Magazine Article

I finally finished my magazine article and submitted it to Shifu and my brothers here for suggestions. We review it sometime next week. Once I get their input I can finalize it and go from there.

Also for those who are interested, the article about the Retreat Center is finally out in this months Kung fu Tai Chi Magazine. We’ve been looking forward to seeing this for a while and now that its finally out and I’ve read it, I think its really nicely done. Definitely worth picking up for those who are interested.

(Cover of Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine with Retreat Center article)

Reading the magazine article reminded me of all that went on the day of the ceremonies. Just before the ceremonies began my brothers and I got together and had this picture taken. Its one of my favorites of us as a group. From left to right: Jon, Ricardo, Me, Patrick, Mike

My Little Buddy

Our dog Xiao Hu is still a little beast! Running around everywhere like a maniac nipping at whoever will tolerate it. He’s such an incredible dog though…my little buddy. By now he knows his name and also a few commands; sit, guo lai (come), don’t or stop (although he pretends like he doesn’t know it!) he knows all this in a mix of English and Chinese. I think its good we teach him both. A bilingual dog…very accomplished. We’re still working on commands and new tricks. He's a smart dog but you can see it in his eyes that he knows when he's doing something he's not supposed to. He's for sure a little sneaky. Shifu says he takes after me. What does that mean? Hmmmm...not sure.

Xiao Hu...

He looks so innocent....

But He's Vicious!

And He'll Eat You..!

Tai Ji Quan

Tai-Ji Quan has really gotten interesting. Since the start of the semester we’ve been learning and practicing applications which include take downs and qin nas (joint locks). Now were doing a type of wresting getting a feel for using these same moves, trying to throw and lock each other while we resist and attempt to counter. We beat each other up for sure…and love it! Tai Ji Quan is meant to be soft, which means minimum muscular use. After all it is an internal soft style, …but for me, being completely soft is difficult. I come from a hung gar background which means hard power…completely the opposite of Tai Ji. I really like Tai Ji Quan and its theory. I see the benefit in being soft as well as hard… “Hard as Iron, Soft as Silk”.

Shooting with Craig

This week Craig, who’s doing the documentary, flew in to visit us and do some more work for the project. We filmed quite a bit of material…mostly training. For this one shot in particular we had to hold ma bu (horse stance) for 30 minutes…definitely a grueling time. While training (and filming) the scenery was absolutely amazing. The way the fog roles in and out across the mountain seemingly out of nowhere is beautiful.

We spent a lot of time with Craig getting more familiar with filming, editing, voiceovers, computer software and other things. All for the documentary and future projects. For our first “official” shoot we filmed an interview with Shifu. Ricardo was shooting, Mike was on sound, I was interviewing Shifu, Jon and Patrick helped out and Craig was supervising it all. It went very well.

Thanksgiving

2 days ago was Thanksgiving. Shifu’s family came down from San Francisco so we all had thanksgiving together. The food was great…For the most part it was all Chinese but we did have some other stuff like turkey and ham. We also had duck which I thought was the best part and Shifu made sticky rice with all kinds of stuff mixed in…awesome.

The weather is changing here at the Retreat Center. It's been raining alot the past couple weeks and as a result its getting very green. Nature here is really amazing.


(The Clouds rolling in....)


(Holy Moly..! Look at the size of that shroom!)

Vacation is coming up. Its about a month away...as much as we all love it here we do look forward to going home to visit our friends and families. I'll be in Orange County California for most of vacation and I'll be going to Pennsylvania for about a week. It will be really nice to see my dad, my friends and my old kung fu teachers Mark Seidel (Scranton, Pa) and Alan Ondash (Kingston, Pa) while in Pennsylvania.

Vacation being a month away, there's still alot to do here thats keeping us very busy. We all have magazine articles and short film projects were working on and my Chinese still needs work so that keeps me busy in the little free time I have. I like to spend time with our dog Xiao Hu...he's such a cool little dog..very friendly although he likes to nibble on us when we play with him...He's very affectionate but he likes to play rough...he lives up to his name Little Tiger. (Xiao Hu)

(Xiao Hu chillin in Mikes bag)

Training is progressing along nicely. This passed week for the first time I've been doing interval training up the mountain...I jog as much as I can followed by walking and then more jogging and on and on until I reach the top. This is the first time I've been able to do this training because of my ACL...but its gotten much better especially over the past month.

Rope climbing and cinder block training are getting easier. While training Cinder Blocks (tossing them in the air and catching them) this week I added a dumbbell to it to make it harder....a great time. The extra weight tore up my hands a little bit but I'm sure they'll heal over the weekend and by next week I'll be ready for more pain.

We added stepping footwork to our reaction training. Before we used to stand in White Crane horse stance facing each other while we practiced 4 corners...now we train moving in straight lines down the floor...the same 4 corner drill but now with stepping. The idea being when one person steps forward to punch the other person tries to maintain the same distance by stepping back or close the distance by stepping forward and then defending with cover and repel (blocks). Having a Hung Gar Background I tend to be a bit more aggressive in training and move forward more than backwards.

Well off to sleep...gotta wake up early

Week 8

We had a demonstration on Friday at an annual farmers market in Garberville this week. It was a really good time introducing ourselves and the Retreat Center project to the local community. I performed 2 forms for my part of the demonstration, a Long Fist form Lien Bu Chuan and a Hung Gar form Ir Liu. This was actually the first time that I performed in front of a crowd of people I didn’t know. Also I hadn’t been able to do any forms for about 6 months because of my ACL injury. So stepping up to the performance area I was both excited and a little nervous. Lien Bu Chuan went well until I left out a small section…I was determined to make my Hung Gar form the best I could. Ir Liu starts out with a short hard Qigong set which surprisingly focused my mind and gave an outlet for the nervous tension within myself. After that I was very comfortable and the form went very well. Other than conditioning purposes I never realized before why most Hung Gar forms begin with hard qigong…I now understand that they help to energize and focus the mind in prepartion for fighting (or in my case performing).

Something else very important happened on this day. On the way to the demonstration I was sitting in the front seat next to shifu and we were talking about animals. Actually I brought it up because I think it would be nice to have a pet. I love pug dogs so I brought that up to shifu but apparently he thinks there ugly so they’re out of the question. But then I remembered something my mom said. Pugs come from China so what better way to preserve the Chinese arts than to get a Chinese dog? I got a short and sarcastic “ha ha” from Shifu followed by a “you’re sneaky.” Still the answer was no.

Well when we arrived in Garberville I noticed a truck that had a “free puppy” sign hanging off the back. “Shifu look” I said “free puppies!” And surprisingly the unexpected happened. He said “lets go over and look”.

When I went over there, there was about 5 puppies huddled together in the corner in the bed of the truck. I reached in to pet them and they all stayed in the corner except for one…which came up to me immediately and was very friendly and playful. There was no question in my mind this dog was awesome. I looked at Shifu and he looked at me… “You want that one huh”…I guess we both new this dog was awesome. After the demo we took our new friend home with us. Welcome Xiao Hu (Little Tiger) the 6th Disciple.

Week 7

When I returned back from orange county for my doctor and physical therapy appointment I received some very good news. My knee (ACL) is well enough to where I am now able to start running and jumping with the rest of my classmates. I haven’t jumped or run for about 6 months so I’m taking it slowly…I have to re-develop the muscles used for these activities. My progress is steadily improving and although I’m behind where my classmates are I don’t imagine it will be that way for too much longer. My goal is by Christmas time to be caught up with them.

I get some criticism here for having waited for my doctors approval before running and jumping…I’ve been told I’m living in a greenhouse. I ignore all this as I know that if anything happens to my knee I’m out of the program. So what I’m doing at least to me seems to be the better approach. I trusted my doctor with my surgery and I will trust him with my recovery.

During this week Ricardo, Mike and Myself completed a short 5 minute film project describing the environment of the Retreat Center. Overall it was the best we could do with the time and resources we had.

Congratulations to Jon and Patrick for medaling in the Tai-Ji Chuan tournament. I had a dream Jon won first place and when he came back I found out that he did! Crazy huh?