摧心取脑
好久没写关于空手道和武术的文章了。上星期和学生谈到了一些练武心得。最近也有一些新领悟。这一领悟，和我先前所写的一篇文章有很密切的关系。在此记录一下：
Shoulder bursitis
I had shoulder pain since March. Initially, it began at my left shoulder after waking up one morning. The pain was not too serious until recently (for the past two weeks), I had lousy sleep. Both of my shoulders were aching and often woke me up in the middle of the night. I thought it was some kind of spraining and it would go away after good rest with less training. But it seems to self-exacerbate. The pain was getting more intense every night.
Last night, I read articles about shoulder bursitis or rotator cuff injuries and treatment. After reading these articles, I decided to give it a try. I applied Fastum gel (Ketoprofen) on both shoulders. Guess what? I had the best sleep ever since March. I woke up early this morning without any pain.
Fastum is used to relief localized pain of arthritis, rheumatism or sports injury. I should have acted earlier.
On and off, I had been doing some wauke spontaneously while I was thinking or working on some programming problems. Some kind of off-my-mind of physical activities after sitting in front of computer for too long. I guess it was the effect of banging my head on the keyboard and I lost sense of safety. Without doing proper stretching, I performed wauke with speed and force as in a counter attack situation. That could have torn my muscles or tendons on the bursa and I overlook the seriousness of the pain. How insanely I was!
Alright, now I am on Ketoprofen and I am going to apply it for the second time. Hope my shoulders will recover in a month or two.
Learn to use your muscles
The main basic goal of any martial art training is to learn the fundamental method of using our muscle effectively. During training, it is important to concentrate in the movement of every muscles and to feel exactly which muscles are moving.
By controlling the proper contraction of each muscles, one will gradually learn to use the muscles efficiently and to achieve motion economy. Many people neglects this part of training. A few of them learn to use their muscle without knowing it. If you start your training by learning to use your muscle, you will achieve better result much sooner than the others who don’t.
But how? I remembered my uncle used to talk about some training movement in Taijiquan when I was starting to learn karate. I felt boring listening to his stories. A couple of months ago, my interest sparked again. I talked to him regarding training and learn some secrets from him. Not because I don’t trust him, I reconfirm with dragon to make sure I have a more precise understanding of my uncle’s explanation. He used to brag a lot unnecessarily. 
I will write a series of posts here for the methods to develop muscle, especially the waist, which is the most powerful and every martial artists rely so much.
Grading for improvement
In January, I failed 3 students during their grading test. There were 5 kids from Jasin testing for hachi-kyu. 2 passed and 3 failed. Although the 3 kids were not up to the grading standard, I deliberately tested and failed them. Why?
I am repeating again and again during training every Sunday but they take training very lightly. They don’t pay attention while training and not to mention practicing at home. These kids, including their parents, think it is enough coming for training once a week. Their concepts are wrong, so do many other people in martial arts training. The kids, including adults, come to training not to learn but to prepare their body and mind. The actual training begins when they achieve black belt sho-dan. But many people thinks they are learning which I don’t agree. Yes, learning it is, but to learn how to control our body, every single muscles and mind. That’s the learning I am talking about.
So, tonight, the grading has shown good improvement. 4 kids took the grading. The 3 kids who failed in January had retest and passed at border line and earned their hachi-kyu. The other little girl (8-year-old) had earned her nana-kyu. This girl is improving very fast.
After the grading, their parents arrived to take them home. I took the opportunity to explain to all of them the concept of training and their children’s progress, advantage and weakness. I hope these kids will continue to excel and improve.
Japanese Cultural Performance
The MMU’s Japanese Language Society had organized The Japanese Cultural Night on March 2. My karate doukoukai was given an opportunity to put up a performance on that night. The lead was established in December last year and my students and I had been busying for the performance since January and especially after the Chinese New Year.
Tonight, it was finally over, after two weeks of preparation. IMHO, the performance was very good comparing to previous performance. More photos and story here.
Protected: 武功有三种
A tiring day
Whew! After about two months of not coaching at schools, it is certainly tiring to coach two classes. Tonight, one student took the grading test. He missed the December grading and he missed last week test too. I thought more would come for the test as some little tigers from Jasin missed their test last week. Only one student turned up for grading.
Not too tiring giving grading test though. But it was really weary to correct his mistakes. I think I will go to bed early tonight. I don’t feel like carry on with some of my work.
First day at school
Today is the first training day at school after the long year-end school holidays. All schools re-opened on January 3 but co-curriculum activities only begin this week. Many old members dropped out already. Today has 90+ students came to enroll themselves into the school karate club. What a big crowd! But again, they are interim. According to my teaching experience in school, by the next two weeks, the number will drop drastically to less than half. By another 2 to 3 weeks, the number will reduce half again. It’s fine for me and it is a healthy sign as the the filtering process will filter out casual members. I hope to spot one or two (or maybe a few) potential butterflies like Ong.
The process of registering their name with the school karate club committee was quite a mess as this was the first time for these 14-year-old teenagers to handle such a big crowd. Off course, I helped out by showing them what to do. At least I was able to train the other old members. Unlike last year, I alone handled more than 100+ head counts.
How to get black belt fast? – Part 2
I wrote an article with the same title some time ago. You can find it here. There are a number of inquiries asking me how to get black belt fast. Well, I told them: “The fastest way is go to the store, buy one and wear it!” That’s the fastest way and cheapest way of becoming a “Black Belt”.
Two weeks ago, a Chinese family came to my doukoukai to inquire. Came along their two elder sons and the youngest daughter. They asked a lot of questions about our training and they watched my students practicing on their own.
Before leaving, the father asked me what dan am I? Because we don’t wear gi and belt during training, I jokingly told him I didn’t have any belt. They never return. That’s fine for me.
Many parents, including their children, are eager to reach black belt. They don’t understand the principal of training as well as the ranking system. Last night, 5 little tigers from my Jasin class turned up for the grading. These little kids do not pay attention during training and certainly do not train at home. I failed 3 of them in front of their parents to teach these little kids a lesson about failure. To my surprise, the parents were very keen at taking notes for their children. Although the students themselves are supposed to take notes after the training, it shows some positive feedback from the parents. The parents also get to know how their children are doing in training classes. Anyway, I am glad to have supportive parents like them. The 3 kids will re-test after 3 months. They are not required to pay any fee for a re-test.
Why Kanbun Sensei leaving China so soon?
My research effort about Uechi-Ryu has been gaining some momentum and one interesting fact I found out together with my students about Kanbun Sensei is that, why Kanbun Sensei left China so soon?
The research has sparkled from an unrecorded fact which was told by mouth. We gathered quite some materials which indicated some speculations and deviation from what I already knew of. Kanbun Sensei might have more than one teacher while he was in Fuzhou.
I have established many theories why Kanbun Sensei left China in a hurry. But this information cannot be published at this moment because it can affect the family honor of the Uechi’s descendants as well as shaking the Uechi-Ryu community. All these can come down with a simple question, why Kanbun Sensei left China?
My research is gaining more interesting facts and I am planning to go deeper into it.
Eagle cries
In my previous poem, I wrote “千里莺啼绿映红”
The loose translation is “Eagle cries thousand miles away and green (white) reflects red (black)”.
A deeper understanding of this sentence and the loosely translated English version needs to be understood from the Chinese literature perspective, not by using stupid translation software. The original meaning describes a beautiful scenery. But when this sentence is used in my poem, coupled with the other sentences, it becomes another meaning. The real translation with a deeper understanding is this:
An eagle cries as in “it involves in a quarrel which it defends against an accusation”. The green means white and also means correctness and right. But other people sees it as red (black) and means something so wrong.
So, the green (绿) and red (红), as reflected in a Chinese proverb: “青红皂白”. The green-red (青红) pairs into (皂白), black-white. Both green-red and black-white make vivid contrast as wrong-right makes its contrast! The Chinese use these 2 contrasts to describe right and wrong, good and bad.
In the translation, the green means white, has the meaning of innocent. The Chinese characters for green-white is “青白”. And the character green “青” (qing) is pronounced similarly as “清” (qing) or meaning clear. So, “青白” is “清白”, which means innocent.
Similarly, the character “映” means to reflect, according to dictionary. Here, in the context of the poem, it means to contrast. That’s the magic of Chinese literature.
It is a character game which the meanings of a word can be interchangeable. It cannot be translated without proper understanding.
As I said earlier about that sentence “千里莺啼绿映红” in my poem, its original meaning differs from meaning as reflected in my poem when coupled with other sentences or words. A translation software cannot cleverly determine and analyze the structure of the sentence(s) as well as the relationship between the previous and the next sentences. But a clever human being with a “proper” understanding of Chinese literature can. So, don’t use the stupid translation software to determine wrong and right!
A tiny fraction of people knows who and what I am referring to.
沧海一笑
秋天久雨现雷暴，
俗世浮沉沧海中。
冬天雪后将转晴，
惨雨酸风顷刻平。
千里莺啼绿映红，
春来一笑风云过。
－－贺文耀 2007年1月12日著。
Uechi-Ryu Zankai – My Anamnesis – Part 10
In my previous anamnesis part 9 and earlier, I mostly wrote about my feelings and understanding of the Uechi-Ryu concepts. This part gives this a change, not to talk about Uechi-Ryu solely but the underlying fundamentals and concepts common in all martial arts.
I am having muscle ache on my stomach, arms and chest due to the heavy workout last night. So, today not much of practice for myself. As usual, after checking the students’ Sanchin, we went on dantai no kata for Kanshiwa and Kanshuu, then Kanshiwa bunkai.
Tonight, only adult students were coming. None of the kids, including mine came for training. My muscles were aching and not much practice for myself. A perfect time to talk about some concepts. I talked about concepts, not so much of Uechi-Ryu but the fundamentals of tanden (or Tantien in Chinese) and the body structure and skeleton alignment. I also demonstrated explosive 1 inch power punch (of course with controlled amount of energy not to hurt anyone). I continued to demonstrate and to explain the concept of Taijiquan and the differences between the external and internal system. I gave quite a lengthy talk about both internal and external weight change and of course, the scientific explanation of this underlying fundamentals. Martial arts is also martial science which involves human anatomy, physiology, bio-mechanism, kinesiology and physics.
I find it important to let older students to know about this so that they can understand the concept and learn to utilize their body more effectively. This fundamental knowledge is also crucial for them to understand not only Uechi-Ryu system but also other martial arts. The knowledge is also an eye-opener to not be superstitious about Qi, Tantien and the myths about Taijiquan as seen on Youtube as well as in discussion forums.
If I say I have not learned Taijiquan before but am able to explain and demonstrate the Taijiquan concepts, will you believe it?
This appears to be a short anamnesis but I will continue to write about this fundamentals in more depth.
Light foods
I had some crackers before training this evening. Crackers is a slow-release carbohydrate, said LA. So, I tried this evening. I had about 4 pieces, washed down with a mouthful of fresh milk and a tall glass of water. I felt fine as my stomach was not too full for actions and not to empty for training. Just nice.
After the training, I took an orange, and 5 pieces of crackers with sweet coconut jam or kaya. More carbohydrate and sugar. Yeah sugar, good for my brain to work on blogs and trouble-shooting some hardware problem for my client. Here starts the night of the day!
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