I've been putting this off for TOO long -.- I meant to put a new blog about my resolutions. In fact there is another part to this too... because of an old email my sifu sent me... what are my goals for this year in wing chun.
2010 resolutions:
1. Get outta City College of San Francisco and transfer to a CSU.
This is number one priority no doubt. I should have been out many yrs ago but hey... that's the choices I've made in life and whatever has happened as happened. I'm only 11 units away from transferring! I NEED this to happen this year
2. Save more money.
No doubt about it. I've lavishly spent everything I earned at work in 2009 on just random crap. This year it will be different.
3. Officially move out of my place in chinatown.
This is not a big resolution to me because I know I would periodically go back there to have dinner and such. But more on officially moving in with Dana. I want to make things easier for her apartment situation and hopefully we both can move to a new and better place within a yr together.
4. Control the stress and temper levels.
My next goal because of Dana. I am much better than I was in the past with patience and such thanks to poker patience haha(it's crazy but it's really credited to this LOL) Also, doing Wing Chun has drastically helped me in doing so. I believe this resolution is gonna be pretty easy to achieve thanks to martial arts.
5. Get healthier/Stay in a gym
This means change in diet... not to the point of OMG fuck meat and this and that... but laying off the fast food, sodas, snacks etc... while also joining a gym and sticking to a fitness plan(note to self: SERIOUSLY FUCKING STICK TO IT PLEASE JIMMY)
6. Try to move up to 50 No Limit by pure grinding of lower levels.
haha this is just a throw in type of thing for online poker goals. What I will try to do is play micro stakes online poker and grind it up from 50 bucks into 1000 dollar to play 50NL. It should be quite doable around the half year/third quarter mark if I play a LOT of poker. This is only if i have time to play... so this is why I will make this goal throughout the year...
That's essentially it.... now onto the one that inspired me to get moving and do this blog in the first place:
Wing Chun goals in 2010... What do I want to achieve by the end of this year.
First I want to start off with how much I love this system of martial arts. Yes I do admit that the movie "Ip Man" is what made me go try out Wing Chun. But lemme note that I DID know about Wing Chun before because of my dad introducing it to me long long ago.. taking me to the Wing Chun school just down the block. Due to me being young back then, I never had focus and motivation to do it at all.
When I was in high school I REALLY wanted to learn any form of martial arts but of course I would never have time with school work, JROTC shit, Baseball, etc... I really wanted to learn something just for self defense... people around me were jacked for cd players, ipods, money... and I myself was a victim two times for such petty bullshit. I wanted to learn something to protect myself and make myself stronger.
Now that I'm in college and I have a little bit of spare time here and there I knew I could rekindle that old flame for martial arts. When my dad gave me the DVD for "Ip Man" a movie that came out in 2008 by the way... and I NEVER knew about it until SEPTEMBER 2009 WTF right??? The old flame went from an ember to a volcanic burst! I watched that shit like 5 times within two days!!!! no lie! lol....
I kept reading and reading and reading on Wing Chun online during those days and I was fascinated by everything I had seen. I then started to look for any Wing Chun schools in San Francisco... I stumbled on quite a famous one of SF which would be the US Wing Chun Kung Fu Academy taught by Chris Chan. This one would be any SF natives first choice if you were to look at his site, seriously just look at it... This is one of the most popular place in SF to go learn it... it is because it was too far that I passed this place up. I also didn't want to go to a place that would have HELLA students and I asked them how big their classes would be... and it's pretty huge.... so yea... not what I'm lookin for... I like learning martial arts in a small class. My goal was to find a place that fits my needs... somewhere close, small classes, teachers that were highly skilled, and teaching application of the techniques frequently.
I remembered the place just a few feet from my apartment in Chinatown, Elmond Leung's Wing Tsun school. I kept trying to find a little more research on them but nothing came up... not even on yelp! I just had a gut feeling that I had to keep looking... Finally the third choice was quite a find... on yelp I found that there was ANOTHER place on Commerical St!!! I NEVER even knew about it at all! The hook, line, and sinker that caught me was that ONE single yelp review that they had.. so Joe B THANKS for such a great review for East West Wing Chun.
I dug a little deeper and found their online site... I read almost every possible thing on it haha... What caught my eye is that they gave a free trial class... and I knew I would take it. I found out more about the instructor there too... dug a little deeper to find out that he was a new instructor but has been a practitioner for many many yrs. I saw on one of his blogs that his goal as an instructor was to get more new students to the class and he said that going back to basics is always good for everyone... and that was it. I knew this would be a teacher I am willing to learn as much as I can from. I had to fulfill his goal of having new students.
Months later now I realized I slacked hard... but it was strictly due to a series of coincidences that conflicted with the classes time. I had night class on Mondays, which made me unable to go to their Monday class. Wednesdays were on and off because of me having to close at Sanrio from time to time.... After a while I requested that I no longer work on Wednesday to accommodate at least ONE day a week for Wing Chun. Fridays were the same as Wednesdays... but I could not get that day off every week... I then got VERY sick in the beginning of December until Xmas time! It was insane! Took my ass out for 3 weeks! I was so bummed out! Then I had Xmas holiday and went to Vegas for a week, completely missing the whole month of December -.- I was so mad at myself for that month... Now that a new year was here I knew this would be something I had to focus on.
Yes, I started because of being a major fan boy of a movie... but I had passion for it before and I grew more passion for it with time. Ever since I learned this I yearn to improve on it. I strive to be better on it so much... you have NO idea people... I want to perfect everything and quickly learn how to apply it properly. I know I dragged this on for quite a while but my goals for Wing Chun this year:
- Strengthen shoulders, triceps, and knees(shoulders for Bong Sao, triceps for a more powerful punch, knees for proper structure/stance)
As some people know, I have a bad left knee because of sports in the past. I sometimes need a brace -.-.... I have a weak ass shoulder because I can't seem to do a Bong Sao drill for long... I HATE that... this is a major goal along with working out at the gym. It'll be three body parts I wanna strengthen majorly.
- Properly do a GOOD Bong Sao.
I had this as a goal before, but an instructor from Pleasanton school last week explained it to me SO well. I thank Derek Douville so much for what he taught me on Friday the 22nd. The wrist thing he showed me was absolutely the best thing for me to FINALLY know how to drop my shoulders and have LESS tension on it while doing a Bong Sao. Even though I think I improved a little on it, there is MUCH to improve on for sure.
- Chain Punch effectively and properly.
My favorite thing about Wing Chun is the Chain punch. Simple and effective yet hard to master because of having to be relaxed all the way through until the point of impact. It's such an amazing punch. I wanna do it with great power, endurance to do it fast WITH power, and of course while in movement too.
- Develop better short power.
In Wing Chun, short power is the little bit of opening you need to completely devestate your opponent. Go look up One Inch Punch Documentary on YouTube if you dunno what it is people. That little surprise factor in application is the difference in knowledge of fighting and dumbass street fighters who keep charging in. By the way, one of my sihing, AJ, has such scary ass short power... He just launches me back all the time with his short power... and he's like... by body type and height O_O
- Rolling and Chi Sao.
MAJOR goal here. Properly feel out rolling and applying proper forward pressure! Also, I wanna learn the sensitivity of everything coming at me... the little moment where you sense something different in your partner or opponent. People who can do blind Chi Sao are just amazing. I wanna get to that level one day.. and i know I will.
- Perfecting the Taan Sao, Pak Sao, Lap Sao.
Nothing like the basics. I love these three moves... Even at my level right now I feel like these three things are SO useful in application. This is why I wanna improve on it, structure wise and timing when a punch is coming at me.
- Achieving great to perfect structure in Siu Lim Tao(First Form) and total relaxation in Wing Chun.
Like I said before, basics are THE most important thing in the world. With proper practice on it I know I can be great.
From fan boy to a dedicated student of Wing Chun. I feel like that's what I've become. Though they might never read this, I wanna really take some time to thank my sifu Henry Lyne, one of my sihing AJ. Those two have been the most inspiring people in the classes and I look up to them a lot. Because of my body height and size I feel learning from them will help me out a lot. Also again, thank you SO much to Derek Douville the instructor of Pleasanton.. the wrist turning helped me realize what I was doing wrong all this time with the biggest problem I've had in Wing Chun: Bong Sao
Well that's that... as usual if you aren't tired at this point reading all this I having done my job. LOL... jk... thanks for your time whoever you are. Comments and Facebook comments would be nice =D
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment