Since it's been some time since my last post, this one will cover several topics. I wish I'd take the time to write down my thoughts when I have them, since it's not easy to remember everything I've done and thought in the last month or so. It would be easier if I took the trouble to figure out how to update this thing from my phone while sitting bored at work, since that's typically when I am most thoughtful about martial arts (when I can least do anything about it).
First order of business: upon looking over my previous posts from the last near year I realized that one thing may not be fully clear for anyone who is actually reading through these. This is the fact that, while when I began this journal I was still working on the dragon system of Yin style bagua, I have for the last several months been working fully with the lion system. There are two main reasons for this: first, because according to He Jinbao the lion system is typically taught first due to the fact that it's practices are most efficient for developing the body, and second, because most of the people in the world who are doing Yin style bagua are doing lion, meaning that if I want to interact with other YSB practitioners and be able to get some decent feedback from experienced people I should be practicing what they're practicing. So, lion it is.
One brief note, explaining the title of this post, is my happy epiphany that there are quite a few opportunities for me to train while I'm at work. Since my job generally involves me sitting around bored for hours on end it seems that would be a foregone conclusion. And, for when I'm not alone at work, I've discovered that there is just enough room in the bathroom to accomodate stationary striking drills. On a good night, I can get in about half a dozen sets of strikes before I ever even get home to do my "real" training. This is good, as it spreads out my training a bit, so that when I train after work I have the time and energy to devote to more things, having gotten a lot of the striking drills out of the way. Normally, I'd have to prioritize more, either by doing all things superficially, one thing intensively or a few things somewhat seriously. This arrangement makes such prioritizing less necessary.
As far as the strike training itself goes, I am noticing progress. Though I'm not always training every day, sorry to say, I am doing it much more consistently than in the past, and that has shown a significant payoff. In my recent experience, I can defnitely attest to the fact that doing a little bit each day is much better than training incredibly hard one day only to take the next week off. This is true if for no better reason than (to inject some psychology into this) the fact that in this particular comparison, say, ten days of light training equals ten nights of post-training sleep, versus only one. Sleep is vitally important for allowing the brain some downtime to go back over the new neural pathways that you blazed throughout the day and solidify them. So, again, every day that you do even a little bit of training, even if it's miniscule, is still preferable to a day of nothing.
Anyway, tangent aside, the strike training is going well. In terms of strike training, I've been working exclusively with the rising sweeping strike, mostly stationary up until recently. I am much more confident in my ability to correctly execute this strike according to the requirements. Last time I posted, I figure that within a given set of strikes I could do about 70-80% of them with a feeling of full-body, connected power and stability. Now, it's more like 90-95%. Bearing in mind all the while that I am most likely making many, many mistakes, which could only be corrected by He Jinbao or many of the people who have been doing this for several years, I still think I'm on the right track. The strikes feel comfortable and easy, but solid and full of strength, making full use of the waist. I imagine that I'm getting close to the point where my progress will slow until I can get correction and feedback. For now, though, I'm continuing to develop the rising sweeping strike as best I can. I've begun training the strike in some of the other methods. There are few convenient places to do the 1-step drill, so I don't do it often. I enjoy doing the 2-step method, since it is vigorous, slightly more interesting than the stationary drills, and can easily be done with minimal space. The 3-step method at this point is a bit advanced for me, I think, and I will hold off on it a bit until I've put more time into the 2-step. In the stationary drills, now that I've become more confident and consistent in the quality of the strikes, I've begun paying more attention to "internalizing" the power, turning the large, gross physical movements into something smaller and more subtle. I can see that in demonstrating the strike in the videos, He Jinbao exaggerates the movements a bit.
Circle-turning is another point that often comes up. When I'm at work and need something to occupy my mind, I often use my phone to get online and read the excellent blog of Jim in TN, whose experiences and insights have proven invaluable if for no other reason than to keep me motivated. In his blog, Jim places a good deal of emphasis on circle-turning, something that is generally scarce in my own pseudo-daily practice. In trying to find ways to optimize my turning, I've considered several strategies, most of which show up at one time or another in Jim's blog. Initially, he would keep track of the number of revolutions he made while on the circle, though in time he more or less abandoned that approach as somewhat arbitrary. Arguably, the best thing you can do when endeavoring to walk the circle is simply to do it until your legs are sore and your arms feel like they're about to fall off, without considering such arbitrary benchmarks as minutes and revolutions. The important things are to 1) maintain the proper focused mindset and 2) ensure that all of the body's various structural requirements are being met at all times throughout the practice. On the other hand, in thinking about this last night, I wondered if there might not be some value to the revolution-counting, at least at an initial stage. Though perhaps an ultimately sub-optimal strategy for long-term practice, in my meager experience I've found that the counting is useful, both for keeping my mind occupied and for measuring progress. If my mind is kept from getting bored, I've noticed, it has less time to complain about how tired and uncomfortable it is. And while the need for clearly delineated progress strikes me as a very "Western" mentality, akin to the need for belt ranks in many forms of martial arts, the fact is that I find great enjoyment in the visible, steady and solid (if incremental) accretion of skill. Maybe that's why psychology was so much fun for me. So I'll try out the revolution-counting, at least until my endurance for circle-turning has gone up and I'm more comfortable with doing it daily and often.
There remains very little else to say today, except that I'm really enjoying this art gradually unfold for me. As always, I might be doing it a bit faster, harder or more diligently, but the enjoyment is there all the same.
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