Thursday evening kung fu.
After strike drills, we worked on knife defenses- because, SK explained, "Last week when we did Monkey-In-The-Middle defensive practice, and someone who knows how to handle a knife (pointing at me) came at you, some of you were taken by surpise."
Once I got loosened up enough (lower back was a little stiff), I really enjoyed it. I love knife work. I was surprised and interested to see that parrying/blocking or otherwise dealing with the opponent’s knife hand with my LEFT hand and counterattacking with my right hand felt correct, and the opposite felt clumsy and insecure. One would think (*I* would, anyway) that you’d want to confront the KNIFE with your dominant hand. Strange.
At one point, JB tried a technique that Nemesis didn’t think was a good idea- "If you do that, it will bend the attacker THIS way, and that knife will end up right in your butt." I responded, "Better a knife in the butt than a knife in the gut," I was completely serious… a lot of knife work is about trying to decide WHERE you are going to take the inevitable cuts as opposed to which parts of your anatomy you’d prefer to try to protect. But of course the rest of the class found this statement highly amusing. I can see that another Seattle-branch OSC Kitsune-ism has been born. I just keep the hits coming- in more ways than one.
JB and I did a few reps of the jian form (we’d planned that beforehand, without knowing what was on the class agenda for the day- I guess it was just a good day for blades all around).
I specifically begged off the tai chi in time to work on some Shaolin forms, since I have been feeling lately that I’ve neglected them. I did 2 reps of Little Red Dragon In the Mirror, Five of Leopard Three In the Mirror, three of Five Animals In the Mirror, and started working on Five Points In the Mirror. The energy was in The Groove tonight- the forms looked and felt great- clean and tight and powerful. For no apparent reason that I can discern. Maybe it was just all the lovely bladework earlier.
I wish I could harness those good ones. I wish I had time to keep working as long as I could stay in that Zone. Anyway, it felt so good- I don’t think I’ve felt that place with my Shaolin forms since my Epic Slump began in mid January.
JM is all atwitter about Gracie school carpools, and asking me about the Renzo Gracie seminar- it looks like she’s been bitten by the bug **BAD**. And SK is already websurfing for The Perfect Gi, and asking my advice on this one or that one… he hasn’t even set foot in the school yet, and he’s already revving to drop a hundred bucks on a gi. I really think my Evil Plan to assimilate them into Gracieland is working quite beautifully. Resistance is futile, after all.