It was a great 10 days training with Liu sifu. The weekend seminar went well, and the private and evening class trainings were also good- plenty of sweat, new (and old) things to work on, and of course getting to spend some time with a friend and teacher. As usual everyone helped make the visit go off well. Thank you to everyone who turned out to train with us, and to everyone who helped make the event go so well. Special thanks to Corey Tedrow and Jim Baab for helping make Sifu’s stay comfortable, to Mirakian sensei for hosting the seminar in his dojo, and of course to Liu sifu for coming this far to work with us. It has been good as always to see him and I’ll miss him between now and his next visit (or mine there, depending on which happens first) but I am glad he is headed home to spend some much needed time with his family after a long trip.

But while the visit was great and it is always good to see a friend and teacher I am really looking forward to a very special event tonight. Tonight is….. regular training at our dojo! Special events and visits like this are a wonderful part of what comes with pursuit of an art like ours. They help us correct our practice, give us things to work on, and can both introduce new ideas and give a different perspective on what we are already doing. They also give us a chance to spend some time with friends from far away- from Taiwan for sifu, but from a variety of places for our other kung’fu brothers and sisters. This too is a wonderful benefit of martial practice. But while the special events are great, and time with one’s teachers absolutely necessary for improvement in any martial art, the meat of it, the day in and day out sweat, pain, and joy of practice, happens here at home. In the dojo or in the backyard, basement, or park, this is where it happens. I am really looking forward to seeing dojo mates and students and just practicing. That’s the real stuff!