Swords and Sticks and Fans and Halbard!

The T'ai Chi Club has just sent out the booking email for their Annual Weapons Weekend.  :)  Not saying that I could be pleased about it, I am immensely over the moon!

The last couple of years I have been out of luck with time to be able to go.  But this year it definitely looks like I can go, so I have got my place booked by email, deposit on its way to the course organizer.

I have been to the course once before and it was on sword, we spent quite some time learning the movements for a Broad sword Form, that one of the gents was intending to compete with.  I had a wonderful weekend, learnt a lot, then spent the next few weeks trying to remember it.  Only trouble is, I did stop practicing it, so as with anything, unless you practice it goes.  I do know this though, for me to learn it again, it will not be as hard.

Over the years in my training, I Have learned new things early, well I say learned, more like I had a go at them when it was requested.  I have never allowed myself get hung up on remembering these new things.
I found that when I was required to actually learn them, to retain them, it became an easy task, like my body knew that the movement was correct or incorrect, so these things were not onerous tasks.

One such early learned thing was a Stick form which is supposed to be learnt at our 2nd Dan level.  I think I was a very lowly orange belt the first time I ever did that form. We practiced it a lot that evening, so by the time I needed to learn it, it felt right.  There were a couple of sticky bits as ever, but, it went in.  When I do that form now, I feel like I know what I should be doing.

So, learning new things in martial arts is always a challenge, and that is part of the fun.  To be able to learn something new, that even though it may not be remembered fully, your body reacts to its movements, when asked to do them later.