harumph

So, I am taking two P.E. classes to fill the rest of my schedule for full-time status. These classes are awesome because they are Kung Fu classes. Yay for me. Connie Zhang is PSU's resident Wushu master. Connie started training in Kung Fu in southern China as a little girl, but during the Cultural Revolution was displaced and ended up starving in northern China. Obviously she had to quite her practices. Eventually, her life settled down and she was able to enter school as one of the thousands of wushu students. I am not sure how she ended up in Portland, but at some point in the early nineties she got a degree from PSU. Soon afterward she began teaching Tai Chi and Wushu classes at the university.

I have taken three classes from her at this point. Two tai chi straight sword forms, and one tai chi saber form. She has come to think of me as her T.A. which can be rather annoying at times, but usually pretty fun. I actually taught the last four weeks of the saber class, guiding the other students through one of the saber forms that I have learned from my kung fu school. This term I am taking an empty hand wushu set. It is a companion set to a form that I already know, which is really cool. I am also taking a kung fu fan form, which is a blast. The form is choreographed to…wait for it…wait for it…MUSIC! Holy crap is it awesome in the dorkiest of ways. All of the steps coincide with the lyrics and music, and at certain points you open the fan with a loud snapping noise. So awesome. People are constantly poking there heads in from the hallway to see what all of the commotion is. which is rather embarrassing. I wonder what the must think when they see a room full of whiteys jumping around with fans, listening to Chinese folk music booming out of a little CD player. I like to imagine that they are jealous of how cool we look.



So. I have THREE brand spanking new prints due tomorrow by 2pm. I have completed one. I am fucked. Thus: Harumph!


::UPDATE::
This is the form! with the same music and everything!