Tricycle adventure

Today Jonah and Noah rode their tricycles to Chinatown. That is they got on the orange line with their trikes. Of course it wasn't anywhere near rush hour and I had already tried to get most of their energy out by doing soccer and Kung Fu stuff at the park in the earlier morning.

This was after snack, actually sort of after lunch.
The "goal" was to visit Noah's old school and check if they were taking pictures today. I was pretty sure they weren't in fact, if they had been I would have messed up big time. It turned out they were going to do them next Thursday.

Noah had a blast but Jonah's steering was dificult to the point where I almost turned back before reaching Stony Brook. But then Jonah promised he could do it. Then later he threw a tantrum because he wanted to stick his finger in the Subway door. I ended up letting him because there was no point in stopping him on just the principal that he could possibly get hurt if he was able to put hi finger through (which he couldn't) but then he was still amd because his finger wouldn't get through.

"Do you want to cut your finger off?"


"Yes." he said matter of factly, prompting laughter from the old woman sitting closest to or trikes. And then when he kept tantruming she frowned and said, "Wow, he's stubborn. You've got your hands full with that one."

The tantrum continued and Jonah no longer wanted to ride but wanted to be held. Basically I was deciding not to do trikes with them ever again.

Once in Chinatown Noah wanted to get baos. I thought that was weird since we had just eaten. Boas turned into a drink for Dai Dai and ngau cherngs for Noah, which he didn't finish, and which Jonah almost threw up on. They weren't hungry. They just wanted the Chinatown experience.

Then we went back to Stony where we did sprinklers and playground and we bumped into some friends. One of the mothers who came to my class a couple of times was there and her husband, who happened to have done Brazilian Jiu jitsu for a number of years, was there too. Once he mentioned this we tried to talk about Martial Arts and various drills, in between running after children doing various things. In any case I got learn a few basic drills  and an arm bar. And I also suggested he help out with my kids class.

I can do that because since we have different sections of class, we could conceivably suddenly switch and do drills from other systems. I mean we do lion dance and then Kung Fu wheels on the bus, and hello songs. Adding in some other drills isn't going to be "confusing." And pretty much Noah does his Own system right now anyway. In fact today for Kung Fu he made me follow him. Which sometimes I did but sometimes I said, "Well I'm going to put my hands this way instead because if you do it like that, I can just trap you. If you still want to do that fine. But don't make me do that." That sort of worked. Not really.

Anyway, I've been thinking about exposing myself more to other styles (not go so far as to say "study") but to use those ideas to help me with the techniques I already have. Even though White Crane has an armbar, I've never actually done it on anyone, and seeing how someone else does an armbar (letting them do it on you) I think is helpful. But when you go to a school or meet someone and you are "SIFU" then you can't really let them do that to you, because of status and face etc. Instead you would be forced to put them in a lock, or show them how they can't put ypu in a lock if you are doing Chuen kuen or moving or whatever, to show you re better.

But this was not that environment. So I took this opportunity to learn some things at the playground.

It did make me think of more drill like animal stuff you can do on the ground as exercises, and it did make me think about the arm bar variations in Lo Hon Kuen, and the arm locks in Fu hok Song Ying, and why one would do an arm bar outside of the ring. (It does make a lot of sense if your attacker is wearing armor and coming at you with a sword or spear. And a kick to the head right before it, in or better yet, as same motion wouldn't hurt either. But your not going to practice kicking your friend in the head right? And Armor went out of use since guns. Hence the modern version that can be practiced and used on each other in a safer way)

Plus I think it's good for my kids to be exposed to a bunch of martial arts, especially Brazilian Ju jistu since everyone is doing it. But again to have a strong base in White Crane. And when I say strong base, I just mean Chuen pow cup. Like I said, for forms, Noah is doing his own style anyway. And of course I eventually hope for him to learn the White Crane forms. But there is no point in forcing that. I should just encourage practice. And if we are really going to STUDY something other than the Kung Fu we already know, I would suggest something like Programming. Even in a real fight, computer programming is more useful nowadays.


Well going to a place always seems to be easier than coming back from it.
Jonah tantrummed and was difficult until I just carried him and the tike and pushed Noah.. somehow and Jonah is napping now. And Noah is resting but complaining that we need to watch something, and that I had my turn blogging already.