Notes and Ecosystems

I haven’t blogged in quite a while again and I’m feeling a little rusty. I’ve definitely had a lot of ideas for blogs floating around in my head for the past month or so but none of them feel right to write about right now. So what do I want to write instead? 

We blog as a way to solidify our understanding and mark our journeys, I.e. our blogs are meant to discuss our training. Where we have been and what we have been doing. Being away from the kwoon I feel disconnected from my training. What have I been working on all these days I’ve been away? Thankfully I’ve been keeping notes and questions in my notebook which exists as a stepping stone between these more structured blogs and the unstructured realm of my thoughts. 

According to my notebook I’ve been working on my centring, hip engagement and vector specifications, discussing form versus application and how that alters intent, the context for the beginning of specific techniques, the rotation in my feet going into new stances, the rotation of my hips going into a technique, the intent of certain poses within our forms and how style variation can inform that intent, how to involve the non-dominant hand when it’s relatively uninvolved and how to uninvolve it when it threatens to become too involved, and questions on how to ask questions and what to do with the answers.

I think over this break I feel like I haven’t been training because mostly it has been manifesting as very intellectual and theoretical progress. I am missing out on the physical practice on the mats (because try as I might to practice at home it’s not the same as the larger and less disruptive energy in the kwoon). I am missing out on the discussions about these ideas, and how their context can bleed into the lessons I am receiving and delivering, and how that allows these ideas to further develop and lead to further questions and understandings. 

We are always told not to compare ourselves to others, to focus on our own individual path to mastery but as I am writing this I am realizing how much the presence of the rest of the team and the rest of the school shapes my training. It’s like an ecosystem, and all the small interactions and individuals provide a niche for my own training to flourish. 

Current Total

Should Be At

Push-ups

38276

48600

Sit-Ups

33465

48600

Hand Form

259

900

Weapon Form

291

900

Other Forms

211

315

Sparring

391

900

AOK

679

900

Steps

2655

1395

Repair Relationship

5

11

Me and White Supremacy

16

23

12 Applications

2

11

1-on-1's

31

45

Kung Fu Art

4

11

Blogs

27

45

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