SHAOLIN TRIPS by DM

[Drunk Monk]

The sound of your bones creaking is the new soundtrack to your life!

True for all of us now, no?

[Greg]

It is quite the racket when we get together.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

The sound of your bones creaking is the new soundtrack to your life!

True for all of us now, no?

Yes.

[cranefly]

Went into Kaiser yesterday to have three big test tubes of blood drawn out.  Nothing wrong.  I'm just a volunteer for research on people who creak.

The Asian vampire lady told me all sorts of stuff during the draw-down.  No idea what she said.  An incredibly heavy accent.  Hopefully I didn't miss anything important.  But at least she had good aim, put a nice big bandage on my arm.  So I step out of the lab and ask this other lady if she could give me another bandage.  So she shoots me up with a superdose of flu vaccine and bandages my right shoulder to balance out my left elbow bandage.  If my right arm starts to hurt, she tells me, I should keep flexing it and apply ice.  This morning it's starting to get sore.

Anyway, all of this is in preparation for Friday's Shi DeCheng seminar, which I think Lady Cranefly and I will be attending.  Just felt that in all fairness to DM I should handicap myself by going 3 gallons low on the red stuff and put my immune system into a tail spin.

[Drunk Monk]

Cool.  Hope you make it.  Take plenty of iron beforehand.  Or maybe a bath in blood?

Jeff said he'd be there too.  We're both insanely sore.  But that was Da Luohan, which is a freakin thigh buster.  Hopefully I'll be able to walk straight by Friday and Decheng won't knee me in the soft and tenders again.

[Drunk Monk]

Yesterday (Thursday) was Decheng’s visit to the office. He’s staying with Ye Shifu, a former Shaolin monk who is technically my elder KF brother. In a surreal twist, Yes’s House is being reconstructed so they aren’t there, just Decheng. It was a lot of traffic, more than I calculated for, and that was draining because driving in traffic while trying to hold a conversation in mandarin is beyond me. The office visit was fruitful and we got 2 solid articles. He seemed to enjoy the process and gave up a lot of precious info. Unfortunately all the apps I wanted him to demonstrate went to my left arm, still suffering repercussions of my failed plumbing attempts. Then when we got back to Ye’s, no one was there. Ye’s wife left the key in the mailbox, a fact that she emailed me after we left the office to my work email which I can’t pick up from my phone. After texting, wechatting and phoning, we finally connected and that was solved.

I went to practice tonight to work on Da Luohan - my legs aren’t so sore but still no deep stances. I remember the form well enough. It’s a nice one, a keeper. Who says you can’t teach and old DM new tricks? Came home, took a long epsom salt bath and crashed. I’ve woken almost every hour since - it’s qi induced insomnia, something I’ve had issues with in the past. Sifu Lam worked with me on it when I used to suffer from it over two decades ago. 

Tonight is the last lesson this year - 8-section brocade - a popular qigong method that has been part of my daily regimen for years. I first learned it from Decheng in 95 and have studied many variations since, including a refresher from him maybe a decade ago.

This weekend will be a whirlwind - Saturday is work on Macbeth then a show at Stanford, Sunday it’s down to SD until Tuesday for my daughter’s 19th, Wednesday more work on Macbeth, then T-day the following week. No rest for the wicked. Well, SD should be somewhat restful. Monday won’t be a travel day.

[Drunk Monk]

Despite the fire smoke, qigong class was very rewarding, particularly training alongside cf and our mutual Kung Fu brother Jeff, who tagged along for this entire run with Decheng.  Jeff left Lam Kwoon to become an instructor under GM Lily Lau, so he's still very active in the wulin.  And I can't really complain about the smoke because I'm not on the run with my family, hoping my new home survives, like Scapino.  Decheng had commented on Thursday while we were stuck in traffic that it was becoming like Beijing - at that time I thought it was just a weird fog, not the smoke. 

It was a good run and I took some great lessons that I'll be gnawing on in the upcoming months.  And these are my notes for some future blog on KFM.  Thanks for playing.

[Drunk Monk]

Shaolin Trips (Paperback)
by Gene Ching (Author)
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$462.50!?!?!

[Greg]

Wow. You should get a copy.

[Drunk Monk]

Wow. You should get a copy.

Fun fact: The first edition printing was done in...China!  So there were several copies that were all messed up, like several chunks were bound together upside-down and such.  We had to go through and pull all of those out.  I use some of them like stacking bricks to elevate my PC screen.  Now those, those misprints should be worth some money, right?  RIGHT?!

I don't even like the sound of GlassFrogBooks.  I'll be pissed if it sells at that price.  They'll make more than I make in royalties for a year.  

[Greg]

I still have a D&D manual that was printed upside down.

I'd be more interested to find the person that pays that much for the book. He or she has some cash to burn. Maybe they want to invest in movie making?

At least you get free shipping at that price.

[Drunk Monk]

I'd be more interested to find the person that pays that much for the book. He or she has some cash to burn. 

And I gotz lots of other things to sell them.