In kung fu this session we’re working on three weapons rather than just one. A lot of the basics are the same for all three, so they kinda fit together. We’re doing single stick (as in escrima, about 26″ long), fan, and nunchaku.

While waiting for everybody’s weapons to arrive, we spent a couple of weeks just working on basic stuff with the stick. A lot of the blocks and thrusts and some of the strikes that we use with the stick are exactly the same for the fan (closed) and the nunchaku (both sticks held together in one hand) so we were getting that stuff out of the way for everything.

Since we started this session, I’ve been going to all three classes available on Tuesdays and hitting both Beginner and Intermediate/Advanced on Thursdays because I’ve felt like my endurance has suffered over the winter. I hate winter. Cold weather always makes me sluggish. Now that it’s warm I’m feeling better and I want to get back on track. Finishing up a long, tough, exhausting workout always leaves me feeling good. Maybe it’s endorphins, I dunno. I go home feeling like a washrag that’s been wrung-out. Like all the fat has been stripped off my bones just leaving muscle and sinew. It makes me want to take a shower and then go out for a steak. I love that feeling.

On Tuesday I had to skip class. I picked up a sinus infection and it layed me low for a couple of days. Of course the first class I miss in months is the one where we start on the new weapons. No big deal, though. I catch on quick.

Still not quite back to healthy, I skipped Beginner on Thursday and just went to Advanced. While we waited for class to start, Shana showed me how to check to see if I needed to adjust the rope and I think mine is a little too long. It was good enough for one class, but my hands got pinched on some of the rolls.

On the nunchaku we covered some basic transitions, rolling from a forward grip over the back of the hand to a reverse grip and vice versa. We did some figure-eights, then added the rolls and the eights together. We learned how to wrap the flying end around the body so that the energy is absorbed softly and bounced back to change direction, rather than just smacking yourself. We practiced some double-bounce moves like going from an over-the-shoulder grip to a horizontal swing, bouncing around the waist to change direction, then around the thigh to change again, then back to the grip. Stuff like that.

We had to work all these moves with both hands. I’m solidly a righty. Usually anything I try to do with my left hand is a disaster. With that in mind, I was surprised at how quickly I got accustomed to the chucks in my left hand. I was doing everything really well right up until I nailed myself in the left knee. Wow, that was excruciating. I can barely walk on it today. I should’ve known that getting real chucks was a mistake. I’m buying some foam practice nunchaku before I give myself a concussion. Maybe the ones from Target that talk.

We also got started on the fan form. We don’t have a stick form in this level, though we did practice the short sequence we learned in Black Belt Club awhile back. We don’t have a nunchaku form, though Adam mentioned that we may have to do a minute of freestyle spinning with them for our test. We just have the fan form. We’ve only gotten about seven moves into it, so I don’t have much of an opinion of it yet, aside from being surprised at how easy it is to make the fan flash open with that loud POP. It’s easier than it looks. The hard part is getting the thing all the way open and holding it there. Closing it completely is a little tricky too.