My Story and Training, Part 3

[Dronak]

Hello again, everyone. It's the start of another school year and with it comes the start of my second year of martial arts study. Unfortunately, the current situation isn't great. Our teacher is in danger of losing his job (the company has problems with government grant money or something) and if he can't find another one, he may have to leave us and possibly the country. In order to prepare for the worst, he's going to start up a special training session for the students who have been here for a year and begin teaching more advanced forms. The plan is to have only two people per group so that each person gets a specialty and he can give the club as a whole a lot of different things to learn. Then should he have to leave, we can teach the forms/styles to each other in order to continue learning new things. He said these special classes would include things like drunken boxing, mantis style, Hon fist, tiger claw, maybe weapons like straight sword and spear. As something outside of the normal class, he'd charge a per hour rate for these classes. He also talked about teaching us iron palm training techniques and said that if he wouldn't be able to stay he'd give us the recipe for dit da jow so that we could make it and continue the training. We'll still have our regular group practices and I think he said he'd teach us all one new form there, a sort of high intermediate level one to help bridge the gap from intermediate to advanced. I just don't know how often he'll be able to come and teach since he's going to need time to go job hunting. We'll also have to start teaching the new students who join the club. I think our teacher will try to help pull us up to a sort of teaching assistant level so that if he is forced to leave, we'll be able to teach new students better. Right now he can still come and make corrections and things, but if he leaves, we won't have that option anymore.

So, that's about the status update for the moment. I'm not sure I want to do the special training classes for various reasons though. One, it's at a rotten time for me, Sunday mornings at 8am. Two, it's an extra cost that I didn't expect, probably about $200 for the semester. Three, I'm not especially interested in any of the things he said he'd probably teach. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they're interesting and useful stuff, just I don't have any overwhelming desire to learn one of them like some people who are dying to learn say mantis style. Four, I really don't think I'm ready to learn forms that advanced. If you've been reading my previous story threads, you'll remember I've said repeatedly that we're moving very fast and that's because our teacher wants to give us as much as possible. But his teaching style isn't my ideal learning style, so it takes me longer to understand things he teaches. I have problems getting some moves and things in lower level forms and it took a lot of repetitions before I kind of got it. I imagine it will be much worse with an even more advanced form. If he hopes to finish the forms with the people learning them in like two months, I don't really want to be holding back someone else who learns faster. He's talking about doing things that traditionally you'd need four years of training to get to after only one year. And we haven't even learned all the forms yet because he split us in groups. He mentioned that when he learned spear, his master made him do the same move for 3 months until it was essentially perfect before he could move on and he's going to try to give us the entire form in like 2 months? I'm really concerned about the speed we're progressing at and doubt my ability to handle doing even faster than we already are.

Well, if you have some thoughts you'd like to share on the subject feel free. If the teacher specifically wants me to learn something, I may reconsider taking the special classes, but at the moment my preference is not to. Hopefully we won't fall into the worst case scenario here, but I'll let you know more as I get more information.

 

[7starmantis]

If you have no interest in the subject matter being taught, and you feel it is moving too fast, I would deffinatly advise you not to take the class.


7sm

 

[Dronak]

Well, it's not that I have zero interest in the stuff, just that I'm not dying to learn any of the advanced forms he mentioned. The rapid pace is a greater concern -- I don't think I'm ready for that stuff (I think very few, if any, of us are) and since it takes me longer to learn things with his teaching method I don't want to slow down someone else. I'm not going to take the special classes. I can learn it later when I feel like I'm better prepared to handle it. Pushing in group classes is one thing, we don't have a lot of choice there, but I do have the option of not pushing any faster than that and I'm going to exercise it.

Our teacher came to practice yesterday and started teaching us a new form called "kao chuan". He didn't translate it because he said it was too difficult to get a decent English translation, so he's just calling it by its Chinese name. He said it's not exactly a Long Fist style form, but it looks like it is. Perhaps it's something from a similar style adapted to the long fist style. I'm not certain. Basically everyone who isn't just starting this semester is allowed to learn that one; new people will learn basic forms from us older students and the teacher will do corrections when he's here. I think he does plan to continue teaching Yang tai chi to the group that started that back in the spring. He also told me that he'd give me a video tape of him doing the form so that I could watch it and attempt to learn the remainder of the form from that. Assuming he teaches us most of the different moves, learning from the tape shouldn't be *too* bad because a lot of them tend to repeat towards the end of the form. I think he's expecting not to finish the entire form so he wants us to have some way to hopefully finish it off on our own. I think that's about it. When I remember or get more info, I'll pass it along.

 

[arnisador]

It sounds like too much of a rush. That's a shame. Do you think you're getting a good foundation if you should need to study another art eventually?

 

[Dronak]

I'm not sure. It's a little hard to tell from my perspective. I do think I'm learning quite a bit of stuff, but because we're moving rather quickly I haven't had enough time or practice to get things down really well. If I stick with this long enough, I should be able to catch up and get that practice that I need. But it would help to not be learning so much new stuff all the time. In any case, I think the experience would help if I moved on to something else later. Things probably wouldn't be quite the same, but knowing something should help a bit.

 

[arnisador]

Are you comfortable enough with the material that you can practice it by yourself on non-class days?

 

[Dronak]

If I wanted to, yes. I make notes on what we're being taught and write down the moves to help me remember them. I may not be able to do everything exactly right because of how fast we're moving, but I do basically know how everything goes so I can practice it on my own.

 

[Dronak]

Nothing really important to say. I just thought I'd post to let people know I haven't disappeared or anything. Things are still going OK. We dropped our Saturday practices though because not enough people were coming. We wanted it to be mainly for new people so we could help them out more, but they weren't coming so we didn't think it was worth having official practices when so few people were coming. The form we're learning isn't *too* bad, but it's sort of high intermediate level so some moves are tricky. We haven't been practicing our weapon forms lately, but we have been going over some of the older barehand forms we learned so in some way it evens out. Our teacher has resumed teaching tai chi to those of us in that group. We're approaching the end of the second section of that form -- a few more new moves, maybe half a dozen, then the ending moves which are the same as for the first section. I haven't been reading this board as often now as before, getting a bit busier with school/work (which is good actually) and because I haven't had too much new to say. I just figured it's been a while so I'd post something to let you all know I'm still alive.

 

[arnisador]

Going back and reviewing the forms must seem like a good thing at the pace you've been going.

 

[Matt Stone]

Originally posted by arnisador

Do you think you're getting a good foundation if you should need to study another art eventually?

Once upon a time in Yiliquan it was a requirement before promotion to higher level grades to obtain at least a 1st degree black belt in another art. It was also required to learn (or attempt to do so anyway) another method of the internal styles; in order to advance past the Xingyiquan phase, you had to learn forms from another Xingyi tradition (we do Shanxi, so you would have to try to track down a Hubei or Honan teacher), and the same with Taiji and Bagua...

While the internal stuff is no longer required, nor is the 1st degree in another style, I always thought it was a good idea. The cross training was not to supplement the Yiliquan, but rather to provide additional perspective and experience with which to study, practice and apply Yiliquan.

I think that method of thinking applies to any art, really. I think you become a better martial artist all around when you have additonal perspective with which to view your "mother art."

Gambarimasu.
:asian:

 

[theneuhauser]

good point!
never saw this coming, but ive begun kenpo training and i hope it goes really well!

of course, my heart is still rooted in the cma internals and mantis boxing.

 

[7starmantis]

Originally posted by theneuhauser

good point!
never saw this coming, but ive begun kenpo training and i hope it goes really well!

of course, my heart is still rooted in the cma internals and mantis boxing.

Uh oh, he has crossed over to the dark side!!
Seriously, good luck in your training, I hope you get alot of fulfillment out of it and further your skills as well.

7sm

 

[theneuhauser]

Seriously, good luck in your training, I hope you get alot of fulfillment out of it and further your skills as well.

thank you!!! i think that you know that my hunt for a mantis boxing instructor here turned up nothing and then my hunt for an internal cma instructor turned up a whole lot of nothing, and then the search for any good cma instructor was again...nada, finally i said to myself, "just get out there and find a great teacher that will teach you anything and be happy with it". so i found one in kenpo. the other upside, is that the system seems to be flexible enough to allow the inclusion of some of my own preexisting style.


dont worry, i dont know anything about kenpo, most of my posts will be in cma forum

 

[theneuhauser]

oh, and sorry, dronak,



i changed your thread to "MY story and training".


i will now humbly hand it back over to you. cheers.

 

[Dronak]

That's OK. Threads tend to drift now and then. Yes, reviewing the older forms is a good idea, especially the basic level ones. It does help make sure we don't forget them over time. The kind of bad thing though is that we haven't been doing the same thing for the higher level forms we learned before. Because we did those in a couple of groups, we'd all be splitting up to practice them now. Things currently seem to be run more as a single group again since we're only learning one new form this semester, so I guess that's part of why we're not reviewing the forms we did in smaller groups. I'll just have to do a little practice of those on my own at home. Maybe nothing too serious (especially if I stay in my room), but just a basic run through of the moves so that I don't forget what they are and the order they go in.

Oh, the new form we're learning this semester (kao chuan) is finished now. We got the last set of new moves last week. It's not too long, but it's still tricky and has a fair number of jumping type moves. I may need a little refresher on the end of it though because our teacher did some more tai chi with me and a couple other guys while the rest of the group drilled the new moves. It's been like that for a couple of weeks now. The good news with tai chi is that we're almost finished with the second section of the form now. There are only two more moves before we reach the ending sequence which is the same as the first section's ending sequence. I'm not sure if he plans to teach any more than that to us this semester though. The end of a section is a natural breaking point, so he may wait until the spring to begin the third section. The teacher did tell me that he has a video tape of him performing the tai chi form and he would give it (or at least a copy of it) to me later on, when I was ready. So I'll just have to wait and see how things go. Since there may be little if any new material being taught from now until winter break, I suppose we'll just be practicing our newest stuff for a while.

One other new thing we did last time was a basic exercise for helping train and strengthen our forearms. He's shown us this a number of times in the past. It's a partner exercise where you essentially hit your forearms against each others on the top and bottom of the arms (the thinner sides, not the broader insides and outsides). Lucky me, I ended up paired with the teacher for this. He also brought in a jar of medicine for us to use during this part of the training. He didn't name it that class, but I think he's said before that it's dit da jow. He told us to put some on our arms before we started, two coats, and then again when we finished and if we felt any bumps or possible bruises afterwards to press on it for like a minute and that would help keep it from swelling. I did end up with a bruise on my left arm, but I guess the medicine did help because it wasn't swollen and didn't turn black and blue, just a sort of reddish shade, not real easy to see if you weren't looking. I think he plans to do some more of this sort of training in the spring and maybe start teaching some combat forms (I suspect with the people in the special Sunday classes who are learning pretty high level forms).

So that's the latest news from around here. I'll let you know more when I find something interesting to pass along.

 

[don bohrer]

Dronak,

Is it possible for your teacher to tape the kata he wishes to impart with the group? No one would have to trust memory entirely and the club would always have that as a compass to get back on track. Your instructor could tape kata with commetary, demostration, and anything extra to get his point across. Keep in mind I am not avocating learning solely by tape. Matter of fact the Kenpo Organization I am under has tape just for this purpose...well and to make money too!

don

 

[Dronak]

I just thought I'd dig up one of my older threads just to let you all know I'm still alive. I'm just getting a lot busier with my PhD thesis work, so I've had to cut back a bit on some of my fun activities in order to spend more time working. There's a lot to do still and if I want to have a shot at graduating next year, I really need to push things along this year as fast as possible.

Anyway, on the martial arts side, I'm still going to the group classes we have on campus, but only once a week when our teacher's there instead of twice a week. Yeah, it's not quite the same, but like I said I need to put more time into school work right now. The teacher is doing a bunch of forms this semester with a few different groups. There are a few people who came only to learn tai chi, so they and a few other people are starting that from the beginning. Most of the group has learned almost through the second section in the special Sunday training classes (which have since been moved over to Saturdays). Me and two other people from the group that began tai chi last year are continuing and learning the third and final section of the form. It's got a lot of moves we've already learned, as well as some new ones, but it goes mainly along the diagonals (NE, SE, SW, NW) instead of the cardinal directions (N, E, S, W) so it's a little bit harder to remember which alignment we're supposed to be on. He's also teaching Second Ambush Fist again, I think mainly because no one who learned that the first time around shows up anymore and he wants some people in the regular group to know it. He's also teaching Linking Step Fist and that's the other form I'm learning. I didn't get that the first time around because that's when he split us off into tai chi or Linking Step and I was in the tai chi group. I'm glad that I'm learning it now because it's the one basic level form I haven't learned yet. Oh, we even did a little basic tai chi push hands practice at the end of Monday's practice. I'm not sure if he plans to keep up with that, but at the very least we've got two basic things we can practice if we want to. No mention of combat forms so far. We haven't done weapons in a while either, probably due to being inside a school building; I think they're trying to find another location where we can practice and use our weapons, too. That's probably a good idea since we really haven't done any weapon stuff since summer. We're looking at possibly doing a performance for the FBI (yeah, the real one) around early May before we reach finals here. Apparently one of our teacher's other students (maybe from the tai chi classes he teaches elsewhere) works for the FBI and invited him to perform for something or other. I guess we got invited, too, being his other set of students. We don't really have much more information besides that right now.

Hmm, I think that's about it. I know I haven't been posting around here much because school work has been picking up lately. But I just thought that I should at least stop by and let you know that I'm still practicing (a little) and learning new stuff. So for those of you who remember me from the threads about my training, that's the latest news from here.

 

[arnisador]

Too bad about cutting back but I certainly understand. Does your instructor still expect to have to leave yje states before long?

 

[Dronak]

As far as I know, no. I think things have managed to stabilze for him. At the very least, he hasn't said anything to us recently about possibly having to leave. Oh, we did get a little talk about not fighting or retaliating if others try to start something with us. Apparently our teacher heard some rumors that other groups or people might not be too happy with our group Why, I have no idea and he didn't say anything about it either, who or why. But we got warned not to fight or anything otherwise the university could break up the club and not let us have one anymore. He said he didn't expect anything to happen, but if something did, to not do anything about it, just tell him later. So I don't know what he was talking about, but sometimes we get little talks like that for no obvious reason I can discern.

And yeah, having to cut back is kind of a pain, but I need to keep my work moving as much as possible to graduate soon and I sure as heck don't want to be a grad student for much longer. But once I'm done, if I stay in this general area I should be able to increase my time in kung fu again. We'll have to see exactly what happens when I'm done. I'm considering taking time off and just getting any old job for a year or two as a break in which case I'll almost definitely stay here and work in the area. As far as jobs in my field go, I'll have to see what's available and go where I can get a job.

 

[Dronak]

A little update, our teacher wants us to include a few sparring exercises as part of our regular practice now. A few times before he's had us do a sort of warm up training exercise with a partner to help train our forearms by hitting the insides, backs, and outsides of our forearms together. At the last class he also showed us three applications, self-defense type moves that he wants us to practice regularly. They're basically blocking an attack and following with a strike, but done in different ways so that your counter goes to the opponent's right side, center, or left side. Naturally there are various points you can strike, but the idea is basically that way, going inside, to the center, or outside the opponent's attack. I can try to explain them better if people really want to know more, but I'll pass for now with just the general concept. He said he wants us to get really good at these three types of moves and train them to be reflex/instinct so we don't have to think about them because these will allow us to block most upper body attacks. The next session, which I guess will be the summer assuming we do it again, he plans to add leg training in to cover the lower body. He even brought in a bottle of the dit da jow medicine he makes for us to use when we do this sort of combat training. It's not a giant thing, it looks like about a 20 oz. soda/water bottle size, but an officer is holding on to it so that we can do these exercises at practice without having to wait for the teacher to get there and bring it. We usually have time between stamina training and when he arrives, so I'm guessing that's where we'll insert this part of the training. I thought you might be interested to know that we're adding these basic sparring training/exercises into our regular practice now. I've got minor bruises from it again, too. They're not that bad and I do think that the medicine really does help.