YMAA CA Retreat Center Journal: June 2008

Tuesday - 6/17:
I arrived in Boston at 4:30PM and didn't get home until around 6:00PM. I settled down a little and went straight to YMAA Andover. I know that for the next three weeks I'm supposed to be on break from martial arts but.. oh well. I walked in right before Mr. Fazzio and Mr. Kiesel started running a test for some of the kids. Mr. Kiesel saw me and came outside of the room to say hi. We chatted a little bit and then he asked me to demonstrate after the test. In my head, I was thinking, "I just got home 30 minutes ago and you want me to demonstrate already?" I wasn't sure if he was joking or not, so I halfheartedly said okay, thinking it wouldn't happen. However, immediately after the test, he called me up. Having had to get up at 3:30AM, drive an hour and a half to the airport, sit in a plane for 7 hours, then sit in a car in traffic for another hour and a half... I didn't really have the energy to perform. Too late though, I was already standing there in front of everybody. I asked Mr. Fazzio and Mr. Kiesel what they wanted me to do, hoping it wouldn't take too much out of me. "Yi Lu Mai Fu? Xiao Fu Yen? Eagle?" -- "Hrm, yeah... right. How about Taijiquan?" We compromised with Lian Bu Quan. Surprisingly, doing kung fu wasn't too bad. I hadn't practiced many forms at the Retreat Center. Only basic stances and kicks so I wasn't feeling very confident. Lian Bu Quan didn't feel too bad though. I could feel my body being more connected than before leaving for California. Afterwards, I began to wonder why. My conclusion: all the Taijiquan practice. Slow and soft really helped me become less tense and I could feel more of a connection between my legs and arms.

After the testing I got to chat a little bit with some of my students and their parents. The expected, "how was California?" came up a lot. It was a little repetitive but I really enjoyed being able to see and talk to everybody again. Afterwards, Mr. Fazzio's Qi Xing Dao seminar began. I was a little disappointed that there weren't as many kung fu students there and the class was half filled with Taiji people and anonymous others. The class was fun though. It was a good feeling to be practicing under Mr. Fazzio again, and the environment was more relaxed than in California. Not that I wanted to slack off, I felt it gave me a chance to "take it easy" for a little bit.

When Qi Xing Dao ended, I went and joined Paul's Taiji Ball seminar. It was interesting and gave me a chance to loosen up after saber class. There's always been something about Paul's teaching that I really enjoyed. Whenever I'm in his class, it always seems like he makes it his goal to personally help each student out as much as possible. I enjoy listening to what he has to say about Taijiquan theory and martial applications because most of the time it makes me think.

Wednesday - 6/18:
Home is boring. Compared to California, there really isn't much to do. I have to prepare some things for Dr. Yang's seminars, but that's about all I have to do at home. Most of my friends are either away or have to work so I end up spending my day listening to music and really doing nothing at all. The best part of the day seems to be when I get to go into Yang's to train.

I went in early to warm up before class and got to see Inga. She had gotten surgery on her ankle a while ago and was recovering. I had gotten to talk to her online from California but it was nice to chat in person. We spoke mostly about her surgery and some about California. She had to leave early though and we had to cut our conversation short.

My first adult class since being back was pretty big. I had heard some discomforting news about it's continuation and was surprised to see how many people had come in. I was glad to see that people still cared about the future of the class and attended. I felt more at home in class than I did at my house earlier. I felt like I belonged and that I was with my family once again. I was happy.

Paul's Taijiquan class was after kung fu. He was doing a review of the Taijiquan form. It was great to be able to practice and refine each of the movements at the beginning of the form. It was different than training with Dr. Yang. Instead of leaving it to me to learn everything on my own, Paul carefully explained each movement with much detail. I enjoyed comparing what I had learned in California with what he was saying and everything began to make more sense for me. We had trained the form and it's martial applications, but we were missing the smaller details and we were still working on a sense of feeling within. Being able to add in more detail, even for a few movements, made me feel like I had improved by at least 10 times.

Thursday - 6/19:
Mr. Fazzio had allowed me to go in and help out with the classes. Being able to see some of my students put me into a good mood. It was Review week in Andover and Mr. Fazzio tested their knowledge on YMAA and the history of kung fu. I was extremely impressed at what the students had learned. Three months ago, before I left, they didn't know half of the answers. But now, they were getting almost all of the questions correct. All classes went well except for the teens class. There was only one student if Grace and Zaida weren't counted. Luckily they had come in early to practice and made it look like there were more students. -- I hope that this is because of school finals and because of summer vacation coming up.

The adult class went well. Numbers were down compared to yesterday though. Only Grace, Zaida, Matt, and myself. Michelle Lin also stopped by to say hi. Although she wasn't there to train, she stayed for the whole class. It was nice to see someone from the generation above me. I wish that group would all come back at once to visit and take class with us. The environment would definitely be different. Having people who were more intense really helped me grow as a martial artist. They were the role models, the group I looked up to, the people I wanted to train to become more alike. -- I feel like that may be one of the problems now. My generation wasn't as devoted and we surely weren't as good as those before us. The next generation may not have become as interested in martial arts because they didn't see what we saw in it.

I attended my first Taiji push hands class today. It was interesting to be able to experience some centering drills. I enjoyed learning and practicing something different. Again, Paul taught, and again, he made everything clear for me. I was glad that he had me work with Dan, too, so I had someone with experience to help me out. Dan didn't only show me what to do but helped me to understand why certain movements worked. Being able to experience centering answered a lot of questions I had in my head. It was a lot more different than seeing people practice it. It was also harder than I thought it would be. -- Just something else to train and improve on.

Current thoughts:
What can I do to influence the next generation? How do I show them what I saw in the generation before me? How will they get that drive to want to learn and train more, for martial arts knowledge?

YMAA California Retreat Center [ 5.25.2008 ]
Even at the age of 62.. he's amazing.