Visits

My head feels light- I woke up saying the words "whore," with a ghostly undertone.

I said it with conviction, purpose. I said it to the shadow of a face in the early morning.

I heard a knock at my door- I hauled my body out of bed, still deeply at rest.

I had a dream first of walking outside of a mall, I was grocery shopping. I had My bike which I had clumsily ridden down to this place from some metro. I made it there and got two large melons, some ready to eat foodstuffs, a potato cake, and other things. I slung my groceries on either handles of my bike while I went inside to get one last thing. When I came out I saw children taking things from my bags, kind of waywardly. I hollered at them to stop- some ran, some just stood, unsure of what to do.

I took my things back as I saw them run to a man, their keeper or some sort of guardian. He initially was a tall, scraggly, unkempt white man- he looked at me scornfully and with a bit of disdain and told me that the kids were hungry. I replied with some sort of speech advocating against theft. He took a different shape, he turned into a man that resembled Don Cheadle, and spoke to me again saying that he was teaching the children under his care how to steal so they could survive. I became sympathetic and decided to help him.

It started to rain.

I went to my bags and took out one melon, some random food and the potatoe cake wrapped in plastic wrap and tin foil. I took a bite of it to make sure it was good for kids, and it was adequate. I came back to Don Cheadle with a melon and a bag with the food and potato cake and said "This is for you." He seemed very grateful, and one of the children, wide-eyed, took the melon while another tentatively took the plastic bag and began to look inside like Pandora's box or something. A couple began to run off, like according to their training from their protector, but upon his advice they stayed.

I offered to take them in my car to wherever they needed to go, seeing as how the rain had begun to come down it made even more sense that I do this. Don Cheadle seemed very grateful and said he and his children would wait right there for me until I returned with my car. I turned hurriedly and heard his voice almost over my shoulder say, "thank you brother, remember: FOUR people."

"Him and the three kids, got it," I thought to myself. My care should seat everyone fine.

As I turned to go, I felt good- one of the children had decided to follow me back to my bike (which apparently I would take to my car, which, I assume, had a bike rack now.)

What happened next...

It was a little blond boy I walked with, hand in hand, back to where my bike was.

I remember: I had to gather my things and bring everyone to my car so I could take them home. He was 4 or 5. We talked about how great things were today (I think.) As I got closer to where my bike was, I- shocked. Every time I looked by at the child, he had grown older, and actually changed sex.

I remember saying "you are getting older my the minute!"

For a moment she held a delicate, emaciated face, like a young teenage girl who hasn't filled out quite yet. But quickly another shape took hold.

She was a grown woman now, dark hair- beautiful. I asked her a question, she looked sad- her face grew long and tired for a second, then the mouth opened unnaturally wide into a soundless
scream. I took her face in deeply.

I awoke, purpose in my surprise, almost retorting this word from deep within me "whore." The Sound of it, undertones pinging with genuine hate- an anger in me that did not feel like my own, it fueled me not to turn away at the shadow I had pinned as my enemy in the morning. I keep my eyes locked firmly on it, not wanting it to escape in a momentary lapse of focus. The shadow was the shape of a melon, or more or less, a human face.

I turned on the light to find it was clothing.

I came to the front door to answer the knock I heard, the knock I heard ambiently right after I awoke and said "whore," I remembered how almost like a cue the sound came. In a daze, a brain-tingling stupor, I made made my way to the door, looked through the peep hole and no one was there. It's 5:50am.

I've been seeing spots a lot.

While I've been writing this, I have been rubbing the goosebumps from my arms periodically. I am very tense in the right side of my neck.

I feel like I am being watched as I have been writing this entire thing. I am not scared.

what the fuck, man.

The Flow

Bought a bo staff today- going to start working on the fluid movement and transfer of energies.

http://www.karatedepot.com/bo_staff.html

I have been working on Tai Chi Chuan with Bill Lengfelder and have begun to analyze all types of movement through the lens of animal style Wushu (Tiger, Monkey, Mantis, Crane & Dragon.)

So far I have established that the Tiger moves very directly, following the horizontal plane, and usually going for the shortest path between it and it's target. The Monkey drops his center down, bringing his target into his negative space and playing with him on the sagittal plane. The Mantis has the same idea as Monkey, but does compromise the sagittal plane- instead he works the transverse plane to a greater effect within his negative space.

The Crane, or at least the Fujian White Crane style, was developed by a woman named Fan Qiang Liang. The use of alternating up and down movement in the hips within the coronal and sagittal plane provide the leverage for the strikes.

"The point of the style is to make less use of physical strength, stressing evasion, and attacks to vulnerable areas instead." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_White_Crane

Lastly, the Dragon plays on the diagonal with a tendency to lean and twist to gain power. The Dragon Dance I recently learned helps one discover the power of "uncoiling" onto your target. This style is one my body presently lives in the most, with a habit of going very low, or very long when the Sky form does not require that. Dragon's have the tendency to go past their limit; which I suppose could be a very good thing or a very bad thing.

Personally, the Tiger doesn't suit my shoulders well- I have injuries that make the directness of Tiger more ineffectual than fearsome. I find myself inhabiting Monkey when I face an target that is much bigger than I am (I am reminded of when I was young, and my older brother would come home and would practice his wrestling moves on me- thank goodness for Monkey, lol.) Mantis is unfamiliar to me, but my body took a shape like that when I had my nephrectomy. My body was slightly bent over for a couple months, and I remember having very little power over things outside of my reach, resulting in a hyper awareness of influence over things within the negative space I created.

Crane is very interesting for me- I enjoy the long up and down form of it (admittedly dipping into Dragon with arms slightly on the diagonal in the stance AND diagonally as well in the strike.) Because Dragon is so habitual in my body I feel Crane would be a reasonable choice of style to explore. I should be able to keep track of my tendencies easily, and it is helpful that I already can feel the power and flow akin to that of the Dragon within the Crane movements.

This feeling of power and flow is vital to my understanding of these movements. In terms of movement analysis, it makes a tremendous amount of sense that every human being, every character, that exists finds more power in one body position (animal style) than another. It should be said that we are not restricted- we pass through the animal styles freely, evolving through our lives with habit and necessity. We inhabit new styles and change because of injury, environment or some other form of nurture, but in any case the common language of animal style Wushu and Tai Chi Chuan is very useful in communicating these movements.

Time to train!