Mid sem Oral

Friday morning was the second and last of my mid-semester tests.
An oral exam for my Chinese class (only class). I had to perform with a partner a 5ish minute dialogue followed by some q&a in Chinese that we were given a guide as how to prepare, something like go over what you have learned. My partner 大马 （coincidence) and I have been working on it for several weeks an it was above and beyond what we had to know but covered everything we had learned. It was hard to bring all that together in a relevant fashion without extra stuff. We could have changed our lives etc to fit the texts, but then we wanted to learn more words relevant to our lives, so we did. The q&a session wasn't too good as the tutor that was helping out was still getting used to the questions (we were the first ones he had interviewed) and was using vocab that we hadn't learned, but I don't think that that will count against us too much. The words weren't actually important, rather gap filling, phrases you say while you think of what you actually mean, like "um" but more like "well..." I can't remember them as I was kinda trying to block them out but they did make it hard to answer. I will type out the dialogue in another post v.soon. I am sure...

星期六的课

I was reading a blog I recently found here and was leaving a comment that turned out to be quite long, so I decided to leave it here and link there.

星期六课
This is an exercise that I taught today to help some of my students keep their body in balance when moving.
Stand at least an arm's length from a solid wall (or something that can take your full body weight) bend you knees to lower your weight as far as you can keeping your body straight* and balanced extend one foot forward as if stepping down onto it but stop yourself with your arm your body should be as straight as if you were standing normally, your head should feel like you are standing completely normally. Then bend your arm to let you go forward, but don't let you shoulders go forward or backward without being matched by your hips (don't lean). Then increase the amount that you push with your legs to increase the load on your arms you should be able to go all the way forward, pushing as hard as you like with you legs without going up or down. Repeat for an equal number or reps each arm each leg (4 sets). Holding your body straight with right arm and left leg will give different affects as will using both arms (a 5th and 6th set) if you want. The latter may also be done as a shorter version, it will be easier on your arms and body but legs will still get the same sensation. This is a good finishing set because your legs may require longer to get a proper work out.




*Be aware of your back, to stop it getting pushed in the wrong direction, tuck up your pelvis and sink when you lower you weight, if you don't know what this means then ask me or another martial arts instructor who should be able to tell you (in my experience it is a very common practice).

Return of 小马

As usual, I had a fairly busy morning. I woke up at 10:30am, cleaned the house for a while, then at 11ish went into the airport to pick up 小马 coming back from KL where she has had a week on the town at the expense of the office... so not really busy, this is because the student who had booked me for several hours this morning, canceled yesterdayHad lots of booze and fun, slept soundly through the seminars and partied hard through the nights. Then she came back (through duty free without getting me whiskey) with presents for me and Styley who marked the passing of the her year on Friday. She brought me 茶, one 250g bingcha of 10 year old 普 洱 pu er and a gift box of another undisclosed younger pu er.
This is a picture of samples of all my pu er cha, the ones on the bottom right are the two packets that 小马 brought me. the two in the top left are from ZenCha in Sydney the others are from the store that introduced me to gong fu cha.

First exam

A little late however, Monday this week was my first Chinese exam. I think that it went well... but won't know until results are published. The only mistake I can remember making I still can't decide if it was an error in the situation. I think that I missed a possessive character but I am not sure it was appropriate. I said 我的女朋友做语言教授工作。 Do I need a possessive between yuyan and jiao shou? If I say that she is a language professor that does not mean that she belongs to that discipline, does it? But as far as these things go I think that if that is my biggest mistake I should be fine, however because I don't know I got anything else wrong, having done some more study is that because I have absolutely no idea and I acutaly got nothing right???

Careful what you wear.

I found this article while reading another gong fu blog and I found it quite amusing, especially since 小马 is currently in KL for work. I don't think however she will be spending too much time in school yards.

Mischief managed.

What is done is done. 小猫 did his grading last night. He passed however due to frustration from earlier in the night not as well as he later wanted to have. Learning the difference between performing for the satisfaction of others and performing for the benefit of yourself, is difficult. If you are being tested and you view the test as the former, you are more likely to resent everything they ask you. If you see what they are asking of you as a chance to assess your ability and understanding under pressure, there won't be a conflict of ideals stopping you from performing. Usually people who enjoy the activity that they are doing like to be tested, as even a fail will help them improve, it will tell them that what they are doing is not working and they need to change their stratagem (or develop one). That there is a good way to look at a test is what 小猫 learned last night. That it took me several hours to change his perspective enough to learn the lesson becomes quiet incidental once he understood it.
The end result of the less adequate but less than possible pass has not made him value place value on the rank (rank not being something that he believes in) but it placed value on the process of gaining rank. I think that this is a healthy way to gain respect for those who show their achievement by symbols as well as proven ability. The latter being harder to display without pain in a martial context. He also stated that next time, no matter what mood he might be in, he will put his all into his next grading. I hope it is soon and successful.

Friday night last!

Friday had the first majiang evening of hopefully many with Styley and Geekman and what a good evening it was! Though Geekman had sporting commitments that meant a fairly early evening! (Australia Vs New-Zealand cricket started at 23:30) I believe that 小马, was the winner in the end, however fun was had by all! I do think that I want play for money some time, one cent at a time but still money! Will have to choose an evening not already set aside for serious sport viewing!

Pork labb.

New favorite recipe,
500g pork mince
1 bunch coriander chopped fine
1 onion chopped fine
1 chili sliced v.fine
4 Tsp ish (I use about one lap of wok of each, low flow bottles) each of Sweet chili, Dark soy, white vinegar, fish sauce.
3-4 leaves of silver-beat shredded.

brown mince and onion, with chili, add vinegar and coriander, stir, cover and steam, add sauces and silver-beat don't stir yet leave it on top, cover again and steam until silver-beet is limp. stir the eat. Tonight I had it with bread. Probably good with rice, as that is how I have normally had it in restaurants.

星期一的课

This class was aimed at adding to the leg lesson on Saturday, and the lesson before, stopping active breath to promote passive breath. This was then followed by first forms then some exercises to give foot placement awareness. So if all lessons are properly learned, strong stances in the right place with no effort. Sounds good to me!
These lessons are coming from the idea that a balanced position is needed to land any technique well. I have been also teaching slowly that only a balanced mind can deliver the right technique without thought, but this lesson has mostly been delivered after class when students think of all their questions that were too difficult to ask in class. I do need to develop my techniques in creating questions in class that cover these areas, however there should be reward to people who want more...

小猫 黄层

I have been working on 小猫 of late, I have been letting him ask questions to the wee hours. Tonight was no exception other than I was planning on it as he faces a yellow level test tomorrow (now today). While the knowledge rather than the cloth is the goal, the expectation that he places on his performance will be great, not that that is a problem as it will both help him train as well as show his weaknesses. Once that this test is out of the way he will be able to explore his gong fu with greater ease as he will be able to look forward as well as back and so get a better idea of what is to come. The reason that he has stopped looking forward is that he had not looked back enough to understand what he had done. This happened a few months ago when I asked him for an essay on one of the poems of 白天龙。This was needed in order for him to advance correctly. Now he needs to be tested before he can't balance what he needs to know next with what he has already established.

The other reason that I planned tonights events is that of all my students he is the only one that seems to enjoy gong fu cha as much as I do. It is good to have a student who likes to drink cha, while discussing technique. They do go well together. I really do need to get my students more into the gong fu cha. This way we can drink gong fu cha after class without interrupting 小马. Then I will again find that I am spending too much time with students and not getting to see 小马!

星期六的功夫课。

Class was good this weekend, I taught some exercises in developing leg strength and balance together to give better enable people to work from low stances with grounding. If the these lessons were not received, then there was plenty of leg strengthening going on. If however the lessons were received, then balance between stances should be very good!

Posting lessons

I have been thinking on weather to post or not to post lessons of gong fu on here. I don't want to post stuff that I can't give proper direction on, but I do want to keep a public record of some of the cool stuff that I teach. I have hence decided to post the cooler exercises on here that I get people to do.

Exercise one. Taught 四月十八日， This is an exercise in breathing, or not breathing... Lay on your back, hands by your sides and breathe out, don't push the air out of you lungs but just relax and let the air leave your lungs. Then put your arms above you head and let your lungs rise and fill with air without breathing in. Bring your arms down again and let your body move to push the air out. Do this for a minute and just relax and try and let your arms breathe for you. Then stand and try to again open you lungs and let the air pass in and out. You can also lean forward to get this affect. As you go forward you squeeze your digestive organs up into your lungs space and push air out (if this freaks you out (小吗), your just squeezing you belly to push the air, no organs involved really). Now try to get a similar effect by punching forward and backward at the same time twisting your waist not moving your hips. If you are able to do this for 2 minutes without passing out or breathing using your normal method, (stomach or ribs) then try to through normal punches (just forward) and get the same result, not having to breathe normally. If you are able to do this the you should be able to stop breathing while someone else breathes for you, by say punching your stomach (through a pad is best). If you can do this... Then if you are doing exercise, forms or kata or patterns or what ever else you do you should be able to minimize the effort you exert by coordinating your breathing with you activity so that you don't have to breathe actively but rather passively. This conserves your energy and better enables yourself to respond to sudden changes in pace by the change it's self. A reaction by definition will be slower and give you a greater chance of loosing your breath and then having to recover.

This exercise done properly will let you do exercise for a lot longer before you blow your self out. It is also a good defense against being hit as you're better prepared to deal with the impact.

Medial Meniscus AKA stupid knees!

I currently have a Medial Meniscus injury. This means that I am mostly walking with a cane or at museum pace. The cause of the injury is pronating feet. This puts pressure on my medial meniscus when I walk and has given me a degenerative injury at 25! This is not good and I meet my surgeon on the 3rd of May. As you may have guessed the photos I took were quite difficult for me to manage however I can do most things on one side if I can't the other.

Work is kind to me.

My boss has decided that as my knee (will post more info next) got better after a brake from work (annual leave) when I went on holidays that I should reduce my working hours to 1/2 days. This means that I am getting more time for posting etc. Most of this time is taken up by study. Or doing stuff that I would not normally have time to do.
This is another reason I like my work, they really do think about the health of their staff, even more than they might themselves. This carries across to family also, if I can't come in because 小吗 is sick, then they ask me when I will be able to come in, not why I have to stay. It makes for happy staff.

I am not only talking to myself!

It has been over a week now, and I thing that I have actually got a viewer, not told to visit by me! It is so exciting. They only stayed for 5 minutes but that is probably enough. I haven't really been looking for hits though. When I have had the time to do that sort of thing I have been posting.

Testing 汉语 with New Firefox 我喜欢的

好那。好

Wanna Celica

Well 小马 has her truck and that means that I don't need my 4WD. Well I have decided, I WANNA CELICA! They are worth about as much as what my current car is though there was a plan to spend that money on the loan I have for my bike... I am not worried about my bike loan, it is at a good rate and I don't notice the money going as I was given a pay rise at the same time I bought it. Insurance might be a deciding factor however. I don't want to spend billions on insurance so once I have tested one of these vichles, I will do some ringing around to get prices for insurance. I think that NRMA is desperate for more business at the moment so it should be possible to slip it in with my bike insurance.

Students Still talk

Last night I decided to spread the love, I took one of my 白兄弟 to 白龍在下's class so that he could fire the same questions to him and compare answers to find the meaning in what each of us was saying. There were some good lessons learned, however when I dropped him home it did end up being past the am before I arrived home. Again, if I had been getting paid... Though I did very much enjoy the conversation, I felt very guilty when I found 小马 still awake though she was having fun in bed downloading music while chatting with a bogen about cars. She thought he was very funny (he did look kinda amusing).
This particular student has started asking all these questions because of an exercise I gave him to learn how to think. If I hadn't done such a good job I would be getting home earlier, I also would not have a learning student. Gotta take the good with the good here I guess and get home as soon as I can!

Student talk.

The temptation to talk with students for hours after class is great, however the problem is that it takes hours of your time. 小马has an answer for this, make them pay for your time, this way every one wins. You get paid for you time and they value what they learn. However from where I stand, I want to reward students for asking challenging questions with informative answers. Rather than rewarding them for paying me more money with my time. I don't mind if they pay me however that circumstance would rather be a private lesson, different I think than asking questions after class, even if the result is the same amount of time. I do see her point, however I also enjoy casual discussion of my lessons and how I teach them, as it helps me grow as a teacher and a practitioner of gong fu.

The inspiration for this post is that tonight, as I do many nights I got into a discussion of techniques and origins of teachings and style history etc, with the 白兄弟. It was a good conversation and if I hadn't run away, it would have gone for a very long time after I had cut it short. The reason that I did run, was just because it was interesting, and I value my time with my partner and I get too little of it as it is so what do I value more, money from teaching or time with 小馬? Well this is answered by her a little as well, if they want to pay you that is fine, you can spend the money later on me. Not a direct quote but it would work for me. Although I can imagine what I would think of an instructor who turned on a timer for after class discussion. Something about heart in wallet...

Weekend done.

Well it was long but it is mostly over. I am currently in bed studying while 小马 cleans her office. She is moving a lot of stuff out... mostly my stuff that has been in there as the easiest place for it to go. I think that I have lost some storage privliges... Anyhoo I have stopped saying well anything if I can avoid it, my mouth still is getting mini cramplike spasims when I try to talk. I still seem to have lost all dexterity with my toungue... not good when I have to speak in a language as forign to my own as Chinese! Well I am sure that some sort of muscle relaxant will help, perhaps something from the West Coast of Scotland...

Although I didn't make it to the Tai event, partly because I was not needed as the person that I was going to perform Gong Fu Cha for was not able to have a stand this time. Partly because we ran out of time. However, I did get those photos taken, I will post them up slowly as they are fairly large and I will cut them down one by one as I go through them for the better ones. That was good, and Xiao Ma managed to learn a little Turkish off my photographer (student that I thought might be free and has a new camera).

Too much Chinese

I have a toungue cramp, I am not speaking and my mouth is almost in pain, with my tongue trying to run away!

Saturday Night.

Well, my Saturday is done, night ahead... ish. Teaching over and the "Youth Week" was as eventful as expected, I invited some of my students along to help out, as the more people the kids have to listen to the better they are to direct. As it turned out, I had heaps of students at my first class which was great, and then had six of them turn up to help teach. As it turned out there were only 5 kids and one of the supervisors wanting to learn anything about gong fu and so the class split up nicely. The class was set to take one and a half hours, however by 40 minutes in, the only person left was the interested supervisor... so I had a great class. Turns out, that the instructor had done some gong fu in the past and was quite strong, so I put him with one of my students to so practice me techniques and everyone had a great time. The best thing* was that the ground was nice and soft (I was teaching on an oval) with plenty of space, and we were able to do some of the more fun take downs and the like. All in all it was a good day and I did most all of what I had planned, the finish ended up with me here rather than out doing much, but the box is playing a doco on Cream the super group from the 60s. It is great.

Sunday is looking to go as planned, do little, then go to the Tai celebrations in town, train and relax. It will be great! I also have to tell my boss that I might be late in, and so probably not make her very happy. Should be good though, I have to meet someone and organise some dialogue for my Chinese classes, I don't think it will take that long. I have decided to expand on our current lot in English and then translate. Much easier I think.






*I have been spending some time with someone who tends to say somethingk, because of this I have started to pick it up, not something I like, when I wrote thing here I added the k! this thingk is driving me mad!

Classes for the weekend.

On Saturday, I will be teaching two classes. One to current students who come and train by choice, and one to a group of teenagers who are there because they have nothing better to do. I look forward to the first class because it is a nice freindly, education sharing experience. The other is a wild card, I will be teaching at the end of a day full of activities. I hope that they have a great day, as it is difficult to teach people who don't want to learn. Perhaps they will all relish the chance to further themselves as people and add their worth to the value of society.



(real reason for post, I HAVE A HISTORY!)

Sunday Filling

So far Sunday has remained fairly untainted, however I now believe that I will be going to a Tai Lunar New Year celebration, which will be nice but will take away time from other things like getting clothes washed for Monday morning. I aslo have discovered that I don't have any action photos for advertising purposes for my gong fu classes. So I might be getting some photos taken to fill the gap. I will then post some, for people to view. I should also rewrite my website. I will get that done before I give out the link. Currently all the information on the site is 2+years old. I think that once all done, Sunday will be a relative day of rest, because Monday will be my first day of work in two weeks, and there will be a lot that hasn't been done. Not that the other people in my office have been slack but that there is too much work when we are all there. I can't wait.

About Me.

To make myself a little more findable, I want to mention a couple of things about myself. My fuller name is Bai ShiZi. Adopted Grandson of ShiGong Bai Long Zai Xia, I am a third generation Grandson of Bai Tien Long (1930-1993) and a dedicated student of Pai Lum Kung Fu (Bai Long Gong Fu). It is through the study of this martial art that I have cultivated my interest in Chinese culture and practices. Outside gong fu these are mostly culinary based interests. I am lactose intolerant and so a Chinese diet is suitable to my body, and I value tea more than coffee or coke which are the main items on offer at my office as a mild stimulant. I also feel it aids my thought if I can sip or nibble o something palatable while work, currently sultanas... no pun intended.

I have an interested in Chinese history and partake in living history groups to better understand how things were done to do things that interest me, largely metal work and clothing how and why. I like to know how do do things from first principles. This is why I have developed a taste for both tea and single malt whiskey. Tea and whiskey are water flavoured with one plant treated in different ways to produce a unique taste that harnesses the characteristics of whence it came. In other words I like to be able to taste somewhere when I drink something from that place. More complex the place the more complex the flavour, well in theory anyhow. I like to take a simple idea like adding leaves to water for flavour and seeing how far it can go.

It is this idea that gives me a love of stratagey board games, mostly Weiqi, and variants, and Chinese Chess, regualr chess and many others. There is one of these types of games that I do love that dosen't fit this pattern, Majiang. It is my favourite game to play with friends, the only problem is that it takes a long time and requires 4 people who want to play to the end. This about covers what I do out of the office and what I do in the office is not really worth thinking about now because I am on my third last day of holidays before I get hit with the full extent of my reality again Monday morning.

My normal weekends are back!

After such a lovely weekend, I almost forgot that the weekend coming will be by my standards, normal. This means that the free time that I keep thinking that I will have, will rather be free time that I have allocated to one or anothe task already... actually more than one task.
eg. Saturday morning, on its own, sounds like pleanty of time to tidy up a couple of things, after say a nice sleep in and a full breakfast. Where it will actuallty be like this.
Before 10am picking up piles of wood from Kaleen,
10am-... looking at a "warehouse" (garage) full of chinese stuff,
hopefully before 11:30 picking up a chinese tutor to take to my Gong Fu class at 12pm

Saturday afternoon...
12pm-1.30pm Teaching Gong Fu
1.30-3.30 Practise chinese with tutor.
3.30-4.30 Deliver tutor home or come to another arrangement,
4.30-6.00pm Teach Kung Fu to "Youth Week" kids.
after 6 figure out where I am, wonder what happened to my day and find friends to kick back with.

These things all seem to fit, however I know that when I get there I will have extra demands on my time, something goes wrong... This may be avoided if I can direct all the people that I will be trying to coordinate to this page so when I forget to tell them that while I can do x, I am fitting it in between uwv-y&z. Another reason that I have this page, it might, make my schedule easier to findout! (I am not too good at letting people know what I will be doing.)

That said I have no idea what I will be doing on Sunday. Stuff probably including washing clothes etc for work on Monday.

Looking For Tea Sets

I have been asked to look here to find good tea sets for my local Chinese tea shop. Wow what a lot of crap there is. However there are some good stores with some good products. I don't know prices and I am too bust to post links however mabey one day...

Hopefully I can put in a coupe of pictures... will have to work on my picture posting gong.
Wow it finally worked!

Successful weekend

I managed to aquire some very nice swords at far less than cost price due to a store owner not knowing his stock. This made me very happy. The sword picutred here is known as an Adam Hsu Jian, wood handle. It sells from the casiberia.com site for US$179.00. It also comes in a two handed version of the same sword for US$199.00. If I wanted to buy both of these swords I would pay minimum AU$100.00 in shipping and handling. I bought both of these swords off this person for AU$310. 00, it made my weekend.
A couple of other things that would have made my weekend happened this weekend also. I attended a wonderful wedding on Saturday night, of two students of my gong fu style. Both the wedding and reception were held in Bungendore, the sun was shining for the ceremony, the food and wine were great, I was at a well arranged table with a good mix of people who I knew and didn't know so conversation flowed easily all evening, there was no bad part of the evening at all realy, it was a shame to leave.
Then Sunday came, I spent the day cutting down trees, which was well work, but it needed to be done, though I have to do more next weekend it was still the best time to do it. That evening however, I managed to attend a whiskey tasting night, at which I tasted some of the nicest whiskeys I have ever known. Some of the highligts, Laphroaig Quater Cask, Mortlach 16yr and Mortlach Cask Strength, Glenmorangie port wood finish, Glen Ord 12yr, Aberlour A'Bunadh. There were a few others of note, one was a mystery malt, I cannot remember the lable, there were two others that I did like so very much, one Islay one Speyside but they were not bottled by the disteillery that make them and I cannot remember the company that did. Basically they were AU$300 per bottle and chosen as the finest examples of their region to be had. They were great!

Anyhow, any one of these above mentioned events would have made my weekend, the fact that they all happened on the one weekend make them even better.

What is Gong Fu Cha？？？ 功夫茶 是 什么？？？

Lets start with definitions. Gong 功 approx. achivement. Fu 夫 approx. adult. Gong Fu 功夫, developing a skill to adulthood, through time and effort. Cha 茶 tea. So together the practice for making the best possible tea through the traditional Chinese method, is Gong Fu Cha 功夫茶.

Some of videos of Gong Fu Cha in practice. These are not me... I will get some of my own up soon... I think.





This is someone brewing one of my favourite types of tea, known as Pu Er.

Intro Post

This blog has been created to chronicle and advertise events and other things of interest that happen in my life relating to Chinese culture. Namely these events will relate to Chinese language, tea, history and martial arts. These things take up most of my life for one reason or another.