Winter trials

Bringing to mind my previous post, wherein I mention how I too often let my life interfere with my training, this past week finds me stubbornly pushing on with the bagua practice despite a particularly annoying patch of "life" recently. My car is in the shop, so getting that fixed, getting it paid for and dealing with the logistics of how I get to work have occupied more time that I'd like.

I'm still trying to work into a solid training groove, back up to the level I was at several months ago. Might take another few weeks, unless I up the pace, but I feel like I'm getting there. Today had a good amount of solid training. Didn't really get any time on the circle, but I made up for that by giving the sweeping strikes some attention, particularly the capturing sweeping strike, which I haven't worked with as much. In that regard, today might be a good model for days to come, at least for the time being. For the capturing strike I did five-minute sessions each for the stationary, one-step, two-step and three-step drills, for a total of 20 minutes of work with the capturing sweeping strike. Additionally, I spent 5 minutes a piece on stationary drills for the rising sweeping and inward sweeping strikes, which is rather cursory, but as I said, I've spent more time working with them in recent weeks and months. I may continue this through future training sessions, focusing on one strike while doing "maintenance work" on the others, at least until my strength and endurance are at sufficient levels to do justice to all three in a day, or even as far as being able to work on more than one palm in a given training session.

The most stimulating part of today's training was almost certainly the time I spent doing forms work. Up until recently I haven't really paid a great deal of attention to the forms, but in recent weeks I've spent a few minutes here and there doing the "moving with the force" sweeping form at the slow-paced learning speed. Today I decided to dedicate more time to it, and to start into the "practicing with power" stage. It's definitely more of a workout, but it's also a good deal of fun. A large part of the challenge (and the fun) of doing the forms is thinking of them in terms of combat applications, trying to visualize an opponent, trying to predict how an opponent would behave, and determining how you would utilize the basic tools of the forms to repond effectively. I have to say, it really makes the art come alive when you engage it like that. It's even more fun and effective if you have a training dummy sparring partner handy, but I am not so lucky at the moment.

Thus encouraged by today's training, I'll be making an effort to reproduce sessions like these every day for the rest of the week, paying particular attention to the forms work. I think that's just what I needed to reinvigorate my regimen.

Winter work

Wow, it's been almost half a year since I last posted. If it wasn't already apparent, I have an annoying habit of letting work and my own laziness interfere with my extra-curriculars. I used to be online all the time, but these days I'm rarely at my computer. My bagua practice tapered off a bit back in September, thanks to an extended period of time in which I worked a lot of overtime, which is a shame, since it seemed to be progressing pretty well at the time. I've tried to keep up with it over the last several months, but it's been intermittent at best. And, of course, I obviously practice more than I post on here. Perhaps I should figure out the "mobile posting" settings for this blog setup, so I can add posts from my phone while I'm at work with nothing else to do.

Happily, this return to my journal coincides with a renewed effort in my bagua practice. I've been trying to steadily increase my level of conditioning in recent weeks, that way I can more easily jump back into practice. On a side note, I've also been spending some time doing tai chi, mostly for stress-reduction purposes (I need to stop reading about politics).

So, I have something resembling a game plan for structuring the time I spend with my bagua practice every day. I'm implementing it in a small scale, which I'll gradually increase, but my initial mid-term goal is to eventually spend about three hours per day on bagua practice. Spend a few minutes doing standing postures, one hour on strike training, one hour for forms work and one hour of circle-turning. That's a tall order at the moment, since I'm out of shape in general and have not yet gotten to the point where I'm working with the bagua for extended periods of time. My bagua practice today lasted from about 10am to 1pm, though there were significant periods of rest interspersed throughout. But, as always, it's a work in progress.

Kicking it up a notch

So, following some kind advice from a YSB guru in Colorado, I spent today trying out a reformatted form of my standard workout.

Suggestions for standing: 5 min. per side, total of 20 min., new posture
What I managed: Lion representative posture -- 5 min. per side (continuous) for a total of 10 min.
Verdict: Amazed I could actually do that. Shooting for 20 next time. Must learn more standing postures.

Suggestions for striking: Line-drill (1-step method) a strike (ex. "rising sweeping strike") for 8 min. (rather than counting repetitions), rest, drill a second strike 8 min., rest, etc. for 5 different strikes.
What I managed: Line-drilling the rising sweeping strike (in my tiny living room, no less!) for 8 min. Rest...yeah.
Verdict: My endurance really needs work. That aside, it was a good experiment. Must learn some new strikes.

Suggestions for circle-turning: convince myself I have to turn for 40 min. + 5 min. warm-up and cool-down.
What I managed: 40 min. New record. And boy do my arms feel weird. They're not quite sore, exactly. They feel kinda like coiled steel springs.
Verdict: I can do this. Holy crap.

Suggestions for forms practice: do the forms slowly, but still fast enough that the feet/hands, step/strike arrive simultaneously.
What I managed: None yet today. Still resting up from the above workout. Still on the list, however.

The end result is that, thanks to this advice, I've done a much more strenuous (and yet much more rewarding) training session than any thus far. And while I'm still coming up a bit short, I have an immediate goal to strive for, and some direction for future training. All in all, I am very optimistic, and I'm having a good deal of fun. Whether my body will agree with me when I have to wake up for work tonight is another story.

Additionally, I downloaded an interval timer app for my android. I rather like it. The ability to create a custom workout of any length and of numerous sessions is incredibly useful. It is also a good external motivator. As Jim in TN remarked a while back, interval timers are "merciless".

Let's just see if I can do this again tomorrow.

On-the-job training

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.

Not quite good enough

The week continues, and still I have an unbroken (if rather short) string of training days. That sounds kinda pathetic right now, especially, I'm sure, to any hardcore bagua people who might be reading that are used to multi-hour training sessions every day of the week and who have survived seminars and intensives with He Jinbao. Fair enough. I haven't really earned the right not to be pathetic yet.

As far as  the training itself goes, there is definitely incremental progress. With every day of standing practice I end up being less easily fatigued while turning the circle. If I omitted the standing and the strikes, I might reasonably expect to make the 30min. mark. Amazing what a couple days of more-intense-than-usual training can do. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough, I don't think. I suspect that if I was going for a truly intense workout, I'd be a lot more sore than I am now. I have yet to test the upper limits of just how much I can do in a day without collapsing, but I am concerned about overtraining. If nothing else, it's a habit picked up from playing video game RPG's: defeat lots of little monsters until your experience level is high enough to comfortably fight the bigger monsters. I am fond of overkill, but it's a ponderous and subtle kind of overkill.

Perhaps in the near future, after maybe a week or two of continuing as I am now, I'll begin designating certain days as "focus" days, wherein I will devote significantly more time and effort to one of the bagua "pillars," such as doing the standing postures, or circle-turning.

On a random note, I've noticed that my left arm is noticeably weaker than my right. It's somewhat annoying.

Progress and Goals

Training over the past few days has been pretty good, though compared to the usual scarcity of training in my schedule, considering how much free time I have, just about anything constant is good. Thursday was a fairly heavy day (by my standards), in which I did 750 strikes, some standing and some turning. Friday was comparable, with 850 strikes and twice as much standing practice (same amount of turning). Yesterday was relatively lighter, with only 350 strikes, with about the same amount of standing and turning. Today is looking favorable, though I'm still not done. My striking practice is proceeding apace, and happily I can say that in the last three days I've done no less than 10 minutes per day of turning and 2 min. of standing (1 min. in Lion posture on each side). I've been trying to incorporate more standing into my regimen for some time now, though it has been about as intermittent as the strike-training sessions, which typically constitute the large part of the regimen. Up until now, circle-walking hasn't figured very prominently in the training schedule at all. I'm changing that.

From what I've heard, the stated goal of any serious YSB practitioner, according to He Jinbao and other higher-ups in the organization, is one hour of turning per day. And from accounts I've read from those who have attended any of the seminars, He Jinbao will typically have people spending at least an hour on it on any given seminar day. So, if I'm to get the most out of a seminar once I eventually get the chance, I'll need to be capable of doing that. Which leads me into the main topic of this post: goals.

Short-term goals (next couple of weeks):
1. Finish my goal of 10,000 Inside Pushing Strikes - Even though this is Dragon system material, and I plan soon to take up Lion full-time, I am continuing with this for a number of reasons. Partly, because it is still Yin style, and any Yin style training is arguably good training, or at least better than not training. Mostly, because I am stubborn--I've been working on this goal for some time now, continually restarting it, and I want to finish it. Primarily, as an extension of the previous reason, it's because I set this arbitrary goal as a test of my commitment, not my ability. I knew I could do it, if I only worked hard enough and consistently enough. What I didn't know was if I was capable of working hard and consistently at it. This is meant to prove that to myself. Maybe it's a pride thing. I don't know. But I do know that keeping commitments to other people is easier than keeping them to myself, since we're always willing to cut ourselves a little slack (who's to know?). Knowing this, if I can keep this commitment to myself, then I know I can keep it to someone like He Jinbao, since I don't want to disappoint him with any half-assed efforts and thus waste his valuable time.

2. Improve my circle-walking practice - Like I said, this has never been a particularly constant or prominent aspect of what little training I've done up to this point. That has to change. At the moment, 10 minutes is about as long as I can go before my arms give out. From this point, all of my developmental circle-walking will be with the Lion representative posture. My goal for right now is to continue doing at least 10 min. per day, trying to increase that to 15-20. My walking stance right now is a reasonably comfortable mid-level--once I'm more sure of myself in making certain that my stance is structurally correct I will start lowering my stance to really work my legs.

3. Increase the time spent doing the standing-strengthening postures - As I'm getting back into the Lion system, most (if not all) of my standing will be in Lion. Over the past few days I've been averaging about 2 min., meaning that I spend about 1 min. in the stance on each side of my body. I'm not really going for distance right now, so each session of standing will continue to be 1 min. per side. However, I intend to stand for an increased number of such sessions every day, and I'd like to get that up to 10 min. per day, for the short-term.

4. Start fully training Lion system - This has already been touched upon above, but it deserves its own explanation. Once I finish my goal in doing the Dragon system Inside Pushing strike (as detailed above) I plan to begin working totally on Lion system material, as it is not only the best way to truly begin my training, being the most developmentally strenuous system, but also so that I can be more or less on the same page as practically everyone else practicing YSB, since He Jinbao starts pretty much everyone on Lion so they can get the proper foundation. When I started out in Dragon it was partly because the description of its methods and "personality" appealed to me, but also partly, I suspect, because I wanted to be doing something different from everyone else at the time. Now, however, I'd much rather be in a position to get better feedback from others by virtue of the fact that they have already worked extensively in what I'm doing.



Mid-term goals (next few weeks-months):


1. Tentative training goals - Increase standing time to 20 min. per day. Begin standing in at least two of the remaining 8 Lion postures. Increase turning time to at least 30 min. per day. Begin stationary drilling for the three basic Sweeping strikes (though probably mostly sticking to the first, the Rising Sweeping strike).

2. Secondary (vague) training goals - Improve arm and leg strength, waist strength and flexibility, as well as all-around physical endurance.

(After securing employment)

3. Resume attending local YSB study group (assuming it still exists). Would that the meetings were free, and I suspect they would be, if not for the fact that the group's facilitator has to reserve the space, requiring money. Since I plan to resume training the Lion system, I'm going to need instruction and correction, and that's best obtained with the help of others. It's probably been about two years (or more) since I've last been to the study group, so I'm a little worried at this point as to whether or not it actually still meets. I still remember a fair amount of what I learned there, though I still would really like to get some corrections and advice again. In reading Jim Lindsay's blog I've taken a number of points of advice to heart. One of these is that group meetings and seminars shouldn't be the place where you do the most work. They should be for getting instruction, correction and advice, as well as being able to test applications and the like with other people. The greater part of the training is solo. In the past, however, I was more likely to do the majority of my training at the group itself, for an hour every Saturday morning. Usually I'd be so overwhelmed by how exhausted I was that what I learned was probably minimal compared to what I should have been getting out of it. Lesson learned.

4. Buy the full set of Lion system dvd's. I already have the applications dvd for the Sweeping strikes, so that helps. Also, look into getting a dadao (or reasonable substitute) and a straight sword (in anticipation of the upcoming jian dvd), as well as the YSB saber and (eventually) straight sword dvd's.

Long-term goals (next year or so):

1. Be able to do at least 30 min. of standing per day, including most, if not all, Lion standing postures. Be able (hopefully) to turn for an hour while holding the Lion posture, in a moderately low stance, without lowering my arms. Gain a halfway decent amount of experience with the Sweeping palm strikes (as much experience as can be had in a year of constant training), as well as exploring the other 7 attacking methods in the Lion system. Begin learning some of the forms at the "learning speed", at least enough to know the movements.

2. Attend a seminar. By the time the next fall tour comes around I should have enough money to attend. Hopefully, unlike this year, there will be a seminar in Portland at that time. I'm probably not going to make much substantial progress until I actually have the opportunity to learn from (and be corrected by) He Jinbao himself. I look forward to being tossed around like a rag-doll for the sake of greater learning opportunities.

Some of these, particularly the longer-term goals, will probably change somewhat as time goes by. I remember that it wasn't all that long ago that my goal of doing 10,000 Inside Pushing strikes was a long-term goal. That probably contributed, psychologically, to my inability to actually accomplish it in the last five years that I've been trying to do so, because it was always something that I'd "get around to eventually." That's not gonna cut it. Not this time.

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.

Beginnings

It's been quite some time since I've been in the journal-writing habit. I managed to keep up with a LiveJournal account for about 5 years, but most of my other friends abandoned it for Facebook, so I haven't bothered with it in a while. My primary motivation for creating this blog is to keep a record of my martial arts training, mostly as a way to keep me motivated in the training itself.

For some time now I've been interested in a style of Chinese martial arts called Baguazhang. I first heard about it back in 2001, when I was 18 and a freshman in college, through watching Jet Li's movie, "The One." About a year later I bought, on a whim, a book on bagua by Park Bok Nam. After perusing the book, I started practicing...from time to time. Though martial arts have always fascinated me, I've never really had the diligence required to practice it on a regular basis. Most of the stuff in Park's book didn't make much sense to me at the time, though I discovered that when I actually did spend some time practicing things started to make sense almost of their own volition. The more I practiced, the more I understood. Over the course of the following two years I continued to gather more books related to bagua, and I befriended several like-minded people at college with whom I participated in the campus martial arts club.

Something of a breakthrough came at the very beginning of 2005, while I made my first trip to Bellingham, WA to visit my then best friend (now wife), Diana. For some reason, during that visit I was intensely interested in bagua, and read everything I could about it online. It was during this time that I first heard of Yin Style Baguazhang. The lineage-holder of the style, Dr. Xie Pei-qi, and his successor, He Jin-bao, decided to document as much of their martial system as they could on dvd, primarily because it was becoming scarce and they didn't want it to die out. The style itself is named for the 2nd-generation master in the lineage, Yin Fu, student of the founder of Baguazhang, dating back to the late-1800's in Beijing. When I saw the sheer number and quality of the dvd's they produced (and the comprehensiveness of the style) I was impressed, and decided to test it out for myself. So I bought the first two dvd's of the Dragon system (one of eight "animal" systems in Yin style).

The first dvd is mostly about strengthening postures--standing in place while maintaining static upper body postures held with isometric force--and the type of exercise most unique to bagua: circle-walking. Circle-walking is basically just holding the static strengthening postures while walking in a circle, rather than standing, with occasional changes of direction. This practice serves a number of functions, chiefly qigong, meditation, or training for combat.

The second dvd covers the eight striking methods of the animal system, each with three variations. Additionally, there are four stages of practice to the strike training: stationary (to develop power), single-step (performing strikes while stepping in a line or zig-zag, to practice emitting force while moving), two-step (to practice emitting force while moving and changing direction) and three-step (all of the above, though practiced balancing on a straight line).

Each animal system has a set of ten dvd's; the first two are devoted to foundation practices such as the ones outlined above, and the remaining eight are devoted to the forms. Each of the eight forms dvd's correspond to one of the animal system's striking methods (such as the Pushing strike, in the Dragon system), and each striking method has seven forms (one for each of the other 7 animal systems, and reminiscent of their particular "flavor").

In any case, after I got these dvd's (and continued to get more) I set about trying to learn the style. Looking back on how I was attempting to practice it back then, I shudder. It was pretty awful at first, since I have virtually no background in martial arts whatsoever, but over time I began to get a feel for it and learn the proper mechanics. From the very beginning I didn't want to be the kind of person who tries to do every technique at a superficial level and call it good. Rather, I wanted to practice as few things as possible, practicing each until I was certain that my understanding of it was solid before moving on to the next thing. With this in mind I began training in the Dragon system, starting with the very first technique presented: the Inside Pushing strike.

It's been said that to learn a technique you must perform it 1,000 times, and to gain an understanding of it you must do it 2,000 times. I determined that, since I didn't have a teacher, I should make some attempt to compensate by spending more time than necessary mastering the basics. Therefore, I decided that I would do 10,000 repetitions of the Inside Pushing strike (performed stationary) before moving on to the next step. And now for the awful truth: I'm still working on the Inside Pushing strike. After moving to Bellingham and finding work I continued to work at my goal off-and-on, doing a few sets of strikes here and there when the interest found me. But after four years of intermittent practice I had gotten barely 80% of the way there. Admittedly, somewhere between 2- and 3,000 strikes I was beginning to feel that I was getting the hang of it, but by the end of the fourth year I was thoroughly disgusted with the small amount of progress I'd made.

So, starting last year I set a new goal for myself. I would start over. I would do a full 10,000 repetitions of the Inside Pushing strike. And I would do them all within a month. To be honest, I still haven't accomplished this feat, despite having restarted it four times. By now I've probably done a grand total of 20-30,000 reps over the last five years, but I'm sticking by my arbitrary goal. I figure if I can't manage to do 10,000 strikes in a month's time then I obviously don't have the diligence for serious practice. Now, as always, it's a test of motivation. After 10 years I'm still interested in bagua. Maybe now, after all this time, I have enough interest to get serious about it.

So. First thing on the agenda: complete 10,000 strikes. As of the creation of this blog, I've already amassed over a quarter of that, and I can usually manage somewhere between 500 and 1,000 strikes per day. After I finish these, I have several possible options. And what are those? That will have to wait until next time.