*Transcendental *Logic

Okay, so all last week my sleep-schedule was like, b-b-b-b-WAAAAAAAUGhominahomina-pfft-SPLAT.

I kid you not.

However, this resulted in the Finishing of the Room and the Actual Moving In of my honest-to-compost Dream Roommate, so although there are still some yawns and kinks, life is definitely good overall.  A good chunk of the East Coast is probably burning me in effigy this week, for stealing one of their finest and tucking her away in my distressingly Midwestern sanctuary…but they can suck it.  I’m still seeing stars, I’m so happy she’s here. 

We went walking in the woods which are inexplicably five minutes from my house* the other day.  Also, Dream Roommate goes to Taiji with me tonight.  I will overdose on Squee!

And tomorrow is Hold Onto Your Patriotic Asses Day!  I’m having a party at my house.  We will have ridiculously good food (just in case this is the last time we can afford it) and watch TV and probably throw something at least once.

Nationals aside, in my state there are two amazingly important votes going on — one (Prop 1) to legalize medical marijuana effing FINALLY, and one (Prop 2) to support stem-cell research duh.  Naturally I’ve seen more signs against both of those than for them, but this means nothing other than that stupid people are loud, and we knew that.  ;)

And AND and, remember Unnamed Project X, that recently transmogrified into a real-on-paper business?  Well, next week it starts getting real on the paper that matters most — the little green kind.  The independence of running my own business has been one of my bigger goals for a long time now, and it will mean a lot for the big goal next in line behind it … so good thoughts for me, please?  I’m nervous as hell.

…

…What, you want to watch Mr. Vampire too?  I don’t blame you, of course!  It happens to be online, free, here.  Enjoy!

*As distinguished from the woods that are inexplicably five seconds from my house.  This is why I love Michigan, seriously:  Suburb, city, doesn’t matter; the woods are never very far.  Forests own this land, and they don’t let anybody forget it — stop mowing in downtown Detroit for a year, and you’d have vines growing all the way up the skyscrapers.  LOVE this place.

Is everybody, even basically unassuming folks, just a little vain about something, or is it just me?

I realized the other day that I’m quite vain about my hair.  (To be fair, ignoring it would be difficult; it is Legion!)  I always thought that because I didn’t fuss with it very much, I must not be very attached to it…but it’s probably more accurate to say that I don’t fuss with it very much because I don’t believe that fussing with it is good for it.  My no-blow-dryer, no-hairspray, no-heavy-chemicals-or-harsh-soaps edict is a bit more fashionista than monastery, I fear. 

I knew when I realized that I have four devices with which to preen my hair — a plastic brush, a fine plastic comb, a boar-bristle brush and an ox-horn comb — and that I use them all regularly, and for specific types of follicular manipulation. 

FOUR!  Henry David Thoreau would have a heart-attack at the sight of that, probably.

Hm.  Well, hopefully my complete failures at things like fingernails, makeup and clothing will buy me some austerity-points when I need them!

And, for fun, a non-exclusive list of AWESOME MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES TO SEE IF YOU HAVEN’T:

*   Iron Monkey

*  Drunken Master

*  Once Upon A Time in China (all of them!)

*  The One

*  Kung Fu Hustle

*  Shaolin Soccer

*  The Big Fight

Ah, gotta love those moments when you suddenly realize that you have a second to write something you’ve been meaning to write, and moreover, you remember what the something was!

Magic, I tell you.

Anyway, here’s today’s, while I have it:  Sometimes, whether during adaptation or just due to Situational Crap, you may find that you have time to lay down, but are not able to fall asleep.  Maybe your brain’s going eight hundred miles an hour, or you have a headache or some other distracting physical condition, or for whatever reason sleep just won’t come.  In this situation, it’s miles better to lay and relax for your 20 minutes than to get up — staying horizontal keeps you on-schedule, and you’ll get a little rest, if not as much as you would have if you’d slept.  By doing this meditation, though, I’ve found that I can get nearly all the benefit of a full nap, even if I can’t fall asleep.

I’m not making any claims about this technique being able to "replace sleep" in the grand sense, okay?  Just that it seems to work very well for countering the effects of nap-insomnia.  Plus, I have it on authority that there are good mental and physical (especially immune-system-related) benefits to doing this regularly anyway (which is, in fact, why I first tried it when I couldn’t sleep one day).  So, if you’re going to lay around for twenty minutes anyway, might as well use the time well, right?  Right.

Here it is.  The instructions look long because I’m trying to be clear about exactly how this works, but the whole exercise need only take a couple minutes.  It may put you to sleep (it does me, about half the time), and it may not, in which case you should get up relaxed and refreshed when your timer goes off.

1.  Lay on your back, if possible, and relax your body completely.  Close your eyes.

2.  Focus on your hands or feet (pick one).  Try to feel them as alive, not just as objects.  They have energy running through them — the electricity that constantly flies around every part of your body, via your nervous system* — see if you can sense it.  (Chances are very good that you will be able to, because, well, it’s there — if you can’t sense it though, move on through the exercise and just keep trying; you’ll get it.)

3.  Pay as much attention to that feeling of internal energy as much as you can.  You’ll notice that it gets stronger the more you focus on it; get it going as strongly as you can.

4.  Now, move your attention up your arms (or ankles).  Feel the sensation of inner energy — like the thrum of a running computer (which, ironically I guess, is also powered by circulating energy around inside it) — moving with your focus.  It may be less clear as it moves; don’t worry about that.

5.  Slowly move your attention all the way up to the top of your head, feeling that "running on power" sensation all the way.  Then, as soon as you get the head going good, push your attention down your neck, into your chest, stomach, abdomen, hips, thighs, legs, and all the way down to your feet.  Pause at your feet a minute and get the feeling back good and strong.

6.  Now, several times, run your attention up to your head and down to your feet — take it slow, and try to keep your focus sharp and keep feeling that sensation.  (You will probably notice that the sensation of internal energy "sloshes" a bit, lagging somewhat behind the focus of your attention — this is normal.  It is also, in fact, the source of the Chinese maxim, "Chi follows Yi", which literally means "internal energy follows your attention/imagination".)  If you start to lose the feeling, you’re probably tensing up (which is a natural thing to do when dealing with an unfamiliar mental challenge, so don’t worry; just relax when you remember to and keep going).

7.  When you’ve done that a few times, stop and let things "settle".  Now try to feel the energy in your whole body, all at once.  See if you can sense it as an unbroken field, rather than just in sections or threads.  Relax and focus and see how thrummy and glow-y you can make yourself feel…and just hold it.  Laying there in that state (brain-wave state or physical state or whatever it is) feels rather like laying in a tanning booth, or in the sun; it’s warm and both energizing and relaxing.  If your mind starts to wander, don’t worry, just pull it back when you realize what it’s doing and go back to feeling that internal energy.  Keep it up until your alarm says to stop!

And of course, a neat side-effect, besides making the most out of your insomninaps and being as rested as you reasonably can…you’ll be learning how to feel Chi!  Practice that for a decade or two and you’ll be all kinds of badass.  ;)

Enjoy your Monday, everyone…
PD

*and possibly more subtle things, but that’s not my "field".  (GET IT?!  ;)

So, I’ve always "done" a lot of "things", or at least been interested in them.  But usually I’m the jack-of-all-trades type; I know a little about a lot, and a lot about very little.  Thus, dedication and discipline-in-the-long-term don’t really come naturally to me — but this is something I specifically wanted to overcome when I signed up for Taiji classes.

I realized recently that that’s about two years ago now.  (Note:  yes, I started my Everyman schedule and signed up for Taiji within six months of each other.  The Taiji was partially reward for adjusting to Everyman, partially motivation to keep it up, since it does take a fair bit of time!)

Two years.  That’s the longest I’ve ever continued any physical endeavor or hobby, and by a long shot too.  (The closest was when I took a typical Americanized Tai Chi class for about a year, several years before this class.  That class was nothing compared to this, though.)  It’s actually made a palpable difference in who I am — a sobering realization.

I’m…a martial artist.  I’ve started to think of myself as a martial artist.  To enjoy walking like one, breathing like one, analyzing a situation like one.  Of course there are many kinds of martial artist, and in the details one can easily see that I’m a Traditional Chinese martial artist; but that’s less shocking to me than that I’m martial artist, period.

I have a ton more training to do, that I fully expect to take the rest of my life.  I’ve never been interested in just Taiji; but it’s been an awesome jumping-off point and I’m amazingly glad I started with it.  The balance, strength, focus, breathing, energy-control and principles that I’m learning from it are, I think, the perfect foundation for other forms to build on.   In a few months I’ll be starting a shorin ryu class.  Shorin ryu is actually two steps more martial than Taiji (even the relatively martial taiji we do at my kun); one step more martial would be traditional kungfu, which is what I would have picked for my next class, but circumstances forbid it for now.  This might not be a bad thing, though, since the shorin ryu isn’t as physically demanding as full-on kungfu.

Shorin ryu, if you’re curious, is Okinawan karate.  At some point, Chinese Shaolin monks taught some of their "moving meditation" exercises to Okinawans.  The Okinawans gave it their own, more practical and martial, twist — and then, as a sign of goodwill and politics (I’ve been told), taught a stripped-down version of it to the neighboring (and often threatening) Japanese. 

So anyway, kung fu + Okinawa = Shorin ryu + Japan = karate.  Much to my amusement, this means that the "karate" in the Karate Kid?  Yeah — is actually Shorin ryu.  That’s why you don’t see a crane-style kick in any of your usual Tae Kwon Do-type karate forms…because there isn’t one.  (Also note the taiji-like balancing exercises on the posts.)  "Crane style" is a clear reference to Northern Crane Style kungfu, which is the kungfu developed in the Northern Shaolin Temple in China.

Oh, something else weird?  I’m getting flexible.  I’ve never been flexible, at all, at all.  But suddenly, it seems, I’m the most flexible person in a room more often than not.  I just realized yesterday that I routinely lift my foot up onto the kitchen counter and put my forehead on my knee, just for a nice stretch.  No WAY could I have done that before!  But part of our class is some pretty intense stretching Yoga, and I guess it’s showing that I’ve been doing it a couple times a week for two years.

The unholy balance thing?  Yeah, I have that, but I had that from the Americanized taiji class too–it’s a taiji "staple", I think.  So, fun, but not as weird.

And I’m definitely stronger, and have more endurance in several ways.  I can control my breathing tons better than I ever could before (and as I’ve mentioned, as a major side-benefit it improved my singing!).  Okay.  But the psychological changes are the ones that really startle me.  I tend to want to work out now; I feel shitty if I don’t get some *real* exercise every day.  I have to practice at least some of my forms every day, too — I used to have to convince myself to do them, and often fail to, but not anymore; I’m uncomfortable if I don’t. 

And I’ve become concerned about things like wrist strength (I know my sword forms now, but executing some of the moves right takes some serious arm-oomph!) and not twisting or lifting wrong and hurting myself.  I’ve actually…become physical, in a way that I never was before.

As always, succeeding a little opens up a whole can of must-succeed-more worms.  But overall, I’d say it’s been overwhelmingly positive. 

So, yeah, apologies if I turn into a bit of a martial arts evangelist.  Especially when I start taking a more aerobic, weight-loss-inducing* class!

*  To be fair, my desire to lose a few (more) pounds is totally cosmetic…health-wise, I’m probably in better shape than I’ve ever been.  I don’t need the chiropractor hardly at all anymore, as long as I go to class at least twice a week and practice every day.  …And that saves some serious ducets!

Ah-ha-ha! Here’s something I’ve been looking for a concise way of saying…thank goodness for old kungfu movies, eh?

This is an exchange between characters in Fist of Legend. Bolding is mine, obviously (unless you’re used to seeing bolded dialog in movies–?)

Chen Zhen:
The object of matching is to beat down the opponent.

Fumio Funakoshi:
Wrong kid, the best way to beat the opponent is to use a gun. … The goal of studying martial arts is to maximize one’s energy. If you want to achieve that goal, you must understand life and the universe. … Fighting is for animals.

- Interaction between Chen Zhen (Jet Li) and Fumio Funakoshi in Fist of Legend

Yup yup…

Thanks to wujimon for the quote!