25 Things about my Kung Fu
July 27, 2009
I’m being a bit lazy with posts recently so I’ll just steal this from my Facebook page and slap it here for now. I enjoyed writing it and thinking about my art.
1. I first started studying Wing Chun kung fu when I was 15.
2. I’ve never once been in a fight.
3. If I can do this, anyone can.
4. I wish I could say I practiced diligently since then but I stopped practicing for probably 6 or 7 years.
5. My first teacher taught me all the basics and the principles. My current teacher is teaching me application and advanced principles. I can’t imagine where I’d be without either one of them.
6. I have dabbled in tae kwan do, savate, hung gar kung fu, yi chuan, boxing, and tai chi chuan. None of them appealed to me very much so I promptly quit. WC is the only one that’s stuck.
7. While I’m in training, I want to do the most difficult, painful, skill-testing drills possible. I greet them with a smile and an evil laugh.
8. When I’m not in training, I dread the aforementioned drills. I whine and dawdle and try to avoid them.
9. The more I learn and practice, the weaker I realize I am. I think this was what Bruce Lee meant when he talked about “emptying your cup”
10. My dad made me start kung fu because I was sitting around the house on weekends too much.
11. I am very reprehensive about training in public. I don’t like drawing attention. I’m going to dread performing on stage.
12. The person I would like to fight most would be my senior in my first teacher’s school. We started out around the same level but he just advanced faster. Everything I did, he was just a bit better. It was not depressing, it was VERY motivating. I ran into him several years later but unfortunately he had stopped training just like I did.
13. I hate wearing uniforms, belts, bowing to dojos, competitions, trophies and anything else remotely ritualistic about martial arts. When it comes down to it, it’s all about fighting and not getting hurt – all the other stuff was tacked on after by schools.
14. I split things down to being fast, strong, or smart. I’m not smart. I’m not strong. So, I focus on pure raw speed.
15. The greatest thing I’ve received from my training is confidence. I doubt I can really fight at all but I’ll be damned if I step down.
16. I used to read and collect a whole bunch of martial arts books until I realized reading about it did nothing. It was only practice that ever really made me improve. I also try to not waste a lot of time watching martial arts on Youtube.
17. You can learn something from every person, from the wisest teacher to the newest student, from the best fighter to someone who can’t beat an egg, there’s something to learn.
18. I’m currently working on beautiful kicks even though we don’t use any in real combat.
19. A distant relative of mine is a famous WC practitioner. I met him once when I was about 13, before I even knew what Wing Chun was.
20. My hero is Bruce Lee not because of his fighting ability, but because of his accomplishments in introducing the art to the western world. I couldn’t care less if he was a crappy fighter.
21. One of my former kung fu teachers was one of Bruce Lee’s childhood friends. When I asked him what was Bruce like, he answered, “The one thing I remember clearly was that he could run very fast.”
22. My website is derived from a Bruce Lee quote.
23. My email tagline is a Bruce Lee quote.
24. Back in Vancouver, I had a big poster of Bruce Lee from Enter The Dragon. There were drawn bloody cuts on the poster and all my loser friends always asked if I drew them on myself. No I didn’t.
25. I hate people who talk about martial arts or Bruce Lee too much. Writing this was an exercise in self-loathing. Thanks for reading!
Nomikai
July 25, 2009
Nomikai, or drinking party in Japanese, is one social event that I have never really taken a liking too. I usually hate drinking and the nuisances associated with it, like really messed up communication, the disgusting feeling afterwards, and the worry of getting home in one piece.
Tonight I went to my first nomikai in a very long time. It was with some students from an industrial textile company whose contract is coming to an end. It was fantastically fun and the section manager and a couple of other “non-student” members came out too. It was also the first time in a long time where I had to use more Japanese than usual. Although they are my English students, my Japanese is, at the moment, better than their English.
I’m usually quite reserved for some reason in social situations but I was able to put on my “teaching face” and became the super social person that I am a few hours a day. I actually quite enjoyed listening to them speak in Japanese because it gave me a chance to see what they really are like and also see the social interactions that are often a mystery to me. Only one person made a fool of himself by drinking too much and saying things he probably shouldn’t have said. Luckily I was there to interrupt him and guide the course of conversation on a more appropriate line. Thus is the life of an English teacher.
What also comes natural to an English teacher is having a repertoire of conversational questions and topics ready to keep conversation going. I found out my natural abilities also work in Japanese too!
In the end I drank way too much but managed to get a taxi home with a couple of the students. An all-paid for night courtesy of the company! Otsukaresama deshita!
Installing Windows XP on a USB flash drive
July 08, 2009
Here’s my latest little project: Installing Windows XP on a USB flash drive. I have the flash drive set up and ready to go. Now I just have to test it. It seems to be working!
1,490 yen for a 4Gb flash drive. Boy these things are practically given away.
