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.)

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...

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!

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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...