Phasing in the Lion

Yesterday (Thursday) was kind've a bust for training. After waking up early and short on sleep I went onto campus in order to help one of my Chinese teachers sort boxes of paperwork for archiving for several hours. Didn't have much time upon going home, either, considering that Thursday is our game night at the house, when we have friends over to play D&D for several hours. I did manage to get in 100 strikes, but that was about it.

Today, though I started late and didn't really meet my expectations, was a significant improvement over yesterday. I did 750 strikes, bringing the current total up to 4050. I also did some more circle-walking, though this time only for 10 minutes. I've decided to use the more intensive Lion posture while doing circle-walking from now on. Well, Lion for development, and Dragon for more meditational-quality stuff. Lion is definitely harder, considering that both of the arms are held significantly higher than in the Dragon posture. In Dragon, the upper hand is at the level of the face, while the lower hand is at about mid-abdomen, just below the elbow of the upper arm. In Lion, however, the arm held at face level is the lower arm, with the upper arm held curved above the head. It is definitely more demanding. Considering that I could only walk for one third of the time as two nights ago, it may be safe to say that Lion is about three times more demanding. I'm going to have to keep it up, though. Once I'm more comfortable with "turning Lion" then I may start using my wrist-weights to up the ante a bit, just for variety. In the long run, I suspect that the greater benefit comes from walking longer, rather than harder (and shorter).

Also of note today, Diana was commenting on which of her muscles were tired and aching after coming home from work, and I suggested, half-heartedly, that she start doing bagua with me again. Somewhat to my surprise, she actually agreed that it was a good idea. So she suggested that we can do bagua together for 10 minutes a day, starting with her return home after work tomorrow. Years ago I got her the Foundations dvd's for the Phoenix system in the hope that she'd take a liking to it, but unfortunately she's not quite as physically oriented as I am. In any case, for now I'm just excited, and I hope it turns out to be an enjoyable experience for the both of us.