Too funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4s6zFVm9qI

And now for the real kids-don't-try-this-at-home treatment:
[edit: Warning, there is some language some people might find objectionable at the end of this clip. --klibby]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RA6TmDtvCQ

Finally, I Can Haz Skillz:

http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=241

Wushu is the gymnastic, flashy, demonstration style of Chinese martial arts. The word "wushu" (武术) literally means "martial art," whereas kung fu (功夫, Pinyin: gōngfu) ) just signifies "effort and time." Even so, a common criticism is that wushu as commonly seen it's more a martial-inspired dance form than an actual martial art.

Instructor Josh Gable, Marvin Duong, and I all passed our second degree tests on Saturday, April 12. Woo hoo!

So now what?

Getting better.

When I passed my first degree test, just over two years ago, I did not do so with any particular "flying colors." One or two things I did well. The applications, for example--I love the applications. But on most parts of the test, I did no better than adequately--and some things I could only have passed on the basis of effort rather than accomplishment. Gifts, really.

Master Adams taught fundamentals of Snake on 4/3. Both I and one of the CIT students felt it was the best we had felt about our Snake movements, ever.

We've long practiced stomach circles as part of Snake, but the details of how to apply those circles has been somewhat vague, especially as it applies to compound movements like Snake Pierces the Sky and Snake Pierces the Eyes.

My takeaway from the 3/13/08 Master's lesson is: if you want to hit harder or block better, do it faster. Those who enjoyed physics will remember that the kinetic energy of a body is one half of its mass times its velocity squared. Kinetic energy, the thing that does the damage when one object strikes another, is much more dependent on how fast it's traveling than how heavy it is. That's why bullets are so lethal, and why "speed kills" on the roadway.

My takeaway from last Thursday's Masters lesson was simple: rootedness is key.

Be as strongly rooted as possible, move through the whole body--turn and strike moving from the feet, through the hips and spine, and not just with the hands. You can start by exaggerating that "whole body" movement, then toning it down, making smaller moves and making the movement more "internal."