John Who?…………..Oh You Mean Zhong ding!

Just before I get started on what I was going to say (which will probably change loads as I type) I just wanted to say if any of you out there have a bad memory too put your hand in the air right now……………ermmm little higher please Joanna and don’t lock your elbow! Couldn’t resist that one, I was looking at the PDF of the foundation syllabus for the spelling of Zhong ding (affectionately know to me as John Ding)and I noticed that sitting right next to it was the angelwheel PDF that Joanna and Julie were going to explain a few weeks ago, nuff said

Tonight was a review night for us foundation level students and we went over zhong ding and lead and cross punches, whist the white belts learnt a more advanced zhong ding technique. I must admit that I struggled a little at first and was quite amazed when Joanna stopped all of us (white belts included) to tell us that most of us were making the same very basic mistake, white belts included and although mistakes are not good I have to say that it is encouraging when you realise that you are not the only one getting things wrong!

I think I may have done a little better in the boxing drill but there is still lots of room for improvement. It seems that after 20 something years I have still retained the karate/kickboxing urge to tense muscles in a sort of Grrrrrrrrr type way and I still have an urge to clench my fists much too early and a tendancy to want to hit with my fist in a horizontal position rather than vertical, so still plenty of work to be done there.

Talking of old urges, I said before on my blog about the old martial fighting spirit awakening. Whilst in some ways I think this is great in others it kind of worries me. I sometimes wonder about how my brain is wired, I know that I don’t have the taiji skills (yet) to be confident in a fight, but there is sometimes a little crazy piece of me that almost wants to end up in a combat situation. A good example of this is the e-bay car thing (for those of you that don’t know about this read the post “a cautionary tale”) tomorrow I will be starting court proceedings against the guy that sold me the car. (I say guy but the truth is that there are two of them.) There is a tiny little bit of me (maybe it’s just a fantasy) that is secretly hoping that it will push them over the edge and they will come ringing my doorbell with nothing more in mind than kicking seven shades out of me. Do I have a death wish? No. Am I insane? Maybe, maybe not. The way I see it is this, if they come looking for me then they don’t expect me to be prepared, which would be their downfall. I have gone over the scenario in my head time and time again. I live in a big old victorian house (well a flat in it) that has great big stone steps leading to the front door……………. dam I would hate to fall down those steps backwards! But the thing that gives me the edge is that I would be the one anticipating trouble, I might well start second, but believe me the anticipation would make sure I was the first to arrive. But in the real world it would probably never come to that.

And now the last paragraph leads me to a subject that I started to blog about last week and decided not to post the blog. It was about friendship. All I want to say for now, just so that I can keep it brief is that I have a little rule that I think of when I talk about firends and that is this “you can count your real friends on the fingers of one hand” and by real friends I mean the ones that would be there for you in any given situation come hell or high water. Try it for yourselves and I bet you have trouble counting five. Although sometimes something happens that makes you reconsider your rules and something happened to me that made me consider my “friends rule” the other week. I don’t want to say too much about it but going back to the e-bay car thing a friend(s) of mine (that I only met in january this year) offered to come with me to try and sort out the car thing with the guy that I bought the car off, and the reason that they offered was just incase things turned ugly. I was really touched by that offer and although I declined it at the time it is something that I will never forget, and if that friend(s) ever needs any kind of a favour I will be there for them, hell I’ll even grow an extra finger if I have to

Right enough sloppy stuff, I want to end with a couple of messages, firstly to Nick, who I know pops in from time to time: Don’t know if you have moved yet Nick but I was reunited with an old friend that I havent seen for a few years over the weekend and he just happens to be an electrician, so if you need one just give me a shout, and like I sdaid I know a plasterer too. The second message is for Matt: Hiya Matt, just incase you did’nt find it here is the ebay link http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Digigallery-Memory- World_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm lots of bluetooth gps systems in there just take your pick! And finally for the halifax white belts who haven’t read it yet the article that Joanna posted on my blog, before posting it on Plum (hehehe priveleged or what?) it is in the post “Sneaky” catch you all later guys