1,000 Days of Bagua: The Preamble

Okay, so elsewhere on the information superhighway, you may have come across the concept of "100 Days of Bagua". Not sure who came up with the concept, but essentially, it requires you, the bagua player, to commit to training Baguazhang at least once a day, every day for a continuous, 100 day period. Usually starts with the new year in a resolution type way.

Really good idea, and a task I have undertaken a couple of times. Both times failing a few weeks down the line. So, perhaps hoping to redeem myself, or maybe by way of punishment, I have corrupted the idea into 1,000 Days of Bagua.

Essentially, on April 6th (in a few days - this Wednesday, to be precise), there will be 270 days left of the year. 270 + 365 + 365 = 1000 (days).

So, if I begin on Wednesday, April 6th 2016 and train Baguazhang each and every day until 1st January 2019, then I will have completed 1,000 continuous days of Baguazhang training.

Why am I deciding to do this? Well, weirdly, for me it sounds like the kind of thing I would find easier to keep going. And, anything that encourages me to train more can only be a good thing, right?

So, to add a little detail, to avoid making my training a chore, anything more than 10 mins counts. However, it has to be focused, good quality training. And, after a few weeks, I will work out my average training time per week and make adjustments to improve upon that on a monthly basis - where possible.

As often as possible, I will try to log or at least recount in retrospect what training I have managed that day/week.

Watch this space.

More obstacles to training

Okay, so it has been ages since I attended baguazhang class. Other than the odd chance here and there to eat bitter, I have done very little in the way of training full stop. That said, the main reason for this lapse is that we are currently looking for a new home. This is taking up a lot of my time. I reconcile myself with the thought that, once we get moved, I will have a garden in which to practice and, hopefully, a spare room that can double as a baguazhang/yoga room (my wife does Iyengar yoga). So, in the long run, I am envisioning my bagua routine to improve by virtue of no longer being confined to a small apartment where I can only really practice jiben shou fa and a few, limited, lines and forms. Imagine having a whole garden to walk a proper circle in! :) So, watch this space and hopefully I will soon be coming to you with tales of extended practice sessions out in the summer heat.

Long live meatspace!

Most mornings, when I am enduring the tram ride to work, I notice that the vast majority of my fellow commuters* are somehow 'tuned out' of what is going on around them.  Either they are tickling their smartphones, their ears are plugged into some music device or they are lost in an e-reader.

Somehow, as a people, we seem to have lost the desire or ability to connect to the environment immediately around us.  Preferring instead to talk to someone miles away who isn't even a good enough friend to be with them in person.  Personally, I would prefer to witness and react appropriately to what is going on around me.  The driver's announcement being a convenient case in point this morning.  The line was down for a while.  Not that most of my fellow passengers would realise, as it was back up again fairly soon.

This doesn't just happen in the mornings, either.  At any time of day, the number of people around me either literally or figuratively 'plugged in' to some electronic device, draining their attention, is considerable.

I read something on a lifting site that said, "If you've got time to Facebook, then you've got time to train...".  This paraphrasing my earlier sentiments that I would now rather train than watch something I don't particularly like on tv.

What do each of us actually get from spending more time online?  The illusion of a social life?  How social are you if you hardly ever actually see your friends?  If I train, it might not be very rock and roll, repeating the same action again and again ad nauseam.  But I do get something at the end of it all - eventually.

That's why I'm shifting more and more of my endeavours into 'meatspace' (and why I'm posting on here less and less - sorry!)

Daily devotions or going through the motions?

I am currently managing, despite a family to look after and a lazy streak a mile wide, to train at home every night. Okay, so I'm not exactly running through all eight big palm changes or completing all the houtien lines in sequence, but I am managing to do a little.

I am concerned that my less than impressive physique is letting me down in class, so I've mostly been working on strengthening.  Once I am happy with that, though, I assume the nightly training will have become a habit and then I will simply substitute the strength training for something with a little more emphasis on technique.

Considering I know how adept I am at avoiding committing to anything, disliking exertion as I do, I am quite proud of myself.

100 Days of Bagua - The early days

My 100 days of Bagua kicked off yesterday while I was still at my parents' place in Lincolnshire, celebrating the new year.  My training was pretty minimal, but I did some jiben shou fa.  Piercing palm, chopping palm and crashing palm were performed in front of a large mirror - which I found to be a great help.  This may be worth noting for the future - if I can do some of my practice in front of a similar large mirror, maybe this can help me with my forms?

Tonight, I will probably do some more jiben shou fa and maybe some leg-strengthening exercises.  Don't want to do too much as I have overdone the festitivities a little of late, we only got back to the flat a few hours ago and I am back at work tomorrow morning.

It's a rollercoaster ride, once it starts, it never gets going...

Still having a bit of a random training regimen for my bagua.  The odd bit of formal practice here and there, but mostly I am finding ways to strengthen my legs, for example, as part of my daily chores.

I hope to instill a more formal and useful training habit when I complete the '100 days of Bagua' challenge this year.  Essentially, the challenge is to train bagua (for me, at least one hour) every day for 100 days, starting on New Year's day.

I've essentially stolen the idea from something I saw online, but the long term effect will be, I hope, a routine of daily bagua practice that I can continue once the challenge has been concluded.

I will also blog about the training here - so stay tuned.