Phil’s blog

It’s been 3 months since I’ve posted and much has changed. I’ll write about the changes soon, but first some highlights since my last post:

• Went to the 25th annual Santa Cruz clam chowder cook off
• Went on a seven mile hike at Crystal Springs reservoir. I know it isn’t far enough to be notable by hiking standards, but for a non-hiker like me it’s plenty.
• Went to the CMAT wushu competition at Berkeley. Justine competed in nanquan (southern fist) and rocked it per usual. This was the first time I didn’t compete, my excuse being that I’m too busy to train. It was nice to see my former teammates from UVA and Justine’s friends from her wushu school back in VA. The event went way overtime as expected, and we all went out for food and bubble tea afterwards as is tradition. The after party was ok, the highlight being when Syl taught me some dance moves which I probably looked ridiculous executing but had fun nonetheless.
  
  
• Had a picnic on the hills between Google and Shoreline. We feasted on banh mi, Thai iced tea, and beautiful views while struggling for warmth in a small blanket because it was a bit breezier than we had anticipated.
  
  
• Practiced wushu at O-Mei. We went about twice a week and were starting to get back into the groove, but didn’t renew our membership this month because of my change in plans which I’ll write about in the next post. We once trained at Eagle Park (near downtown Mountain View) which was actually really nice until the sprinklers got us.
• Finally installed flush-mount turn signals on my motorcycle. I was all proud of myself but then all of them (even the rear ones which I didn’t replace) stopped working at some point during my first ride. Need to take care of that soon.
• Set up an easter egg hunt for Justine. I only had 12 easter eggs but I also hid tons of stray candy all over the apartment. Amazingly, Justine found every piece (that I’m aware of) except one which was pretty far under the bed.
• Golden Gate Park, specifically, the Japanese Tea Garden, the AIDS Memorial Grove, and the Conservatory of Flowers.
  
  
  
  
• Went to the Gel Conference in NYC. Not your typical industry conference, but rather a series of workshops and speakers covering various topics, the unifying theme being the creation of good experiences (Gel stands for Good Experience Live). I attended two workshops, one about juggling and the other about building MIDI instruments out of junk. Both were pretty interesting and I can now juggle 3 beanbags for a about 5 seconds before losing control. The speakers were also pretty good, and among the more interesting were Danny Meyer, owner of several popular NY restaurants, and Andrew, creator of songstowearpantsto.com. Also got to hang out with some old buddies from middle school, high school, and college - bonus!
  
  
• Spent a weekend in the Seattle area to work out business plans - more on this in the next post.
• Hanging out with my dad in San Francisco.
  
  
• Watched the entire Man vs. Wild and Planet Earth series.
• Watched Spiderman 3, Stranger Than Fiction (surprisingly good!), The Terminal, As Good as It Gets, Cave of the Yellow Dog, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alien, and Inside Man.
• Cooked a lot and tried some new dishes including mango chicken salad (kind of made this one up), red bean soup (a simple dessert), congee (incredibly delicious yet so simple), and a soup with sausage and veggies that I added way too much cayenne pepper to but was still good.
• Got Justine to play video games with me! Actually got her hooked on Lego Star Wars 2 (which we played through in co-op mode) and The Sims 2 (which occupied many of our evenings). We also played Lego Star Wars 1 and X-Men Alliance, but these weren’t as fun.
• Went to a bunch of restaurants:
  • Palace Bar-B-Que Buffet - Korean BBQ place in Sunnyvale, good but we couldn’t eat enough to make it worth the money
  • Gochi - Japanese fusion tapas, crispy rice pot was incredible
  • Long Life Noodle Company - noodle place in Palo Alto, not that good
  • So Dong Gong Tofu House - Korean place in Santa Clara and Palo Alto (we went to both), outstanding bibimbop but I actually prefer Totoro’s tofu stew
  • Cafe Yulong - Chinese place off Castro, great calamari
  • Queen’s House - Chinese place on Castro, not bad but not super memorable
  • Katz Deli - deli in NYC specializing in giant meat sandwiches. The meat to bread ratio was ridiculous and I wasn’t able to finish. Very tasty though, and the pickles were great.
  • Shake Shack - burger joint at Madison Square Park in NYC, best I’ve ever had
  • Vung Tau - solid Vietnamese place in San Jose
  • Miette Patisserie - French bakery in SF serving up heart-stopping treats
  • Katana-Ya - ramen place in SF, pretty good but not better than Maru Ichi
  • 99 Chicken - Korean fried chicken? Delicious! And the owners are so friendly and cute.
  • I Love Sushi - sushi place in Bellevue, very tasty and nicely presented
  • El Calderon - El Salvadoran place in Mountain View, delicious and seems authentic
  • Afghani House - in Sunnyvale, the lamb was outstanding
  • Gooyi Gooyi - Korean BBQ place in Santa Clara. Was quite good, and at one point a girl and a person dressed as a giant soju bottle came in and started advertising the product to the Korean patrons. The soju bottle was dancing around the whole time - it was pretty awesome.
  • Breaktime Desserts - Asian dessert place in Cupertino, very large and interesting selection, and very tasty
  • Okane Sushi - in San Bruno, nothing to write home about

I’ve gotten a taste of some other styles this past month:

• Aikido: Tried out a class at City Aikido with my friend Radu. The purpose of Aikido is to stop your opponents without hurting them, and the focus seems to be on redirecting, throws, and joint locks. For most of the class we worked with different partners practicing moves demonstrated by the instructor. It didn’t seem very practical to me, at least the way they practiced in the class, because the attackers were supposed to do very unrealistic things such as approaching the defender and grabbing his or her wrist. The attackers would also cooperate when you tried to redirect or otherwise manipulate them. I wondered how some of the upper-level folks would fare in a real fight. Several of them were older people, including the instructor. Radu and I agreed that it wasn’t quite what we were looking for.
• Master Uddin’s workshop: This was the guy who showed me that qi was real back in August. He came back to the Oakland school to do a workshop on general fighting principles, not really for any particular style. We focused on critical distance (distance at which your opponent can attack you) and footwork this time, and did a bit of work on takedowns. I think what benefited me the most was the stepping work: staying low, stepping with one foot at a time, only stepping when necessary, and facing at an angle to your opponent’s center, ideally towards his or her outside. Master Uddin is inspiring to watch; he can improvise quickly, his reflexes and speed are insane, and he has an incredible understanding of positioning. I will definitely keep coming to these despite the ~75 minute drive from Mountain View to Oakland in traffic.
• Muay Thai: Radu has been training at the Fairtex school in Mountain View for a couple of weeks and recommended it, so I tried an intro lesson. This style is relatively simple. We learned stepping, punches (jab, backhand, hook, uppercut), kicks (something like a round kick and a thrust kick but I don’t know their proper names), a knee thrust, and blocking of round kicks. Most of it was pad work, in which the instructor would hold pads and call out different combinations. We also did a bit of conditioning at the end: abs, push-ups, and squats. It was awesome. If I weren’t so short on time and I weren’t already doing wushu, I’d probably join.

Tonight I went to my first advanced wushu class at O-Mei. There were 7 other students, probably ranging from teens to mid-twenties. Friendly group of people! I was probably the worst person there, but everyone was supportive of each other so I didn’t feel self-conscious at all. The coach, Sifu Ding Wei, gave me some good pointers. I didn’t get as much direct instruction as from Li Xue, who taught me in previous classes, but Sifu Ding’s presence combined with that of the other advanced students made me push harder than usual. I worked on straight sword sections, and probably performed better than I ever have before despite being out of practice. It was pretty effortless too, at least energy-wise. I was whipping the sword around so fast one of my tassels broke off. I think being around supergood people was the biggest factor, but perhaps my daily qigong and decent sleep for the past few days (6-7 hours a night) also helped. At the end of the class, we all lined up and Sifu went down the line giving each person advice based on what he observed during the class. Very awesome; I have never seen a wushu teacher do that.

On the way home I was thinking about how everyone else in the class was better than I am, and realized it’s the same at work: many of the people I work with are far smarter than I am and better at what they do. I feel most fortunate to be in the company of great athletes and great minds.

Tonight I went to wushu practice for the third time since moving out here. I started learning a spear form, and one of the moves is a left-handed cartwheel while the right hand is holding the butt of the spear with the tip dragging on the ground. I had a lot of trouble with this move at first. The second time I tried it, I accidentally lost my grip on the weapon and kicked it high into the air, and it landed about 2 feet away from a little kid practicing his form. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me. I quickly fetched my spear and said I was sorry, and the kid continued with his form like it wasn’t a big deal or the most hilarious thing ever. I stood on the side, still in shock, but also trying not to laugh. I am laughing right now as I write this. Seriously, is it possible to do something less coordinated than kicking your weapon into the air? It’s hard to imagine. On a related note, I was in my car and dropped my bluetooth headset into the space between the driver’s seat and the center console after practice, spent about 5 minutes trying to find it, and in the process accidentally sounded the horn with my shoulder. I hope nobody was around.

Anyway, embarrassment aside, it was a great practice. My spear technique has improved by leaps and bounds, which isn’t saying much because it was pretty lousy to begin with. It’s great to learn tons of stuff every practice. For my 4 years with UVA wushu, as enjoyable as they were, I did not learn as much as I could have considering the time spent. I think it’s amazing that we’ve been able to compete so well despite not having a coach. It’s unfortunate that now that I finally have access to great coaching, I have little time to train. Back at UVA, time was so plentiful. I miss those days. Perhaps that’ll be the subject of another post.

I’ve been intrigued by qigong for a long time, but until a couple of months ago, had serious doubts about whether it was really possible to manipulate one’s energy.

In late August, Justine and I went to visit some friends at East-West Wing Chun in Oakland. Their eskrima master, Sultan Uddin, was visiting from L.A. and giving some demos and guidance at the school that evening. At one point he mentioned that controlling energy could make techniques more effective. I asked him if he was talking about something similar to tai chi or qigong, and he offered to demonstrate. He did three demonstrations.

In the first demo, he had me stand with my arms straight out in front of me, hand over hand, at shoulder height. He pushed down on my hands while I resisted. The first time, I was able to resist slightly but he’s way bigger than I am, and was able to push my arms down. The second time, he pushed them down immediately, claiming that he disrupted my energy. Surely he could have simply pushed harder and more suddenly, but I didn’t say anything. The third time, he first told me to relax as he slowly ran his palm up my spine, about an inch away. I didn’t feel anything. When we did the exercise again however, I was able to resist easily. I could tell he was pushing harder than before, leaning on my hands with his body weight. It was unreal. After a few seconds, something popped in my shoulder and my arms finally fell. He said that he had given me energy with which I was able to resist. I was shocked by what I had just experienced.

For the second demo, my memory is hazy but I think he first did something similar to the first demo to fortify me with energy. He then had two people stand behind me, feet planted and arms propping me forward to keep me from being pushed back. With two fingers, he pushed just to the side of the gap below the sternum. Seemingly without much effort, he pushed me and the two people behind me back a few feet despite that they were pushing as hard as they could in the opposite direction. I suppose the key point is that I was completely unhurt by a fairly large force concentrated into a single point on my chest.

For the third demo, he had Justine stand facing me with her left arm outstretched, palm a few inches away from my chest. He stood behind her with his palms a couple of inches away from her back. I just stood there not knowing what was happening. After a little while he finished and I asked what was supposed to have happened. He told me to ask the people watching. I did, and they said that I was swaying back and forth. I guess he was supposedly controlling me by sending his energy through Justine.

The second and third demos were questionable; I can see how they could easily be faked. But the first one blew my mind. Resisting with my arms that last time definitely felt different. He had definitely done something to me. I asked him if this was part of eskrima and he said not really; it’s something you can develop by practicing anything for a really long time. He joked that you could even gain such power through gardening. He added that he had only shown me the kind of energy manipulation used for fighting, and that healing was much different. During the drive home, Justine and I were both wired. It was amazing to see that this was real, and of course I had many questions. Unfortunately, Master Uddin only visits every couple of months, so it would be impossible to train with him regularly.

A couple of weeks later, I searched for qigong teachers near Mountain View and found Unison Health Connection, an accupuncture and qigong healing practice owned by Master Philip Yang. He was offering a class that started in a few weeks, so I stopped by after work one evening to talk to him. He seemed very genuine and gave satisfactory answers to my questions, so I decided to go for it despite the high price.

The bulk of each class covers principles of qi, with a bit of technique at the end of each session. The techniques form a 16-part sequence of movements and meditation which we’re supposed to practice each day if possible. It’s only 30-45 minutes to go through the whole thing, but it’s hard to keep this up during the work week. I’m averaging about 4 sessions a week, and the only way I’ll realistically do this every day is if I wake up earlier and make time for it in the morning (which is when it’s optimal anyway).

I think I’ve made decent progress. For the first couple of weeks I couldn’t feel anything, but during the third class he had us emit qi from the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other. I could definitely feel it. I’ve since tried sending qi into Justine’s palm a few times and she can also feel it almost every time. At this point I can usually send qi into my hands at will. It feels like a very subtle internal pressure, like my hand is being inflated slightly. If I send a lot of qi, my hands will start to tingle. I think I can also draw qi out of other things through my hands and into my body, but this would be harder to confirm.

We’ve covered a lot in the class, some of which is difficult for me to believe, such as contacting ancient masters or gathering qi from things that are thousands of miles away. Each class seems to cover more fantastic things, but I’m trying to keep an open mind. For the moment I’ll keep practicing and will post again if there are breakthroughs :]

It’s amazing to see the club members and demos get better every year. It’s sad that for the first time since we started performing at Culturefest in 2002, I wasn’t around to see it. Hats off to Preston for taking the footage. Enjoy!

Last night I worked out for the first time in almost a month. It was pretty light; a few minutes warming up on an elliptical, followed by a half hour of lifting. I had dinner afterwards, got really tired, and napped for almost an hour! From such a light workout, that’s pretty sad. I haven’t been in such bad shape since.. I can’t even remember! Before starting work I did wushu pretty consistently for 4 years (minus a few months due to injuries). Before that I did tae kwon do with the UVA club and also worked out a couple times a week. Before that I was pretty good about running and lifting during my senior year in highschool. I was pretty lazy my junior year, but I had youth on my side. Before that I had PE class to keep active, and before highschool I took 7 years of tang soo do. So I may well be in the worst shape of my entire life.

I had been planning to take up qigong and yoga, but neither would give me much cardio, which is something I have a hard time motivating myself to do. Wushu gives you cardio, strength (mostly legs), tone, flexibilty, and balance. It’s just really hard on the joints, which is partially why I wasn’t in a hurry to pick it back up. After last night though, I realized how badly I needed it.

So today I went to O-Mei Kung Fu Academy about 15 min away in Milpitas. I paid $15 for a drop-in 1-on-1 lesson. The first instructor, Yan Fei (I think was his name), had trained for 9 years at the Shaolin temple. He took me through stretching and line drills - some familiar and some I had never seen. I was breathing hard the whole time, but he was patient and let me take a couple of breaks. After line drills, Li Xue, a former member of the Tianjing team, took over. He showed me a 5-step basic form, seemed satisfied, and asked me if I knew any weapons. I grabbed my straightsword and he asked me to show him something, so I did part of new compulsory (the only SS form I know). He said it looked pretty good (!), but that I had no detail. For the rest of our session, he took me through the first two sections of the form, a few moves at a time, and giving tons of feedback along the way. By the end he said it looked much better I stayed a bit longer to practice on my own, then talked to Sifu Chen (the main guy) about which classes I should attend. If this works out with my schedule, and if I don’t get too discouraged from being out of shape, this may be my wushu rebirth!