Tantrum !
I came to the point where I became frustrated. Oh dear. It’s been a long time since I allowed frustration from learning into my life. I have avoided it. I learnt at my leisure. I learnt from the joy of learning and discovering things. I would quit if the teachers or the school frustrated me. I am talking about the stupid things they do that cause the frustrations, not Frustration from the Learning itself. For both the guitar and the ice skating , I came to a point of frustration, the wanting to sit down and cry type, or having the slightest of impulse of ‘throw away the guitar’ type.
Yes, I went to my skating lesson like usual and I thought I had it figured out, the 3-turn of my weak side. Happily I showed my teacher. My teacher said, ‘You’ve got to do this more, you are still doing this….’
Ouh.
I was like, ‘Like this?’
‘No, more like this. ‘
It seemed that I had been drive turning rather than spin on the axle point of my skates. I ended up in a tight curve rather than a straight line going back.
As he tried to show me, as I tried to follow his guidance, I still ended up doing the same thing. Turn with the head first, turn with the arms first, keep the arms down now, turn with the trunk locked. I was still doing it wrong.
He asked me to 3-turn with the other leg. No problem. About Perfect.
He knew and I knew that there was a problem.Yea, but how to correct it? Pointless to tell me there was a problem and leave it at that.
I said in defeat ‘I can’t help you any more.’ I had no idea how to correct the wrong at all. He couldn’t bridge the gap for me either.
It was a problem right from the very beginning. Now it was time to get it corrected or I couldn’t move on with my skating. I was gathering so much speed and momentum and the faulty turn would be very dangerous for me, not to mention unsightly.
At the end of the lesson, he told me, ‘Okay, let’s just practise the turn with the trunk locked. ‘
After the lesson, I began comparing my left to my right. From the very start point. In extreme slow motion.
Suddenly, I got it.
‘By Jove, I got it’!
I spent the next two hours just doing it. Round and round. Round left, round right, back to left, to right.
I was satisfied. Hopefully this was what the teacher asked for. I could feel that it was a point leading into the leaps.
I limped out as usual. Rather confident that I got it. But I leave a tiny place in case there is still more corrections. I won’t be totally crestfallen.
***
My guitar? Like I said, when there is pain, it is pointless to drive on. The resulting sound gyrates and irritates too. But I had a day or two off. I came back to it. I thought something sounded off. I tuned the guitar with the electronic tuner.
I played. I thought it sounded horrible. Something was wrong. Was it my finger tenderness? It was really off key. I tried the tuning again. But it was perfect. I tried playing. But it sounded so horrible to my ears that I couldn’t bear to play. My poor ears. Was it the way the guitar was made? Why was the sound dulled? Why did it not resonate like earlier?
I got sick of the song, sick of the bad sounds in my ear. I couldn’t get the fingering and hence the timing correct for a more complicated chord change. I could feel my slightest smallest impulse of throwing away the guitar. I could picture it in my head, throwing a tantrum. So I put it away, pessimistic, wondering what my guitar future would be, did I really enjoy music that much. Can I get guitar playing past this point, build up my skin thickness sufficiently not to imagine my finger tips bleeding from the steel string cutting in.
Later I picked it up again. Couldn’t be helped. I had a lesson coming . I could at least try my utmost till lesson time. Deliver what I could. I looked at the tuner tuning again. Suddenly I saw that the note was tuned to a D# instead of a D. I didn’t see it because the tuner was held at an angle. No wonder the sound was off key. It was tuned to off key! So I continued playing.
Guess what, I could play more, I could play better.
And better and better.
I could follow the song and jam along !
I am amazed.
How brain power could give over to muscle memory. After a while, the brain needn’t figure out which finger went to which string when. It would be too slow. The fingers just went, especially the very complicated parts.
The pain ? Sometimes I am not sure if it is there. I am still gingerly about pressing the strings too deep. But the music is there.
I told you. The Body is an amazing thing. I love it so !
Wet and Cold
Mumble, mumble, mumble. Nothing coherent. But I had better write, or I wouldn’t. I have been frozen. Being frozen hijacked my grand topics. I like the cold. I prefer the cold to hot. But Cold is cold. I am cold. Cold because I am underdressed. One can’t be too cold when there are all sorts of clothing and warming equipment available. So while I sit here being cold out of my mind, it is rather a kind of choice. Cold in the warm sun is nice. Cold in the dark grey day with rain is just cold. Quite miserable.
Once I asked a disable kid who couldn’t speak but who could somewhat respond to my questions with expressions of her face. I asked her are you cold? She looked at me blankly. I wondered why. Then I had the most peculiar thought that she didn’t know what ‘cold’ was. Because she lived in an institution, they wrapped her up pretty snugly, thickly and warmly. Because she couldn’t speak, they assumed that they hadn’t needed to introduce the word ‘cold’ to her.
I digress. I like cold. I like rain. I like storms. I like different kinds of weather as long as they do not hold still. But cold, misty, wet, windy. Really, not very nice. Is that where the expression ‘chilling cold’ came in?
I guess writing consistently and brilliantly is no easy feat. Especially for one such as me who is prone to all influences. Those influences are my soapy bubbles. They come, are temporary and if I don’t catch them and record them, they go Pop and disappear. If I am lucky, they would come around next time for me again. Hopefully I am with pen and paper. I don’t always like to stop everything
I am doing just to write something down.
I could go on my favourite topics. Figure skating and guitar playing. But I do not have much to talk about.
I haven’t been on the ice. My body was overdone. I might have been warmer had I been there. But I’d been practising in the park. Because it was so cold, I had my hands in my jean’s pockets. I bent one knee, then the other. Remember I told that my left leg does not do as well? Well, as I was bending this leg then that leg, I realized from my hands in my pockets that for both legs, the muscles fired differently. With my better right leg, I could feel the side muscles of my thigh reacting as soon as I started my bend on the same leg. For the other, I could feel no such contraction.
After a while of comparisons, I realized that I do not put my whole weight on my left leg. My left foot on the floor acts as if it was going to step on an egg, hence it would not rest totally on the ground till the last moment. Whereas for the other foot, as soon as it hit the ground, solid weight was placed on it most relaxedly and following that, rests the weight on my hip on the same side. Just like that. That is why when I pull it from its deep position into a turn, it is the most natural turn, with the weight solidly, relaxedly and stably one the blade.
For the other leg. Oh dear. I had to search for what it was doing. It just would not trust the ground. It was ready to bolt as soon as it hit the ground, hence there was no way for that side to reach a stability needed for the turns. My body does not trust my own leg standing. How weird. My foot wouldn’t exactly relax, my hip neither. As for my thigh, it is but the middleman with not much say. I had to give it more time for the weight to sit into my foot and into my hips. So that on the word ‘go’, my hip from its deep position can pull back immediately into the turn.
I’ll find out if this improves my skating on ice.
As for my guitar, maybe the cold is good for it. My cold fingers get quite numb, so the pain is not so readily felt and I could push my practice. I think they could do with a rest now. My Teacher thought I was so good that he emailed me a song bit to try out. That put my fingertips on overdrive. Not a very good idea. I was planning to repeat the previous exercises to its possible perfection but when I was given a new one, everything turned out less than average.
Back to Brrr….
Soapy Bubbles
It is hard for me to know when to start writing. At which point to say to my moving thoughts ‘Stop. Now you Fixate on Writing.’
As if writing itself is the topic for writing.
It is not.
It’s like the body. You never think about it when you use it to do something do you? You never notice your body till it starts hurting. And I mean Never.
So, it’s like trying to jump into my moving thoughts, like trying to jump on a slowly moving train. Sundance Kid ! And hoping not to disturb those train of thoughts too much so has to hijack it.
I find I like to write this way. At least it is fresh. I can never force something on paper even if it’s an awesome idea.
Which bubble to pick to write on, as the bubbles of thoughts come and bounce off me, triggering reflecting ideas ?
It has to be the bubbles that trigger me to write. Soap bubbles. That’s how I’d like to keep them fresh. Float to me, land on me and pop ! I can begin writing.
Hmm. Now that I have written such a cute little piece, that by itself is a Post !
A cute and fun post if I may say so myself !
Can you feel it, the bubbles ?
The Bubbles made a post. And so it shall be.
Where To ?
Today I am in a particularly odd reflective mood. Odd because I wasn’t actually thinking about anything. But there was a stimulus that started the contemplative train of clouds of thought above my head. It doesn’t feel like it was in my head, just something floating above. Must be the open sky above me when I came across that. I was sitting on a park bench reading a book.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
Sounds familiar?
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
I never much understood the story. I had seen the film in 3D but still not understood the colorfulness of the story. Something drug induced I suppose. Or was that Puff the Magic Dragon ? Now I am getting confused.
Anyway. I had come across these sentences often enough, but it was only this time that it struck me.
I do keep asking the question, what to do, where to go from here. As I contemplate always the meaning of life and existence, I try to find meaning in my own existence.
I always know that we are all going to end up the same place. We will die. So pretty much where is immaterial but the journey, how should it be?
I realized the answer came to me in the form of the above as I read the quote.
Talk about Freeing. That is what I have been up to. Recalibrating my all my thinking through that point and wondering how it feels for it to Not Matter which Way I go.
Awesome.
Simply Awesome.
Did you want to add a swear word in the above too? I almost did !
I have always played it safe. Well, stretching within my boundaries. I will continue to play it safe but with such a sense of purpose !
Getting oxymoronic, no?
I am enjoying writing my own Post. The white background is beginning to love me back. Like the ice loves me and responds to me and my blades, giving me tremendous love. Like the strings of my guitar, starting to love me as my fingers dance on it picking the right notes.
If it’s not too much, I would call it, making love.
Merely
Let’s see how I start with today’s topic. I haven’t been on because I have felt really out of sorts. From what ? From Pain. Mighty Pain. Well, it’s not a huge pain, but it is bodily aches and pains so much so that I can’t do things right and that does spoil my mood. I was in no mood for anything.
So in that frame of mind, I had better not write.
Today I have plenty of free time. Free time to Mind Roam. How I love that. I do not like restraints. I like to explore. Explore my experiences, my bodily responses and with my mind that makes sense of things.
Right now I am not making sense yet. Now I will make sense out of everything going on these few days.
It will be about learning, pain, guitar, ice skating. The fine details and as a bonus, what made my heart open to love.
The thing about learning, it really is never ending, how high you can go, how well you can do. The process is always the same.
I am not even talking how high. Just the mere next step. The MERE next step.
Just when I thought I could sit back and bask and be total smug about getting a lesson on the spot, there comes the next one that makes me feel like I have to learn it all over again. Again the feeling of being dunce. Well, not ‘again’, because the first time I allowed myself for not knowing so it was all plus when I got even a little bit. But the next time round, even if it was something completely new, I felt the ‘not again’ , I believe this time referring to starting from scratch when I thought I could at least start the round trotting rather than crawling.
Oh was I not in the mood. This pertains to the guitar. I was doing so well, my Teacher upped my learning. I was given something that totally Stretched my fingers, used the tiny strings with my little fingers, which meant that I had to readjust my posture, really slouching sideways weird so that I can reach the notes and press the tips of my fingers on each string so as not to disturb the other strings.
Pain from the stretch across a few frets. Pain of the raw flesh upon the thin metal strings. Pain from the adjustments of the shoulders and back. The back muscular soreness coming from my ice skating practice.Pain of the frustration that I can’t do it. I can’t do it the first time, I can’t get it. I can’t coordinate the left index finger of the left hand to the right ring finger. And many more different finger coordination like that. How on earth can one ever learn ? How is it possible ?
Frustration that I can’t force it. I cannot keep on practising to get it right if I am already hurting, I cannot get it that way. Frustration of having to let it go for the day, for the time being.
Frustration is a pain. It adds to the physical pain.
So much pain hijacking my attention. How can I be in the mood for anything else?
***
Now the ice skating. I was whizzing across the length and breadth of the ring so well. Really well. I felt. Wowzerie, such Freedom, such speed, such grace.
Well, when it came time to deliver. I always call it Delivery of homework to my Coach, I couldn’t deliver so smoothly. It had to do with my 3-turn. Left foot. I still hadn’t found the right technique yet, I just fumbled across it. But at high speed, fumbling does not do. The balance is crucual for Perfect technique if one is to perform in high speed in total freedom of feeling the Speed, the Grace and the Unity with the ice. I mean, I want to enjoy the ice, memorizing my technique does not enable me to enjoy the ice, in fact, I won’t even notice the ice because my attention is in the Memorization of the Execution of my technique. I can’t enjoy it, how could you ? You’d only notice the pain of my effort of execution, it would probably show on my face and my furrowed eyebrows. It is a performance exhibition sport after all.
Anyway, when it came to lesson time, I knew I couldn’t perform. I couldn’t sit properly on my behind. I just couldn’t. My thighs ached, my back ached, my hips ached, my calves ached. I just couldn’t do it. Now if I couldn’t do these basic things, there is no point thinking anything grandeur for the day. I told my Coach that. So he simplified my practice. We did mostly only 3-turns on my weak side. Problem solving just why I couldn’t turn correctly. Wow. What an extreme slow motion. What extreme breakdown. See, it is only a turn and whisk, it is done. But to do it correctly, the starting point has to have the weight on the heel, which means I had to sit on my behind driving my left foot forward. Secondly, I needed to use my behind on the left to pull me backwards. Can you see how confusing this can get? You have to think about pushing going forwards at the same time of thinking sitting pulling backwards. This has to be coordinated with the trunk motion as a whole. Thirdly I had to use the same left hip to do all the work of turning and not let my right leg swing around using momentum for the tur.
So that was all there is to it to my problem of left 3-turn. Just these three points and I’m in the Rock n Roll !
***
As I write this, it sounds very positive. I am amazed how learning takes place. As I wrote down my points for the 3-turn above, I know that once I get the point, I will be able to get it down pat. No problem.
As I write this, I have also been at strumming the guitar. Somehow hours later, my fingers ‘took’. I call it ‘take’ because it has nothing to do with my brain. It has to do with muscle memory. Once my brain tells it what it wants, even in the frustration that I spoke of earlier, somehow, later, the fingers ‘take’. They know where to go, my ears gives also the command of whether I am on the right string, close enough rather than being a total dunce. As I strum while writing this in pauses, it got the new song. It got the rhythm, somehow the pain is less and I can actually get a clear sound out of those tiny strings with my little finger.
Ah.
Pain. Like one who has given birth the natural way, the pain, one swears never to go through the pain again, but what happens? One forgets the pain. And goes on to have the next kid. And the Next, and next.
But I have to stop now with the guitar. I have reached my limit for the time being.
***
As to my writing, I like writing this way. Even my grammar turns out better. I am unable to finish my whole idea for the post, but there is always another post.
My word count above is 1231. That’s my record.
Pushing It
Oh by golly, I had forgotten that new muscle work aches the most on the second day post exercise. The day I left the rink, I was limping on the account of my left knee and side thigh, that new exercise. Today I ache on my back and both thighs. Talk about pushing it. I pushed it till I could no longer skate backwards. I then did only the specific 3-turn on my left foot, till I couldn’t do that anymore. I then pushed my arms holding out. I was told to keep my arms up, now that is tiring, so since my legs would no longer work, I continued skating but just keeping my arms up. Now I know why my arms are also sore when I play the guitar. I have to keep my arms up somewhat to be able to strum the guitar.
Ooh and aah. And aah.
My guitar, after the lesson, I couldn’t get to my guitar, so I had to leave it for a day. As I said, it is very easy for me to lose the plot when I break the rhythm of doing things. When I came back to it, I wasn’t very enthusiastic. In fact a tad bored because it is the same song over and over again.
But I had to practice some. So I did. I started to count. My Teacher told me I need not focus on the counting. Priority for me is left and right finger dexterity on the guitar. But I found I easily picked up the additional phrasing that used the little finger for the chords. So I started counting. One and two and three four. One two and three four. It was a bit complicated coming in because notes started on the And of the three. Three AND. Amazingly, yes I was amazed, not at me so much for my cleverness but at how the ear could hear the tones while I was busy counting aloud. Very soon I was doing all three at the same time, including the fingering. Wow and I could get the sound so clear.
It’s not the same song anymore. It’s a nice new song, so well played, crispy and fresh sounding, to the beat.
Now I understand what the many layers meant, the complicated sounds of the progressive Beach Boys. Which the Beatles tried to beat by Sergeant Pepper. The main Beach Boys are no longer alive. The remaining ones are just the hangers on who just like the popularity but without much vision, alive and after blocking the original music brains, live off the frustration and depression of the original brothers. The music brain died of overdose. The other brother, the blonde surfer died in an accident off his boat. That is why I am not interested in the tours of Aging Beach Boys. The story I read off Wikipedia. I enjoy the Beach Boys, I looked up their history. I got depressed myself after reading it.
Moral of the story, geniuses and sensitives who do not know that they are, as they are pure get trodden and rejected for ideas that are far progressive and forward than their counterparts, get depressed and then mentally pushed .. becoming mentally ill. The useless ones who tag along, gets to have a big say, make all the fuss, stop the creation, and when the creator dies off, lives off the association and carries on the name as if it was their creation. I say ‘pah’ to this. That really irks me.
Not Long-Winded
Where and how shall I start today’s post ? Obviously, my last post was very long winded with ‘he said, I said’ told in chronological order. That’s what happens if I try to write of something that just happened. If I waited longer, I could make a summary of it, or add further insights but I might also forget the whole incident.
2012 is a very exciting year for me. Everything happens on my behalf or I have finally the ability to make things happen. Ability, like it is something special. Yes for me it is something very special. I am a person whose head is in the clouds most of the time. That’s not true, if I was in the clouds, I would have my view of the earth obscured and therefore I should be in the perfect position to Write Fiction. But no, what I mean is, I think about things most of the time as when I observe them. But it takes a lot more to actually ‘do’ things.
This year, patience and perseverance belongs to me. That’s because for most of my life I fretted and strived and by now I have seen that no matter what, everybody ends up the same place. Since I have already achieved for my own satisfaction, everything else is a bonus. Fretting just makes life no fun.
So that is where Time became aplenty for me, to do the very practical things one by one, step by step for example completing a non-fiction book.
The fun thing is, once I pay attention and move without hurry but with purpose, everything I do just happens faster. Everything falls into place faster. Whatever I want done happens faster.
It’s Real Cool.
You know, Effortless almost.
Oh, I believe by effortless, I mean I achieve something without feeling the drudgery of achieving it, without feeling my trudging steps and the subsequent ‘what is the meaning of life’. Obviously there is great effort, energy, time and focus but because it is so much fun, and I am so into it, I don’t feel it. And Voila, I achieved it. It’s like magic. How did I get there? I forget that I really worked at it. That’s the thing. It doesn’t feel like work at all. Just a lot of fun.
The fun is probably mine alone because if I am in focus and concentrated, woe is to anyone who gets in my way and disturbs me.
I see this in my skate and fight classes. I laugh and joke around, play the fool, and people think I am easy going. Till I suddenly when I am concentrating hard to get something right, I transform into an ogre and they wouldn’t know what hit them. I am easy going till I am disturbed !
They say I am a quick learner. Not really, I just work very, very hard, fully concentrated on the task.
Yes, but I call it Effortless. Because I surprise myself too. It never used to be this easy for me. I belonged to the kind that would slog and slog and still get nowhere. There was no way for me to even be competitive. I wouldn’t know how to begin.
But I paid my dues. I took no shortcuts in life. I advanced slowly but surely. Not the Tortoise type style but the Hare. I am everywhere but somehow I get there. Via Principles in order. Plus I questioned everything and everyone.
So, how’s my guitar and ice skating?
I delivered the right moves that I was thinking about, I picked up so much speed. I thought my Coach would be happy. Alas, coached picked up on something else, also on the left side, this one I had great difficulty with. I knew something was off. He tried to show me, explain to me, but this time I had no clue what he was talking about. I didn’t know how to correct the problem. Frustration. Rare, but Frustration it was. It was the same problem as I explained earlier, if I went fast and then turned on one leg, I felt like I was going to throw myself off the circumference, I always had to fight to stay in the balance thus losing my ‘one piece’ of the body. The top goes left, the bottom goes right. That kind.
I asked him to video me, still I didn’t get it.
In the end, he brought me to the side wall and asked me to do a certain posture, which was tremendously odd to me. If I was to turn out left, then I should be on the outside of my blades shouldn’t I? But no, I was to stand on the inside blade, knock-knee style, it’s like I was getting ready to turn inside, but I stood there in that style. Everything screamed. I was not used to that posture, my muscles have never coordinated in that way before. Like that I pushed myself off the wall. Voila, it did work.
I was amazed. Suddenly I found myself standing in the middle of the whirlwind, serenity, balance. So I practised and practised. Needless to say, I am limping on one leg now. That same leg.
I have accomplished my homework the same day. Ready for delivery.
Smugness belongs to me.
As for the guitar, nothing as dramatic, but my lessons are getting along smoothly. My Teacher is pretty satisfied with me. I got more homework. I love homework. He jammed with me for a second or two as I was trying to play the song that I’d been practising the whole week. I was so happy.
See, I have many words today, but it doesn’t feel long-winded as my previous post, I don’t think.
The Teacher, the Student
If a student can recognize a great teacher, likewise the teacher will recognize a great student. I have not mentioned my fight school for a while now. It is no longer a fight school. Did I just say fight school ? Oh my, it is now a club for well being and posture. Now how did that happen ? I mean think about it, I joined the school because I hoped that someday in my dreams, I could participate in MMA assuming my skills became sufficient. I don’t see how the well being and posture part emphasis could contribute anything to it. And I haven’t even gone six months in the year with a year paid up.
I had told that I was quitting the school because their split minds split my own mind. Definitely no well-being for me. I had gone to tell one of the external teachers with whom I learnt well goodbye. He had told me what a waste, I was just getting into the crux of the art. He said to me, follow him. I said, he was only teaching one part, without the other parts, it would make no sense for me. I do like the fight part if only to play with reflexes and speed. I then asked if I were to follow him, could he impart to me the whole basic art of the fight? He said yes.
This week I met him again in his class. He asked me about the main school. I said I have nothing more to do with them. The only thing left was whether to ask for my money back. I am clear when I make a cut. I cut. He said to me, he won’t be using this place anymore. I asked where he was going to, that I would follow him. I hoped that it wasn’t on the account of me that he was making the decision. He said no.
He said he hasn’t told the school yet.
The other students asked him where he would hold his classes. Someplace else where he would pay for the use of a studio.
Basically his own Master’s school.
I have no idea where that is and I care not. He is my Teacher now and that is all that matters.
He asked me what I meant when I asked if he would teach me the whole art form. What did I have in mind? I gave him some of my thoughts but I left it to him. I trusted him to teach me to the next levels in whatever form he felt fit for me. I said I have no goals and I am in no hurry. I believe he is giving birth to his own school which he has every right and in every position to. Along with a few other students, I am quite happy to be his first students. He will keep to the tradition of the school and not have the art mutated into the ‘health and posture’ club.
I left feeling quite alright. I left with the feeling that I am glad to be alive and happy to be me. I like that I can leave my learning to my teacher. I know what I want to learn and I can leave it for the Teacher to make decisions how to teach me and where.
It is lovely when you can trust the Teacher and the Teacher can trust you.
It goes both ways.
The Teacher loves to impart. The students loves to learn.
Lovely.
Imagine
I realize I will never be a fiction writer. I think they call it Creative Writing. I could try to dig up the myriad reasons why. I have been thinking about this through the years. I have borrowed, read and owned books about creative writing, the plot, the characters, the suspense, the hero, the failure, the conflict, the triumph the resolution but in the end, Fiction is not for me to write. For me to enjoy yes, but not for me to write. It is quite a relief to know this.
This year will be a great fantastic year for me. It is about paring down to essentials and priorities and paring away wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking is me writing a fiction account.
That’s because, I take Shakespeare seriously. The whole world’s a stage, we are but players in it. I am so busy creating my own real fiction, why would I want to make the other stuff up? I mean the whole world is a funny, sad, cruel, weird and unimaginable drama. Same for both, greats and horrids.
I am happy I will not be writing fiction !
But I can imagine me being a Rock Star ! I declared today, I will be a Rock Star at 60. Isn’t that cool !
Just because I have a music teacher who is 5 in 1. He plays and can teach the drums, bass guitar and guitar. He composes and performs too. He can teach. He has a good eye and a quick sensible mind. For example, he asked me why there was a difficult pause between strumming one note to the other. If all things go well, there should be no gap. I said, how is the ring finger going to isolate itself to play one note, between the ring finger and the middle finger, it was hard to coordinate, not to mention isolate to pluck the strings.
He immediately gave me an exercise that trains just the ring and the middle finger.
When I had my first lesson with him, I was not looking at the strings to pluck. I had forgotten I was supposed to look at them. Were we? I was too busy looking at the notes he gave me and running my fingers by those notes. He noticed this and taught me how to feel for the right strings in the right places. See, he is an observant teacher. I like that. He is not pedantic. He cuts straight to the point and works with his student. Me. He is good enough to be creative how to get me to learn and push me. I like that.
Oh, I am going to be a Rock Star? Where did this idea come about? Just because I can now start playing the second song. Each time better and better. Each time my ear listens to the quality of the sound, each time, I correct the off sounds. As much as the skin on my fingers can take it. I realize that I couldn’t press too well the finer strings because they cut into the flesh. I am playing the steel guitar. He suggested I get the nylon stringed ones first. But my choice was due to the quality of the sound when the string is hit.
See, you have me, the very able, smart and hardworking learner. I have a fantastic teacher. I have the focus , desire, dedication and the time for it. Add all these together, The Rock Star is indeed possible. I already own the drum set, the bass guitar and the guitar. So, on the subject of what I will not do, if I had to choose between learning music or learning to make the website. The website can take a back seat.
I will be a Published Author. My pencil is being sharpened everyday. Postaday is my pencil. I can write and write till writing to be read becomes second nature for me.
I am so going to enjoy 2012 and beyond !
Continuity of Writing
My skating, the continuity of my activities seems to be the continuity of my writing. If I can think of nothing else to post, I can go back to my staple what to write about without digging or thinking too deep and hard.
My staple seems to be my learning activities.
After the magnificent feeling of being on ice previously, I attended the next lesson feeling uncoordinated. I can go fast yes, but I do not feel the control. My legs, trunk and arms do not seem to be working in synchronicity. I could feel what was wrong but I did not know how to correct it or how it should be right. I told my coach this and asked him why I felt like I am being thrown to side of the container hoping for dear life not to get thrown out of my balance, because going fast has very high momentum, while on the other side, I can stay at the center of the centrifugal force. I feel so graceful on the other side. I know I look good too.
After he told me what to correct, I thought about how it looks like I am going two steps back and one step forward. I thought how it isn’t actually the case because, I had become sensitive to what was missing in that higher level of skating. The thing that had always been my problem right from the beginning, that got away but now is not allowed to get away because I need it. So I will focus on these things. It has to do with my left hand side balance whether I turn or go backwards on it.
I haven’t totally figured it out yet. I have to feel it out when I am in the park.
As for my guitar, my fingers are sore, but I hear my tune now. The melody. I still miss a string up on both hands, but that’s because I had learnt first the bass guitar where the space between the strings are further apart.
That’s so much for now. I got to get going.
Honest Writing
This was going into crumpled ball of figurative draft on the floor again. But according to Erica, it’s okay to write honestly. So let’s just post it today, for tomorrow, it will be old news.But I feel so much better now that I am Enabled to write honestly. For example I love the body, but my early subscriber has bad arthritis of the knee, she is almost chairbound. To express my love of the body, I am conscious that I am so in her face. It wasn’t very nice at all, knowing that I was writing really at her face. Other early subscribers are bible thumpers. Well okay not exactly thumping but their love of God is strong. Oh dear. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my blog title, looking at life, which has its own inherent problems. But having them read my posts…I automatically considered censoring my posts because there is a huge part of life that Christianity is not supposed to look at or touch. Sinful and wrong you know ? If I were considerate of my readers, I wouldn’t be able to say anything. Oh, I would have plenty to say. Or how about pill poppers? I have a huge opinion about the industry. I say there is a better way. But I haven’t yet the energy to be that opinionated about it. So again, I could get into hardworking honest people’s faces again.
So for the year of Postaday2011, it was a lot of talk about nothing, so basically more neutral, sports. But like I said, already in someone’s face. It didn’t make me feel nice.
So you could see that I was not writing for subscribers. If anything I was doing quite the opposite. Let’s see if this year I can make it different. Handle differences of opinions. Because these opinions are definitely important. That’s why it is a big deal. But I was writing to practice writing and publishing posts, it wasn’t my goal to be interactive. I am not there yet. I have no desire to spend the energy defending my position. It is not the time. I am here to think out my position, feel it out. My position in writing.
Here’s an ironed out sheet of paper from the floor :
***
Today. I am limping. Oohs and Aahs as I sit or stand or move. I had a grand time on the ice. My coach sent me to move across the vast areas of the ice. Conquer the territory. Speed. Space. Sequence. Left. Right.
I was doing it just fine. I did it for hours. Now, I can go straight to the next lesson. I don’t think I can practice again before then. My body needs to recover. I haven’t felt such aches for a long time in ice skating. Not since the early days, a few months ago.
I sweated.
I could feel the blades on ice. I can feel the ice loving me, through my blades.
***
I went straight to my guitar class. Oh dear. I got some very hard sequences. Lots of coordinating to practice. Left hand, right hand. I haven’t yet a clue what the actual music sounds like from my playing. I haven’t put it together,the sounds that I make . They don’t come to any sort of music. Not yet. Just sounds from awkward fingering and plucking.
Crumpled balls of drafts
Well, I have had about 10 crumpled balls of figurative drafts on the floor for two days of postaday. I think if I don’t commit something down to post, there will be nothing to post.
Writing seriously is no easy task. I was trying to be a little bit more serious. I can’t just find any 5 minutes to swing in a post and be done for the day. Writing takes time. I mean when I sit down and write, minutes will go by, chunks of minutes. Therefore if I am to write anything decent, time really has to be allocated to it.
This is now different. Before I would allocate the time and find that I have nothing to write about.
But now I want it to happen and I have substance to make it happen. I can’t say it is content yet, because I haven’t actually formed anything . Just some ideas here and there. I saw a thing called Scrivener that is on the sidebar of a blogger, but if I paid for it, would that mean I am stuck at one computer with that program? See I do move about and tend to use multiple computers. So such a sophisticated program would not be of much use to me.
I think Postaday is great because it keeps my writing engines oiled so that it won’t take too much for me to veer off and begin writing serious stuff.
On another note, I had quit my drum teacher and bass guitar teacher, but now found another who plays, performs, composes and teaches all three (including a guitar).
He asked me my goals. I said I want to be able to write music that is so moves the heart, but I start from level zero. I wonder if that is possible. He said, take the guitar, it will help you understand music. Falling into bass will be much easier and as for drums, it can wait.
I said ok. So I left my music future in his hands. I am very happy about it. Here is one dream come true that I have never dreamed could happen to me. It is happening. Well, I am strumming out some very beautiful notes on the guitar already.
If you asked me what I wake up excitedly to, it is actually learning. I love learning. I love being under a fantastic teacher. Teachers who can help me reach the stars.
Learning is such a fantastic experience, especially coming from nothing and the Teacher recognizes how you need to learn.
I think it is absolutely fantastic when I can tell a Teacher. Ok, I follow you. Teach me, show me, decide how it is best for me. Work with me.
It is absolutely great to be able to find a Teacher like that. So this teacher looks promising, because he doesn’t have his own mind how he wants to teach me, removed from me. For example, he saw that I was strumming the guitar but not looking at the strings, hence I kept picking the wrong string to strum. Instead of telling me ‘look at the strings’, he went along with me and showed me how to feel for the strings without looking at it. So this Teacher is like my Ice Skate teacher who just threw me out as maximum as I like to fly, and correcting me in places where I struggled. He did not restrain me. I was restrained by my lack naturally. So he just picked up, and we go on.
Another from the fight class. I told that I was quitting. I told one teacher and then I went to tell another Teacher because I didn’t want to suddenly disappear when they have put effort into me and looked me well as a promising student.
The other fight teacher is actually affiliated and not involved in the business. He was just volunteering.
I told him I came to tell him I was quitting. I was almost in tears. He asked what happened. I said that my experience of going to that school is splitting up my psyche and stressing me out. So much for training my body, what’s the point when it is driving me mentally mad? He looked at me and said it is a waste, he felt it was a waste. He said that I was just getting it. By ‘it’ it meant something that usually students take years to get it or not at all. And I was getting it, just beginning to show it. I was an earnest student. He took joy seeing me work so hard and improving. He had been at the art for many years and himself is a matured person. Past the wanting to impressively fight younger phase which the school is.
He said, why don’t you follow me? I said, if I followed you, it wouldn’t make much sense to me because you are teaching me the soft art. Without the fight part, it wouldn’t be much fun. I asked him, if I followed him, would he be able to teach me the art in all its forms? He said yes. I said ok. I follow you then. He would teach me the basics, the foundations and that was what he had been doing all this time, correcting my form. When those things are right, it doesn’t take much to apply it into the fight style.
Then proceeded to tell the other that belonged to the school that I was following this teacher. They had forgotten that I was a paying customer to the school. You know the type, sell you in and when you pay up for the year, they proceed to forget you and their attention is on other new potential customers. What a rip off. Yes, that’s what it was. They weren’t really qualified to teach because in martial arts, you really have to be really really good before you can open a ‘dojo’. They are young folks with a good idea to make a buck slotting martial arts in gym style classes per hour.
These I understood later.
Anyway, I am happy that I have the time to write this. I feel the substance and the joy of writing, not for the postaday commitment, but the love of being able to post this.
Oh, also for the ice skating, the coach has given me the thumbs up, I am on the next level. I am now stable on the skates and he is starting to give me sequences. Hurrah !
Postaday :)
I like Postaday. I have already gained from it. I found myself making a decision to press the ‘Publish’ button or not. Postaday2011 had me publish for publish sake, hoping to fulfill the day’s quota. It’s great because it enables me to see what I actually spew out and of what quality it is, how I feel vs what comes out, how I feel being read and following that, how do I continue my next posts. So, for the next year, I actually can sit and think about the post and can decide to write the same post in draft form in a better way before I hit publish.
So Postaday for me is still about the Practice of Writing, Blogging, and not so much yet about perfection of a Freshly Pressed. I think I am the kind of person that once I hit Freshly Pressed standard, I can quit. Because I attained already. I love the process so much more.
Yes, I do edit more, press the backspace more and reword my sentences.I do actually wait hours, overnight even before I hit Publish. So some potential posts get the bin. Now I feel somewhat more of a Real Writer.
I love words. So it can’t be helped that I am focused on words making a picture and therefore I can see that I am not on the lookout for photo taking opportunities worth a blog. I know that if I focus, it is a matter of Focus, I can get into the project of a photoblog. But it’s not in my focus, it means, I will hardly see the phototaking opportunities that are in my sight.
Postaday is helping my dream come true. I become a sharper writer and being a Published Author comes all that nearer !
End of Postaday……
End of Postaday. No bang no nothing. just a disappearance. No prize for the winners. No mention. No nothing. Just Oblivion.
I have found that my writing does change as to whether it is made public and when it is read. There is a tendency to want to write toward the people reading it, or the opposite.
I wanted to test my writing against people’s response. It is quite difficult. I wanted to write freely, but I was very well aware there are many readers out there and based on what is written, since my opinion does come pretty strong, I feel that I have to hold back, and even that has seepage.
Since I am also rubbing myself to life to see the possible responses, being part of Postaday did contribute that for me. I found out what I am like and what I am unable to stand. I find that a social community is quite that, social, and I am not inclined to be sociable.
So writing in Postaday has been part of a journey of taking a look at myself.
But perhaps I will write more taking a look backwards, so I can still legitimately post it under Postaday2011.
Now this should be interesting.
If I were to say 2012, I wouldn’t have a project yet at hand, rather, a continuation of the same theme. A journey of revelation of self through blogasphere. But what has happened is that I am feeling very comfortable with the little buttons and themes and forums and links and embeds and actually posting anything. So it has been good.
For the year 2012, my book to write that I have been talking for years, that would be my real project. Postaday 2011 led me there and I feel comfortable now writing for public consumption.
Strangely for me, in the blog, I am happier when I have little readers and followers, because I when I write, I have something to say. But if I want to keep readers, I would need to be popular. I would need to censor and put on a public face. Which like a politician, or anyone normal, should be desirable for the sake of civility. But I do feel that I have something to say so I need to say it.
So why don’t I say things outright ? Well, since this is a journey also of self discovery, the psychoanalyst in me also wants to know why. One of the reasons is that I am not speedy. It takes me much contemplation and repeated observation before I come to a conclusion, so a little line from me can have taken a long time to get there. And once I get there, it might take me another long time to get another line from me, I mean from me and not just taking someone else’s jewels and calling it my own big idea. That would include old ideas or adages even. It’s got to be mine through experience before I would lip-sync it to someone else and call it a book.
What else. Surely I love the attention and the accolades and approval, but at the same time I don’t like to get involved because I don’t like to get involved with dramas. Some of which due to my own sensitivities, like very sensitive, would be the reaction that causes the reaction of others. See, even this sentence I have to look at again. Straightforward truth speaking vs high receptive sensitivity.They are not very complementary.
For this morning, I have actually come to feel that my personality or what it has shaped into does have a much better place in writing. My personality is strong, I am very sensitive, my mind is strong, my intellect is well, I have very little patience for nonsense ( that being relative ) and I choose healthy evolution over keeping the status quo even if it is not so healthy and not the best. I mind my own business unless I see someone else really hurting, or struggling with something that I can quickly help with then I’ll step in. Otherwise I tend to leave everything else alone, especially engines already running smoothly.
So I think the ingredients above do not fit me in socially since I am not really interested in dinners and social talk. Even when I play sport, there is an element of learning in it. So, social is secondary for me. Or tertiary. I will stop the social if it bothers me. So you see, my fight class has been bothering me like crazy and it has come to a head that I have to quit, because it makes no more sense to me already to continue attending.
At the moment that is where I am. If my personality has been found with a defect, that’s because my attention is on something else more important to me and I am on a mission to correct that within my sphere of influence.
The fracture of the family and the effect of the resultant grown up kids in society.
That will be the legacy I will leave behind.
It’s only a small part, very tiny, because the earth being a jungle, cockroaches and weeds can survive and seed just about anywhere, no rules or niceties needed.
I am talking of if one had a choice. I will give them that choice.
The Crossing Over
Wowzer.
My 2011 ended with 3 external stresses piled into my head and giving it a big spin, and my 2012 starts with one big blast to someone’s head for giving me that one big stupid stress the last day of last year.
So that’s what my coming year will be about. Blasting my way through. Enough sitting back and trying to remain inconspicuous.
One Big Adventure coming up.
Welcome, 2012. Let’s begin our Adventure!
End of the Year
End of the year. oh dear, shock, shock and more shocks. oh dear oh dear. What big changes. oh dear…….It’s all good but still shocks…..Really change is so sudden and so big….I got to breathe..I got to just let it settle……………
2012, you are going to be such an awesome year for me. but please, wait for me, give me a little moment, i need to catch up a little mentally and emotionally.
Revv Ready 2012
Wow, life is revving up at a furious pace. I am not even aware of the ‘ordinary’ days between Christmas and the New Year. Looks like New Year will just arrive as it is. and I may not even notice it. I had even forgotten about my Trans – Siberian desired railroad trip till someone told me enthusiastically that she’s got a ticket to Hawaii. So I collected my new lightweight thermal snow boots and backpack.
Looks like I will arrive to 2012 flying. Not even running.
I feel exhausted already. So many different events. Huge changes, endings and beginnings occur so quickly that I am ready anew when the New Year begins.
I am not sure I can even begin to settle down to quiet myself.
I can’t even speak now.
I better not even try.
Deliberate Day
Today I feel I have nothing to say. Perhaps my energies are being used internally to gear me up to thinking through and putting a stop to what is stuff and nonsense in my face. It has to do with my fight class actually.
I have mentioned my on and off love hate relationship with the place. I think it has come to a head and the bother is more than the reward. Even if it is equal, it would still be a loss. There should be a net gain from it.
I think I shall not say anything for now, as I feel evil trying to spew forth from my mouth through my fingers. Yes that is how seethed I am. Today is not a funny day. But it is a deliberate day.
That is the great thing about it. Deliberate. Stopping stuff and nonsense and making a call, not the phone kind. Decisions. I paid up for a year, but their stuff and nonsense really gets to me. So if I walked away, stop loss, I would save me a lot of soul trouble from them. Then I wouldn’t have to pay a mind doctor to ‘cure ‘ me. There is nothing that contributes to fitness about it at all.
Funny isn’t it, the fitness that they sell me is actually giving me mental stress.
Holiday Mornings
I love the holidays. As I said, Christmas holidays are the quietest times of the year. Quiet from the hustle and bustle of people and traffic. I really really love it. I went out for breakfast, and took my other library fight photo book with me.
I stood by the sea, I found two discarded poles, I found a tree and voila, there is my practice enemy. The discarded poles being arms of my opponents. The tree being the body where I can wedge my poles and also potential punch target (first I have to find a pad for some protection between my knuckles and the rough tree bark)
I stood there, one hand reading the book for instructions, the other doing the practice with the tree. Isn’t it awesome? What a sight I must be making. If I had a camera, I would capture that picture.
After I was done, I thought about the pivoting that I see the instructors and seniors doing. And suddenly I found an insight to my ice skating problems.
I could sit back and go backwards on the right side very well. But I am quite clumsy on my left. I could not find the proper way. I wasn’t sure what the matter was. But as I tried out the pivot, comparing the right pivot to the left, little by little, I started to pinpoint the problem.
Wow, such a thing as balance, what an intricate detail. That is why our feet has so many little bones in it. We weren’t meant for flat footed walking or running on hard pavement. Anyone needs orthotics ?
I could pivot right so effortlessly and well. I was clumsy on the left. On the right, as I pivoted, I found myself sitting at the back of the foot. But for the left, the weight ended on the ball of the foot. Oh. A few more times I tried it, it seems then that I wasn’t not able to sit backwards on my left when I ended the motion. I was leaning forwards.
It took me another little while to pinpoint the problem to a stiffer left knee, that would not allow the agility of the twist. Like an unoiled hinge.
Another little while to notice that when I turned into the position, it’s the way I got into it. What it required was turning following the infinity sign. Or the figure 8. That means the weight from the middle turning in early into the twist and ending up on the back of the foot, from this foot, to the middle and heading to the back of the other foot. This is necessary to ensure the continous smooth weight transfer from one side to the other.
I did this on dry land in my boots. Now to get that on skates. It is harder to find this out on skates because it is just too slippery and cannot be performed in very slow motion.
Hmm. I must consider my morning routine. This a great start to the day.
The Holidays
Christmas, I love Christmas. It is the quietest day in the whole year, especially Christmas morning. The drunken revelers are still in bed, no hustle and bustle on the streets till it is lunch time. It is an awesome holiday.
I read a book on ice skating, things that could improve my skating, but it was only about a chapter or two that is useful, because I am still feeling my skates, not yet spinning nor jumping. Then I read another book standing up, because it was a picture book, about my fight art. So I have more understanding what I am learning. I was in the sun, in the cold breeze, under some shade and the sea. Yes I can take on a fight now, no problem. But I won’t know what to do with a knife or a gun. I would need Krav Maga for that.
I love learning.
I also notice that I am changing too obviously, so I watch myself with peculiarity. It has to do with Time, my responses, my thoughts, how I feel about things, how things affect me.
For example, I used to like to veg out on holidays, watching videos the whole day, no problem. But now, I get restless. Watching videos have no longer the same effect on me. Neither do I want to do something for filling up space. So in a way, I am quite floaty these days.
I have a bit of Mr Monk in me, who doesn’t I wonder. So while I love to float about, I guard that freedom jealously, I also need and like some sort of routine. When my routine changes a tad too much, it disorients me. I am not the kind that likes to plan things a year in advance. Or set a time to do something.
You can see I am forever trying to figure myself out, but it’s a never ending thing because I am always evoluting. (Some one came up with an even better word. Evolting !)
I find that I represent human kind. So I am curious of this creature called human kind and I am my own curiosity. Because I do wonder a lot about people and how the world revolves with them in it.
I am very happy for the coming year. Each year gets only better for me. Because my mind frees itself from baggage more and more, quite like how I would like to lighten my life in different ways. It is getting quite light now leaving me in some disorientation as I have to familiarize myself with the new weight difference.
Since I love books, that would be where I am most unwilling to let go of for the moment. But I do some by giving them to the library as soon as I have read them.
So for the holiday, my mind drifts, thinking about this and that. Lighten my load. That seems like a good resolution for the new year.
Melted
I thought I’d practise. So I went to the rink. I felt like a stranger. There were so many kids, school hols, I wore my boots, felt strange in them, tried to skate, but my left foot felt funny in the skates.
Painstaking. I thought about how I am not a native to ice skating. Anyway, I had an hour or so, so I practised.
A little way in, I saw a little girl with her shoelaces undone, I said to her, ‘Hey little girl, your shoe lace is undone.’
She went to almost the side and bent right over, actually onto the path of the skaters, I said, ‘Hey, why don’t you move further toward the wall, it is too dangerous out here!’
She walked to the wall, bent over. I asked her, ‘Do you need any help? ‘
She said confidently and proudly, ‘I know how to tie my shoelaces myself.’ She proceeded to tie another half knot over the two half knots which had already made a dead knot. She stood up, ready to go.
I said ‘It’s still too long, may I help you? ‘
She said, ‘Ok’ and put her foot forward. Me, I had to go ooh and ahh to bend over low and balance myself without toppling over, finally getting myself into a squat position to help her tie it. While I was doing it, in a very clear voice, she said ‘Thank you !’
Wow, I was thinking, what a lovely polite kid, well taught. I answered, ‘Not at all.’
I went over to tie the other boot as well. I made a grunting noise, to emphasize tying it real tight.
Then I said’ ok now.’ And stood up and she went on her way.
My heart had melted at her pride and independence of being able to tie her shoelaces, even if it is just another half knot on top of the dead knots and at her very clear ‘Thank You’.
I skated a little and I wanted to run away, in case I didn’t do a good enough job of tying her shoe laces properly for her, in case it became undone again and I’d be so ashamed. Can you imagine this little girl having such an effect on me giving me performance issues about tying her shoe laces properly? It’s like, can I match her standards ?
The whole day after that her clear proud little voice kept ringing in my ears ‘I can tie my own shoe laces myself’ as a matter of factly. and ‘Thank You’ while I was in the middle of rendering my services.
My heart so melted. What a beautiful kid. Independent, polite, able to accept help. Gracious little kid.
Kids don’t normally have such effect on me. Usually I would want to smack them, spoilt brats, attention seekers or just hiding behind mother, or totally ignoring others.
My heart is still melted, will be for a while.
More Standing
Today I enjoyed my standing class. The teacher saw that my basic form was now acceptable, so he started to teach me now to do it using even less effort. Minimal effort to execute the same standing motions. Wow, he is teaching me the Invisible method. That which cannot be seen and can be quite perplexing to think about. If you had to lift you arm and move it, you would need muscle power to execute those motions wouldn’t you? Now he is telling me that I am still using too much muscle power when in my mind, I am already using the minimal. I mean any less and my arm would drop. Isn’t that mind boggling ? But strangely, a few hours in, I got it. I got the concept of it. Two weeks, I told him, over the Christmas and New Year’s break, I will deliver a much improved version. I am not sure I can get it so significantly better because the concept is pretty not so easy to grasp. How do you manipulate something Invisible? How do you use power much less than your minimal ? It’s like this, you got to let the arm travel out by itself without much input from you. Ya know what I am sayin’? Yea, like that !
I told the teacher, sometimes I feel it is futile an exercise, because there is no end to it and there is no particular reason for it. But like today, I felt a tangible improvement and a tangible goal, so again I am encouraged to plod on.
It’s very interesting to me because every time I learn a new concept, a correction, an improving point, I get to do the whole form as new all over again applying the concepts. In this way, it never gets boring.
You might be able to tell that I love the body, how it works, how amazing it is. I am sad when it is taken for granted over a lifespan and then diseases ride it and all sorts of things befall it.
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