Down in the park

[morsla]

Down In The Park
(Gary Numan, but I have the Foo Fighters cover in my head).

down in the park where the machmen meet
the machine and play kill by numbers
down in the park with a friend called five
I was in a car crash or was it the war
but I never been quite the same
little white lies like I was there

come to tom-tom's the place to eat
like it was built in one day
you can watch the humans trying to run
oh look, there's a rape machine
I'd go outside if it'd look the other way
wouldn't believe the things they do

down in the park
where the chant is death, death, death
til' sun cries morning
down in the park with friends of mine
we are not lovers, we are not romantics
we are here to serve
different face but the words never change

I went to the Carlton Gardens on a whim, after work. The sun was just fading from the sky, andthe wind smelled like rain.

I remembered why I live here... we have no real garden of our own, but we can borrow communal ones :) I ran through some meditation; the Five Elements Qi Gong, and both 24 and 42 for Tai Chi. That was a nice change - months ago, when I last went out there, I hadn't learned all of the 42 form.

My mantis form is... different. As far as the Meihua form goes, it's not happening - too many memory lapses. But it flows like it never has before - I can chain together fluid rushes of movements faster than I can think about them, and I kept blindly stepping into counterattacks and defenses that I've only seen demonstrated before. It was rather strange...

Partly, this is the form that has always suited me the best - it's built for someone with very springy, strong legs; fast hands and long forearms. This is also the style that I've practised more intensively than any other, despite "learning" it for the smallest amount of time. The training days in China were long, and I've kept practicing as I walk, stand still, and dance ever since. Something in the back of my mind is quietly keeping tabs on where my feet are moving, and (affter years of trying, with Wing Chun) I finally have a sidestep that works. It made all the boring and tedious parts of today worthwhile - if I hadn't slogged through them, I wouldn't have been standing in the park at that moment when the skies opened up.