blah interrupted

I've discovered I talk to myself a lot.  Pretty much anytime I'm alone.  This mute day is going to be tougher than I thought.

people that age

I didn't blog last week.  For some reason I thought my last one was on Tuesday or something.   Whoops.  Here's my makeup, then.

I'm starting to see a shift in direction in the way I approach my training and life in general.  Even more so than usual I find myself endlessly fascinated by some little concept, taking it apart like a little kid with a watch.  Getting so pedantic has caused me to rediscover my forms, especially my weapons.  I'm redefining what is correct or perfect now, and am at the point where I can start to worry about which direction my spear blade is in when I'm spinning or stabbing.  It's a great feeling. 

I'm also beginning to learn the value of real puns.  Not the stupid jokes (which are awesome in their own way) but turns of language.  Words that are nouns and verbs are just getting cooler to me.  Look at my title and switch how 'age' functions.  That's what I think about. 

I'm just pushing this blog further into obscurity.

Tomorrow (well I guess today because it's past midnight) is mute today.  I'll reflect on the exciting adventures of saying even less than usual tomorrow. 

wide awake and off to the races, out of gas and lost in space

I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to discuss immunizations for going to China.  For some reason that makes this whole thing real.  It hit me that I'm leaving in 4 months, full time training for a whole year.  I've been dreaming about this since I was fifteen and now it's happening. 

In two months I'm also graduating, finishing off a four year process.  University has changed me so much it's hard to think about who I would be without it--just like with kung fu.  I'm excited for grad school, though it will be hard.  Plus when I get back from China I'll be immediately moving to a new city. 

There is this cliff at the end of April with a sign labelled "WARNING:  ADULTHOOD AHEAD!"

ohgodohgodohgodohgod  

I'm a little terrified of moving to a new country to train with shaolin monks and then entering the world of serious academia, but starting something new has never been so exciting.  These new chapters are what really shape people, I'm interested to see what sort of person I become over the course of the next few years. 

The thought of getting a mortgage still makes me break out into a cold sweat. 

left foot in, left foot out

A friend mentioned 'Come On Eileen' offandedly today and now it's running through my head.  I'm listening to it right now.  I know everyone rags on the eighties, but when you consider this song, the Transformers cartoon, Black Flag and giant cell phones it doesn't seem that bad.  

I was talking with a friend on the weekend (we were at a poetry reading, being super cool) and she asked me a very interesting question.

She said that since I'm the intellectual type (considering my foot spends most of the time in my mouth I'm sometimes surprised at this reputation), why do I spend so much time with kung fu, which she saw as a mostly physical activity.  She could see me trying to keep fit, but didn't get why I was so passionate about it.

You all know that the martial arts have a hefty mental side to it, in the changes it promotes and the intense discipline/meditative states that are necessary.  There's also a real satisfaction in figuring out how to do a technique properly, sort of like finishing a crossword puzzle.  But there's another reason.

Like many of us, I started because of old hong kong action movies.  Enter the Dragon was the tipping point, but I mostly grew up watching Jackie Chan.  I wanted to be able to move like him, simple as that.  Of course, you begin at the beginning, but it was so much fun and rewarding I quickly found a thousand other reasons to stay.   That desire stayed in the back of mind, only surfacing years later.  

I've always been pretty clumsy, I've gotten better but still am constantly tripping over things.  So all the fancy techniques never came easy--usually I felt really awkward.  When I was a green or blue belt, around 15, I practiced the flying spinning outside inside cyclone kick obsessively.  One day I got it, which always happens eventually.  For the first time I felt a little like Jackie Chan moved.  I was invincible.  That feeling has stuck with me today, and still remains one of my fondest memories: the sheer joy of the process.  

There's no end product in kung fu besides myself.  And that feeling of perfecting a technique for the sake of the technique alone, improving skill because it makes me a better person, is a lesson I try to apply to every part of my life.   That's what it's all about.

terrible study techniques, volume eight

Today's topic, class, is cramming.

...there's no one in this room.  I'll still go on.

I had a schedule conflict last night, so I wasn't able to make it to class.  Instead, I was playing a show, singing (ok, screaming) in the band Maus.  The black belt class being the highlight of my week, I was a little disappointed, but getting to play a show is a ton of fun and only happens every month or two.  

Right before we played, I was thinking about what I put into the  black belt and I Ho Chaun classes: two hours of pure sweat, focus and intensity.  So I decided I was going to take that work, especially the intensity, and cram it into the next 15-20 minutes of music.  I wanted to try and be as exhausted and sweaty as I was every Friday night.  It worked.  My roomate's girlfriend called me 'crazy eyes' because of my high level of intensity.  After just one set of 5 songs all I wanted to do was sit down.

This made me think about every technique or form I do.  A rep of Kempo, for instance, is the culmination of my eight years of training.  I don't know how many times I've done that form, but it's a lot.  Add all the time of fine tuning certain parts of the form and I've spent a pretty decent chunk of my life practicing this form.  All that is in the background for every rep, but I want to bring it up--cram all those years of practice into the next rep so I'm mindful of what I'm capable of.

Independent of this I've also been messing around with what I like to call 'flash meditation'.  Master Brinker recommended to a class a while back to take a deep breath while saying "I'm breathing in" and then exhale with "I'm breathing out".  That would bring us into the moment of whatever we were doing to appreciate it better.  It's a great technique--what I've been trying is just taking five breaths while trying to zone out for just a second.  Anytime I need to focus or really appreciate what I'm doing, I try to do 10 minutes of meditation in five breaths.  It's pretty neat.

So think about what's behind all your practice, or even outside actions, and start cramming.

being positive is all a matter of charges

I went skiing this weekend in Jasper, got home about two hours ago.  I'm very tired.  I didn't sleep well last night, I spent a full day on the slopes then was in a car for four hours.  My bed is two feet away from where I'm writing this, and it looks very inviting.  All that's left is 50 pushups and situps to finish my daily total.

I usually do this part of my UBBT no problem, even after much more exhausting days, but pushups are the last thing I want to do right now.  Maybe it's the thought of going back to school after a week off or the fact that I was using muscles in a different way this weekend, I'm just completely drained.  But I'm not going to skip them, despite how (unjustifiably) bad of an attitude I have right now.  Because I know that the minute these take to do will pass no matter what.  And I'd rather spend a minute making myself a better person than an extra one in bed.

Figure that's a good way to start the week.   

just let me find my face and we can continue the interview

I've been house-sitting for my parents for reading week, it's just been myself and our pets. I've been semi-productive.

I almost burst the pipes when I forgot to turn on the furnace before I left saturday morning.

Spent an hour or two talking to a pattern matching chat program: basically a computer program that is made to try and pass as human. I wasn't convinced, but it was fun trying to teach it the relationships between various words.

I also watched some tv. Now, I do watch the office at my house, but other than that I avoid it. It's horrifically boring. But I've had a few shows on here and there, mostly out of novelty. What I've found most interesting are the commercials.

I haven't actually paid attention to any sort of advertising in a long time and I'm struck by how irritating it all is. First, the sexism is blatant--so many commercials rely on 'woman love shoes! shoooooes!', sometimes to sell a product not even aimed at women (for instance, I just watched an insurance commercial that was going on about the husband working for his family, while the wife stayed at home and passively worried about the insurance payments). Mostly, though, they're just dumb. Unfunny, unoriginal dregs that shriek that we need to consume more. I'm not okay with someone yelling into my ear for twelve minutes of every half-hour to buy more junk in order to make myself happy.

Plus, out of train wreck curiosity, I watched a reality program called 'Paris Hilton's My New BFF', where a bunch of girls (and two guys) competed to become Paris Hilton's new best friend, basically by doing whatever she told them to do. The whole thing was such a consumerist, celebrity obsessive orgy that I had to do extra pushups just to calm myself down.

tv is the worst. Reboot did just come on, which is pretty awesome.