Spear, and Tigers, … and Blogging

We have been focusing on learning the school spear form in blackbelt class recently and I am having a blast with it so far! I have always wanted to learn more of the school weapons forms, but with applying  new lessons to the forms I already know, and still trying to get Mlong Kuen to be a bit more developed, it never felt like the right time to reach out and try to learn some of them, but now I have the opportunity to focus on it. 

I am finding it interesting because so much of it is so familiar because of the foundation I have from the stick form, but at the same time time it feels so foreign because the reach, the center of balance, and the blade of the spear all change how I can use it. 

Sihing Yitzik Csillag mentioned that I need to do it “less Tiger, more Crane” and I’m really excited to apply this imagery as I build my muscle memory in the form for the first time. I mentioned this in my sword form break-down blog: I really want to investigate how the 5 animals manifest in my kung fu; other than naming the choke defences, or specific techniques  (i.e. tiger claw, panther fist, ect) I don’t really think about them, and that’s something I want to focus on this year. I also think it was really interesting that my baseline for how I was trying to do the form was “Tiger”. My ‘house’ is the Tiger, and I definitely aim to emulate those qualities, but I know there are definitely aspects of my physicality that do NOT come across as ‘tiger’ to me, so very interesting to hear it from an outside perspective.

Actually I would be very curious which animal everyone else on the team identifies with and how other people on the team view my style! (I want to make a poll for this but not tonight as it’s getting close to my bedtime)

This blog was a bit all over the place, so why stop there!

One last thing I thought about talking about is how I want to change my habits, after last weeks blog

1) I want to aim for 2 blogs a week. I had no actual plan for getting my blogs out within a 7 day stretch, I was just hoping as I built more momentum/repetition that eventually the motivation would spontaneously happen, but that was complete wishful thinking on my part. If I’m not going to plan to do more than the bare minimum, then I would never do more than that, so I need to actively strive for doing more.

2) I need to get better at engaging online with the team. I find it very difficult to navigate and use facebook, and that aversion is making me stay away from the app. I know I need to look for pockets of time where I can read everyone’s blog and engage so that I can do it more frequently and regularly. 

Sorry for the stream of consciousness, but I was a bit undecided on what I wanted to focus on, and I’ve never claimed to be decisive! 

Current Total

Push-ups

9999

Sit-Ups

8696

AOK

258

Km

718

Blogs

12

Sparring

27

Hand Form

129

Weapon Form

164

Repair Relationship

0

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