Time Still Well Spent

Although it's been less than 10 days since my last formal class, it feels like I've been on this break for about a month.  Lol.  I got together with my partner on Friday and it was clear that my body was not moving as per the norm.  That's not to say I've been doing nothing.  I've done a few reps of this or that, here and there, but mostly just for the sake of moving, rather than working on anything in particular.  Obviously there is the hustle and bustle of Christmas that throws a wrench into routine...but I also find it difficult to do any training when I have extra people in my house.  

But to be quite honest, I'm actually feeling okay about it all. I'll be ramping things up again soon enough.  And the time that I shifted from my Kung Fu to family has been time well spent and not anything that I have any regrets about in the least.  

Shuffle Shuffle

Once again, I learned the lesson that working with a partner adds a whole different dimension of challenges.

Going through our demo on Thursday, our first run through had my partner "falling" off the stage.  Next go around, as we approached that portion I thought "oh right!!  I can't let her fall off the stage this time!".  And so I simply shuffled a bit over, thinking "ok, crisis averted".  Haha.  Nope.  I shuffled, but now she was completely in the wrong position for our roll.  Whoops.

In years prior, it's been easy (not really...but now in comparison it was...lol) to switch my stance, take an extra step, take one less step...whatever I needed to do to make the space on the stage work.  I can't do that with a partner.  With any change made, we affect each other.

Having said that...I don't think that puts us in a place where we just say "oh well...nothing I can do".

What it means is that we have to be hyper-aware...in real time...of any adjustment or misstep that might occur with our partner, and then adjust ourselves accordingly.  Seems to me that this will be a very transferable skill.

A Little Less Fluff

As we continue to work on our fan form in preparation of the upcoming banquet, we’ve been looking at the length and trying to determine which portions we really want to showcase. Good news is that there actually aren’t very many bits that we don’t like and to me that means we actually like our form. Lol.  Bad news… Actually, there really isn’t any bad news. We started to take a really deep look at the different sequences in our form. The first thing we looked for was duplication of techniques. Those were easy spots to remove to reduce our time. From there, we started to look deeper at our stepping and our transitions. We found a few spots where we were able to become a bit more efficient, shaving a second here and a second there. We tried it out yesterday to the section of the music that we’ve been assigned for now, and I am so excited to say that it works perfectly. I’m also really happy with some of the little tweaks we made because it does feel better for flow. 

This exercise of trimming down our form was really insightful and I started to wonder how much fluff we sometimes have in there just filling space. And I don’t mean that every little move has to be applicable. But everything should have intent. And sometimes that intent is just to pose and look awesome.  

So don’t worry.  We kept those parts in. 

Besties

Sihing Burke asked on Thursday whether the team had kept in touch with their "besties" that were initiated at the start of the year.  The answer for me is "yes" and she just so happens to be one of mine.

I think my group has worked for a few different reasons.  For one, we created a WhatsAp group to communicate immediately following that class where we check in, share, poke, etc.  I am also quite connected to my group outside of our "bestie" group with things like lion dancing, the fan and teaching.  So there's really nowhere to hide.  Something else that stands out to me is that it hasn't fallen on just one person to maintain the connection.  As I look through our thread, we've all stayed active, both responding to and initiating communication.  And when it's gone quiet for a bit, someone pipes up.  There were even occasions where we attempted to participate in each others requirements to try and generate some momentum for the other person and to try and share in why their goal was important to them.

We have all sputtered and drifted off track....but then suddenly there's been someone pulling us back.

As an example, I was recently tasked with implementing a plan to get back on track with my notes.  How did they know I had fallen off?  Well...because someone knew to ask.  And so I agreed that I needed to do something.  I was then asked to set a deadline.  Damn, ok....getting specific now.  And so I did.  And THEN it was agreed that if I didn't meet my deadline, that my besties would be allowed to come up with an appropriate consequence, but that I wouldn't know what it was in advance.  And to be quite honest, I didn't want to find out.  And so did I meet my deadline?  You bet I did.  And would I have gotten this going again on my own?  Probably not.

So for me, personally, my bestie group has definitely added value to my year.