(un)tangled thoughts

There was a post about this at my fingertips for a while now but I haven't had time to dig into my own thoughts about it. But with my blog being behind schedule and the beta version of our form being due today, I want to acknowledge my new weapon and the process of coming up with my own form. This has been my first attempt at putting together a form. When I joined the IHC in a hurry a few weeks ago I was reasoning that joining the team in itself is a giant challenge and that I would pick an existing school form for my first year. For one this would make it easier to get started and hit the ground running and two, I figured it will help me refine a form that I have been familiar with for quite a while. Obviously, this decision has changed thanks to some gentle nudging in my conversations with sifu Ryack and sifu Brinker prior to joining the team and I am glad for it. That night I was pacing our house for inspiration and I found my weapon relatively quickly in my kitchen. "Quirl...

  After our second open training on Saturday, I felt a sensation of accomplishment. I finally have the full sequence of Da Mu Hsing V memorized. I know it's just another part of another form but it is the one form that I have been learning from my first day of Kung Fu or even further back when I learned by watching my sons from the bench. It feels like a bit of a milestone so I padded myself on the shoulder for it. There were numerous other fantastic learning opportunities that presented themself and I thank all of you for your time and patience! One lesson came a bit delayed, and while I knew there was an opportunity, I didn't anticipate its impact. During training, I asked my son to take a video of me, doing my beta version of my "Quirl" form (by the way the closest word I can think of for pronunciations is s~quirl, just forget about the S!). I wanted to gain some information on the length of my form and of course, get a sense of what it looks like from the outside....

 My Highlight yesterday was the walk with my oldest son. One of my personal requirements is taking each of my boys separately (although not always) on a couple of my weekly walks. I wanted to make sure they benefit a little bit from my new habits and create an opportunity to bond and be able to have private conversations. Well, today Leon my jolly teenager volunteered to join me. He was being silly and pretending to be blind, using his kung fu stick to orient himself inside the house and putting on his shoes. My first reaction was a bit impatient, as there is always so much more to do in the day, and watching a 13-year-old boy taking a seemingly endless time to put on his shoes while squeezing his eyes together "for no good reason" was challenging. But then I remembered our exercise at last week's IHC class when we were supposed to navigate through this maze. I wondered if Leon could or would want to try to walk the whole trail without his eyesight and of course, that was...