Tuesday 18.1. Taiji kung-fu Since it went so well in the morning, I decided to go to one more class today, just before the sword class. Whn I came to the gym just on time, there was only the teacher and one more guy, whom I knew, but who doesn't usually come to these classes. He was also wearing shoes that more resembled boots, so I made a joke at that. He asked me about mine and when I gave him a tip on a shop, he dissappeared to write it down Great, now I chased away the only other participant... The teacher said we should start right when I was the only other person there. The guy came back shortly after, though, and more people were arriving during the meditation. Still, less people than there used to be. Omicron is the most likely cause... We were split into groups. I was again partnered with instructor L and the "shoe guy" was asked to join us when we were going to work on the form from the beginning. The teacher wanted us to mind the applications of the moves and let it show in the form. We started iwth the first move and by the time the class ended, we got to teh second XD I got a correction of something I should work on throughout the form. Ah, this is gonna be difficult to re-learn... For part of the class we were left to practice the first move, then the first two, with the advice given. When I did the first step for a few times, I started having trouble again. When stepping 45°forward sideways, my right knee hurt and a muscle just below my left hip was starting to go into a cramp. I realised that like this, I just couldn'T move from the osition, so I just had to end and start again. It was no better, though, so I just stood in that stance, which worked, and continued from there. Random muscles started hurting again (like one between my ribs towards the back), no idea why. Taiji Jian (sword) I wasn't feeling all that fresh anymore, but better than last week, still. I did my best to go through the whole empty handed form - Lao Jia Yi Lu - as well as I could. But again, legs, especially the right one were randomly shaking and I felt shaky all over. The feeling was like when you have a slight fever or the chills and a slight movement would cause you to shiver and be kind of unable to put much strenght into anything. That was the feeling. I did my best to still try to get the form flowing, but it didn't go all that well. After a kick, a knee got blocked, I unwittingly just put my leg down and made a break for a couple of second, before resuming. I was feeling weak and shaky and wasn't happy about it at all. Still, compared to last week, it was better, so I didn't stress over it too much. Then, like last time, we picked one move and worked a bit on that, before finally getting to the sword in the last 25 mins. I am not sure why the class isn't about the sword from the beginning. I suppose it is for those people who only come to this class - so they have an opportunity to peractice the empty-handed form and perhaps also because we don't know much with the sword and maybe it would be too tiring? Not sure. Anyway, we reviewed what we learned last week and got some more tips and tehn learned about two new things, before the class finished. The teacher said we're going to make more time for the sword next time. That would be great!
It seems like a contradiction, but it works. First I should clarify: the arm and shoulder does do some of the work, it does not simply sit there and ride along. But it works with the body, as the body rotates. Push the ground with your feet, and direct the force up through your hips and torso, causing the torso to rotate. For a vertical cut it is easier to let the sword ride along. But take the same concept and direct the cut from low to high or high to low, with the primary power coming from the rotation of the torso. However, get the power from that push with the legs and feet. Don’t just turn from the shoulders. If you turn from the shoulders then you aren’t using the power of the legs. Ok, you’ve been training long enough to have a solid foundation, but still new to Chinese methods. It takes some time and effort to make the conversion, Chinese methods are done differently from karate. A good start though!
Yep, this is the princeple the teacher explained to me plenty of times. I can't do it perfectly, yet, I was just given some corrections about it yesterday, but I get this and in the empty-handed form, I am constantly working on letting the arms relax. I understand what you mean by this. I think I can do this to a certain degree - rotate the body along its axis and by doing this, let the arm and sword move, too. However, the problem for me is when I reach all the way to the right or left of the spiral, where the part of the cirle is up or down. You see, when I turn the body to the sides, the trajectory of that movement is quite big and if I held my arm stiff, it would move all the distance just by turning the body. Sot aht works, more or less, but when I am turned (nearly) all the way to one side, but I still have to more the sword about 1/4 or the cirle - in the vertical direction either up or down - I don't move my body that much, so I tend to just move the arm, without adequate movement in the body. I think I should be able to do this by moving a little up or down in my hip, but I haven't figured it out, yet Maybe I am just turning my body to the extreme left or right too soon, therefore I have nowhere to move my body anymore, while I still need to do 1/4 of the circle with my sword. It's probably something like that, but.... Sorry, not sure if this explanation makes sense Yep, while there definitely are similarities, there are also differences. Now I tend to add some Taiji forms of movement into some karate techniques where they shouldn't be... To figure out the taiji way of movements is pretty difficult, honesty, but I am lucky to learn from a great teacher, that has a good way of explaining. Not that I immediately understand everything, much less could do everything right away, but he can pinpoint the problems really well.
Yeah, this stuff is always something that we are just working on. As long as we understand the concept, and we strive to put it into action in our movement, then we are making progress. I doubt that anybody is able to do it perfectly. some of your description on the sword movements, is difficult to envision and a visual reference would help. But in a discussion forum, it is not a perfect venue for this. I think I kind of understand your description, but not certain. Just keep at it, keep thinking about it, keep refining it.
True. Ah, I would need to make a video, probably. Or look up one with this, which I might try later. Anyway, by writing the above post, I was thinkng about the mechanics and I think I might have found the possible answer for myself. At least in theory. I'll try to bring it to practice and maybe ask my teacher later. So far there wasn't much time for questions in the sword classes and although I tend to find a few things I'd like to ask, I tend to forget the questions when I actually have the opportunity to ask them... Thank you for your help, though! It did help and it's encouraging, too.
Wednesday 19.1. Taiji - 21st move - instrucitng So last week a new beginner class started parallel to the group learning around 21st move now. My knees feel ok. Thigs even aren't sore anymore (only shoulders from wearing a backpack - this is really ridiculous). I was tasked with leading the warm-up for both groups. The beginner one didn't learn all the types of silk reeling, yet, but they were told to try to copy, they'll proceed with proper explanation afterwards. And they did learn the idea behind it already, so... Since there were osme new people who didn't come last week and it was indeed a very large group - 15-20 people (I didn't count), the teacher asked me to stay with the old, advanced group, as he'll need to explain quite a bit of theory to the new people. I agreed, of course. Anyway, I prefer action over talking, so the teacher's request for me to review with the other froup and spend the class practicing the form till the 21st move or by sequence, was welcome. I am not one to make many breaks for talking or don't tend to talk long. Considering I was tasked wiht just training, we pretty much exercised the whole class. We went through the form about three times and had 25 mins till the end, so I told the small group of 5 that we'll just be doing the whole form over and over, we should have time for 3-4. I always at least thought of a a specific thing to focus on. First was to focus on moving with the breath - breathe properly and with proper timing. Second was to try and keep the back strainght even in transitions - not lean forward. The nearly last one I wanted to challenge the group, so I told them to try the stances as long as they can manage without compromising the technique and the structure. Though I guess this was mostly a challenge for myself as I didn't hold myself back with the stances too much today as knees felt ok, but that meant that from about the second form, my legs started shaking again, especially my right leg, and although it didn't feel that tired, I could do nothing to stop the stupid shaking. Now that I think of it, muscle shaking was a sign of some vitamin deficiency, wasn't it? Although I am pretty sure it is more of a covid redndancy in this case, I might look into some vitamins anyway. The last form was just to relax and enjoy. Which, honestly, I myself couldn't doo too well, as my legs were starting to get wobbly and the shaking was getting worse and worse. Still, I was pretty happy about my knees. It is so liberating to move without pain! It would be even more so wihtout shaking, though! I managed to again keep my HR quite high. I would say it wasn't necessarily due to covid, but maybe due to loss of my fitness level and I was pushing myself a bit today. I had an average HR or 144 and max HR of 174. Which is definitely more than usual. But, I am quite happy that despite this, I was able to keep breathing through nose only. I am very grateful that covid didn't give me was any trouble with breathing at all. I never felt out of breath during or after. On my way home, knees didn't hurt more than before the class, but my legs were very wobbly, thretining to give out if I tried to go down the stairs too fast. So I took a relaxed and wobbly walk to the tram. Just as I finished trainig, Sett and I received a message from our karate sensei, who was thinknig about cancelling training or moving them to online. Czech Republic is a bit behind the western Europe when it comes to Omicron and we are just starting the exponencial rise of infected. Considering how "well" we managed the past covid waves, I've no doubt it will rise to pretty nasty numbers pretty soon. Sensei being an elementary school headmaster can see first-hand how fast it spreads. Literally half (or insignificantly more than half) of the school is in quarantine. We'll see how it will go. I am still not going to karate tommorrow, anyway. If we move online, though, next week I shall.
Thursday 20.1. I can feel I used my knees in the past couple of days, but otherwise I feel mostly good. Only a 20 min sword practice today. I wasn't planning to go to karate today, yet, but in the end the training was cancelled and we'll be changing something starting next week. Either train in masks, or outside, or online. Out of these options, honestly, online feels the best to me. I would participate in that.
Saturday 22.1. There was a karate seminar today. Out of four dojos, however, three completely cancelled their participation from fear of covid. I wasn't planning to go anyway, but it was good decision, I think. So the organizing dojo only did a training for themselves. That meant Sett stayed home, too, so we went for a nice 4,5 km walk at the edge of the city. The sky was clear, it was a nice day and I enjoyed the walk. The downside was when we got home and I started with some chores, I couldn't stop coughing to the point of feeling a little nauseaus. It passed in about an hour, though., when we sat to watch TV for a bit. It all tired me out and although I really wanted to watch till the end, I couldn't help and dozed off. I was also planning Kururunfa and sword practice, but I don't feel like doing anything today anymore.
I am getting better, but yeah, not back to perfect health yet. Activities just trigger the coughing, which is otherwise getting better. I am trying to keep the training at the minimum still and not pushing it too much. But I honestly feel that not training wouldn't help me get any better, either. I'd just feel worse from inactivity, I think.
Yin-Yang balance is everything! My last instructor, as I approached advanced levels, used to tell me that becoming an advanced student was more than just fighting better and doing more complicated forms. She said a key component is self body awareness. So, you know your body. Trust your knowledge to guide how you strike that balance towards working out and rest. Just be sure to listen when your body says rest when you WANT to do more.
That is a good advice, thank you. I think I am trying to listen to my body at least when it comes to going vs. not going to class. Well, mostly. Once I start doing something, sometimes it is hard to stop
Sunday 20 min sword practice Tuesday 25.1. Morning Taiji I went through my spear form once before class. I wasn't focusing too much and forgot what comes next at a few occassions, so I had to stop and figure it out. We did meditation and the whole Lao Jia Yi Lu once. Today, I felt much better, the whole form felt much better. Knees didn't hurt throughout, but I was careful with the two jumps. My knees aren't good enough to be pusing it there. No one showed up from the parallel group of beginners, so the whole class was taugh by the senior instructor, who usually teaches them and the teacher was observing or gave an advice here and there. We again worked on Cloud Hands. Not into as much detail as last time. Today there were two women who were just learning this form, so we mostly practiced the basic movements, but of course, that didn't mean that those of us who knew it weren't supposed to try and improve it. We were practicing a prolonged version with turns that aren't part of the form, but allow us to do cloud hands over and over without stopping. Because of those, I was asked to stand in the back so that tha women who were learning could copy from someone when they turned. I do struggle with this form, so I wasn't very comfortable with this, as I had a feeling I am doing awful, but it got a bit better towards the end. After the class the teacher called the senior instructor and me and wanted to talk about the upcoming Chinese New Year. There is a tradition in the school to organize an event for students and families or anyone interested to come and watch demonstrations of Taiji while listening to the music of some traditionel chinese instruments. I've been at this eent once, when I just started Taiji, and I really enjoyed it. There were also some talks, videos from the teachers' travels to China, etc. This event was cancelled last year, due to covid. Since it's not a good idea to organize this this year, either, I thought there would be nothing there, which I thought was a pity - I love to watch those demonstrations - but the teacher came up with a plan that we might do an event for instructors - a training - on Friday 4th, and at the end, we'd do the demonstrations and this event, but stream it online for anyone interested. I think that's a pretty good idea and I am all up for an instructor seminar as well. The only downside is that I will most likely have to demonstrate something, too, as the teacher mentioned introducing the new instructors. I can only hope now that we won't be asked to do a solo demonstration. It is quite likely, though, that we might do the main form together in a group and solos would be for the senior to show weapon forms etc. And since I don't have anything other than the main form to show, so I might just pass as the background Or the two of us newbie instructors might do something together? That would be a worse possibility. Luckily the fellow newbie only knows up to 25 moves now, so at least that kind of demonstration wouldn't be too long. Anyway, I have plenty of time to stress over it I should perhaps start practicing a bit more, though, to get back into it. I am still not doing as well as I did prior to covid...
Tuesday 25.1. I'm in an extremely good mood today. The rainings went pretty well and I feel so great about it! I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Taji Kung-fu Finally today for a warm-up we did silk reeling with fajins. I was looking forward to trying this again. I just felt like having too much energy to release. And I think it went pretty well! It's pretty good for a warm-up, it makes the blood rush to the tips of the fingers, creating a pleasant "numb" (is that the right word?) sensation. I think my fajins have gooten better. To the point where I feel good about them. I could feel the energy coming from the center of the body, sending the "shaky" feeling to the hands and back to the back. My style might be a bit karete-ish perhaps and maybe it looks funny, I have no idea, but I did enjoy it ^^ I am seriously starting to look forward to learning the Cannon Fist form one day. We worked a bit on Cloud Hands again. We each got a personal correction. The teacher corrected something for me that was hard ot do right away, but I did understand and if I learn this and learn to do it throughout the form, it will improve it a lot. Actually it is pretty much what gave me trouble with circling the sword - how to move it from the legs when it goes to the extreme sides. The same iwth hands. I thought I had an idea how to do that when thinking about it and it seems to indeed be the case. For the second half of the class, we actually worked in pairs on Tui shou. There were four guys and three women. The teacher said for the two to pair up and called me to work with him. Yay! Well, the teacher went around to correct the others, so I pretty much only worked with him for demonstrating what he wanted us to do, which took idk, maybe 3 minutes if I am generous? But still. I usually worked with instructor L, who's pretty good and explained everything well to me, so I am starting to grasp is slowly, but she's smaller than me, well, weight-wise and prefers to do thinks without much strenght, which lets me cheat at times. The teacher started with just pushing against each other and to find a good structure of the stance. I think I got that. Then he pushed and I was told to just "listen" and it was very easy jsut like that. I had some trouble transitioning into the active push then, but the teacher explained. Or told me a few things to focus on and it worked. We only did very few circles with one hand before he went to correct the others, so I stood next to hte girls and practiced by myself, trying to remember the feeling and do the motion rihgt. I kind of finally thought like I got it. When the teacher came to me, he gave me a few more tips/corrections. And he manually corrected my back. Ugh. It felt more like he was trying to break it. It was just ten mins ago when he praised me my back has gotten better sicne it has been some time since he had to remind me, but now this... Well, when I used all the strenght to try and remain in that position for a bit, the teacher told me: "Can you feel it? If you stand like this, no one's gonna move you." Well, he was probably right. The problem was actually standing like that. One of the girls went to get something, so I partnered up and then when she returned, the other went to drink, so I actually did get to try with a partner then, too. Taiji sword The whole 108 form for a warm up - Lao Jia Yi Lu + Lao Jia Er Lu (Cannon Fisst). I only know the former, so when I finished I only watched the Cannon fist form. I watched the seniors, who's form was the best. Ah, now that I feel better about fajins, I was totally itching to try this. When I learn this one day, I am so going to enjoy it. I can already imagine how awesome it mush be to do this form. A fellow junior instrucotor was sitting beside me and she must have seen the sparks in my eyes or what for she went: "You're looking forward to this, aren't you?" She's a total mind reader! She said: "I can tell this would suit you well. So teach me when you learn." Well, not sure how well I'll do, but I seem to be pretty easy to be seen through... I don't like that! Then we grabbed the swords right away and went through the basic exercises we've learned so far. I seem to always be doing worse here than at home. Maybe I am tired? But it was only for the first two exercises, then it went well, I think. We also tried the circles in a wider stance, moving both hands. The correction I just received earlier did help and was easier to do in a stance than on the spot, so suddenly, the sword started moving really nice, without any obstructions. It, like, felt really smooth, so I couldn't help but speed it up. I realized I should slow doewn to practice this, but it was way too easy to gain momentum and I was back at the somewhat faster speed before I knew it. I didn't get any correction when the teacher walked by, so I hope it was fine. It felt pretty good anyway, so I was just happy about the feeling it gave me and had fun with it. Then we tried moving forward and backward in that stance with the sword circling. Forward didn't seem too hard, backward wasn't as easy. I'll have to practice that. Taiji - ending of Lao Jia Yi Lu I wasn't originally planning to when I went to change and saw a message from Sett that he'd pick me up in case I finish at 8 (meaning after this additional training) and I was just in a good mood and with plenty of energy, I had nearly no choice I joined when they were doing the whole form, at about 8th move. We went very slowly. My knees didn't hurt, I felt stretched and not too tired. My legs finally weren't shaking unlike last week, so I felt pretty good. Some muscles hear and there groaned, but nothing too terrible. I finally feel like I can exercise without many restrictions imposed by ocvid. I didn't even cough We practiced about 3 moves at the end of the form. The teacher also did quite a bit of talking so it wasn't that exhausting. Back at home, though, wehn I sat down to eat dinner, I had some trouble getting up. My legs are very tired, my back muscles hurt already (and they finally did stop hurting normally during the day). Anyway, today went really well, I had some realisations and was able to improve on some things. I practiced to my heart's content, too, and left pretty energized. Well at least my mind. My body isn't yet keeping up perfectly, but well enough, at least What a good day! Polar results (there were 15 mins where I had to take of my watch for the Tui show, so my real average HR etc. was probably slightly higher. Time: 3:02 Max HR: 176 Average HR: 131 Min HR: 76 Training benefit: Basic training, long Kcal: 1344 Fat burn: 53% Cardio load: Very high: 228 Over 4000 kcal burned today.
Wednesday 26.1. So for the past couple of days, I feel like my health has finally turned for the better. I noticed my back stopped hurting, I have suddenly nearly stopped coughing, even after and during Taiji, which is great! Indeed, I have just hit the five-week mark, which is how long my cough usually lasts... My temperature is the lowest it's been since I got infected, nearly normal. So I can't help being happy about After yesterdays training, I was seriously worn out, legs feeling weak, shoulders and back sore (I'd undersand back, but have no idea why shoulders again). Taiji - assisting I was a bit worried about how it would go today, since my body wanted to rest. We started with a warm-up. I led it for both groups - the beginner group is very large, so the whole gym was pretty full and I didn't dare to be lazy. The teacher asked me to make the silk-reeling short, so I did, only about 10 mins. Afterward I was sent to work with the advanced group that knew (mostly) up to 22nd move, so we went through all 22 twice. Teacher P stayed with the beginner group, letting them rest by talking some theory. As soon as we finished I was called over and asked to go through the silk-reeling form with the beginner group again. I did and with brief explanations of each type of silk reeling - just reminding them of the basic mechanics. This could have taken around 12 mins. As soon as we finished I was sent back to the advanced group to practice the form over and over. We did 3 till the end of the class. This was honestly quite harsh on my legs. When I finished exercising with each group, the teacher would go there and explain in details, letting them rest. I didn't rest for a single minute of the class and being worn out as I was, for the last three forms, my right leg started to shake nad was shaking more nad more, the thigh actually started to be a bit painful. I did my best to keep the flow i the form nonetheless, but not sure how well I managed. Good thing was I had no problems with my knees during the whole class, they felt quite good afterward - better then prior to training, in fact. So I was looking forward to walking down the stairs like a normal person for a change. Didn't happen. My thighs couldn't bear my weight when bending my legs, so I walked down looking stupid, like always... Ah, I'm done. I am glad I can just rest tommorrow.
Thursday 27.1. It's like a miracle that ever since yesterday's training, my knees feel much better. I can actually do a squat today without much trouble at all. Still no karate yet. Not after I got myself really tired inthe past couple of days and since we agreed to wear masks for training now. Covid is hitting hard, as expected. I did however, practiced with the sword for 30 mins. I just love it more and more My shoulders definitely do hurt from the basic exercise in a shoulder-width stance. Can't help it. I just have to use the shoulders to lift the sword. I am trying to figure out a way around it, but can't see any at the moment. In a wide stance, though, when I can use the body to actually move, they don't hurt anymore for the same type of circling. Ever since last week or two, the screw on my sword has constantly kept getting loose. Today I tried how it feels to stab forward with the soft sword, which is pretty fun, and the sword was also making some funny noises. Turned out that with each stab the screw would come more and more loose and the blade would start to wiggle. I screwed the screw back as hard as I could with the tiny pliers I have at home. I hope it would last for some time at least. I started a training on my watch and surprisingly actually burned 225 kcal Hehe, it is at least a small execise.
Loose swords can be fixed and, even better, if the blade is good enough quality to justify it, an entirely new hilt can be built for it. Lots of swords coming out of China at “affordable” prices have junky hilts that don’t fit well, come loose, and are made of poor material. A new hilt can turn it into an entirely different weapon.
I am not sure the blade would be worth getting a new hilt for it (it would probably have to be custom made, wouldn't it?), so I am not really thinking about that now. It isn't an incredibly expensive sword, more like a practice one of moderate quality. But I didn't realise a new hilt was also an option, so thanks for the tip I hope screwing the screw back properly would fix the problem for now. It doesn't rattle at the moment, at least.
Yes, this would be a custom piece to fit the blade and tang. For most people, a new hilt is not a possibility unless they can make it themselves, or know someone who can do it. In your case, you know someone who can do it: me. Although shipping back and forth to Czech Republic might get extra expensive. If the blade is not at least reasonably decent quality, then it is not worth doing because it is a good bit of work, so it costs some money. But for a decent blade with a bad hilt, it can absolutely be worth it. when you are ready for a better quality sword, it might be more economical to look for a better finished piece, they are available and are not terribly expensive, but when I make a new one, it is very solid and one-of-a-kind. One of my teachers has some available, when you decide the time is right I could see if there is something that would be appropriate and would not need to be rebuilt. Let me know if you become interested. I don’t know what resources are available to you, so again, might be more economical to look locally, and talk with your Sifu about the options. But sometimes a quality piece is hard to find, the cheap junky pieces are easy and inexpensive. In the meantime, you can take steps to tighten the hilt. Look at the nut at the end of the pommel, sometimes these are quite small and they worry me that they might not hold. If a thin tang under the nut were to break and the blade flew out, it could be dangerous. so, carefully remove the retaining nut and then slide off the pommel, grip, and guard. Be careful to keep the pieces aligned, and know which way they fit back onto the tang, because they may only properly fit together one way. You can use a heavy adhesive, a two-part epoxy/resin hardener to glue it all permanently together. Cover the tang with the glue, fit the pieces together and carefully tighten the retaining nut. Work slowly and be prepared to wipe excess glue away as you tighten, because it will ooze out from between the pieces until it is fully tightened. Once it dries, it is permanently attached. Only do this if you are sure you will never want to have a new hilt made for this sword, because it may be impossible to remove it without damaging the tang and blade.
