Thankful For Space

 I have been having a few issues with my forms this year. The first is visualization, a subject which I will be blogging about in much detail at a later date. The second, and the theme for this blog, is my spatial restrictions. Now, I am fortunate that my apartment has a pretty sizeable living room (and it helps that a singular loveseat and a small square table is basically the only furniture I own), but it's still a far cry from the Kwoon, and very much less than ideal. 

My hand form this year is Snake, and I am again fortunate enough to know the form well, as it was a hand form of mine in a previous year. That said, it has been quite some time since I have done the form, and I have had to relearn a few chunks and transitional pieces. Snake has a very different flow and "vibe" compared to the schools forms we learn, so another piece of fortune is that I already have learnt and developed this flow, and do not need to worry about it as much as I first did (although I am feeling pretty awkward with it again, so it may need a few sessions). The first couple days of the year, I was able to quickly piece the whole form back together, however, due to the size of my apartment, I have to adjust myself every few moves. As I am back home for reading week, I had the opportunity to get on the mats earlier in the week and get some reps done without having to worry about adjusting my distancing or any of that. And then, on my first rep, I start adjusting my spacing the same way I did in my apartment. Perhaps it was because my brain was vulnerable as I was piecing the form back together, but my muscle memory had incorporated those adjustments into my form, which cost me a few transitional moves that I ended up not remembering. Fortunately I have a video to go off of, but it was kind of a strange moment when I realized my muscle memory had already adapted to my apartment. I am hoping to get as many reps as possible this week with the space I have at the Kwoon and at my parents house, and as a combative measure I will be changing my starting location frequently when practicing in the apartment to keep my adjustments at different intervals, as to avoid it becoming muscle memory again.

My weapons form has been another mountain to climb, in all aspects of the expression. Creating weapons forms have never been too much of a struggle for me; I have always been able to feel out the weapon well enough to construct a form that matches my body and style and works with my flow, and able to do so in a pretty short period of time. Now this year, every time I begin to get my flow and momentum going while creating my form, I hit a literal wall which causes me to hit a metaphorical wall. And as much as I would love to be able to practice outside, snow in Lethbridge does not last for very long but it does fall somewhat frequently. This may seem like a great thing because there is almost never any snow on the ground, but it does mean that the ground is very consistently wet, mucky, and muddy. Until it begins to dry up a little bit, it does me very little service and as such, progress has been existent, but slow. 

I didn't realize quite how much space played a role in my lack of creative ability while working on my form until I had the opportunity to be on the mats. I was able to double what I had done in a month in less than an hour. Again, I hope to get as much done now so that when I return home, I at least have something I can work with. I have accepted that my ability to create and memorize a weapon form in only a handful of sessions is not something I will be able to do this year, and that the old adage about building Rome in a day is one I should actually acknowledge.