Hand To Core, Core To Hand

As I was recovering from my back injury, I was doing a lot of visualization work, and I noticed something in Da Mu Hsing 4 that I want to explore further.  For the time being, I simply need to get these thoughts on paper before they're lost.

During the second bell block sequence, we end with the ridge hand, then slide-step into a horse stance with a right palm and a slight push.  Please bear with me....I know that terminology can sometimes create confusion.

As I continued visualizing the movement, I found myself imagining my ridge hand remaining stationary while my body moved around it, almost like Bagua circle walking. I found this really interesting because I'd never thought about this section in that way before.

Once I began thinking of the hand as remaining fixed while the body moved around it, I started wondering what application might fit that idea.  Without getting too complicated, I imagined a ridge hand to the neck where the hand maintains contact as I move around the opponent (sticky hands?), followed by a palm heel, or even just a push, from behind.  This also reminded me a lot of the triangle stepping we do, where we continue moving around our opponent while they remain relatively stationary. I know there are several other places throughout our forms where this same idea seems to appear.

Discussing this further in a one-on-one, I realized I was only scratching the surface.  If I start thinking about expansion and contraction during these types of movements, it becomes even more interesting.

Typically, we expand by launching a strike outward and then contract by drawing everything back into our center.  In these cases, we still expand by extending the strike, but instead of contracting by withdrawing the arm, we contract by bringing the rest of our body toward the point of contact.  Rather than the hand returning to the core, the core returns to the hand.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this (and have since also experimented with it in my training), and I'm not even sure it translates well into writing.  But it feels like a different way of thinking about expansion and contraction and I think there's something much deeper here than I first realized.

Connection, Alignment and the Six Harmonies

Today's Kao Shi class was my first class back on the mats.

I'm so glad to say that it went really well. Better than I had anticipated, in fact.  I still went slow and deliberate with most everything, but I was able to participate in the majority of the lesson.

A couple things in particular stood out for me.

First was when we were working on our thrust punches from horse stance.  The goal was to ensure that our hips and core were engaging with the same release and rotation as the upper body.  For the first round, I held back.  I was worried about my back.  More specifically, I was worried about engaging those muscles too much and setting myself back again.  So instead of letting the movement happen naturally, I consciously resisted it.

What I found interesting was that this was the round where I felt the most strain.  The pressure wasn't coming from the movement itself.  It was coming from my attempt to prevent the movement.  In the following rounds I stopped trying to control everything and simply allowed my body to do what it wanted to do.  The hips rotated.  The core engaged.  And everything worked together.

The second was when we were doing our forms work.  I was being very deliberate about my alignment.  Any reaching or leaning is still painful.  Those are the movements that continue to remind me that my back isn't quite ready yet.  So throughout the class, I paid close attention to settling over my hips and maintaining my structure.  I found that my movements felt really good and I was able to avoid any of the pressure and pain that I've been anticipating.

At first, these felt like two separate lessons.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized they were really the same.

The body functions best when everything is connected and working together. When one part stops participating, another part is forced to compensate. When we become misaligned, sacrificing our structure, other parts have to pick up the slack.  Whenever something becomes disconnected, we run into problems.

Today was the first time in quite a while that I was able to feel that lesson rather than simply understand it intellectually.

And after several months of injuries, modifications, setbacks, and frustrations, it felt really good to leave class not just feeling better, but feeling like I was learning again.

A Message To My Team

A quick message to my team and instructors,

I'm not going to lie—I was relieved when we ran out of time today.

I know I need to share how I'm doing in order to work through it all. I also realize my recent blog was only the first step, not a resolution of any kind. But to be honest, right now I'm not in a place where I think I could speak openly and honestly, face-to-face, and still hold it together.  So I apologize for not speaking up.

That said, I promise I'm not wallowing. At least, I'm aware of how easy it would be to do that, and I'm trying my best not to. Rather, my current situation just feels overwhelming, and not just with Kung Fu. My home life feels paused as well. Everything churning around in my head is making it difficult to formulate the plans I need in order to keep moving forward with confidence.

These are the questions I keep coming back to:

• What can I still do right now, in this very moment?

• Once I am moving again, how should I ease back into training?

• Whether it's my knee or my back, what do I need to avoid, and what should I focus on instead?

• What are the chances I'll be able to participate on July 1, and what might that realistically look like?

• What modifications can I make to my requirements, both personal and pre-set, so I can continue to honour the spirit of them and still get the most out of the experience?

• How will this all affect my grading year specifically?  How should I approach my physical candidate requirements if these injuries continue to linger? Board breaking? Five applications?  And will there be ways to do this as to still qualify for a grading?

• How do I still support the team, and my fellow candidates, in a meaningful way?

• What modifications should I be considering for my staff form, whether temporary or permanent?

• How will I approach instructing, lesson planning, and managing classes?

And then, essentially, repeat most of those same questions in relation to my home and family life.

I fully recognize where I'm at, and I know this feeling will pass. But I also recognize that it won't be the injuries healing that determines when it passes, it's the plan.

I could still be bedridden and get through this slump if I could come up with a plan that made me feel like I was still moving forward. That's what's holding me back right now. I can't seem to come up with an action plan that I feel good about.

But as I was writing this, something shifted slightly.

Listing these things out makes them feel less like one giant tangled problem and more like several smaller problems that can be tackled one at a time.

So here's my first plan:

Today, I'm only going to work on the first question.

What are all the things I can still do right now, in this very moment?

Here's To Hoping

It was about 2 weeks ago in our Saturday meeting that I shared that I was feeling pretty decent. Numbers were on track. I felt I was doing what I needed to (and could) be doing. Less than 2 weeks later and it's a very different story.

Let's start with last week, where I was starting to feel a bit frustrated with the progress of my knee.

At my last appointment, we didn't see much improvement. So I'm going to be heading back to the doctor to see if he'll refer me for an MRI. I still can't bend fully, both due to pain and inflammation. There is still a lot of localized pain when I try to move laterally. I will feel fine in stances one minute, and then suddenly can't the next...for no obvious reason. This in itself makes modifying difficult. I can't really determine what I should or shouldn't be doing. I'll do something that was fine the day before, but this time it goes badly and sets me back again.

I continue to modify. I continue to remove myself from certain activities. This has now been for the majority of the year. I injured myself March 9 and have been modifying since. I've spent more than 13 weeks of my grading year modifying my training, and counting. And it's really starting to weigh on me mentally.

At double brown I'm definitely not looking for reasons not to be doing things. I get that there are things I will likely never be awesome at. But I still want to be able to do them, even at a low level. I absolutely hate saying, "I can't do this right now." And I hate even more that I'm starting to think this phrase is actually turning into "I can't do this" period.

Last year with my spear, I was working on the inside cyclone/spinning flying outside cyclone/inside cyclone. Was I awesome at it? No. But I was making progress little by little. At this point though, will this be a kick I ever attempt again? I think it's a serious possibility that the answer is no. And the same goes for a lot of things.

I'm just feeling myself getting further and further behind. I've been removing myself from free sparring in class. And although sparring is one of those things that intimidates me, that doesn't mean I don't want to do it. It's the opposite, in fact. I want to do it because I want to get better at it. Watching these past classes and not being able to participate has left me feeling like I'm missing out on all this opportunity. Every class I sit out feels like time I can't get back. Everyone else is building experience while I'm standing still. And in a grading year, that feels especially hard.

I can't grapple. I can't do throws. I can't do most kicks. I can't work on my 5 applications. Sure, I can go through the motions. Maybe do bits of this or that. But everything is modified. And I get that this is necessary at times. But when will I get back to being able to do this stuff in full? It's just not enough. Not in my grading year. I need to be ON right now. Operating at my best. And I'm simply not. I feel like I don't even know what I'm doing.

And these are all the feelings and thoughts that were bubbling up LAST week. It's sad to think...but I would give anything to go back to last week.

Fast forward to now and my situation feels even worse.

I was having a great day in my garden on Sunday when I realized that my back was starting to hurt. I did NOT push through, but stopped right away. Within the hour I was bedridden, unable to move without a lot of pain. I was out for the rest of the day.

Monday was a little better, but I still kept things low-key and remained mostly stationary. Tuesday better yet. I felt I was good enough to go to classes, but playing it safe, I had others lead and I took on a more supportive role, refraining from anything strenuous. Yet by the time I got home, I was in so much pain that I felt worse than I had on Sunday when it first happened.

Yesterday was bad.  In the morning, I literally had to crawl back to my bed. It was humiliating, scary, and incredibly disheartening. There has been some progress. I can now walk short distances in the house, and I can manage getting in and out of bed. I made a chiropractor appointment for tomorrow, but I honestly don't know if I'll be stable enough to get out of the house.

So now, for the last few days, I HAVE been literally doing nothing.

The knee injury alone doesn't even feel like a big deal anymore. Adding my back to it all, and I'm really feeling lost.

I can't help but think about what this will now mean. More modifications moving forward? More taking it easy? More time spent on the sidelines? All the feelings that were starting to bubble up last week with my knee are now a lot more intense with this additional injury.

I'm trying to stay positive. It might not seem that way from everything above. But I don't necessarily think positivity means putting on a false front and pretending everything is okay. Because honestly, I’m not okay.

Right now I feel lost and disconnected from the path I thought I'd be on.

But I am also holding on to this tiny thread of hope that if things can take a downward turn in less than two weeks, there's a chance they can change for the better in the next two as well. Things have felt dire before. Not this dire, mind you. But I've always come out the other end stronger and with a better understanding of myself than when I went in.

So while I don't know what comes next, and while things certainly don't feel okay right now, I'm trying to remember that difficult periods have happened before. Eventually they passed. I can only hope this will be the same.

Farmer's Days Parade 2026

I actually have alot of things on my brain at the moment.  But I'm exhausted from a long day so just don't have the capacity.

Instead, I just want to say a big Thank-you to everyone that helped make the Farmer's Day Parade a huge success once again.  And a special shoutout to Sihing Bjorkquist....without whom our float would never come to fruition.

Numbers

Situps = 15357

Pushups = 15362

DMH = 312

Staff = 289

AOKs = 318

Kms = 371

Sparring = 162