Thinking on this today, I started to consider why it is that my kung fu practice is suffering so when I have no difficulty keeping up with these other things that aren’t, honestly, quite as interesting to me. I quickly determined that two things I am lacking in my kung fu practice are the structure of regular practice and the expectations that go along with that and the social aspect of being a part of a group activity. In the case of the push ups, the social aspect is largely ‘virtual’. Chatting here and there online with others, some who are also following the same program, others who just note my mention of it and chat with me about it a bit. In the case of the walking, the social aspect is much more evident as the walks tend to be an hour or more outdoors with several other people. In both cases, the structure of a schedule somehow makes it easier to allocate the time, and with the push ups schedule being more loose, I can easily see how it is much more likely to start skipping or get busy.

With this in mind, and even before I had started to recognize my desire for this sort of structure consciously, (Perhaps simply before I was willing to acknowledge it.)  I decided to look into a nearby school, Clearwater Kung Fu, or Nick Scrima’s Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Center. I spent a good bit of time looking over the web site and was pleased to find that there is a good bit of similarity in some of the styles taught there to the style that I had been learning.

Wanting to know more about the school, I continued to poke around the internet. I know the best thing for me to do is to go to the school and find out more first hand, but I figured that would have to wait for another day as it was already past 10pm when I started thinking about it. I doubt that poking around a kung fu school in the middle of the night is wise. Looking around on google, a youtube video caught my eye and I followed the link to watch it. The sifu introduced himself, making mention of Clearwater Kung Fu Center and walked through a technique. From there I noted several videos by this same person and I spent some time watching a handful of them. I was not too certain what I thought of the technique, but I kept in mind that this may not be the school I am meaning to look at, that if it were I would still benefit from the structure and social aspect of joining, as well as the fitness.

After a good bit of clicking through from video to video, I did find a nice playlist of balance exercises that I will share here. After all, balance and structure are quite closely related. Of particular note, I liked the (repeated) mention of placing the weight on the inside of the foot in these exercises, something I do not recall noting from previous training. I know I will be watching these some more this weekend and working each of these as I continue to need work on my structure and balance. I hope others can also find value in them.

When I first considered the prospect of moving away from Jackson, MS all the way to Tampa, FL I dreaded the thought of no longer being able to progress in the kung fu system I had grown to love. I knew there would be plenty of other kung fu families I could join in Tampa, but I had grown rather attached to what I had been learning and absolutely hated the thought of abandoning the goals I had set for myself of attaining my black belt in the Lung Shou Pai tradition and considering that as my new starting point.

Consistently able to help me in regards to my kung fu practice, Siheng Glover determined that there not only was someone I may be able to practice with in the Tampa area, but someone who was a master level black belt in the system. He made contact with Master Geoff and got us connected via email, which ultimately lead to us finally meeting up this evening for a good, if somewhat short, practice at a nearby state park. (Which I will certainly be exploring further in the near future as it seemed to be a very nice, large park.)

Today’s work out started with forms. We went through Yun Tung, Chen Ch’eng, Tiger, Combined Set and the little bit of Crane I had learned before moving, and then a few additional steps in that. We then jumped into some one-step drills that I had been previously unfamiliar with which each involved a single deflection along with a combination of hand strikes or kicks. We worked through five different one-steps to each side.

Showing up, I really did not know what to expect. I suppose this was, at least to some degree, mutual. I am very pleased with the practice we had and I am looking forward to the next opportunity to practice with Master Geoff again, which is tentatively scheduled for sometime next week, dependent on scheduling. Despite the workout that was approximately just over an hour being plenty to wear me down a good bit, I am hoping to spend a bit more time next week and push the endurance a little more. Tentatively, I am hoping to largely repeat what we did tonight, perhaps with more repetition, as I know my lack of practice, both this past few months and even months prior to that in some cases, has been hard on my ability to work through any of the forms beyond Yun Tung and perhaps Chen Ch’eng. Adding a little more to Crane would be excellent as well.

I think in the short term, what I would very much like to do is learn the rest of what I would have learned this previous session with Sifu Crake, along with new material like the one-steps we practiced tonight and then really become solid in this and the material I have learned to date. I suppose what I would like to manage is to reach a point where I feel very confident that I could pass the brown belt test I missed out on in the move, and add to that some amount of material that I might not have learned had I not moved, but that has been taught before at this level.

I do not know yet if I will seek to earn further belts in this system, or how I might do so. I do know that after I have reached this short term goal, I do wish to continue to grow as a practitioner of Lung Shou Pai and eventually be a black belt level student, whether I am awarded such or not. After all, the goal has never been to have the black belt, but to be capable of performing at the level of one who has earned their black belt.