Walking in Peace and Harmony/ Forms

         Lu Ping An, walking in peace and harmony.  When I first joined the Kwoon, I honestly didn't know what style of Kung Fu I was learning, it wasn't on the website, but that didn't matter to me, because I made a choice to make a reality something I've always wanted to do.  Knowing now that the style I chose is Lu Ping An Chuan Fa, I see the sense of humour the universe has.  

        I've always struggled with internal turmoil, and also being an introvert, a lot of the time my emotions would just be stuck roiling inside.  You can imagine that this lead to some hot headed moments from myself.  Compact that with bullying I experienced growing up, I had a lot of anger and frustration.  I may seem like a calm person now, but inside there is very much a fire that burns.  I've gotten a lot better at managing to really take a step back, take a breath and reexamine my situation.  I've often found that things aren't as bad as what I initially perceived.  In fact, I mostly exacerbated events because my head and my heart weren't clear.  Before I go any further, I should mention that I din't join a martial art in order to hurt anyone, I joined because I always wanted to learn how to better move my body, my love of martial art cinema, and to prove to myself that I could accomplish, hopefully, a black belt.  Now going back to our specific style, the Lu Ping An,  it amazes me how I was unknowingly aligning myself with what I've been trying to accomplish in my daily life, peace and harmony.  

        Second thing I wanted to write about before my thoughts become distant memories, is my forms.  Master Brinker pointed out to me in last night's class that my hands (upper body) wasn't in harmony with my lower body, or the rest of the form.  This was fantastic information to learn, especially since we were practicing Lao Gar 1&2, and those are the forms I chose for this years I Ho Chuan.  Best learn now before I start doing more and more repetitions improperly.  I never even knew that I wasn't doing the right thing with my hands, and also realized that I'm usually less concerned with my upper body movements, because it is my lower body that usually gives me trouble.  It dawned on me that when I am doing my forms, that I put extra focus on my lower body movements, because that is the area I have the most trouble with.  I've let my upper body movements slide, because of that focus.

        Tight hips have always been a point of weakness for me.  I've been a runner for well over 20 years, and I most definitely neglected stretching, so I have a lot of structures in my body that are conditioned for certain movements and other structures that have been weakened because of that.  I do stretches and exercises daily to get the little progress I've made in opening up my hips more.  The biggest changes I feel is in throwing a roundhouse kick, not that I'm at the desired level, but that I can throw one without wincing in pain.  I guess I've been so focused on this lower body harmony, and grounding myself, that I've neglected my stronger upper body.  I guess that's just how it goes right?  Make progress here, lose progress there, and then try to bring it all together at some point.