Teaching videos and Jonah's Rice Cracker story

I'm going to start teaching on You tube. I won't be showing the traditional Woo Ching White Crane Forms. First of all, I don't think you can learn all that in a video. But I will be doing a step by step tutorial of what I've managed to teach Noah so far. Later on Noah will be the one teaching because let's face it, he's cuter than me and more interesting to watch. Dai Dai is a good little student in  this video but he's not ready to teach yet. I've been trying to learn Irish fiddle on You tube and I have decided that most videos show too many moves at once. This video just shows the first part of the opening. I will probably make a ton of videos on just this opening alone.

Later we will move into some stance stuff and the forms will be the guided free forms that Noah performed in Gong Gong's video of our performance at Montclair.



In other Jonah news, Jonah has been stealing Rice crackers from children at the playground. It started with begging this older girl, who teased and made him beg. "I just want a rice cracker shaped like a cylinder!" Jonah complained. But yesterday, a younger girl was mid bite into her disk shaped rice cracker when Jonah ran over making chomping noises and took it from her. I tackled him too late and much of the rice cracker crumbled.

"It's okay" the mother of the little girl said. But here is the injustice of it. Jonah has nothing to discourage him from doing it again.

"I just think he was hungrier than you honey, survival of the fittest. We can get another one." I knew the mother and she was really nice about it. But I know Jonah too. He's not hungry. Or if he is... well he didn't eat much of my dinner later. I don't have a problem with them snacking. But they can't be greedy. It turns out the other kids don't really like the snacks I bring. I will have to work on that. Plus I had stopped bringing snacks because I want them to be hungry for dinner, and to eat, quickly. They can partake of snack for social reasons but not for actual sustenance. It's not really food after all.



Anyway, Mommy talked to Jonah last night saying, "Mommy heard that you were taking other children's rice crackers Dai Dai. That's not good."

Jonah thought a while and then responded, "Mommy, when you watch your show, I sit there very quietly. I sit very quietly through your whole entire show. So I don't like that you talk about these other things."

"He should go into law." Mommy told me.

"They used to say that about me." I said thinking back to what my mother told me when I was in high school.

"Which is true." Grace finished.

Jonah's negotioations.

Jonah had been in trouble with Mommy and when he finally got ready to go to bed Mommy asked Jonah, "Dai dai do you know why Mommy was upset with you? Tell me what you did wrong?"
Jonah paused with his hands in his pockets.
"Well," he said, "I can tell you what I did good today Mommy. I was good at Baba's Kung Fu classes," This was, on a day btw that I did not teach any classes, "I did good sei ping ma's like this," and Jonah did a sei ping Ma horse stance, "and I did good cups, like this" and Jonah performed Cup kuens. "And that's all I'm going to tell you about mommy, the things that I did good."

And with that the matter was settled.

Easter Weekend

Easter Sunday was not very Christian for us. Noah didn't want to go to Church so I just staued home and read the Bible. I think I will do this more often. Not that I am holy. It 's more like I like this flavor of opiate. It helps me with my decision making. Like I'm talking to someone.
Noah and I went to Moh Goon on all three days of Easter weekend. I'm really beginning to feel like my old self. Except now I am hanging out with Noah doing the Kung Fu stuff. I guess my Dad died a year too early. One more year and maybe I really would have liked going to the gambling houses and stuff. Well good thing my addiction can sort of be good for health and probably cultural too. On Saturday, I only spoke to Noah in Chinese. I brought brushes and paper to write stuff with water too.

On Sunday he did his forms in front of Moi Sifu. And then Moi Sifu pulled out $20 and gave it to Noah! The Chinese thing to do would be to refuse the money and fight about it and then finally give in. But the way I see it, Moi Sifu wanted to do this. Why make a big deal about it? After all, now I can just help him if he asks for something. He did it to encourage Noah to practice harder. It was a nice little memory to have. That's why I made sure to write it down.

My time with Jonah was not as enjoyable. Jonah is so bonded to me that he takes for granted really. He had to throw up because he stuffed himself with juice and the rice right afterward. I was trying to watch Madame Secretary with Grace and he runs over to me, to throw up on me. This is not the first time even recently and so I blocked most of it and oved him over to an area with no rug. The thing is, he ran to the only room in the house with a rug, and threw up on me. He still got me in the eye and part of the face and my shirt.

I wasn't like, "Oh are you okay? Do you not feel well?"

Because I know he threw up because he stuffed his face until he almost choked even though dinner was already over. He was hungry because he didn't eat when he was supposed to. And he could have just thrown up in the kitchen, or tried for the bathroom and then told me to clean it up, instead of sprinting to me, to vomit on me. We talked about that.

But he is still cute even when he does all these terrible things.

Well that's all for now.

Dragons of the Orient (1988)

I remember thinking this was kin dof whack when I first saw it. But I had to look it up once I saw some of the more modern Wushu stuff. Me and Noah will watch this now.

Angry Camel tries to bite mans head

My mother had always told me stories about when she hitch a ride down and up through the Sahara. This was probably the 1970's She said that she had tried to pet a camel and that the men told her that they would bite her hand off. Not only that, but one of the men said that they had seen a man's head bitten off. I'm not saying I didn't believe her. But whenever I told this story as a child adults would look at me as if I were foolish. Anyway, it's the first thing I thought of when I saw this video.

My Christian post

So I saw people on Facebook start to post their little faith sharing thoughts. And I also saw this video.





You = water
Sin = water+iodine 
Christ = water+bleach



These type of videos make me realize I am still uncomfortable with most Christian lingo. Basically, according to the analogy shown in this video, if I were Hitler, no let us say if I were Darth Vader (who by the way is the  son of his mother and the Force. So basically Anakin is the son of God.) But anyway, if I am Lord Vader and I destroy planets and torture people including my own daughter, light saber fight with my son and not in a nice way. Strangle my wife with the force. As long as I believe in Christ (and in Star Wars world that would be me because I am the son of the force) all my sins are gone. Hmmmmmm....



I am Catholic so I will use a Catholic way of saying it. Sin in Catholic lingo is turning away from God. So all you have to do is turn toward God and you are saved. Of course there is purgatory and all that too. In the Vader example, at the end he is saved and joins the other Jedi in the Force because he turns back to the good side by saving looking and killing the Emperor. But that turning back is shown by an action, in which he still kills someone. In this example it is Luke who is more like Christ even though Luke is the son of the son of the Force. Actually Vader says to Luke when Luke says he can save him, 'You already have." 



Before I started wearing Catholic clothes I considered myself Buddhist of the Chinese Folk religion and later Kung Fu flavor. And most of the Buddhist lingo in English is comfortable to me. (In fact most of the academic Christian lingo I am also comfortable with too. Just not the stuff on the street as it were) So let's look at this experiment from this perspective. Enlightenment wipes away everything just like the Christ. I suppose you could ride on the coat tails of Buddha if you don't trust yourself to gain enlightenment alone and ask to be saved instead (from yourself) This experiment could work with Buddha as Christ too. Except instead of dying to save you, he just taught you instead. Or if you are praying to Kwan Yin, she just comes and saves you. 



Chinese mix there Buddhism with Taoism so let's look at it like that. I'll go with, "All things are the same just named differently." And "the sacred and the profane are the same, just named differently." In fact, in the experiment you mix sin and you and Christ. All these are actually just the same thing. Don't get all excited about colors changing. In fact the glasses and the table and the person pouring glasses are all in one room and all of the elements and energy and all that is part of the same universe. 



And here is where I out myself as not the Christian that usually faith shares. 

I don't believe in converting people. Because ultimately they are already converted, whatever they are doing. The Abrahamic religions are all one religion. The Pagan religions, the Hindu Religions the Taoists and the Scientists and Atheists, it's all the same but named differently. Religion to me is like Kung Fu systems. A boxing punch works. A Wing Chun punch works. The difference is when you are doing Wing Chun, you follow a certain way. When you are boxing you do another way. You can do both. You can mix them. But they are still different and they both still work. 



The atheist or at least Scientific perspective. I assume Neil DeGrasse Tyson is Atheist. Or in any case, he doesn't believe in Faith. He believes in evidence. But some of the most spiritual things in my world view are from him. For instance, that we are the Universe looking and studying itself.  



For Jesus and Buddhism the Kingdom of God or enlightenment was a state of being. That's what I learned at Nativity by the way from a Jesuit priest. Heaven as a place is tool to explain heaven, just like the experiment in the video is actually Chemistry, to explain a point. To just be happy instantly is not easy. But if you give someone a sugar pill the placebo effect can cure a ton of stuff. Christ is like that. In the Catholic religion a priest can give you communion (body and blood of Christ) or just bless you and I myself have felt a feeling. A something. A saving. From a blessing, as I am not allowed to take Communion. So the video above is true, even from a scientific perspective, not because of the power of Christ, but because of the power of your belief in Christ, or a sugar pill, or anything really. 



And the dark side of that is if you are total jerk the placebo effect can work for you too. But if you are a truly good person and helping people, you can still be miserable and even somehow believe that you are not saved or not good or wretched. 



Well let's all seek to be that reborn happy person, risen up from all problems, even from torture and death, whatever your worldview.

A return to tradition

I have been moving more toward more traditional aspects of teaching class. It may be because Noah is now ready for them and as this happens doing songs and dances becomes more annoying for me. Furthermore as I run into more resistance (not from kids) but from others regarding the more "fun" aspects of class, i.e. sword fighting, and line drills that are more like what dancers do, I think I am going to return to doing stances and basics. After all, those are the safest drills to do, even if they are boring. The kids can focus on this for so long, but maybe that's the first thing they need to learn. In fact, I may bring meditation back to my little after school class and have to be more disciplinarian about sending kids who disrupt kids to the office. Perhaps we will just do basics, some push hands, and then at the end take turns doing free style forms one at a time. The performance at the end of the year will simply be stance work and basics. If I end up having more time and the kids can't focus to do basics again, I may start reading a story to them that introduces Chinese Culture.
It was great at first when the kids would repeat the Chinese names of the stances. But then I noticed some of the kids were mocking the words more than trying to say them. I sort of felt like Dave Chappelle watching a white guy laughing at his jokes, but in a way that seemed inappropriate. Was I teaching my art, half of my heritage,  bring it outsiders so that it could be mocked?

But I feel like quitting would be wrong. I will just makes sure that the Sifu is the most important part of the class from now on and not the students. Letting everyone find their own way and all that American interpretation of Kung Fu and Yoga and meditation sounds nice. But in a class there is one Sifu. And since the class is only once a week, the students kind find their own way for the rest of the week outside of that 30 minutes of doing it my way which was my Sifu's way, which was his Sifu's way.