New Students

Today, we had 2 new folks come by and join us for today's class. I'm always excited to see new folks in class, hoping they will join our group and have the benefit of Shifu's teaching.

It's always very useful to watch and observe as Shifu shows the newbies certain things. Today as an example, he had one fellow just press his back against Shifu's back...then, Shifu stepped away, and wow, the guy had great position and alignment of his body and weight. It was amazing seeing that transformation in a new student, and THEN, I was able to check my positioning in the mirror to see if I was aligned well. VERY cool.

Watching Shifu correct a newbie's hand positions was also enlightening...I had been told one particular meaning for a given hand placement; yet, watching Shifu today, he did yet ANOTHER meaning for the same hand placement. It was like a small stroke of enlightenment because in my own mind, I had envisioned a series of applications for that hand positioning, and once I saw the OTHER meaning, well, now I have yet another series of applications that I can envision, practice with and work on.

Yesterday, was Christmas day and we practiced. And, today was my regularly scheduled class. This weekend was the FIRST time since I began training with Shifu, that I could do successive days of practice!! In the past several months, i'd be sooooo sore following one class, that I needed 2-3 days to recover before even beginning to hope that I could take another class. I was totally psyched today. Even though I was shot today, after a couple of hours, still, the progress and improvement in my leg strength is obvious. Way to end the year...I'm totally looking forward to the progress I will have coming in the near future.

I mention this because as a new student, i'm sure sometimes it has to be difficult dealing with memorization, physical changes, and general fatigue and everything fitting into our work and day to day life schedules; stick with it, don't be discouraged and I promise you WILL grow with Shifu's instruction!
J