Jam Jong

Today was a basics day. But yesterday was too and after basics it is time for forms. I was pretty unhappy with Noah's forms. "I'm tired!" He complained. But what he was lacking was ding lik. That power tat you only see in Kung Fu, but it totally matters for performing forms. Boxers don't care about it at all and they can still knock you out or even kill you. But when you do a form like that it looks like you don't even know Kung Fu. A lot of Karate is all about Ding lick. The Okinawan one anyway. Holding positions, putting power into the move to develop strength. So today we held some form moves because I realized it would benefit Jonah too, even if he just watched. He would be able to pick up the form easier.

And I realized too, that I sjould dedicated a full day to this practice, which is called Jam Jong. Think Yoga, in Kung Fu form Not the Yoga Fu. But pausing at each position in a form and holding it. We did 30 seconds.

I will put that for one of our internal days.

Writing this reminds me that I have forgotten to continue with the forms videos for Luk Lik. Filiming a Luk Lik version of Jam jong would be painfully tedious. But on the other hand, it would make learning the form, or at least following along, a hell of a lot easier.

I'm focusing on all this traditional training but tomorrow, 7pm at the gate we are doing a very non traditional performance for films at the gate. Non traditional because we won't be using drums, but will be using music. I will not abandon drums. But I am going to be using music and numbers in stead of forms a lot more in my future performances whenever I can. But just like forms... we will be doing these numbers, changing and improving them for years. The songs are very important too, not just any songs. They all have meaning, they weren't just picked at random. But because of this and my drumming numbers I adapted and my story telling... shoot I could do a 2 hour performance me and my kids... if I had to. And that means I'm ready for the College and Prep school circuit, and if anyone would ever let me... a set show that performs every night somewhere. I'm not saying I can sell out the Wang Center, I'm just saying I can do 2 hours. And the last time I had that ability I belonged to really full and well trained team. Knowing I can pull it off with me and my kids is quite freeing actually.