Nappies Before NeiGong II: The Training Montage

Okay, so my '100 days of Bagua' is taking a really beating as often I find myself doing little more than some basic leg-strengthening or even ten minutes of stancework as my daily practice.

When you have a baby (8 months old and already into everything), there are simply many more pressing issues than perfecting your crashing palm that have to be attend.  Even once they have been attended to, often exhaustion means the last thing you feel like doing is racking up an hour of stance work.

But here are a few ways I have managed to combine training into my daily routine/babycare regimen.

1. Chickenstep whenever pushing baby's pram.
2. Engaging calf muscles whenever walking or pushing pram.
3. Practicing Jiben shou fa in toilet cubicles at work (not ideal, and strive for the cleanest cubicle possible, but saves embarrassment and awkward questions).
4. Squatting rather than bending down to pick things up/access low shelves.
5. Holding various (innocuous) stances on tram to and from work.
6. Sitting down and getting up from chairs using one leg at a time.
7. Standing on one leg whenever motionless for a while.
8. Lying with kwa open while watching tv.

They are hardly in-depth exercises that will unlock bagua's secrets for me (with the possible exception of the jiben shou fa), but they do allow me to maintain momentum in my improvement more than if I had simply done nothing between those all too infrequent training sessions.

More on pandiculation

For my own reference, as much as anything:

http://baillement.com/stretching-fraser.html

Pandiculation's what you need...

Covered the topic of 'pandiculation'in bagua class on Friday.

http://gravitywerks.com/pandiculate-your-way-to-health/

One of the things I like about our class at http://www.manchester-bagua.org/, is that our instructor discusses training tips and matters of interest, not just in martial arts terms, chinese medicine & folklore terms, sports terms or even through physical activity, but also using science and, especially anatomical concepts.

More class-related news, too - will have to work a lot harder from now to keep my training on track.