Blindsided

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" like s-quirl without the "S"!

I started swinging around my kitchen utensil and liked the feel of the movements, I looked at it and decided: yup those potato mashing pokies at the end would hurt, but most of all I fell in love with the idea to be able to grab a thing and develop a feeling of how to make use of it as a weapon if I ever had to.

Now that started a whole other rabbit hole. All of a sudden I saw weapons everywhere around me and I started wondering if the ideas for future weapon forms create that spark to rejoin the team year after year. I have already a list of weapons I can't wait to explore, you might see me one day with my kayak paddle, some antlers in the wild, or swinging the hori hori my favorite gardening tool.

But let's take this one step at a time, how much damage can I do with this tip of a Christmas tree?

Admittedly standing at an empty spot with my weapon of choice is similar to staring at the blank piece of paper before you start your masterpiece, it is intimidating. But using a few different strategies for the decision-making process helped me to narrow it down. 

1. Imagin a situation !

2. What technics I wish I could rock in a movie fight scene?

3. Which combinations don't get practiced enough?

4. Where do my moves create momentum and how can I harness this to make the next move more powerful?

With this in mind, I found the process of stitching together a sequence way easier than initially expected. As I was trying to figure out what I can do with this piece of wood I first realized that the only reason for me to ever use this as a weapon would be as a means of self-defense. That in turn determined my first move, meaning it had to be a block of some sort. I started going through my mental tool kit of blocks and combinations and tried to pick one I don't get to practice repeatedly. I came across the triangle stepping and starting it with a variation of a -reverse outside forearm block type thing - and every move after seemed to come easy and just fell in place. I suddenly imagined being attacked from behind and I visualized how I would take them down. While I do have doubts about the efficiency of my moves or even if some combinations make sense for generating momentum or having any impact, the initial blockage of coming up with a form was gone. 

Having had a chance to play around with creating a form for a little while now and "simultaneously" learning a new part of a school form( Da Mu Hsing V) I see how different my brain and my body are absorbing and processing these new patterns, coming from two opposite sources, one internally and one externally. My brain is well challenged with both but in different ways. While I enjoy adopting a form that is tested and proven, I realize how much I can get tangled up and flustered with "a rotating left arm here" and "another going the opposite way but not too high, and palm out, etc..." I tend to overthink these moves or more so the instructions in their details. On the plus side, I think this helps me to pay more attention to the details, as I learn the moves by stitching together many specifics. When I create my own form I start with sequences, I envision myself doing in a certain way like in a movie, this helps me to think more about the flow and the momentum but it certainly doesn't make me dissect each move into its smallest features or at least not yet. Overall creating a weapon form is fun to me and I'm looking forward to seeing what the end result will be next year.

For presenting our beta form today I am excited and terrified at the same time. I'm excited to see what everybody has come up with and be inspired. I am also ready to get some feedback but I'm miles away from feeling comfortable demonstrating any of it in front of more than two sets of eyes. There are a million things I wish could focus on tonight during those 30 seconds like my center, my fluency and rhythm between certain moves, my balance, my foot positioning as I strike a kick, and so on. But honestly, if I can manage to remember one thing at least, like when to breathe and ground myself in order to manage my anxiety and adrenalin then I have improved already. And ideally, I don't knock anybody out by losing my Quirl!🙈