Of balding heads and revolving planets

It's that glorious time of the year in Japan - spring. The blossoms on the plum trees are blossoming and the beer companies are releasing yet another This Spring Only beer (same beer, different can).

Yes, people are taking to the outdoors, shedding clothes and ... putting on hats. Yep, us balding (excuse me, maturing) folks must don baseball caps once again to protect our valuable pates as we practice outdoors, since the sun is shining directly from a different angle.

Spring is not too bad - the sun strikes my practice spot for only a couple hours a day and it is still a bit chilly. But with the hot, humid Tokyo summer also comes more hours of direct sunlight as our planet tilts a bit.

No matter to me today, outside working on the Sun Style (no connection to the sun, just a name, 孙式太极拳) tai ji form, inspired by yesterday's all-Tokyo tournament. That and the prior week's all day Sun Style Tai Ji seminar.

Side note - there is a great series on Chinese Martial Arts from Guangzhong TV. One of the episodes is on Sun Style tai ji and they interviewed one of the top people, who also happens to own a car repair service (in Beijing? memory fails me at the moment). All the employees go through the Sun Style tai ji form before work, or face a reduction in salary. I loved that.

ending, beginning

I love the feeling of completing a new form – that is part of the addiction of martial arts for me. But it never really ends, does it? You’ve got to keep practicing it to recall the gross motions, then drill it endlessly to get the finer motions. Then you start playing with different timings, different applications. And you have to start training back-to-back with similar but different routines, making sure everything is fully consolidated and separated.

Sunday was the third day-long seminar in the Sun style tai ji form (the competition form, 73 moves. Any Sun stylists would not be satisfied with it, I am sure…) and we have finished connecting the dots to string the motions together after months between each seminar.

So I have finished/ begun a new form and have the joy of playing with a new toy. But this is not a toy to be set aside once the initial excitement fades for the child

Sun style is one of the five main styles of taiji. I don’t have plans in the near future to go any more deeply into the Sun system – this form is enough to give a taste. Mere mortals cannot master all five main styles. I am pretty satisfied with this exposure to the Sun style – it should keep me satisfied for some time.

It has many similarities to the Sha family taiji routines. Actually, the reverse is true. Sha Guo Zheng (Sha family patriarch) was a devoted student of Sun Lu Tang and paid tribute to the Sun style in several movements when creating his own routines. That connection alone is enough to draw me in for a taste of Sun style – but now it is back to work on more long-term projects, such as those Sha family routines (while keeping the Sun form alive).

As always, I feel lightness and heaviness at the same time. The lightness is the excitement of wrestling with and coming to understand something new. The heaviness is the burden of maintaining a wide spread of routines…

a day off

Busy and relaxing days recently. I will regret the lack of income later, but just now having a Monday off is the best feeling. Review in the morning, cementing the Sun style tai ji (73) form, doing it fresh after yesterday’s seminar. Review in the afternoon, too, blending into the night as twilight fell quickly to darkness. More Sun style, lots of sword work, still not enough time.

And I read some today, too. Yes I, the former used bookstore co-owner, now without a non-budo page turned in weeks or longer. At this rate, and with the size of the book (Jung Chang’s Mao: The Unknown Story), I will still be working on this one next year.

Friday night was a banner night – my daughter and I went to Gong Fu class and she actually trained for the entire class for the first time, no breaks to play or draw. Saturday night was also a banner night – an old kendo friend visiting from way up north in Tsugaru. We visited an excellent practice in an elementary school gym in the downtown Shitamachi area. The teacher is 83 and still damn strong, taking on a row of 7dans at a different dojo practice.

Last week I was massacred in a kendo tournament in the same elementary school dojo. Couldn’t score a point on either opponent, though I did get one of the three refs to raise his flag. I’ve never been a tournament guy and much prefer to just practice, as we did on Saturday. Still, I was a bit more fired up than usual, still licking wounds from the prior week and drawing on that energy.

Getting up early tomorrow for morning kendo practice. Listening to the night sounds just now - crickets and bugs outside, footsteps fading, a siren in the distance, then the sound of a train. 5 AM wakeup comes much too early...