November

Chinese: 5 weeks into new cycle of classes at UCL. Our teacher left to go and do stuff in Aberdeen, so we have new one. The class is good, full of nice people. We are mostly practicing conversational stuff now.

Tai Chi: Occasional practice. No lessons since the summer break! Our trip to Morocco didn't help us get back into the routine, neither did a whole bunch of worky stuff at the start of term.

Running. M is travelling around madly as usual, so I'll blame my lack of dedication on my inability to persuade myself to go out alone in the cold. I've been down to gym a few times, just to demonstrate to my CV system that there is a plan. Don't know what it is yet.

Naah, there's no such thing as chee ... is there?

An account of a skeptic/hostile's encounter with reiki, when he was the young Luke Skywalker. As the slightly older version, he reflects:

about five minutes later, I felt really tired. Two minutes after that, I sort of slumped in my chair and the taiji teacher asked me what I was feeling. I said that I could still feel the pain but it’s like it was a thousand miles away. The throbbing was like hearing a drum in the distance. I also felt totally relaxed and calm, like after a total body massage.

He stopped and said that was the power of reiki, and I remember feeling a bit sheepish. Not only did the treatment work to alleviate the pain, but it worked DESPITE me thinking that it wouldn’t. That really surprised me. There was no hypnotic suggestion or chalking that experience up to the power of belief, etc.

I didn’t know what to do with that experience for many years, and, to some extent, I still don’t even today.

In the blogging tradition, I've stolen the punchline, right? If this sort of thing interests you (the boundary between what you know, and what works, and the fractal nature of that boundary) read the full post from Formosa Neijia.

Signs

Result of blood test "nothing actionable" though Cholesterol was 6.1. [mmol per litre presumably], which puts me in the uppper 25% or so of the population. That could be lower – recommended is nearer 5 – so I might have to look at the cakes/pies/sausages intake a bit more critically. I know what to eat, but usually am pretty lazy. Oh a nice ham and mozarella sandwich to go with my coffee and almond croissant. OK then.

As a result, somebody has been putting fruit in my lunchtime sandwich box. Fruit! £@&*?!

I went for a little run yesterday, for the first time since the initial chest discomfort anomaly.

Other signs are all about laziness too. I took Chinese in Steps textbook on holiday, read one lesson once with the audio on the iPod, wrote nothing. As a result Mandarin progress feels pretty static (though I seem to be comfortable with most Elementary Chinesepod podcasts) and taiji the same. Short (18-move) Chen is done pretty often (daily-ish), long form not at all (I'll probably forget this over the summer), and silk reeling when I feel like it. Push hands when I bump into Peter, as described before.

Who are those madmen? ... and subconcious development.

When I go to one of my departments for a meeting, I often bump into Peter, who bumps back with his xing yi, or more likely his ba gua. We had a nice meeting room with a bit of space today, so indulged in a bit of three-quarter speed sparring/push hands after the meeting. Hence the what-are-they-doing-mummy noises from new members of the admin team.

Regular readers will know that I'm feeling under the weather, so I deliberately wanted to keep things low key. Peter is much more practiced at his favoured styles than I am with my taiji, so it's usually a struggle for me to properly resist his attacks. And pointless to try and use strength anyway. I found that my being not "up for it" I was better defended. By not resisting (Grrrr!), but calmly moving around (OK then let's see what you do next) and keeping some sort of contact and letting the tactics flow from the form, I was able to maintain more of a viable position. Occasionally I could unsettle Peter's root (bastard keeps walking around!) or plant a token strike or kick. Calmly, as if doing something mundane yet tricky like folding an envelope in a strong wind, rather than fighting as if it were important for life or honour. At present that seems to be the way for me to keep proper attention to root and form over the natural (yet flawed) reflexes associated with someone else invading my space.

This was a great improvement on last time, six weeks ago. It's not that I've been doing masses of tactical work or push hands (though I've done a bit). It's more that the subconcious has been working away, doing its thing: processing little inputs from past lessons, putting pieces together, speeding up transitions, making new connections.

I think this is such an important component of learning, and highly underrated or disregarded by Western teachers in many fields. At the said university department, one of the agenda items has been proposal (not from any of us I should add) to shorten 10-week courses to 5 weeks, but doubling the intensity. There were allegedly some good administrative reasons for this, but the basic premise seems to rest on a false equation. The number of hours formally studying is one parameter, but the number of times the head hits the pillow during a course is another very important one.

Brains have to simmer sometime, they can't always be boiled.

SOAS group photo

SOAS group photo,
originally uploaded by Drift Words.

Here's some of our SOAS class. Last class before the summer, so farewell until next time. Thanks to our patient teacher, Wang Jin (centre).

It's not clear who's going to do what next term. Like I'm wanting to go back to UCL Language Centre as it's more likely to dovetail with work, and others are going off to do other things.

To round off the term, we did a nice little test paper. Reading comprehension and listening was straightforward enough, grammar not so good. Mostly multiple choice, pick the right word to insert in a sentence. All in Han zi, apart from the rubrics. We then a chance to go over the proper answers, so we know what we are good at. As well as what remains to be studied again.

I had a splitting headache after this for some reason.