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Tuesday means off kilter
Yeah, normally I blog on Mondays, but I'm being different today. I have a few minutes while I run some crazy scans on various machines in my subnet, so I thought I'd take advantage. And blog.

So the weekend was one of those up and down ones. Where good stuff happened, and not so good stuff happened, and then it all happened again. As for my "date" on Saturday, I kind of got stood up. That wasn't so good. She was occupied and didn't have my cell number, so she couldn't call me ahead of time. Turns out she was overly detained by her three kids. I guess that can happen sometimes. Seeing as I don't have three kids, I don't know for sure.

I did get to do two demos at the health fair at Union High School, helping the school. The first day (Saturday) we were supposed to start around one, but something got mixed up, so they gave us an additional time to demo the following day. Originally it was only on the one day. The first day was interesting. We had a karate school demo before us, and it was mostly kids, and then the instructor breaking single boards with spinning kicks, urging the crowd to clap together to get a rhythm going. I guess it helped him. What, being only 6'4" and breaking each BOARD with spinning kicks. Must have made him nervous. So after he finishes we get to start. We shared our time with two other schools; one was taekwondo, one was kenpo. We split our demo time. By split, I mean that we'd do two kung fu demos, and then one of the other two schools would demo. Repeat that pattern. I guess a lot of people weren't used to the demo atmosphere, because they got quite nervous. There were quite a few mistakes. Two of our students, students who are senior to me and just got their black belts, did a sparring set. And somehow lost it in the middle, somewhere. They managed to figure out something, although it was apparent they lost their train of focus. Train of PAIN, more like it. I did a single set near the beginning, and it actually went quite well! I did my form low and fiercely. It was strong enough that the couple of people in the front row would tense up as I moved towards them, although I never got closer than about three feet. I got complements, though, which was cool.

It was a lot of forms for a bit, with single forms, sparring sets, so forth. Justin and I did a sparring set, turns out he's already feeling much better. I think it went quite well. Very fast, very hard. Helped re-bruise some bruises I had gotten from training for the self-defense part of the demo. Then I did another sparring set with the senior student from the kid's class - he was very nervous (was throwing up early that day, but turns out it was all nerves), but he did very well! I think it may have impressed some people. After that it was time for a breaking demo by the taekwondo school. Sadly, they actually did not successfully break more than half their attempts. One was a girl who tried a back spinning heel kick into two boards. It really looked to me and Justin like her attempts were warmups, only we realized after a couple that she was really trying to break the boards. It was about as hard as if she had jumped in the air about a foot and a half and then landed. No stomp, just a mild thud. I think she wasn't happy, though. I felt kind of bad for the school, but everyone has bad days.

After that we did some self-defense techniques, out of the five animal sets. I did a tiger technique and a dragon technique, and they both worked fairly well. Then the kenpo school did a sparring demo with swords, samauri-style. It was all impromptu, so no real set movements were planned. It was interesting. Finally, we finished with Sifu doing the always impressive bending of the rebar. Seven feet long, half an inch diameter. Think you could bend rebar that big? Maybe. Could you do it by putting one end against a piece of wood (being held by Justin, who in turn was braced by four other people), and the other end against the small of your throat? Sifu can. And did. It was quite cool. A bunch of kids were checking out the bent rebar afterwards.

So it turned out pretty well, although the next day's demo was very similar, but better, I'd say. Justin stood in for one of the students I did self-defense moves against, and I ended up accidentally kicking him harder than I meant to, although it was pretty funny. It really does work. And then since we didn't have all the students we did Saturday, Sifu added some more self-defense moves, this time moves against me and Justin by Sifu. Which meant Justin got his fingers and wrist twisted around in various painful ways, and I got to be slammed against the floor a few times, with extra strikes and kicks for good measure. And the taekwondo school broke almost every board this time, although they reduced the number of boards a bit. I think part of it may have been the big pad we had for our floor, since it was bouncy enough to lower the force they could throw from their techniques. It was cool, though. And we watched a Krav Maga school demo afterwards, which was primarily straightforward self-defense techniques. Mostly blocking and striking immediately, followed by many more strikes, usually in the knee to the chest variety. Justin and I recognized pretty much all the movements, but we had to give them credit because the techniques they use are quite effective. At least, against people who aren't expecting them. Muahahahaha....

So yeah. LOTS of kung fu. With a slight break for church on Sunday. My guitar now has only eleven strings, since I snapped one during practice on Wednesday, but I felt like I played fairly well, considering. And I did get a few complements, too. Always nice.

Then MORE kung fu on Monday. Small class, although I led everyone through warmups for the first time in a while. I like leading warmups. I usually push a bit harder than other people, so everyone's sweating by the end. It felt like a good class, though. Ending with some good chin na techniques, which I personally like quite a bit.

And I have more kung fu later today. For about three hours. That's a lot of kung fu! I like kung fu. It's a good thing, because if I didn't, I'd probably be miserable right now. I kind of am, because I'm coming down with either an infection or allergies. My nose is running like a dog trying to catch a crazy fast frisbee. Which means lots of Kleenex. Which means my nose will be turning red pretty soon. Which is sucky. But that's okay, I can deal with it.

Okay, time to check on my scanned machines. Hope you're having a lovely day! My week this week looks like it's going to be at least 100% better than last week. Which is good. Random link! I think I've posted before, but now this special something is at a 1.0 pre-release version. If you're not running it already, I HIGHLY recommend it. No pop-ups, will prevent a lot of spyware installations - trust me, if I've fixed a machine for you, you'll know the benefits.

Comments:
krav maga rocks :)
 
Great attack krav maga technique site you have here. You're invited to come check out my attack krav maga technique site as well.

Thank You!!
 
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