (I am first) who I met when I was invited to a Chinese 5 class to make up for a public holiday. I had seen her around campus since then but haven't exchanged anything but polite nods or recognition etc. Seeing her here was quite a surprise, I went over and chatted to her for a while talked about the pots (over priced and inconsistent in quality) and China etc... It was a nice discussion. Then I left.
The encounter stuck in my mind... having recently parted ways with 小马 I am on the "lookout" for people of the opposite gender to spend time with. The very reason that my friend M and her girlfriend are the first that I contacted when the parting happened. I like female company, I don't get enough of it. The problem being that I don't have many female friends, I have male friends and I have done stuff with them it's not quite the same though. So this encounter stuck in my mind, I was planning to go out again that night, probably to a knightsbridge or somewhere similar see what was doing on the town dance a little come home and study. However I kept coming back to the tea shop and finally decided to go back and ask her out. It has been 9 years since I have asked someone out, it was a challenge. But I decided that it would be a challenge that would be good for me, the best part was that I didn't really care if she said no. I barley knew her from Eve, I had met her once and seen her around a couple of times. All that I knew was that she had in an interest in Chinese culture and Chinese tea. That would do for a start, GO!
So now that I was home I had a shower and washed work off me, dressed up a very little and headed out again. I found a park went down and did the deed.
She said no, sorry I am seeing someone... (I did see her at a cafe the other day with a couple of other people but nothing definite)
I said; Oh... Not to matter, could I have 100g of long jing please... (I had forgotten that I used the last of that also).
Well not at all heart broken I wend and saw a movie, "The Italian" looked alright. I didn't feel like going out clubbing straight after asking someone out, made the though of the act feel kinda' cheap, which I don't think it was. Movie was good, had a glass of wine before hand to celebrate the asking out of a lady, as a sign of a new era of my life beginning. I had been with 小马 for almost 9 years ended as well as it could, she left to free herself and also in her opinion me. I didn't want to split and still don't but I now understand enough to start to move on. This was a very good sign that I am getting back on track.
Well I went to Dendy and checked out what movies were playing, did this and that finally decided to go by the tea shop...
While closely examining some yixing tea pots I heard a voice from behind me talking in Chinese... to me... That doesn't happen to me very much, who...
I turned around and saw who it was. It was another Chinese student, from third year (I am first) who I met when I was invited to a Chinese 5 class to make up for a public holiday. I had seen her around campus since then but haven't exchanged anything but polite nods or recognition etc. Seeing her here was quite a surprise, I went over and chatted to her for a while talked about the pots (over priced and inconsistent in quality) and China etc... It was a nice discussion. Then I left.
The encounter stuck in my mind... having recently parted ways with 小马 I am on the "lookout" for people of the opposite gender to spend time with. The very reason that my friend M and her girlfriend are the first that I contacted when the parting happened. I like female company, I don't get enough of it. The problem being that I don't have many female friends, I have male friends and I have done stuff with them it's not quite the same though. So this encounter stuck in my mind, I was planning to go out again that night, probably to a knightsbridge or somewhere similar see what was doing on the town dance a little come home and study. However I kept coming back to the tea shop and finally decided to go back and ask her out. It has been 9 years since I have asked someone out, it was a challenge. But I decided that it would be a challenge that would be good for me, the best part was that I didn't really care if she said no. I barley knew her from Eve, I had met her once and seen her around a couple of times. All that I knew was that she had in an interest in Chinese culture and Chinese tea. That would do for a start, GO!
So now that I was home I had a shower and washed work off me, dressed up a very little and headed out again. I found a park went down and did the deed.
She said no, sorry I am seeing someone... (I did see her at a cafe the other day with a couple of other people but nothing definite)
I said; Oh... Not to matter, could I have 100g of long jing please... (I had forgotten that I used the last of that also).
Well not at all heart broken I wend and saw a movie, "The Italian" looked alright. I didn't feel like going out clubbing straight after asking someone out, made the though of the act feel kinda' cheap, which I don't think it was. Movie was good, had a glass of wine before hand to celebrate the asking out of a lady, as a sign of a new era of my life beginning. I had been with 小马 for almost 9 years ended as well as it could, she left to free herself and also in her opinion me. I didn't want to split and still don't but I now understand enough to start to move on. This was a very good sign that I am getting back on track.
Thursday 14 June 2007
小猫喝很多酒
This event was going to start at7:30 ish, so I decided to turn up at about 8, I had some things to do and wanted to also eat etc and relax on my own as I had not been alone for a while. I sad down and went over some characters etc and then... again... this time I couldn't stand, I was stuck in my seat... Not...Happy!!!
I kind of fell onto the table and then used my arms to straighten, as at this time I valued mobility more than anything. I went and did some stretches etc to no avail, I did some exercises, to no avail. I found all the liniments that I thought would help and went and lay down on a hard surface...
...1/4 a tube of deep heat later...
I can move!, oh wait hold that thought... no, no I can't...
...2/4 a tube of deep heat later...
I'm doing it, I'm really doing it!
Stretch... *CRACK*
Stretch... *CLUNK*
Stretch... *Click*
AHHHHhhhhhhhh...
So where is this place...
There was a plan at this party to get one of my nearing (17 3/4yo) adulthood students experienced with alcohol. This didn't seem to be a very bad thing. He was in consent, and had someone I though keeping him under control.
When I got there I found I was wrong. The person in control (100kg ish) had given him (60kg ish) the same amount of alcohol as he had had himself. When I turned up, there was a problem.
So I spent most of the night keeping 小猫 out of danger of injuring himself or others. Others mostly or property eg falling into a plasterboard wall and leaving a hole. This didn't happen but it was a pretty sure thing at one stage.
But in spite of this, I did have a good time got to talk with many of my students in a different environment and also got to meet (better) some of their other halves. Another good night well had, by some more than others perhaps. Monday's class, 小猫 couldn't remember much of what happened though there is enough phone video he knows it was... interesting.
I kind of fell onto the table and then used my arms to straighten, as at this time I valued mobility more than anything. I went and did some stretches etc to no avail, I did some exercises, to no avail. I found all the liniments that I thought would help and went and lay down on a hard surface...
...1/4 a tube of deep heat later...
I can move!, oh wait hold that thought... no, no I can't...
...2/4 a tube of deep heat later...
I'm doing it, I'm really doing it!
Stretch... *CRACK*
Stretch... *CLUNK*
Stretch... *Click*
AHHHHhhhhhhhh...
So where is this place...
There was a plan at this party to get one of my nearing (17 3/4yo) adulthood students experienced with alcohol. This didn't seem to be a very bad thing. He was in consent, and had someone I though keeping him under control.
When I got there I found I was wrong. The person in control (100kg ish) had given him (60kg ish) the same amount of alcohol as he had had himself. When I turned up, there was a problem.
So I spent most of the night keeping 小猫 out of danger of injuring himself or others. Others mostly or property eg falling into a plasterboard wall and leaving a hole. This didn't happen but it was a pretty sure thing at one stage.
But in spite of this, I did have a good time got to talk with many of my students in a different environment and also got to meet (better) some of their other halves. Another good night well had, by some more than others perhaps. Monday's class, 小猫 couldn't remember much of what happened though there is enough phone video he knows it was... interesting.
Uralba Open
The event of the year if you are my of my Father's generation. On the Queen's Birthday long weekend my Uncle holds a golf tournament on his farm. It is a good day though usually miserable weather. I have been mostly absent for the last 10 years for one reason or another. Last year was the first time I had been back and for that matter seen most of my Fathers side of the family for about 10 years. I also wasn't there for too long. I arrived at 11pm ish and left the next morning reasonably early. It was a good night.
This year I went out with my tutor. I saw this as a good opportunity for him to learn about Australian families and especially good for him to experience genuine Aussie slang. I don't use slang normally in my every day speech, partly because I work at a university partly because I find it cumbersome to have to repeat myself at ant time. This makes it hard for me to talk to my Chinese tutor in common slang as I just can't think of it unless it is coming at me. He also learned a little about golf. After a while he even got the ball going further than the stick. It was strange to me to see someone who had never played golf before as I grew up with a seasonally adjusted set of clubs from 3/4 -15. I played a little...
After this I took my tutor home and went back home myself to prepare for my next event.
Then getting out of the car... it... did... it... again...
This year I went out with my tutor. I saw this as a good opportunity for him to learn about Australian families and especially good for him to experience genuine Aussie slang. I don't use slang normally in my every day speech, partly because I work at a university partly because I find it cumbersome to have to repeat myself at ant time. This makes it hard for me to talk to my Chinese tutor in common slang as I just can't think of it unless it is coming at me. He also learned a little about golf. After a while he even got the ball going further than the stick. It was strange to me to see someone who had never played golf before as I grew up with a seasonally adjusted set of clubs from 3/4 -15. I played a little...
After this I took my tutor home and went back home myself to prepare for my next event.
Then getting out of the car... it... did... it... again...
Good night well had.
Getting back to my weekend posts!
Saturday class has been posted, what was not mentioned is that from there I went home and about 30 minutes of cleaning and packing I was off and en route to LongZaiXia's house. I had 4 swords, one walking stick, three bottles of single malt whiskey's and a Chinese chess set.
So I went helped with some house work (hanging a cabinet and sanding a door frame), trained read, watched telly and played chess. It was a good night. Oh and for those who were interested, the Glenlevet 15yr French oak was quite nice, though would have loved to have tasted the 18yr FO I think it would be much fuller. Though as a lover of Islay whiskey Speysides are almost always going to have an element of that.
There was a down side to the night, I slept very soundly that evening, though the bed on which I slept was out to get me. I woke up fine, did some more training, fiddled with this and that but when I got into my car to leave I felt a twitch... in... my... back...
It was awful, but once in my car it went down and seemed to settle. I went and picked up my tutor and went home to study. Got out of the car... there... again... Straightened up stretched a little, seemed to settle down. For a while all was well.
Saturday class has been posted, what was not mentioned is that from there I went home and about 30 minutes of cleaning and packing I was off and en route to LongZaiXia's house. I had 4 swords, one walking stick, three bottles of single malt whiskey's and a Chinese chess set.
So I went helped with some house work (hanging a cabinet and sanding a door frame), trained read, watched telly and played chess. It was a good night. Oh and for those who were interested, the Glenlevet 15yr French oak was quite nice, though would have loved to have tasted the 18yr FO I think it would be much fuller. Though as a lover of Islay whiskey Speysides are almost always going to have an element of that.
There was a down side to the night, I slept very soundly that evening, though the bed on which I slept was out to get me. I woke up fine, did some more training, fiddled with this and that but when I got into my car to leave I felt a twitch... in... my... back...
It was awful, but once in my car it went down and seemed to settle. I went and picked up my tutor and went home to study. Got out of the car... there... again... Straightened up stretched a little, seemed to settle down. For a while all was well.
Styley, Geekman & Who
Had a wonderfull night last Friday. Finished work then rode* over to Styley and Geekman's as I haven't seen them in a while Styley having been in NZ for weeks. Catch up was good, a lot has happened since I saw them last and home baked lazania was great. After dinner we wondered off to the shops to buy filling for muffins or "muff'n stuffin' " as I now like to call it. DEM' WAS GOOD! I don't know how much of what was used but one had cherries (out of jar with a nice sauce) and the other had rum, rum and rum soaked rasins! As seems to be usual in the Geek house they were a compramize of methods from two experienced muffin geeks/Geeks. I am asking Styley here if she has any photo's of the muffins we made, porbably not but just in case... If not might have to make some more tomorrow!
This was followed by drinking... you guessed it rum (it made me want to watch Pirates 1 again... alot) but finally I turned to my usual wet nurse, whiskey, while being visually stimulated by Dr WHO. It was a good night. Followed by a morning of eating muffins and drinking filtered french vanilla coffee.
*I got to park my bike downstairs in the locked underground carpark, not that great in its self but I love riding out of those things, is soo coool... (ok over it now... kinda)
This was followed by drinking... you guessed it rum (it made me want to watch Pirates 1 again... alot) but finally I turned to my usual wet nurse, whiskey, while being visually stimulated by Dr WHO. It was a good night. Followed by a morning of eating muffins and drinking filtered french vanilla coffee.
*I got to park my bike downstairs in the locked underground carpark, not that great in its self but I love riding out of those things, is soo coool... (ok over it now... kinda)
Tuesday 12 June 2007
星期一的课
Even though I only taught the technique to one student this lesson was about how to through "broom" sweeps. These techniques are quite effective and fun to use however it is very easy to fall on your butt and get pounded even if you take the balance of your opponent! Because of this the techniques I taught were aimed at being able to defend yourself while you are falling on your butt and using the change in level to your advantage. The main points of which were being able to control where you land and keeping your self guarded.
Some of the other things mentioned were things like "don't do this unless you slip etc or you are in the ring as it is hard to escape if you're on the ground" and "get up as soon as you can if you do find yourself here in real life as you're better winning by 100m than any other way" I think you get the idea.
Some of the other things mentioned were things like "don't do this unless you slip etc or you are in the ring as it is hard to escape if you're on the ground" and "get up as soon as you can if you do find yourself here in real life as you're better winning by 100m than any other way" I think you get the idea.
星期六的课
Form focus lesson.
This lesson I picked apart the way people were doing certain techniques in the beginning forms. I didn't go into great detail about why I wanted them to work on the moves that I was correcting beyond that they were doing them wrong. I gave them the corrections and set them to repetition drills working on the problem moves. This might seem like a less productive way for students to learn but there is a natural order of things, and a reason for its existence. Bai Long Quan has a strong tradition of forms, they are the core of what we teach. We learn many different forms some form other styles most (in my branch) original. The idea behind learning the forms is to better understand how to use the moves that we teach. There are at least a three levels involved in this. There is the direct application, indirect application and what may be called the incidental application.
The direct application is straight forward, the punch is a punch, the block is a block this is taught to beginners. The indirect application, which becomes a little more abstract, it might be use the block as a strike, and the stance as a kick. Then finally the incidental application, this becomes harder to recognize again, here you might use a stance to grapple and a punch to block. To make it more interesting, all these different types of moves and different combinations may be taught initially as one technique (with direct application only). Usually the more simplistic a move seems, the more interpretations can be made from it, because basics are at the heart of techniques.
To keep all the levels, the forms have to be learned in a standard way. The students need to learn the coordination of the basics before they can be situationally adjusted to take on new meanings. This requires each of the moves is to be done in a specific way, usually the most basic form. This allows the students to progress their knowledge naturally. Developing the coordination and understanding of technique until they can change the circumstances and application of the moves to reveal more refined interpretation.
As an example of different levels of interpretation one move I focussed on was one where you drop into a stance while moving to your left from standing position, doing two blocks as you land, one to the left and one to the right.
The first level of this might be moving away from one attacker to block a technique using distance to give you an advantage and toward another attacker to block a technique gaining advantage by charging down the attack.
The second level might be using the blocks to attack, possibly two attackers possibly one. The The third level might focus on the subtle balance changes to used to start the movement that disguise you intentions until you are in a position to act.
The idea of the three levels here is that you can thing about the first one without needing to think about the second or third level and they are still there but you can absorb them in your own time. Once you're savvy with the blocks, you're free to think about what else they could be.
This lesson I picked apart the way people were doing certain techniques in the beginning forms. I didn't go into great detail about why I wanted them to work on the moves that I was correcting beyond that they were doing them wrong. I gave them the corrections and set them to repetition drills working on the problem moves. This might seem like a less productive way for students to learn but there is a natural order of things, and a reason for its existence. Bai Long Quan has a strong tradition of forms, they are the core of what we teach. We learn many different forms some form other styles most (in my branch) original. The idea behind learning the forms is to better understand how to use the moves that we teach. There are at least a three levels involved in this. There is the direct application, indirect application and what may be called the incidental application.
The direct application is straight forward, the punch is a punch, the block is a block this is taught to beginners. The indirect application, which becomes a little more abstract, it might be use the block as a strike, and the stance as a kick. Then finally the incidental application, this becomes harder to recognize again, here you might use a stance to grapple and a punch to block. To make it more interesting, all these different types of moves and different combinations may be taught initially as one technique (with direct application only). Usually the more simplistic a move seems, the more interpretations can be made from it, because basics are at the heart of techniques.
To keep all the levels, the forms have to be learned in a standard way. The students need to learn the coordination of the basics before they can be situationally adjusted to take on new meanings. This requires each of the moves is to be done in a specific way, usually the most basic form. This allows the students to progress their knowledge naturally. Developing the coordination and understanding of technique until they can change the circumstances and application of the moves to reveal more refined interpretation.
As an example of different levels of interpretation one move I focussed on was one where you drop into a stance while moving to your left from standing position, doing two blocks as you land, one to the left and one to the right.
The first level of this might be moving away from one attacker to block a technique using distance to give you an advantage and toward another attacker to block a technique gaining advantage by charging down the attack.
The second level might be using the blocks to attack, possibly two attackers possibly one. The The third level might focus on the subtle balance changes to used to start the movement that disguise you intentions until you are in a position to act.
The idea of the three levels here is that you can thing about the first one without needing to think about the second or third level and they are still there but you can absorb them in your own time. Once you're savvy with the blocks, you're free to think about what else they could be.
Friday 8 June 2007
NJ said
Thanks NJ!
I can't believe that I didn't notice these earlier, but to be honest I haven't looked back over what I have written for a while and not in detail since I posted it.
So to add the corrections.
我今年我是二十五岁。我想我应该生大学。 现在我在(because it shuld come before the location)国立大学学习。我(still need the 学?)的 专业汉语。我有四位老师。我还有三个中国朋友。他们帮助我学习汉语。 他们跟我学习英国。我也教他们功夫茶。 他们都很景气我懂功夫茶。他们都来自 中国北方，不懂功夫茶。
I can't believe that I didn't notice these earlier, but to be honest I haven't looked back over what I have written for a while and not in detail since I posted it.
So to add the corrections.
我今年我是二十五岁。我想我应该生大学。 现在我在(because it shuld come before the location)国立大学学习。我(still need the 学?)的 专业汉语。我有四位老师。我还有三个中国朋友。他们帮助我学习汉语。 他们跟我学习英国。我也教他们功夫茶。 他们都很景气我懂功夫茶。他们都来自 中国北方，不懂功夫茶。
Thursday 7 June 2007
星期三的课
The main aim of this class was to build sensitivity in peoples arms. However I started with a great exercise called 1000 punches. This is where you punch as fast as you can for 1 minute, then take a minute break, then punch again for 1 minute then rest for another minute... Do this 5 times. When I do this, I use a set of four punches to count as one, head head, body body, for example would be one, then I aim to do at least 50 in one minute, doing this 5 times, 1000 punches. Good fun, one dayI will try it with kicks...
The sensitivity drills I will explain another time.
The sensitivity drills I will explain another time.
Monday 4 June 2007
Appreciate it and it is good.
Appreciation, a state of happiness. I have been thinking lately, have had lots of reasons to think. I have recently decided that in order to be content you need to be able to appreciate anything, and everything. If you can do this then you can find value in any situation and effectively never be disappointed. There is not limit to this theory, even if you disagree with something if you can see the benefit of it (and there is always one, feel free to test me) then it can't be all bad so it must be some good and there fore good for something and so appreciated to some degree. It does go in reverse, and it is easier to go in reverse as you don't need as good a reason. "I don't like it" will be very hard to argue with when someone is of that opinion. Even if you can see the benefit in what they don't like. Governments have used this logic for many years to justify wars. And a lot of good has come from wars, medical techniques, engineering developments, transport methods, many recreational drugs, (goes both ways I guess, so I am not a user) sharing of culture, sharing of common goals. There is nothing like a war to bring countries together. (sigh...)
星期一的课
Today's lesson was another basics lesson. I taught a Shotokan 8 directional punching drill, and went through the finer points of it, and then went onto forms. With warm-ups that was all I taught. It was a good lesson, great detail was discovered. Such as how the forms teach you how to balance your movement in order to apply techniques in different directions. Also, how when you let hard techniques flow they instantly become useful to all you training; internal, external, hard and soft.
The principle of the lesson. Examine what you are doing to find its true purpose.
The goal of the teacher. Practice your forms!
The principle of the lesson. Examine what you are doing to find its true purpose.
The goal of the teacher. Practice your forms!
汉语课文
Corrected version of exercise, I have been given these corrections by word only not on the page so I don't know if they are all in how they should be.
我今年十二十五岁。我想我应该生大学。现在我国立大学在学习。我的是专业汉语。我有四位老师。我还有三个中国朋友。他们帮助我学习汉语。他们还跟我学习英语。 我也教他们功夫茶。他们都很景气我懂共复查。他们都是从中国北房，不懂共复查。
我今年十二十五岁。我想我应该生大学。现在我国立大学在学习。我的是专业汉语。我有四位老师。我还有三个中国朋友。他们帮助我学习汉语。他们还跟我学习英语。 我也教他们功夫茶。他们都很景气我懂共复查。他们都是从中国北房，不懂共复查。
Will be the only one dancing!
Next week I have decided to go to knightsbridge, for the funk night. If I am in the mood I am in tonight I think I will dance a hole in the floor... solo! Last week there were two people dancing, or one dancing and one taking up more floor space than allowed, next week I think I will try to get a dance atmosphere by dragging along some dancers. I wish me luck!
再见！
再见！
Sunday 3 June 2007
I'm not only dancing!
Study is frutile while listing to the White Stripes. Frutile being the unlikely combination of fruitful and futile. While I go get up and dance I am going back and forth between the table and the dictionary. I am practicing my 100 word composition for my final exam on the 19th. I decided to leave the bag with my study stuff at work over the weekend as I wanted to free my mind from the guilt that it makes me feel and work in a free form, making up sentences using any words I wanted not just the vocab that I have been given. This means that I explore different structures and formations not yet covered by the text.
This is one example of a 100 character paragraph that I have written. For my 朋友老师 please correct anything you see in the comments or via e-mail. Otherwise I will come and ask you anyway!
我今年是二十五岁。 我想了我应该开学作学院。 现在我学习在国立大学。 我的专业是汉语。
我有四位老师。 我也有三个中国朋友。 他们帮助我学习哈眼汉语。 他们也跟我学习英国
我也教他们功夫。 他们都很惊诧我们 很惊诧我知道功夫茶。 他们都是从北芳中国来，不行功夫茶。
I don't know how bad this is (or good) as I am using a different language structure to what I have mostly practiced. I figure if I use the most confusing language to me then I will learn the most, and better prepare for my exam.
Look in the comments for my mark (I hope).
This is one example of a 100 character paragraph that I have written. For my 朋友老师 please correct anything you see in the comments or via e-mail. Otherwise I will come and ask you anyway!
我今年是二十五岁。 我想了我应该开学作学院。 现在我学习在国立大学。 我的专业是汉语。
我有四位老师。 我也有三个中国朋友。 他们帮助我学习哈眼汉语。 他们也跟我学习英国
我也教他们功夫。 他们都很惊诧我们 很惊诧我知道功夫茶。 他们都是从北芳中国来，不行功夫茶。
I don't know how bad this is (or good) as I am using a different language structure to what I have mostly practiced. I figure if I use the most confusing language to me then I will learn the most, and better prepare for my exam.
Look in the comments for my mark (I hope).
祝贺！
A couple of things to go into this post, one birthday, one death, one year in Australia.
In order of appearance.
一姐 turned 17 on the 23rd, there was a party which was great while was there, but apparently turned bad some time after I left.
上星期三 白天龙 passed away. I like to mark this occasion as it reminds the students of where the style has come from and makes them think about what it means to be a part of the Bai Long Quan family. I think it is a good feeling to have the support of a Gong Fu style behind you, as with it you know there is always something positive in your life, no matter how much is going wrong. If Daniel K. Pai didn't teach what he taught, there would be none of what we have. I think it is an occasion worth marking, and it is so marked.
One year in Australia is to mark the arrival of the student who doesn't turn up to his own lessons! Who held a BBQ in celebration of his being in Australia one year. It was a good afternoon with lots of meat! Good person to know, knows how to cook!
In order of appearance.
一姐 turned 17 on the 23rd, there was a party which was great while was there, but apparently turned bad some time after I left.
上星期三 白天龙 passed away. I like to mark this occasion as it reminds the students of where the style has come from and makes them think about what it means to be a part of the Bai Long Quan family. I think it is a good feeling to have the support of a Gong Fu style behind you, as with it you know there is always something positive in your life, no matter how much is going wrong. If Daniel K. Pai didn't teach what he taught, there would be none of what we have. I think it is an occasion worth marking, and it is so marked.
One year in Australia is to mark the arrival of the student who doesn't turn up to his own lessons! Who held a BBQ in celebration of his being in Australia one year. It was a good afternoon with lots of meat! Good person to know, knows how to cook!
星期六的课
Today's lesson started with me trying to cancel it from the beginning. The student who wanted me to start the classes was running a BBQ. He has only turned up to two of the classes I have run FOR HIM on Saturdays but there have been excusable reasons, I guess, if you count getting shingles that left him looking like an aborigine in police custody and a couple of other things. Because of the BBQ, I was trying to relocate it to his house. But we encountered a problem with contacting the transport of one of my student so I ran the class at the park as usual. It was a good lesson, I learned that 小猫 who has been training with Kyokushiin Karate know's how to though a thigh kick. He was practicing it last Karate lesson and I asked him to show me what he learned. I should have asked him to show me what he was taught as I haven't ever been hurt by a Kyokushiin shin kick to the thigh. They haven't been in the right place, but his was and it hurt! I asked him where he was told to kick and he said he wasn't given a target other than the thigh, I asked him why he kicked where he did, he said, because that is where you told me to attack a muscle. I had no further questions, my leg was sure he knew what he was doing! I have been kicked by a number of Kyokushiin Karateka and it has never worked like that, I have been kicked by others who knew where it worked best, the latter was what I received today.
Because of this I worked on ducking and weaving in my actual class. Looking at ways to move under attacks and retaliate. This was going to work my legs and help push out the bruise that was forming on my leg! Was a good lesson. We ducked and weaved under round kicks and round punches. Was good for legs!!!
Because of this I worked on ducking and weaving in my actual class. Looking at ways to move under attacks and retaliate. This was going to work my legs and help push out the bruise that was forming on my leg! Was a good lesson. We ducked and weaved under round kicks and round punches. Was good for legs!!!
making up for a bad score 28/31
Just to see who actually reads this. Feel free to comment on what I put down here, grammar corrections, "Bullshit"titles to things that I say, I like to be questioned on what I say and I appreciate being corrected on what I write when I make mistakes. There are a couple of reasons that I started this blog, they are, getting better at composition as 今年我开生大学 and I want to test my ideas on a broader audience. If you are a gong fu student, and you want to ask me a specific question regarding a lesson, ask I would be happy to answer. If you are a student and think something I said was crap, tell me, tell me why, I want to know. I don't like believing crap and I don't like teaching it. If you can convince me that it is crap I will also post a retraction and correction of said mistake, with references. Most of the time I talk a level above practical learning more at the level of principle, this is because I don't what to teach online rather than discuss online.
In short comment, it isn't hard and I like the challenge. This goes double if you are a student of mine, as I am always trying to teach better classes. If there is something you want to learn, I can't always read it on your face.
In short comment, it isn't hard and I like the challenge. This goes double if you are a student of mine, as I am always trying to teach better classes. If there is something you want to learn, I can't always read it on your face.
功夫女
I love this site, I haven't read it too much and though I disagree with some of what they say, I love it! That they are saying it is good enough for me, I don't care if they drink good tea from mugs/normal cups, that they know another way is good enough for me, I know my choices are best only for me. I have not looked too heard but this is the first sight I have found a site that is also about GONG FU CHA, not that mine is only about gong fu cha, but there is another! 我很高兴他们喜欢功夫茶。I linked this site a couple of days ago now but I am still excited every time I am on the net that it is there. Hmmm, gong fu cha is good.
Friday 1 June 2007
现在六月！
I didn't get my quota for May yet, onlt 28 out of 31! I am very dissapointed. So probably is 小猫，but I guess we will just all have to cope. Not wanting to stay home last night, after training I went out to Knightsbridge for their funk night. It was great, their DJ was mixing live and it was great to watch him start from backing track right through to a really complex compisition that had about 15-20 different samples that you could watch him put in and loop etc. Will be going back next Thrus.
Thursday 31 May 2007
Bookshelf in the Head
Had an interesting day today. My boss was moving a bookshelf when a bookshelf next to her had an extension fall off and hit her on the head leaving her with a 6cm gash above her left ear. This meant that I spent most of the day filling out forms and collating reports from the people there as to what happened for our records. Also I had to wait around for the OHS unit to come and assess the situation and take photos for their records. It was a waste of a day really. Pretty good cut though, 6 stitches and lots of blood, thankfully not on the floor...
星期三的棵
Class went well, taught the intended lesson of head moving and followed it up with movement reading techniques examining peoples balance before they move. It went well, I also looked at peoples balance when they attack from various styles. 白 龍 has a desire for balance to be centered. This means that when we take a stance we aim to have our head straight. Other styles tend to have the head held in a froward position, Muai Tai for example. Also when someone in the street is fighting, they tend to adopt a boxing type position which also has the head quite forward.
This usually means that they want to attack, rather than counter attack, or at least move toward you fast and hard. Their weight is already moving forward and they are pushing out their forehead which is the hardest part of the head as a defense against getting hit in the face, straight forward is their most likely route to attack. Also it can be seen that they are most likely going to want to punch you, as their shoulders will be slightly forward and their feet are going to be slower (back leg will be the fastest to attack as front leg will be holding their balance and it has a fair distance to cover). There may be other reasons for these things, but their balance will be affected the same by the head shifting forward.
With this in mind we also looked at ways that we can move to make them over commit to their attacks and also ways we can move to negate them. We also looked at the strengths of the stances and positions as to understand when they would be most useful.
Once we had done that we looked at how to move in without signaling or minimising the signals we give, as well as through attacks that go around the easier/most likely blocks. Then how to cover greater area with out blocks without slowing the time it takes to do them.
In the end this part of the class took about 105 minutes. Then we did some for work also looking at the way in which we change our balance. It was a good class, and I hope the 兄弟 put it into practice.
Tea of the lesson was Long Jing.
This usually means that they want to attack, rather than counter attack, or at least move toward you fast and hard. Their weight is already moving forward and they are pushing out their forehead which is the hardest part of the head as a defense against getting hit in the face, straight forward is their most likely route to attack. Also it can be seen that they are most likely going to want to punch you, as their shoulders will be slightly forward and their feet are going to be slower (back leg will be the fastest to attack as front leg will be holding their balance and it has a fair distance to cover). There may be other reasons for these things, but their balance will be affected the same by the head shifting forward.
With this in mind we also looked at ways that we can move to make them over commit to their attacks and also ways we can move to negate them. We also looked at the strengths of the stances and positions as to understand when they would be most useful.
Once we had done that we looked at how to move in without signaling or minimising the signals we give, as well as through attacks that go around the easier/most likely blocks. Then how to cover greater area with out blocks without slowing the time it takes to do them.
In the end this part of the class took about 105 minutes. Then we did some for work also looking at the way in which we change our balance. It was a good class, and I hope the 兄弟 put it into practice.
Tea of the lesson was Long Jing.
Wednesday 30 May 2007
Things to think about.
I have had some changes in my life recently that have given be cause to think about anything but what is going on. So among other things I have been thinking about gong fu.
Last night I was thinking about the starting of movement. In order to move your body forward, you need to create an imbalance that directs your body forward then maintain that motion while regaining your balance. So, what most people do is tilt their head slightly in the direction that they are going, and then step, and then, bring the head back into balance maintaining the motion through inertia, adding to the speed with their legs.
The reason that this happens in that order is that your head controls more of your balance from standing than any other part of your body. This is because it is at the top and for its size it is quite heavy, so when it goes forward there is a great shift in the total balance of the body. Once the body is leaning from shifting of the head, the head can straighten and the balance is now in motion.
There are two parts of this that I want to examine and develop. One is hidden behind learning a head butt, not a technique that I like myself however it does teach control of the head under impact. The other is the effect of this balance shift, which is necessary to understand in order to hide motion or disguise attacks eg, a head butt should you wish to use one. Of course once you can disguise the motions then you can recognize them better also, so it has other advantages inherent.
I will post again after tonights class and continue this idea.
Last night I was thinking about the starting of movement. In order to move your body forward, you need to create an imbalance that directs your body forward then maintain that motion while regaining your balance. So, what most people do is tilt their head slightly in the direction that they are going, and then step, and then, bring the head back into balance maintaining the motion through inertia, adding to the speed with their legs.
The reason that this happens in that order is that your head controls more of your balance from standing than any other part of your body. This is because it is at the top and for its size it is quite heavy, so when it goes forward there is a great shift in the total balance of the body. Once the body is leaning from shifting of the head, the head can straighten and the balance is now in motion.
There are two parts of this that I want to examine and develop. One is hidden behind learning a head butt, not a technique that I like myself however it does teach control of the head under impact. The other is the effect of this balance shift, which is necessary to understand in order to hide motion or disguise attacks eg, a head butt should you wish to use one. Of course once you can disguise the motions then you can recognize them better also, so it has other advantages inherent.
I will post again after tonights class and continue this idea.
Tuesday 29 May 2007
星期一的课
Basics, everything is taught in basics. Well it should be, otherwise the basics don't cover what is needed to understand the rest of the art. Tonight I went through the four hard style blocks. We use Shotokan style basic blocks, they're simple and effective, and the motor skills can be used to do so many things. It is amazing how many things can be done with one set of movements. What looks like and often is practiced as a very slow complicated block is really simple and effective if you open your mind to using the strong movements where the strength is needed. Often not where people think. Once this happens you start to find that the fastest punch is what is normally called an outside block! Sure it also blocks but in terms of conception to impact, the "outside block" punch lands before the person getting punched knows they're getting attacked!
Simply because the movement is defensive right up till the strike lands.
The explanation for this technique does not fit into a good length, so will not land on this page tonight.
Simply because the movement is defensive right up till the strike lands.
The explanation for this technique does not fit into a good length, so will not land on this page tonight.
星期六的课
This week was the first week when I felt comfortable with kicking. So I taught ways to use kicks to improve your strength and balance, and or understanding of how to adjust the direction of oncoming attacks.
The introduction exercise to this was to have one person kick in any fashion possible and to block it by putting a leg in the way of the foot or some other part of the leg as it came forward, then to push it to remove their balance. This leads to using misdirecting kicks so they don't get blocked, which leads to blocking more effectively by taking the balance earlier making them have to change tact to a much more limited set of options. This leads to you being able to predict where they will go and how you can control them when they get there. If you are kicking you learn how to retain your balance in spite of other influence. Quite useful really. Once you are able to get control of the leg with your foot however, you can also gain the confidence necessary to instead block with you body. This is often better as you are in a better position to attack when your limbs are free.
The introduction exercise to this was to have one person kick in any fashion possible and to block it by putting a leg in the way of the foot or some other part of the leg as it came forward, then to push it to remove their balance. This leads to using misdirecting kicks so they don't get blocked, which leads to blocking more effectively by taking the balance earlier making them have to change tact to a much more limited set of options. This leads to you being able to predict where they will go and how you can control them when they get there. If you are kicking you learn how to retain your balance in spite of other influence. Quite useful really. Once you are able to get control of the leg with your foot however, you can also gain the confidence necessary to instead block with you body. This is often better as you are in a better position to attack when your limbs are free.
Wednesday 23 May 2007
Bai Long Quan
I want to put in a couple of references to Bai Long Quan, my gong fu style. The full history is a little blurred, but the most accurate information is here. A summary is that it is a longer range style of gong fu that becomes closer as you learn more. There is a focus in the branch that I belong to on the external aspect of the art, but there is a push to get more more of the internal techniques that we practice developed back into full exercises. Bai Long comes from (internal) White Crane and (external) Dragon styles of Kung Fu (Gong Fu) at the moment we practice a lot of dragon and a little white crane. We are learning some white crane at the moment to rediscover that part of the style. This is a perfect example of why you should practice forms, the information is there, once you have some ideas of what you're looking for, you can dig it out.
星期一的课
This was a fun lesson. My agenda for the class was to build speed and power in punches. My plan had beginners working reverse punches and seniors working on lead punches.
I only had three people turn up.
The joy of teaching open classes is you don't know who is going to turn up, some days everyone takes a day off at the same time. Especially when there is a cold snap.
So when I have a small class I usually throw away the plan and do something fun. Different exercises, different class, generally more detailed and more complicated than usual to reward the people who did decide to show.
This lesson however was going to be the first lesson where I was able to take warm-ups properly in 6 months. Mostly due to my knee partly due to some other things that had been going on earlier in the year. So I kept to the plan. I did change the method slightly. You know the red tassles used by chinese do decorate around new year etc. You often see them on the hilts of chinese swords. I have a heap of those that I sell for decoration. I put one of those in the crease of my elbow and bing very careful not to lock my arm used it as a method of speeding up my punch. The faster I punched the further I would throw the tassle. It was fun. With a total of four people, we were able to have like a game of tennis using the tassles.
So the lesson covered, stance for getting into position to catch and launch the tassle, speed for the propellant, and timing for the catch. It was good.
I only had three people turn up.
The joy of teaching open classes is you don't know who is going to turn up, some days everyone takes a day off at the same time. Especially when there is a cold snap.
So when I have a small class I usually throw away the plan and do something fun. Different exercises, different class, generally more detailed and more complicated than usual to reward the people who did decide to show.
This lesson however was going to be the first lesson where I was able to take warm-ups properly in 6 months. Mostly due to my knee partly due to some other things that had been going on earlier in the year. So I kept to the plan. I did change the method slightly. You know the red tassles used by chinese do decorate around new year etc. You often see them on the hilts of chinese swords. I have a heap of those that I sell for decoration. I put one of those in the crease of my elbow and bing very careful not to lock my arm used it as a method of speeding up my punch. The faster I punched the further I would throw the tassle. It was fun. With a total of four people, we were able to have like a game of tennis using the tassles.
So the lesson covered, stance for getting into position to catch and launch the tassle, speed for the propellant, and timing for the catch. It was good.
Monday 21 May 2007
Developing Power.
There is a lot to be said for being able to throw a hard punch. There is also a lot to be said for being able to throw a fast punch. If you can through one you might not be able to throw the other however. For me a powerful punch is one that has a large mass released at the end, simple enough. For me however a fast punch, is a punch that has the shortest time span from conception to impact, not the speed of the arm while in transit.
The elements necessary for a powerful punch are a good stance, one that helps you drive your technique, and good body structure on top of your stance to also aid the travel of your punch to and into the designated target. There is one other element needed to hit someone and that is timing, but that is a whole different story.
The elements for a fast punch are relaxation, relaxation, and intent. There is nothing stopping someone throwing a fast powerful punch but the timing of each of the elements has to be just so, before you even think about the timing necessary to land the punch.
Fast and powerful punches both come with a set of dangers which we train to avoid. These are injuries based around the impact.
Bone alignment.
If you land a powerful punch without your wrist in line with the angle of the attack, you will end up with a bent strained wrist and less able to retaliate than your opponent, as the punch will loose power as your wrist absorbs the impact.
Round vs Straight punches, alignment for round and straight attacks differ. Round punches such as ridge hand or hook punch rely on the arm delivering the blow to be supported by muscle. This requires all involved driving muscles to be at a less than 90degrees on poi (point of impact) this is where muscles have their power range, 90-20 degrees. Straight attacks rely on the power that is being transfered by the arm to be supported with the body, so basically elbows in and everything associated with the hips from the head to the toes moving the weight of the attacker forward into the punch.
In power punches, this happens early and slowly, in speed punches this happens late and fast. The faster that the body comes in line the faster the punch lands the more impact it will have.
This might all seem obvious but I want a reference to talk about fast and slow attacks in the future.
...edit...
I do know how to spell through and also throw, I don't know when to go to bed...
The elements necessary for a powerful punch are a good stance, one that helps you drive your technique, and good body structure on top of your stance to also aid the travel of your punch to and into the designated target. There is one other element needed to hit someone and that is timing, but that is a whole different story.
The elements for a fast punch are relaxation, relaxation, and intent. There is nothing stopping someone throwing a fast powerful punch but the timing of each of the elements has to be just so, before you even think about the timing necessary to land the punch.
Fast and powerful punches both come with a set of dangers which we train to avoid. These are injuries based around the impact.
Bone alignment.
If you land a powerful punch without your wrist in line with the angle of the attack, you will end up with a bent strained wrist and less able to retaliate than your opponent, as the punch will loose power as your wrist absorbs the impact.
Round vs Straight punches, alignment for round and straight attacks differ. Round punches such as ridge hand or hook punch rely on the arm delivering the blow to be supported by muscle. This requires all involved driving muscles to be at a less than 90degrees on poi (point of impact) this is where muscles have their power range, 90-20 degrees. Straight attacks rely on the power that is being transfered by the arm to be supported with the body, so basically elbows in and everything associated with the hips from the head to the toes moving the weight of the attacker forward into the punch.
In power punches, this happens early and slowly, in speed punches this happens late and fast. The faster that the body comes in line the faster the punch lands the more impact it will have.
This might all seem obvious but I want a reference to talk about fast and slow attacks in the future.
...edit...
I do know how to spell through and also throw, I don't know when to go to bed...
六月十七日的课
It will be 10-5 as far as I understand and will be $50 for the day which is reasonable. This course will be run by 白龙在下 and will be on 白龙拳 in general. I would like to get him to run a specific course. I haven't thought of this until now but usually he teaches courses on things he has learned at one event or another. If he taught courses on specific animals or on breathing I think people would prefer it. Even if he taught seniors only courses, as not having to cover the basics in great detail would be good. With this prior warning people can better prepare themselves for learning. I think that this would work better if 白龙在下 didn't teach regular classes as then he would have time to organize the classes.
I would also like to teach some more courses, the only problem with this is time, of course, I don't have any!
I would also like to teach some more courses, the only problem with this is time, of course, I don't have any!
星期六的课
I had a good class on Saturday, mostly form work but the student that I wanted to be ready for his next level was there and had shown improvement since last class. I think that it will be too early to grade him next week however there is a course on June the 17th. I need to remind/inform class of this course. I will get him to grade shortly after as I want to cement some of the changes that have recently been put in. I aslo have another student in the same position who I want to grade soon but he has to get his behind to training!
Friday 18 May 2007
Indian...
The best use for a leg of roast lamb is curry. The meet is not as tender as others so does better after a long simmer, and it is so cheep! Tonight I paid $6 for 1.5kg of lamb! How good is that, it was reduced and had a scrape off the top of the plastic wrap which brought it down, but that I think was done by me anyway when I picked it up. (I didn't ask for the discount, the manager saw it and said to take $2 off the price. I wasn't about to say no... So $12 curry for about 5 people. Sounds good to me!
Ingredients;
3 large onions,
3 large tomatos,
2 t spoons of carroway seeds crushed
4 star anise
1 t spoon garam masala
2 t spoons paprika
3 bay leaves
1.5 kg meat
water
cook for about 15 hours after seering the cubed meat.
Ingredients;
3 large onions,
3 large tomatos,
2 t spoons of carroway seeds crushed
4 star anise
1 t spoon garam masala
2 t spoons paprika
3 bay leaves
1.5 kg meat
water
cook for about 15 hours after seering the cubed meat.
Falling behind 18th day 17th post
I could tell you about the new whiskey's I have bought recently (last 2 months) 12yo Murray McDavid, very good relatively cheep ($50ish) very good and strong flavor unfiltered which is something I haven't knowingly experienced before, adds body don't know if it would be better with or without,but interesting. A bottle of 15yo Glenlivet French Oak Reserve, don't know about taste yet as unopened both of these are Speyside in origin. Lastly, a 15yo Bowmore malt Islay malt, very nice though not as good as I had hoped I think the 20yr is where the real difference will be (in price also).
Very good in all, the Glenlivet is waiting until I can have dinner with my teacher, then I fear it is doomed.
Very good in all, the Glenlivet is waiting until I can have dinner with my teacher, then I fear it is doomed.
星期三的课
First class with happy knee, Monday it was still tender from surgery, Wednesday was great!
I was able to do weird and wacky things like bend it... and stuff. It was great!
Knee is feeling all round much better all the time (as predicted by Geekman).
Hmmm, what did I teach...
Ahh, yes, balance. Taking someone else's balance (physical).
I split this into two lessons, one for beginners one for seniors.
Beginners I had apply a self defense against an opposite side wrist grab with some force, pulling the defender off balance, while the defender regained their balance and manipulated the attackers arm to put onto a lock and take to the ground. This took a couple of stages but everyone got there in the end.
Seniors (more advanced in learning not age), I had examine each other to see how they could use any part of their opponent to gain control of their balance. eg, thumb, ear, hip, knee... you get the idea. This became a good way to learn what control was, ie getting someone to go where you want without their permission, with them helpless to defend (preferably).
I also did a good warm up exercise. With partners one jumps up and down while the other rolls/moves underneath. This becomes hard as the jumper is less able to jump after a while and the roller is slower to move so timing becomes difficult. It was good and got peoples heart rate up as their partner was coming down on their head especially!
We did a couple of other dodging activities also but quite similar just moving different parts of the body away from x limb.
was good fun.
I was able to do weird and wacky things like bend it... and stuff. It was great!
Knee is feeling all round much better all the time (as predicted by Geekman).
Hmmm, what did I teach...
Ahh, yes, balance. Taking someone else's balance (physical).
I split this into two lessons, one for beginners one for seniors.
Beginners I had apply a self defense against an opposite side wrist grab with some force, pulling the defender off balance, while the defender regained their balance and manipulated the attackers arm to put onto a lock and take to the ground. This took a couple of stages but everyone got there in the end.
Seniors (more advanced in learning not age), I had examine each other to see how they could use any part of their opponent to gain control of their balance. eg, thumb, ear, hip, knee... you get the idea. This became a good way to learn what control was, ie getting someone to go where you want without their permission, with them helpless to defend (preferably).
I also did a good warm up exercise. With partners one jumps up and down while the other rolls/moves underneath. This becomes hard as the jumper is less able to jump after a while and the roller is slower to move so timing becomes difficult. It was good and got peoples heart rate up as their partner was coming down on their head especially!
We did a couple of other dodging activities also but quite similar just moving different parts of the body away from x limb.
was good fun.
Belconnen; the town center made with the ugly stick.
If you are not from Canberra you might not know that Belconnen has the most ugly town center going in there is. It is safe to say that I do hate it. Concrete does not have the same appeal when it is all you can see no matter where you look, and most of the time they haven't had the common decency to paint it, so it is ugly with water stains!
But today is the day that I meet with one of my tutors, who lives on the UC campus (near Belconnen also quite ugly compared with ANU). So as I was 2 or so hours early I thought I would go to Belconnen and blog for a while at a cafe with internet. No, Belconnen proves to be ugly and backward/useless. In the ugliest and one of the biggest shopping centers in Canberra, there is no wireless internet access. In the biggest (kinda) and ugliest entire town centers in Canberra there is only one "hot spot" anywhere (according to a phone shop who you think would know) and that is McDonalds at the other end of the lake and it is a Telstra spot which asks you to pay $12 ph for the pleasure and only if you are already a Telstra bigpond sucker/customer already!
I don't think it too much to ask if Dickson (a small shopping center all out doors and with only one or two office buildings 100m away) is able to have about 3 access points available where ever you go with a 150m radius of area covered. That one of the four main town centers (Civic, Woden, Tuggeranong, Belconnen) should have a couple of internet enabled areas.
<>
But today is the day that I meet with one of my tutors, who lives on the UC campus (near Belconnen also quite ugly compared with ANU). So as I was 2 or so hours early I thought I would go to Belconnen and blog for a while at a cafe with internet. No, Belconnen proves to be ugly and backward/useless. In the ugliest and one of the biggest shopping centers in Canberra, there is no wireless internet access. In the biggest (kinda) and ugliest entire town centers in Canberra there is only one "hot spot" anywhere (according to a phone shop who you think would know) and that is McDonalds at the other end of the lake and it is a Telstra spot which asks you to pay $12 ph for the pleasure and only if you are already a Telstra bigpond sucker/customer already!
I don't think it too much to ask if Dickson (a small shopping center all out doors and with only one or two office buildings 100m away) is able to have about 3 access points available where ever you go with a 150m radius of area covered. That one of the four main town centers (Civic, Woden, Tuggeranong, Belconnen) should have a couple of internet enabled areas.
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Tuesday 15 May 2007
星期一的课
I almost forgot to post last night's class!
I invented an interesting exercise (says me) last night.
I wanted to give my students a core body and a leg workout at the same time as do some pad work using round strikes (to aid core muscles).
This was my solution. It was a partner exercise, one partner holds a pad for an eye level strike and the other person strikes it with a round (hand) attack, then the person holding the pad drops the pad to thigh level and the attacker gets as low (leg element) as they can without bending over and does the same eye level strike with their eyes at a lower height (leg and core). Then back up to the former height (leg element again) and repeat for as many times as the attacker can in one minute.
The idea of the exercise is to keep balance while changing height, and keep strength in the strike while attacking at different levels. Both of these are hindered... aided by the cardiovascular workout you are getting over the minutes duration. It was a is also good exercise for the person holding the pad as they need to brace at different levels so it helps them if they rise and sink to the occasion!
(I think this is a good length for an exercise explanation)
I taught a couple of other pad exercises but they will not fit into a suitable length explanation.
I invented an interesting exercise (says me) last night.
I wanted to give my students a core body and a leg workout at the same time as do some pad work using round strikes (to aid core muscles).
This was my solution. It was a partner exercise, one partner holds a pad for an eye level strike and the other person strikes it with a round (hand) attack, then the person holding the pad drops the pad to thigh level and the attacker gets as low (leg element) as they can without bending over and does the same eye level strike with their eyes at a lower height (leg and core). Then back up to the former height (leg element again) and repeat for as many times as the attacker can in one minute.
The idea of the exercise is to keep balance while changing height, and keep strength in the strike while attacking at different levels. Both of these are hindered... aided by the cardiovascular workout you are getting over the minutes duration. It was a is also good exercise for the person holding the pad as they need to brace at different levels so it helps them if they rise and sink to the occasion!
(I think this is a good length for an exercise explanation)
I taught a couple of other pad exercises but they will not fit into a suitable length explanation.
我身体不舒服
When I went into surgery I had a slight cold, now that my body has been subjected to all manner of drugs designed to dull your ability to react to stimulus I have developed a tap like feature in my nose that doesn't have an off position.
I am currently eating Nyal Cold and Flu Fighter tablets like they are going out of fashion. Which they apparently are as Xiao ma wasn't able to find any last time she looked. They have an interesting blend of herbs that seem to work a little for a while. Andrographis Panicuata, White Willow Bark and Elderberry, are the three named ingredients on the back of the box. Sounds like a nice blend of new and old. But as long as it works I don't mind too much. They haven't given men the confidence to go to class today however as I seem to have very quick relapses into burst pipe mode!
So I am spending the day until after lunch trying to study without getting the paper wet, and will go to meet with my tutor in the evening. This is more possible due to being less formal than class I won't feel like I am waisting other student's time, and by then I will be desperate for the help!
Hopefully I won't be too sick to go when the time comes!
I am currently eating Nyal Cold and Flu Fighter tablets like they are going out of fashion. Which they apparently are as Xiao ma wasn't able to find any last time she looked. They have an interesting blend of herbs that seem to work a little for a while. Andrographis Panicuata, White Willow Bark and Elderberry, are the three named ingredients on the back of the box. Sounds like a nice blend of new and old. But as long as it works I don't mind too much. They haven't given men the confidence to go to class today however as I seem to have very quick relapses into burst pipe mode!
So I am spending the day until after lunch trying to study without getting the paper wet, and will go to meet with my tutor in the evening. This is more possible due to being less formal than class I won't feel like I am waisting other student's time, and by then I will be desperate for the help!
Hopefully I won't be too sick to go when the time comes!
Sunday 13 May 2007
Knee Update
Currently feeling good, however it gets sore much more easily than before. So as expected. The only problem I have had (now that I think about it) is that the exercises that I have been given to do require you to be lying down. I haven't been in good places to lie down of late and have so forgotten to do them.
Well I think it is time to go to bed and do another set of the given exercises.
Well I think it is time to go to bed and do another set of the given exercises.
Another Demonstration.
Yesterday I gave my second public demonstration of Gong Fu Cha. It went well, starting with a Jasmine ball with red flowers to get people in the mood, then moving onto biluochun then a Tie Guan Yin Oolong followed by a green Pu Er. Not everyone liked every tea, but some did. The favorite of the day was the Tie Guan Yin, as usual. This tea is the specialty of the shop that has asked me to perform Gong Fu Cha. The owner of the shop is from Shanghai and has never leaned Gong Fu Cha, he is also not looking to learn, which is ok because I am there to perform and he is able to sell the equipment! Once I have had more practice serving for many people I will get a video up on here or UTube of me performing, however at the moment the best examples are here!
There were a couple of things that could have been better with the demonstration;
Two of my three Chinese tutors were not invited, quite by accident sorry! Though one who had not made the last one did come, so that was good.
The store owner gave me two tickets to a Chinese Choir performance and I left them behind by mistake.
Lastly I made 小马 late to her horses and we had a not very good time getting some of her stuff done in the dark!
But as these were the worst things, then the demonstration its self was great!
There were a couple of things that could have been better with the demonstration;
Two of my three Chinese tutors were not invited, quite by accident sorry! Though one who had not made the last one did come, so that was good.
The store owner gave me two tickets to a Chinese Choir performance and I left them behind by mistake.
Lastly I made 小马 late to her horses and we had a not very good time getting some of her stuff done in the dark!
But as these were the worst things, then the demonstration its self was great!
Saturday 12 May 2007
Into the wild
小猫 has been quite testing of late, since his grading he has become quite unfocused in his training, and irritating in class. This irritation almost came to blows when he accidentally kicked another student in the groin, it was meant in fun but his control was a little lax on that occasion. I had a little talk to the 兄弟 involved after class. The result was a discussion on several things one being what 小猫 wants to learn from Gong Fu, and the difference that exists between that and what I want to teach. He wants to learn how to fight and I want to teach how to survive. You learn both in my classes however the focus isn't fighting alone.
Later that night I received an e-mail from him saying that he wants to cut down his training with me to about once per month (a suggestion that I made). As this will give him opportunity to discuss techniques that he has been practicing and learn new techniques at a slower pace.
He has done this before in different forms, this is the first time that he hasn't had a dummy spit before leaving classes. So in my mind he has come a long way. It was good to part this time on good terms, and I look forward to seeing him when he does come by again.
Later that night I received an e-mail from him saying that he wants to cut down his training with me to about once per month (a suggestion that I made). As this will give him opportunity to discuss techniques that he has been practicing and learn new techniques at a slower pace.
He has done this before in different forms, this is the first time that he hasn't had a dummy spit before leaving classes. So in my mind he has come a long way. It was good to part this time on good terms, and I look forward to seeing him when he does come by again.
Club Mombassa
Tonight 小马和我Discovered Club Mombassa, It is great!
She danced and I boogied from a sitting position on account of the whole knee surgery think. It was totally awesome!! I can't wait until next week or so when I can get up and dance. We will boogie till the whee hours. I want to try to get some of my students there also, make it a club club!
She danced and I boogied from a sitting position on account of the whole knee surgery think. It was totally awesome!! I can't wait until next week or so when I can get up and dance. We will boogie till the whee hours. I want to try to get some of my students there also, make it a club club!
Friday 11 May 2007
Meeting the Surgeon 4, Post Op
I have been cut.
They took out a piece of meniscus about 25mm long and tapering from 10mm-5mm. I had two sorts of tare, a bucket handle and a radial. Basically I had done a really good job on hurting myself.
I have permission to do all tolerable activity, which at the moment is not much, and I meet up with him again on the 22nd.
I did get onto Robert also and he had no problem with Phil, I still have a problem with his receptionist, she is useless. It took her 5 hours to get a message back to me that took 10 seconds to ask! This is how the conversation should have gone;
"Robert do you remember A Shi who had the knee problem, your recommended Al Burns to him however the was a mix up and he got booked in with Dr Alburn. A Shi wants to know, would you recommend Dr Albrun for the surgery?"
"No I have no problem with that."
"Thanks I'll let him know."
She could have elaborated on how crap she is to not be able to book an appointment with the correct surgeon, but she didn't need to.
All's well that ends well though and now all I have to do is wait for the bills to roll in!
I should get some pictures of the surgery, if I can I will post them for sure!
Ciao!
They took out a piece of meniscus about 25mm long and tapering from 10mm-5mm. I had two sorts of tare, a bucket handle and a radial. Basically I had done a really good job on hurting myself.
I have permission to do all tolerable activity, which at the moment is not much, and I meet up with him again on the 22nd.
I did get onto Robert also and he had no problem with Phil, I still have a problem with his receptionist, she is useless. It took her 5 hours to get a message back to me that took 10 seconds to ask! This is how the conversation should have gone;
"Robert do you remember A Shi who had the knee problem, your recommended Al Burns to him however the was a mix up and he got booked in with Dr Alburn. A Shi wants to know, would you recommend Dr Albrun for the surgery?"
"No I have no problem with that."
"Thanks I'll let him know."
She could have elaborated on how crap she is to not be able to book an appointment with the correct surgeon, but she didn't need to.
All's well that ends well though and now all I have to do is wait for the bills to roll in!
I should get some pictures of the surgery, if I can I will post them for sure!
Ciao!
Tuesday 8 May 2007
星期六的课
I didn't have a plan for this lesson at all, partly due to not knowing who was going to be turning up, partly due to not having time to prepare that morning.
I put it to the class who did arrive, "what do you want to work on" the most suitable suggestion was flexibility. So flexibility it was.
We did an exercise holding sticks that is normally done with cups of water or something else that spills. You hold the vessel on you hand with you palm open and then turn you hand in toward your body then around so your hand is twisted 360 degrees, then keep it going around taking it over you head and back to where you started.
We did this exercise in many different ways, making the figure 8 that you make as big as possible without moving your feet, making it as long as possible, front to back as well as side to side, as high and low as possible and as small as possible. Each one of the variations made the exercise slightly different and each person in the class found one variation that worked on a particular weakness of theirs. We followed these exercises with some applications to the flexibility gained giving escape advantages. Various wrist, elbow and shoulder locks that were escapable through greater range of movement.
I put it to the class who did arrive, "what do you want to work on" the most suitable suggestion was flexibility. So flexibility it was.
We did an exercise holding sticks that is normally done with cups of water or something else that spills. You hold the vessel on you hand with you palm open and then turn you hand in toward your body then around so your hand is twisted 360 degrees, then keep it going around taking it over you head and back to where you started.
We did this exercise in many different ways, making the figure 8 that you make as big as possible without moving your feet, making it as long as possible, front to back as well as side to side, as high and low as possible and as small as possible. Each one of the variations made the exercise slightly different and each person in the class found one variation that worked on a particular weakness of theirs. We followed these exercises with some applications to the flexibility gained giving escape advantages. Various wrist, elbow and shoulder locks that were escapable through greater range of movement.
Sunday 6 May 2007
Meeting the Surgeon 3, Doule take
"I'm sorry which surgeon do you have a booking with?"
"The wrong one, so I need to get some clarification from my doctor, do you think you can contact my doctor for me?"
"certainly, which doctor was that?"
"Dr Robert Still"
"We don't have a surgeon by that name, did you have an appointment with him here?"
"No, I am sorry, he is the doctor who recommended me to one of the surgeons that is here. I need to contact him regarding his referral."
"Oh, I see, and what was the problem with the referral?"
"Well, I am booked into see the wrong surgeon, so that the problem"
"Oh and you wan't to contact Dr Still and talk to him?"
"If that is ok."
"That should be fine I will put a call through to his office." Handing me the phone.
I was hoping here that they might break into the Dr's list of after hours contact hours once they got the recorded message, but as I had not properly heard the message I also wanted to check what it said.
"It appears that their offices are closed, do you have another number?"
"No sorry so what would you like to do?"
"I don't know? When is the next appointment for Dr Alan Burn?"
"We won't be able to get you in until..." to long " would that suit?"
"Not really, can you give me some information about Dr Alburn?"
Turns out he does happen to be a knee surgeon and apparently he is equally recommended by Robert. The only think that they couldn't tell me is why Robert might recommend Alexander over Phil. Which is all I really wanted to know. If they could say that the waiting list for Alexander was shorter than for Phil, I would have something to go off, but they would not commit to anything. This made it very difficult to decide what to do from here.
Options:
1) Tell them to cancel until I have had a chance to talk to my Robert,
2) Book another appointment with the correct doctor,
3) See this doctor and hope he seemed capable. Check with Robert on Monday
1) I didn't want to wait to get another appointment, I had to wait two month's for this appointment.
2) The wait was still too long for this option
3) Was I going to waste $140.00 on a quack?
As I was going to be able to cancel anything that was booked (even though it would cost $140 for the pleasure) I went ahead with 3.
Dr Phil Alburn, he turned out to be fairly decent, he was able to give me answers where I had questions, even to why was Alexander recommended instead of him, he guessed it was a numbers thing, according to him, Robert recommends %50 each way. Didn't seem unlikely, as I didn't have a particularly difficult case according to Robert. He also assured me that I could change at any stage if I needed (which I didn't want to) as it was no skin off his nose, he would not want to perform surgery on someone who was not confidant of his ability.
So I booked the surgery, for the next week (much to my delight) and started filling out forms.
Several hours later...
NIB "What do you mean my insurance doesn't cover this operation."
Hospital "How much?"
Hospital "upfront..."
Hospital "no medicare rebate!"
Public system option "wait how long?"
Several hours later...
after calculations "I can afford it without insurance, go ahead and book it all in."
白龙在下 "I will put in $1000..."
2 days later...
Hospital "What do you mean that you missed something on your earlier quote? How could you miss something that costs $1500"
Anesthesiologist "But I told you that there were two possibilities in duration and you said they were the same cost!"
Several hours later...
Surgeon "So I get 6 weeks to pay..."
Anesthesiologist "So I get 6 weeks to pay..."
Assistant "So I get 6 weeks to pay..."
"See you Thursday!"
Tuesday morning,
Hospital "So I will be refunded for all services I don't use..."
-----I think I will actually be able to afford it-----
(provided I do not get the most expensive option, but that is out of my control)
"The wrong one, so I need to get some clarification from my doctor, do you think you can contact my doctor for me?"
"certainly, which doctor was that?"
"Dr Robert Still"
"We don't have a surgeon by that name, did you have an appointment with him here?"
"No, I am sorry, he is the doctor who recommended me to one of the surgeons that is here. I need to contact him regarding his referral."
"Oh, I see, and what was the problem with the referral?"
"Well, I am booked into see the wrong surgeon, so that the problem"
"Oh and you wan't to contact Dr Still and talk to him?"
"If that is ok."
"That should be fine I will put a call through to his office." Handing me the phone.
I was hoping here that they might break into the Dr's list of after hours contact hours once they got the recorded message, but as I had not properly heard the message I also wanted to check what it said.
"It appears that their offices are closed, do you have another number?"
"No sorry so what would you like to do?"
"I don't know? When is the next appointment for Dr Alan Burn?"
"We won't be able to get you in until..." to long " would that suit?"
"Not really, can you give me some information about Dr Alburn?"
Turns out he does happen to be a knee surgeon and apparently he is equally recommended by Robert. The only think that they couldn't tell me is why Robert might recommend Alexander over Phil. Which is all I really wanted to know. If they could say that the waiting list for Alexander was shorter than for Phil, I would have something to go off, but they would not commit to anything. This made it very difficult to decide what to do from here.
Options:
1) Tell them to cancel until I have had a chance to talk to my Robert,
2) Book another appointment with the correct doctor,
3) See this doctor and hope he seemed capable. Check with Robert on Monday
1) I didn't want to wait to get another appointment, I had to wait two month's for this appointment.
2) The wait was still too long for this option
3) Was I going to waste $140.00 on a quack?
As I was going to be able to cancel anything that was booked (even though it would cost $140 for the pleasure) I went ahead with 3.
Dr Phil Alburn, he turned out to be fairly decent, he was able to give me answers where I had questions, even to why was Alexander recommended instead of him, he guessed it was a numbers thing, according to him, Robert recommends %50 each way. Didn't seem unlikely, as I didn't have a particularly difficult case according to Robert. He also assured me that I could change at any stage if I needed (which I didn't want to) as it was no skin off his nose, he would not want to perform surgery on someone who was not confidant of his ability.
So I booked the surgery, for the next week (much to my delight) and started filling out forms.
Several hours later...
NIB "What do you mean my insurance doesn't cover this operation."
Hospital "How much?"
Hospital "upfront..."
Hospital "no medicare rebate!"
Public system option "wait how long?"
Several hours later...
after calculations "I can afford it without insurance, go ahead and book it all in."
白龙在下 "I will put in $1000..."
2 days later...
Hospital "What do you mean that you missed something on your earlier quote? How could you miss something that costs $1500"
Anesthesiologist "But I told you that there were two possibilities in duration and you said they were the same cost!"
Several hours later...
Surgeon "So I get 6 weeks to pay..."
Anesthesiologist "So I get 6 weeks to pay..."
Assistant "So I get 6 weeks to pay..."
"See you Thursday!"
Tuesday morning,
Hospital "So I will be refunded for all services I don't use..."
-----I think I will actually be able to afford it-----
(provided I do not get the most expensive option, but that is out of my control)
Saturday 5 May 2007
Meeting the Surgeon 2, Second Doc,
Having established that I cannot speak to the surgeon who recommended me to the Dr I didn't get, I decided to speak to the physio who recommended me to the first Doc. Karl, "Hi could I please speak to Karl?" "I am sorry he is in Sydney today, can you call back tomorrow?" "I kinda want to speak to him now, I need him to tell me about a surgeon that I am to meet at 12pm (currently 12:05)" "Oh, I will call his mobile and get him to call you. What is your number?" now why couldn't my first surgeon, have this receptionist!
(12:07pm) "Hello, Patrick, Karl here, what seems to be the problem"
"bla, bla, bla"
"Oh you're probably best off speaking to Robert (first surgeon who recommended me to Alexander Burn)."
"bla, bla, bla"
"Oh, well then I don't know, I think that he probably recommended Al for a reason, you should probably hold until you speak to him, I know that they are both orthopedic surgeons I don't know if Phil does knees though. If you can try to get the people in the clinic to change your appointment, I am sure they will be able to get you one pretty soon under the circumstances"
"bla, bla, bla"
"Well, good luck! Sorry I couldn't be of more help."
Pretty much at hospital by now, park etc...
"Hi I have an appointment with the wrong surgeon, can you help me?"
(12:07pm) "Hello, Patrick, Karl here, what seems to be the problem"
"bla, bla, bla"
"Oh you're probably best off speaking to Robert (first surgeon who recommended me to Alexander Burn)."
"bla, bla, bla"
"Oh, well then I don't know, I think that he probably recommended Al for a reason, you should probably hold until you speak to him, I know that they are both orthopedic surgeons I don't know if Phil does knees though. If you can try to get the people in the clinic to change your appointment, I am sure they will be able to get you one pretty soon under the circumstances"
"bla, bla, bla"
"Well, good luck! Sorry I couldn't be of more help."
Pretty much at hospital by now, park etc...
"Hi I have an appointment with the wrong surgeon, can you help me?"
Thursday 3 May 2007
Meeting the Surgeon 1, Dr Who???
This didn't seem like too difficult a task at first. Go there, set a date, fill out some forms, leave. This was not to be. I last posted when it was time to leave, I decided to call ahead to check if the clinic was running on time, as I have known there to be four hour waits.
I called the number on the card that I had and I was transfered to another area of the hospital, the to the reception of the surgeon who I was supposed to meet, then I was told that he didn't have an appointment with me. I said that was interesting as I had been told I had an appointment with him. The booking was made by my doctor's receptionist, surely she would be able to make an appointment, it was her job! NO. They then went into their computer to find where my appoint was, I didn't have the surgeon that I thought I had. I It turns out that she had made an appointment, it was with another surgeon in the same clinic she got one part right. She was supposed to and understood (proof of which is in the card she gave me with his name) that she was to make a booking for Dr Alexander (aka Alan, aka Al) Burns, what she did was make an appointment with Phil Alburn. Who has the same name if you slur Al Burns and don't pronounce the "s". Same thing you ask? Not when he is going to cut you open and play at removing/repairing your knee. So, due to not having received the letter of confirmation that I was supposed to get, (probably due to my house being a mail black hole) I found out 15 minutes before my appointment that I had the wrong surgeon booked to look at my knee. As you might imagine, I had a couple of questions. Who was Dr Alburn? The latest and greatest thing in post industrial art? Probably not due to his working in a surgery clinic, but was he going to cut open my knee and try to put in a new hip!
It turns out that he was a knee surgeon who has approximately as much experience as the doctor who was recommended from the same clinic. But I still wanted to know why then I was not recommended him by my doctor (formerly a knee surgeon in Canberra and quite good) was this surgeon crap, for want of another word, is his experience meaningless because he is comparatively a blithering idiot compared to the surgeon that I was recommended? I thought on my way in I would risk a fine and talk to my doctor. Good plan, that was until I get this message, "you have reached... Our office is closed until... thank you for your call...". This made me even happier that I decided to risk the fine of talking on my mobile while driving to get the information. It meant that I was closer to the answer every second that I was on the road.
Having informed the surgery that I was going to be late due to checking my appointment, I wasn't worried about time, I was worried about other things.
I called the number on the card that I had and I was transfered to another area of the hospital, the to the reception of the surgeon who I was supposed to meet, then I was told that he didn't have an appointment with me. I said that was interesting as I had been told I had an appointment with him. The booking was made by my doctor's receptionist, surely she would be able to make an appointment, it was her job! NO. They then went into their computer to find where my appoint was, I didn't have the surgeon that I thought I had. I It turns out that she had made an appointment, it was with another surgeon in the same clinic she got one part right. She was supposed to and understood (proof of which is in the card she gave me with his name) that she was to make a booking for Dr Alexander (aka Alan, aka Al) Burns, what she did was make an appointment with Phil Alburn. Who has the same name if you slur Al Burns and don't pronounce the "s". Same thing you ask? Not when he is going to cut you open and play at removing/repairing your knee. So, due to not having received the letter of confirmation that I was supposed to get, (probably due to my house being a mail black hole) I found out 15 minutes before my appointment that I had the wrong surgeon booked to look at my knee. As you might imagine, I had a couple of questions. Who was Dr Alburn? The latest and greatest thing in post industrial art? Probably not due to his working in a surgery clinic, but was he going to cut open my knee and try to put in a new hip!
It turns out that he was a knee surgeon who has approximately as much experience as the doctor who was recommended from the same clinic. But I still wanted to know why then I was not recommended him by my doctor (formerly a knee surgeon in Canberra and quite good) was this surgeon crap, for want of another word, is his experience meaningless because he is comparatively a blithering idiot compared to the surgeon that I was recommended? I thought on my way in I would risk a fine and talk to my doctor. Good plan, that was until I get this message, "you have reached... Our office is closed until... thank you for your call...". This made me even happier that I decided to risk the fine of talking on my mobile while driving to get the information. It meant that I was closer to the answer every second that I was on the road.
Having informed the surgery that I was going to be late due to checking my appointment, I wasn't worried about time, I was worried about other things.
星期三的课
Last nights class was not an inspired class, I focused the lesson on the transfer of weight, how and why the transfers happen in different stances. I thought that this was a great lesson plan however I was not able to communicate it to the students in the class effectively I think largely due to me being in a very flat mood. Usually I am able to get enough energy out of the students of the class that I can give myself a kick start, but last evening they didn't have enough in reserve to get me going. This was a lesson to me in its self, although a "how not to"
rather than a "how to" lesson. I think that next time I have this sort of day before class, I will focus on activities that will give me more energy, example pad work, gets the endorphins working and pumps the blood, stance work takes an inspired teacher to get an inspired class.
It is especially hard to do when your knee is stopping you from doing the activities that you're teaching! On that note I am about to leave to meet my surgeon to set a date for my knee operation.... so I had better go...
rather than a "how to" lesson. I think that next time I have this sort of day before class, I will focus on activities that will give me more energy, example pad work, gets the endorphins working and pumps the blood, stance work takes an inspired teacher to get an inspired class.
It is especially hard to do when your knee is stopping you from doing the activities that you're teaching! On that note I am about to leave to meet my surgeon to set a date for my knee operation.... so I had better go...
Tuesday 1 May 2007
星期一的课
I decided to reuse the idea from Saturday, which was a snake lesson. Not for any other reason than I felt like teaching it, which has to count for something.
The idea that I have of snake is it moves around attacks stopping them from tracking, and then strikes hard and fast often attacking delicate areas in preference to harder areas. The snake gains it's power from coiling and uncoiling. It may work to visualise this as a whip which can attack in any direction however never has tension in it's body. If you can treat your limbs like this and move your body accordingly then you can gain the same ability.
I will detail some of the specific techniques that I taught; A defense against a straight punch. you cam move inside or outside to the punch (inside being between the body and the arm outside being not so). If you move outside, block with the opposite hand intercepting the punch as early as possible (aiming at the punches chamber if able) with the back of your hand, Do not direct the punch anywhere but let it go to where it aims and don't let it deviate from that path, As you do this move your opposite side leg to the side and as froward as you can (the faster that you get to the punch the more forward you can go) . This ends the block, a couple of note, keep you elbow in, you want your elbow down and against your side when you finish the block. Turn your hand over the arm, have the back of your hand locked down to stop the hand punching you from coming over your block. Finish the block on or above the elbow, this stops the punch from bending and hitting you in the head, not good practice. There are probably other things... would have to see the defense in action.
The block is done now, turn the blocking hand into a punch to the head, This should happen as your foot lands, you may need to turn your shoulders to right angles to your target to get power in this position, Then follow with your offside hand with an attack only descernable by the result of the former.
That was too long go add in the inside variation which has more explanation necessary...
The idea that I have of snake is it moves around attacks stopping them from tracking, and then strikes hard and fast often attacking delicate areas in preference to harder areas. The snake gains it's power from coiling and uncoiling. It may work to visualise this as a whip which can attack in any direction however never has tension in it's body. If you can treat your limbs like this and move your body accordingly then you can gain the same ability.
I will detail some of the specific techniques that I taught; A defense against a straight punch. you cam move inside or outside to the punch (inside being between the body and the arm outside being not so). If you move outside, block with the opposite hand intercepting the punch as early as possible (aiming at the punches chamber if able) with the back of your hand, Do not direct the punch anywhere but let it go to where it aims and don't let it deviate from that path, As you do this move your opposite side leg to the side and as froward as you can (the faster that you get to the punch the more forward you can go) . This ends the block, a couple of note, keep you elbow in, you want your elbow down and against your side when you finish the block. Turn your hand over the arm, have the back of your hand locked down to stop the hand punching you from coming over your block. Finish the block on or above the elbow, this stops the punch from bending and hitting you in the head, not good practice. There are probably other things... would have to see the defense in action.
The block is done now, turn the blocking hand into a punch to the head, This should happen as your foot lands, you may need to turn your shoulders to right angles to your target to get power in this position, Then follow with your offside hand with an attack only descernable by the result of the former.
That was too long go add in the inside variation which has more explanation necessary...
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