Today I did a little Bitter Pill on my break at work. I could only do 4 rounds. My feet were really hurting, so I cut things short. I think the session last for only 6 minutes? Ashe says I need more work on the Yin suction in my feet to help with some of the pains I've been getting. I change shoes a lot. Ever since I got out of the Navy, I have had trouble finding comfortable shoes. I sometimes wonder if I should just walk around in steel toe & combat boots since those are what have my feet in the condition they are in now.
I wanted to practice some after work, but I ended up staying an hour and a half after my shift ended on my long day! I ate some general Tso's chicken with steamed white rice when I finally found a place to eat. I don't like the long shift on Wednesdays because I wake up at 3:30, open the gym at 4:45, have a 30 minute break at 10, and get off work at 1:30. It's not bad, but I get really bored on the Wellness floor. I pass most of the time finding things to clean-- that's a throwback to my Navy days. If you had nothing to do, find something and start cleaning-- people will think you are really busy. Don't believe me? When my ship was in the yards, I was either assisting contractors or finding random corners to clean. I earned my only Navy Achievement Medal!
I had a training session tonight with my cousin and her friends. I really let them have it in the first half of the workout. I set up 4 stations with resistance bands and a TRX to focus on chest, back, and legs. I made them do a Tabata set on each station with a 1:00 break to change stations. The last half of the workout was really at their leisure--kettlebell swings and kettlebell deadlifts. I figured I'd smoked them in the first half, so I would go easy the second half of the workout.
Anyway, I got really bored 5:00 into their 20 minutes of deadlifting and swings, so I started hitting my heavy bag while they gossiped/exercised. I ended up going a full 15:00 working a basic combo that Yiquan people do in their sanshou training (Jab>Jab>Cross).
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Actually, after viewing this video, I was doing the combinations wrong! (oops!) They are doing Jab>Cross>Jab... anyway, when I was seriously considering going to China, I wanted to study at this school-- it was actually after viewing this documentary, which I own. There are more things that I would like to write about Master Cui Ruibin and Yiquan people in a later blog.
Well, my practice ended up being 15:00 on the bag of what I thought was the Yiquan punching bag drill. I then did 10:00 of shadowboxing with the I Liq Chuan fighting stance working the same Double Jab> Cross combination: 5:00 orthodox and 5:00 southpaw... I stood on a 2x4 balancing and doing slow punches for 5:00, did a drill that I created from Taiji postures on my JKD Wooden Dummy for 5:00 paying attention to footwork and how the dummy arms felt when making contact with my forearms & hands. I then did 5:00 of low & high sidekicks. I would kick low, then high and swap sides. I ended with a 5:00 round of skipping rope. I wanted to get some standing in, but it's already past midnight, so I think that it might be best to get some sleep.
I am hoping to do this type of training daily--I really enjoyed it! I want to review some of Bruce Lee's notes as far as how he arranged his training so that the days I train "external" stuff, I can say this day is more focused on striking, this day is more focused on kicking--that sort of thing. As I develop more internally, I will focus more on that and less on external stuff-- one thing I've noticed is that a lot of the great internal masters were great external fighters first.
Sifu spoke with me about this when he was here. I don't think I will develop the goods teaching external arts to myself on my own, but I think it's good for getting/staying in good physical shape--also Sifu reminds me that anything you bring to the table is just an additional tool in your toolbag for when you eventually do "get it."
Well, I hope I can wake up early enough to get in some practice. I only have one training session in the morning. Shannon, my boss, would like me to practice doing a microfit on her. I don't really want to do a practice run because I actually feel more comfortable just doing it for real on a real client. If I mess up, they won't know...and if I really mess up, I'll just say that I'm learning a new system and was trained differently (and that's not a lie, I don't have a microfit computer to assess my clients I train at my house!)
See you next entry!