Summer Recap

Noah has been doing Tenacity or as he calls it Tennessee or Tenissy and he loves it. It is pretty awesome. It is 9-12 and free and they spend the whole time outside. It made me realize you really don't need much for a program, just water and people to run it. That's how Sifu had taught in China in the villages. The villages paid money for the Sifu, but that was about it.
I should have started something like that before I had kids. But now that I have kids of course I will just focus on teaching them.

After Tenacity, I usually bike over to English high with a trailer stroller Grace got and we eat lunch there. Of course in between dropping Noah off and picking him up Dai Dai and I have to stay around the area at the playgrounds. For some reason Dai Dai is always "tired." I think this actually means bored, and that he prefers inside activity. After all before Noah started Tenacity Jonah ran a 400 around the track which is kind of impressive for a 4 year old. Maybe he has allergies.

After we pick up Noah and eat lunch we usually lounge around and play Chinese Chess there until Jonah can't take it any more.

Pumpkin greens

A bunch of the pumpkin seeds that were in the compost have sprouted. They sprouted out of the buckets I filled with compost and planted other seeds in (which didn't do as well) they sprouted from the compost I put under the Japanese Maple in the front, and I even think there is pumpkin greens sprouting from the asphalt. Though that might be weed that just looks like a pumpkin green. I'm pretty sure there are pumpkin greens because they look like the plants in the children's book, "Seed to Pumpkin." and that is the only seed that was prevalent in our compost.
In any case, I picked some and ate them. The first time I ate the ones from the buckets that I watered with soapy water. (why? I just wanted to see if anything would grow) I didn't wash them. I had also fasted the day before and ate them with corn beef hash. I had diarrhea.
I saw one of the same greens growing in the front which I do not water at all. I ate it raw just to see what would happen. Nothing did.

Then those same ones I cut grew back. I cut them again, this time washing them thoroughly before stir frying them.  The tasted sweet and like the fanciest Chinese vegetables you can buy. I did not drink the water I steamed them in like I usually do. I thought I felt a little intestinal something, but no diarrhea.
Then Grace triple washed  another batch that I picked from the front, which had never been watered. We ate them as a family and were all fine.
These are the best plants ever. At first I thought, "Great we don't have space for pumpkins." But who cares? You can just keep eating the vegetable part of the plant and you turn around and it has grown back, without having watered them, We'll eat more of them for lunch today.

The Days are just packed.

It is good to feel New England's cold morning air in the summer. Florida was fun. But I really do love New England and JP especially. The days pass so easily with things to do. We went to play grounds after our morning exercises. I do mine, and Noah does his while Jonah plays with blocks. This actually works and isn't necessarily a cop out on my part. My rule is as long as Noah does practice his Sup Ji or Kuen Gwan Do (fist stick knife/sword) then he can do his own. As long as Jonah plays happily and undisruptively, he can. But if not, everyone does my stretches and exercises.

Then it's playground. Internal days means some light Mein Lay jum for Noah. External days Noah can do his own, provided that he really does do it. In fact Noah started practicing in a way in the woods, that I did not start doing until I was in my 20's . He started off with his form, then progressed to free style and then for his rest he did free style internal. His freestyle was heavily influenced that the forms I taught him but he used the techniques spontaneously and was in low stance.
"You're practicing better than me right now!" I told him as I just ran through basics. I need to build back up to that or I might hurt myself.
In fact I was hurt today trying to play barefoot soccer with Noah. The problem was, while trying to tempt him with the ball his shod foot kicked my pinky toe. Annoyingly, it still hurts so I put medicine on it.

But as for his bractice in the woods Noah was excellent. All he really needs now is more Gung lik and perhaps more speed in terms of his ma, stance. Like if he was able to jump backward and forward really far and have a very strong punch, he would actually be able to spar with me. But as it is now, of course even a child his age, that is stronger can still hurt him. But in terms of Kung Fu, I think he has really surpassed me in some ways. I'm not saying he is super acrobatic and all that showy circussy stuff. Sure that would make his forms look even better. But I'm not going to force him to learn that or even practice it if he doesn't want to.
Just work on what he is doing and get better. Sometimes, like in the woods, he really touched some sort of divine creative art. But other times, he looks like he's not even really doing Kung Fu. It's not consistent.

At the end he did walking basics with me, while Jonah complained that he wanted to go home. Lunch and then card games followed as well as dulcimer (which was harder for everyone than Kung Fu.)

Let's see how the second External day turns out.