My hamstring and calf muscles have been tight for a week ever since I ran 30 mins twice, picking up speed both times. When I went out to Amtgard sunday, they locked up pretty good and are only now loose enough that it doesn't hurt to walk ( Read more... )

We finished Wu-Family Taiji long form last night. Still a long way to go to make it look like real Taiji, but still! Now I know four of the five major Taiji families' long forms ( Read more... )

Summary:
Shaolin Wushu, Chen long form, Push hands, Xingyi spear
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The new school is nearing completion. We are also training for a Demo for the World Health Festival (??) on the 20th. Nothing serious. We'll do Fan and 32 Sword ( Read more... )

We had a couple of spectators tonight, which means that Jia really put us through our paces. Here's the list of what we managed to cram into an hour ( Read more... )

We did Xin Jia(1) Chen Shr Taiji(2) YiLu(3) for the first time in 6 months months, and went through the first few moves with tons of detail. I learned a lot of stuff that I NEVER KNEW.

No wonder my Chen form sucked.(4)
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We have finished all 5 elements for Xingyi Jian. With a little luck, we will soon start on the Combination form. Here are the 5-element forms:
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Learned some more Xingyijian last night. Progress so far:
Pijian, form 1 and 2
Zuanjian
Bengjian, form 1 and 2
Paojian

I hope Jia has a two-man sword set for Xingyi, but I doubt it. I think I asked once, long ago.

We did push hands last night -- a type of controlled wrestling in Taijiquan, focused on stealing your opponent's balance. We haven't practiced this since the tournament, so it was good to get back to it. Unfortunately, I accidentally got elbowed in the ear, an I'm fairly sure the cartilage is broken.

I had no idea how much a broken ear hurts.

Well, we started learning xingyi jian today, specifically Pi Jian (chopping straight sword). It's a gua (sword-spin block) followed by a chop. The chop is not simple, of course ( Read more... )