Starting next weekend, I’ll be teaching private lessons at my kung fu school.

One of our other black belts has recently decided to take some time off, so we were one instructor short and there’s a test coming up soon, meaning that there were students who want private lessons but not enough hours to go around.  Hopefully I’ll be able to help take up the slack.

I’ll have my own key to the school so I can open it for teaching, plus the privilege of working out there anytime.  I’ll get a cut of the profits from the lessons, but it’s not really a lot of money.  I’m doing it for the teaching experience and because I honestly enjoy doing it.  I’m really looking forward to this.

A couple of weeks ago Deirdra and I drove up to Memphis to visit my parents for my mother’s birthday.  While we were there, we met up with some old friends for some gaming.  I hauled most of my indie games, but we ended up playing The Shadow of Yesterday.  I’d had an idea kicking around in the back of my head for a one-shot for a while, so I was happy to GM.

The setting was a melange of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Fairy-tinged England and (obviously) Pirates of the Carribbean, with some strong influence from Farscape, since I’ve been re-watching the whole series.  All but one of the PCs were convicted criminals on a prisoner transport ship being hauled off to an island prison.  The sole standout PC was the ship’s pilot, the only one able to control the living vessel.  We started the game with their escape and overthrow of the ship’s crew and captain.

We had a grizzled terror of a pirate who had got religion in prison and reformed, a gypsy witch imprisoned for striking down a corrupt bishop, a half-breed son of a noble fairy house with a grudge against both his heritages, an ambitious pirate captain who loves long odds, a noble lady-in-waiting framed for the murder of her mistress, and the sea-touched liveship pilot.

They avoided engaging with another ship flying the flag of the Church, navigated to a port on the Barbary Coast to take on supplies and a new crew, tangled with the locals, shipped out and sailed up to the North Sea to raid English shipping lanes, befriended Viking pirates, and eventually faced down a corrupted liveship with a voodoo priestess pilot and a captain driven mad.  It was pretty great.

I should be going back to Memphis in October.  I think next time we’ll probably play some Capes and/or some Primetime Adventures.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Last week was my birthday.  I’m sure my instructor didn’t intend it as such, but I’m considering this my present:  on the thirtieth anniversary of my birth, we finally started working on a basic tai chi form.  It’s not the actual Li family set, not yet.  First we learn a simple series that’s repeated several times on the left, transitions to the right, then repeats several times on that side.  We get to practice that set as we learn the principles and the building blocks before we move on to learning the real deal.  Even so, it’s really great to be moving into something internal.