21 days into it

Wow, much time has passed.

The new Hung Gar class is proving to be fun, and we’ve got a good sized class to boot, with several familiar faces re-joining and getting back into it, which is absolutely fantastic. We’ve also found a slightly different location for our Sunday practice which has the advantages of being a) sheltered b) receiving the morning sun and c) secluded and hidden in a way that if we wanted to practice weapon sets it would be quite alright to do so there, I’m sure. This was the second weekend we’ve practiced in that spot and it’s great. Had a great lesson today, learning a whole tonne from Sifu, really delving into the concepts and the connections in Sun Style Tai Chi (concepts from Xing Yi mostly today), coupled with him testing us in various positions and having us do the applications so we could feel the power and body linking. I realized it is a lot like riding a bike: someone can tell you all about it, you can understand it, but until you distinguish balance you’ll just fall right the heck over. (Some of you reading this might get that quote from a different source too…) So Sifu will test us and give us the chance to distinguish internal power. It’s a privilege and very cool.

Afterwards I practiced #6, #7, #9, #3, #1, and #8. It’s kinda crazy but in a way makes sense that my understanding and skill in a more external art like Shaolin is being informed by and improved by all the internal work we are doing. Sun Style has made a big difference over the past couple of weeks, and Bagua earlier in the year made a crazy difference in my tornado kicks (even if I get a lousy or tired takeoff I can still turn it into a good powerful kick). Really they all do come together at the higher levels.

Dogged with a bit of a cold right now, but not letting that slow me down. Held a Lofty meeting the other weekend, creating ourselves anew and crafting our game plan for the first quarter. No gaming the past two weekends. Been reading a book, more of which I will share with you later. At work we’ve ‘finally’ started our first ADT pilot project, and studying for the next registration exam is underway by me.

And, yes, I have indeed purchased and am playing the Burning Crusade. 2.5 years into it WoW continues for me. I had the rather unfortunate experience of logging in about a month ago and noticing my level 60 character naked — logging in confirmed that all his stuff had been vendored and the gold transferred out. In short, it quite appears I had been hacked. The GM/Customer Service team was unable to verify it nor to restore my equipment, so they sent me a ‘baseline’ set of equipment to get me going. Thanks to the in-game generosity of a few friends (thanks to you all!) and the baseline gear I was equipped well enough to take up the reins once again and ride into the Dark Portal with my trusty nightsabre Myrra at my side.

I’ve only played for a short while in the new realm known as the Outlands but it’s been cool so far. The land/sky/etc is quite funktastic, the quests have been slightly more in variety and ‘interestingness’. Tones o tones o tones of people there though, which makes for a slightly odd experience (so many running around doing the same quest as you) and a bit of lag in the town. The dropped and reward gear so far has been insane, as in insanely good. Don’t know if that will continue the further in I get, but if so… wow. A bit of Rifts-itis. ‘Course, we all like nice shiny gear…

Current Possibility: Waist Power