We finished bagua, yay! We learned the last part on Tuesday and on Wednesday for performance I showed everyone. I only made one mistake which is pretty good considering how new it is. I was ok with it. One of the staff of the school took a video of me, if it wasn't for the stupid internet firewall, I'd post it here. Maybe I can figure out a way around it. I'll try for next week.

I got a weird stomach thing a few days ago and have had a headache since then, perhaps a mild flu or I ate something yucky. Shifu talks a lot about knowing your body is weak before you get sick and preventing it but I'm still just at the point of getting sick and looking back and seeing in hindsight that I could have maybe done something to stop it. I remember on Tuesday being extremely tired but I just attributed it to being the end of the week. Maybe with more practice I can realize these things sooner. Overall though I am much more aware of what is going on inside me. I think it's partly just paying attention but also partly due to our internal training like meditation, qi gong, and tai chi developing greater sensitivity. It's really neat to see improvements like these, things that no one but me can notice.

Last week it rained....and rained, and rained. I usually like rain at home but here it's really annoying because it last like a week sometimes! We also have to train inside which is pretty boring due to lack of space. I honestly don't remember many details from the week, it's a bit of a blur. We sparred one day and did rolls and throwing another day. Nobody got hurt so that means it was a success as far as I'm concerned.

We're almost finished learning our bagua form and that's cool. We learned the seventh part yesterday so only one more to go. This is definitely one of the coolest forms I've ever learned. I can't wait until I'm actually good at it! haha. I think that usually takes a while so I'll have to be patient and keep practicing.

I saw some flowers blooming today. I hope that means spring is finally here. The weather has been so changeable lately.

This past week has been a pretty good one. Our meditation room is finished so we've been meditating again in the evenings. I think everyone is quite happy about it. I also reached a milestone for stretching. At the beginning of every class we stretch. One of the stretches we do involves putting one leg up on a railing and doing a forward bend, bringing our head as close to our foot as possible while pulling the foot in. I've been doing this stretch for 2 years now and it's always been extremely difficult and painful but I kept trying and pushing myself and I finally did it! I touched my head to my toe, on both sides! Some people can do this one in a few months but for me it's very challenging so achieving it felt SO good. It really made my day, no, my week.

We also started getting up early to practice qigong in the morning. Still not going for our run first so we get to sleep in until 5:50 am. yahoo!

I don't have much to say about this last week. I think we're all getting used to the current schedule and lack of meditation, though we're still anxiously awaiting the completion of the renovations. It rained a lot last week and we had to train inside which can get pretty boring and cramped. Other than that nothing really new is going on. I finally finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo (a Christmas gift) and I'd recommend it. At 117 chapters it'd definitely NOT a quick read but it is a really interesting story about revenge and forgiveness. I liked it and thought it was well written. Being here has really changed my literary tastes. I have been reading a lot more classics. At home I usually read non-fiction but here I'm more interested in a well written story.

Well hopefully I'll have more to report next week.

Our meditation room is under construction. The entire third floor (which is where the meditation room is) is being renovated and so we can't use that room. I miss meditation. Especially since we now have training for 2 hours in the evening instead. To me it seems like ant-meditation, we feel more tired and sore after class than we did before. I can definitely notice that in general we're much grumpier too. Overall, it's rather unpleasant.

I remember how hard meditation was at the beginning, sitting in one position for a whole hour was like torture but now I really crave it. Kinda funny. Hopefully it just continues to get better and better with more practice.

I've been knitting a lot but accomplishing little. Started a sock, got about halfway through the toe and decided I hated it. So I started knitting a lacy shawl instead. After numerous mistakes and having to undo it and start again 4 or 5 times, I've finally got it figured out (for now anyway) and I'm having a good time. I guess that'll have to relax my mind until the meditation room is done. I hope it's not much longer now.

Sometimes I feel like I'm too old for this stuff!

Last week we did a bunch of conditioning stuff. Jumps, duck walking, one legged hopping, squat thrusts, etc for 4 days consecutively and boy am I sore. The day off did help but I think it'll actually be an other week or two before I'm all better. Watching some of the younger students recover really makes me realize that my age is starting to catch up with me. I guess I am turning 30 this summer so it shouldn't really surprise me. Oh well, with age comes wisdom. Right? haha

So I'm back to "normal" life again. Mel and I had a safe trip back with no problems. We spent a few days in the city of Xian to check out the terracotta warriors and a few other cool sights. Xian is really cool, I will definitely be heading back there someday. It felt really good to get back to Wudang though. I feel comfortable at home and here, not really anywhere in between though.

We trained for about a week and then had a few days off again for Chinese New Year. It actually worked out very well, we got back into it but then had a few days off to recover from sore muscles before more practice. Chinese New Year was crazy as usual, lots of food, fireworks, and karaoke with very little uninterrupted sleep. It was fun though.

One thing I'm not enjoying is the renovations that are happening on the floor above our room. It is really noisy which is especially annoying in the afternoon between classes when we sometimes like to take a little nap. That floor is also where our meditation room is and it really sucks trying to get to it through a hallway full of debris in the dark, not to mention all the dust. Well I just hope it won't take them too much longer to finish.

The actual kung fu training is pretty good, despite the aforementioned sore muscles. I think we all really needed a break and now everyone seems to have a pretty positive attitude. Shifu hasn't been pushing us too hard yet either so classes are a nice combination of work and play, spending lots of time on individual practice and basics. I'm liking it! I have a lot of flexibility goals for the year and a few others that I'm mulling over. Certain things are hard to quantify, like wanting my side kick to be faster while maintaining proper technique. So I still have some thinking to do.

My major new year resolution was to stay more positive and not let small things get to me as much. So far it's going well, I can usually notice myself getting mentally worked up and control my thoughts. The problem is that sometimes I honestly enjoy being in a bad mood. I know it sounds strange but I think I have some belief that not getting angry about things means I'll get walked all over. Once in a while it feels good to me to be the person that everyone walks on eggshells around. I just hope I can learn to be more constructive about the things I want to be different. Thats why a positive attitude should help, I can keep a clear head and work on changing the things that need it rather than just steaming futilely.