SHINEEEEEEE!

So Tai Chi last night was AWESOME! Not in the learning-a-lot sense necessarily, but in the all-out fun and awesomeness sense it was one of the best lessons I've ever had! I'm officially learning my first sword form and it's insanely difficult as I'm not really used to having a long sword in one hand.

Believe it or not it's amazingly easy to forget that you have a long shiny thing to hold on to and I ended up scraping the floor, hitting pillars, holding it at the wrong angle and so on. And there's SO much to remember!

It was also made slightly more difficult for two reasons: firstly my teacher (or his Dad at this stage) isn't going to be there on Thursday because my teacher is going in for surgery and the whole family is going to be staying with him, so we'll have the sub again. I like her, but I think he was slightly stressed at leaving us to do more than just practise. Also I seem to have acquired a reputation for earning amazingly quickly - which is OK for the hand forms - I generally understand the motivation behind things (because they're explained really well) and so I go home and practise so that my arms and legs can catch up with my brain. This was made slightly difficult by my not having too many swords lying around at home...

Either way he was pushing us to learn more and more and more last night and I was totally lost and confused! There's one step that I found particularly difficult until the guy I practise with told me to pretend I was spin-bowling a cricket ball with a sword in my hand. Then it was much better! And the teacher was getting frustrated that we couldn't learn half the form in an evening...

Secondly the guy I practise with got mildly.... sword-happy. I understand, it's very very cool to wave a sword around, but there were moments when I was convinced I was going to lose appendages by the end of the lesson (the swords aren't sharp, but they can probably inflict a nasty injury if wielded at speed...). He's also done wushu before and so knows some sword-wielding and so every now and then hes start windmilling the thing around without checking how far away I was... and I would screech and jump out of the way while the rest of the class watched and giggled (we were the only young ones last night and I think they all feel vaguely parental towards us and find us highly amusing! I think they have had bets running as to the time before first blood). It's also difficult because we're used to practising a certain distance from each other and now we have to readjust so we don't hit each other while still being able to see each other and the teacher properly...

After the milliont near-miss I did what any self-preserving individual would do - I stole his sword and ran off with it! And then I tried to point both at hm but it didn't work... I need to learn more!

All the while the advanced people were advancing from the other direction doing the more complicated form. And the beginners were practising their stuff in front of us. I'm getting good at backpedal-hopping without missing too many steps or losing posture! I think we need a bigger studio!

Despite all this, there's something amazing about learning to use a sword. I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. It feels almost... right... in a way to have it while you do stuff. And a lot of the steps involve standing up with one knee brought us and leg bent at an angle while you hold it horizontally over your head like this:

image from here


and it feels amazing! I can't describe it! It's so much fun!

Anyway i stopped on my way in to the lab this morning and got my very own shiny sword! And I can't wait to get home and practise! I'm not ever that sore from the TOD (as long as I don't move my arms too much...)