This is going to be a really bitchy, whiney, moaney blog entry with little of substance in it, so feel free to give it a pass. 
I just need to vent.
I had another really low night at Kung Fu tonight.
Waiting for class to begin, I practiced Snake-Strikes-and-Press-Blocks up and down the hallway, over and over. The first few sequences I did, I thought, "Woah- those are a lot better!" They started to go somewhat downhill after that, but sometimes those brief flashes of "Wow- THAT’S what I was going for," preclude being able to do it consistently at will. I also focussed on the breathing- inhale on the step, exhale steadily hissing through the strike-and-block sequence. That breathing pattern has to get to the point where I don’t have to keep my mind on it constantly.
Snake hissing is different from Dragon hissing, which is different from Tiger huffing… each style has its own BREATHING!
After some forms, we went through the Black Crane drills, 3, 4 and 5 (we had done 1 and 2 last week). I had let these slide too long, and it took me a while to work them out again.
We did #3 as a line drill, and DD walked down the line and stepped in front of each of us in turn so that we could do the apps on him. I think I belted him too hard with my right uppercut. I tend to assume the guy is Superman and I can’t hurt him, but two seconds after landing the punch, I thought with chagrin, "Oh, geez, I think there was a bit too much pepper on that one." Even after everything, I obviously still can’t seem to let go of the need to continuously try to prove myself to DD. If I can’t do forms prettily or applications effectively, at least I can show him I can hit hard. 
I so need to get over myself.
I also start to hit harder when I’m frustrated; also stupid and also needing to be grown out of.
We all had the traditional bi-annual debate about which hand is REALLY supposed to be on top with the double corkscrew punches in #5. Of course it was decided to do it the opposite way as I had been doing it (wouldn’t ya just know it), so I had to do several more reps to try to get oriented. The way I’d been doing it facilitated a lovely Craney circular arm motion at the end of the drill to return to the ready stance on the opposite side. So I had to rework that; I figured out a variation that was still Craney, so that’s good.
At one point we looked over and JM and JB were rolling around on the mat. I didn’t see how the exchange started, but we all stopped to watch, and SK remarked, "THAT doesn’t look like Black Crane!" I was waiting for them to pull out their BJJ moves. Rickson Gracie knows I worked good side control into them enough that at least one of them should have gone for that. No dice, although JM eventually got front mount. She failed to arch her back and put her hooks in, however. I taught her better than that. I gotta drill those girls a lot more.
Then we worked some of the apps from #4 and #5 with partners. #4 has a throw in it that I wasn’t pulling off too well on either of the tall guys (Nemesis and SK).
I know that pretty much EVERYTHING is getting on my raw nerves right now, but JM is driving me bananas with her near-constant instructional suggestions even while two teachers are standing right there trying to help me. Again, her suggestions are always good ones, and they are always helpful if I can put my defensive irritation aside long enough to hear her and employ her suggestions. But gimme a break. Let the teachers teach and the LEAST-experienced kung fu artist in the room have a little temperance; if only out of respect to the instructors. I actually turned to the rest of the class at one point- everybody had eventually stopped their own work and wandered over to watch the special ed student struggle with the throw under the tutelage of both teachers present- and asked, "Can everybody please not stand around and stare at me, because it’s making me anxious." (And I don’t need any more helpful input at the moment from the Peanut Gallery, please and thank you!!) 
Then I similarly struggled with first the double corkscrew punches- yeah, I can punch fine, but I was having trouble with the bridge that was involved- and then the targeting and follow-through of the low kick to collapse the leg (which is a Tiger thing and something I really ought to be able to do without this much trouble).
Everyone got distracted playing with the rebreakable board. I tried a palm-heel and a low kick, several times apiece; couldn’t hack that either.
I just couldn’t seem to do anything right tonight… at that point I was so discouraged and so grumpy that I slouched off to the opposite side of the room and just drilled those two Black Crane sequences by myself while the rest of them continued to rebreak the board.
After the carpool home, SK mentioned, "Oh- CM-" (the Tiger master) "- told me to razz you!"
"For WHAT??!?!"
"I dunno, he just said to give you a hard time."
"Just on general principles??"
"Guess so!"
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