Drunken Fist WAAAH

"You know like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean? YEAH like that."

Tonight at kung fu class we started off with very little warm up. Part of me dislikes this, because I can't do very well without proper warm up and stretching. ESPECIALLY STRETCHING. I actually pulled a muscle tonight (only a little bit), but anyways, we started off with jump spin crescent kicks. I still don't know what they call it in kung fu, but that's what they call it in tricking, so I'll refer to it as that. Afterwards he had us spin twice before kicking, so it was basically the tricking (or taekwondo) equivalent to a 720. I haven't done a 720 in years! It was a lot of fun to try them out again even though they sucked really baaaad. After that we did a bunch of low roundhouse kicks, then pull out the mats again to practice backflips. He made me do some crazy stuff today. Stuff I've never tried before! Aside from the usual super arched back flip, he had me tuck then explode all my limbs out then retract, so I would look like a frog in mid-air. Frog is actually a style of kung fu. He also had me kick up one leg and turn sideways so I end up doing what he called an aerial, but I forgot what those side flips were called in gymnastics.

For most of the night I was actually getting pretty scared of the rest of the classmates. I'm glad to see kids with guts, but the way they're practicing their flips were all wrong. Like.. REALLLY wrong, even if what they accidentally did looked cool. It bothered me on the inside. Probably because I took gymnastics. For the people who couldn't do backflips, he told them to do front flips after their round offs, so he basically wanted them to do arabians. Unfortunately only one guy was doing it semi-right, but even then it looked horrible compared to the way its actually supposed to be done. One particular kid would do his incorrect aerial twist out of his round off. I'll be honest it looked cool seeing a ghetto butterfly twist come out of a half-assed round off, but it was just... wrong... My teacher was so impressed, he wanted me to try it, but it was so wrong I was like, "nah... but I can do a full twist." So I did that instead.

After that he had me do consecutive standing backflips, which was REALLY challenging. Generating spring out of a standing backflip was extremely difficult. Each backflip got lower and lower, while my teacher's were getting higher and higher. He also had me do standing backflip, rebound into front flip. It was really hard and I always ended up on my butt, but it was worth a try. I've honestly never had to guts to try it before so I was somewhat proud of myself. He also had me try to do a standing (sloppy) layout off of an inch mat.

I decided to stay after class tonight for about an hour learning to basics to drunken style. The first thing I had to learn was the drunken step, which involved using linear objects to draw a plus sign on the ground. Let's think math; the X and Y axis. Your left foot steps into the first quadrant, then your right foot passes over the front to the second quadrant. The left foot then pulls back to the third quadrant as the right foot quickly stumbles back to the fourth quadrant. Repeat. If done correctly you should look like you're drunk (very similar to the way Jack Sparrow walked in some scenes of Pirates of the Caribbean). I spent a bunch of time doing it over and over again, but I still suck at it! It's going to take a lot of practice since my instructor wants me to learn the drunken broadsword. He taught some basic moves that are going to be in my drunken broadsword form. It's going to be really fun! I look forward to learning everything.

For now I just need to go draw a line with duct tape on my floor and get two paper cups filled with water, so I can practice without spilling!