February 4th - Sore Muscles

My Thoughts 🤔 我的想法

I'm not feeling it fully throughout my body but I am feeling the constant "battle" to do the things that were once normal. Before, going into the basic stances was easy and I could do them at anytime but now I need to warm up before I'm able to drop fulling into my "Low Stance" (仆步) among many other things. I think what is most sore is my legs, we really use them a lot for things in kung fu like kicking, jumping, running, rolling, sweeping, fighting and did I mention kicking? Most of our stretches just focus on the legs and lower back since those are the key muscles that we are using. For rolls and wrestling (摔跤) we also stretch our arms and neck so that they are loose and "safe".

I do think it is weird that we don't focus on any kind of recovery but we do get a 30 minute break in between classes and a 2 hour lunch so those are good times to relax... or practice more which is what most, if not all, the students do. We relax my stretching, we warm up by running and stretching, we cool down by stretching. Stretching, stretching, stretching. You'd think that my flexibility would be improving by grand amounts but it hasn't... yet. Even though we are sore (some don't say it while others say it constantly) we are all getting better at doing stuff while we are sore/injured so think what we will be able to do when we are healed and healthy?

I chose this place for many reasons and on a different day I'd tell you a different answer but each answer follows this idea. I want to challenge myself. And that is what this place is doing for me. I can see the dedication in many people and how we are all trying each day to get better. After a year it will be cool to see how far we all have come.

I hope I'll have some good progress.

Study 🧠 学习

Today (and recently) I have been the "interpreter" for one of the coaches, Master Yen. Though my translations might not be 100% accurate, I am getting the good idea and am able to explain it to the students.

注册 to register/to login
抱怨 to complain
关于 about
摔 to fall, tumble
法 law, method
拆招 to tear down
番茄 tomato
胡萝卜 carrot
重复  to repeat

My days are hard but I can feel it will all be worth it. How do you feel at the moment?

-Johnny “白武龙”