HEY VOULANDER!!!

[TenTigers]

[vaulander]

It is going rather good, actually. Apart from that unfortunate back thing I have been practicing diligently. I haven't touched the Butterfly swords in ages, focusing more on Arrow Hand, Lau Gar Kuen, and Kung Gee Fook Fu Kuen. In particular, I have reworked my stances and slowed down the speed of my forms to get into the moves more. Instead of me and the boys putting on the armor and just going for light sparring, trying to use some of the techniques (with sporadic success,) we are working and drilling applications from KGFFK, greatly aided by the Tiger and Crane Sparring set that Derrick and I have messed with. That one opened so many perspectives on Kung Gee that I couldn't begin to describe them. Also, the free pdf on Kung Gee has helped tremendously, being very different from the LSW version.
I also checked out the Dragon set of the Sup Ying Kuen, and even though I haven't even tried to learn or follow it, it also shines on Kung Gee.
I learned the Fu Hok Seung Ying Kuen, or Tiger and Crane, but it won't be close to worthwhile trying to film it until I am solid on Kung Gee Fook Fu Kuen.

A funny thing. At work, the Glorious Wal-Mart, they now have these big posters of various stretches we are supposed to do before starting our work. I was briefly thinking of doing the 8 section brocade, then learning the Dragon set from Sup Ying to do, but instead I am just doing the first two sections of Kung Gee Fook Fu slowly, focusing more on conditioning and stretching. People are used to seeing me stretch my legs after riding to work, and now I got a reason to do the upper body too, as it is management approved and mandated (although I seem to be the only one actually stretching and warming up.) One of the management is actually considering having me show the rest some things at the morning meeting. On one hand, hell yeah, on the other hand... uh... no. The company stretching poster is rather weak, I feel, while I am a bit more hard core. Don't know if my fellow workers would be up to it, and even if I toned it down, management might have issues with serious warmup and stretching, as it does take a bit of time. We shall see how that progresses.
Cheers!
V.

[vaulander]

Now there are two of us that do the start-of-shift stretches. I found out when my schedule changed. A woman named Dee, rich in years. She used to hobble around, but after following the Wal-Mart approved chart of stretches for about a month her range of motion is greatly improved. Before she started she could not lift her knees up enough to walk in stairs comfortably. Now she can. As we started at the same time, I joined her in stretching, using my own stuff, the aforementioned 2 sections of KGFFK included. At first she was a bit distracted, then she started mimicking me. Now she jokingly calls me her trainer. Figured I'd be nice and get her a DVD of the 8 section brocade for her to work on at home. Hopefully she'll regain more of her mobility and can enjoy life more.