by Tapati
Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they fought with expert timing –Carl Douglas
Wing Chun Characters
When I returned from my trip to see my family, I was relieved to be away from all of their drama. Mahasraya was happy to see me and we had a honeymoon period. He had given up on growing psychedelic mushrooms and we had the use of the bedroom. He slept in there alone because otherwise Lakshmana’s crying would keep him awake. He was working for the temple, guarding at night, so we still had the same graveyard schedule as before, waking up in the early afternoon.
Now that he had his own income from guarding, the stipend they paid all householders who worked for ISKCON, he enrolled in a Wing Chun martial arts class with the already well known Sifu Douglas Wong. As always, I was his practice dummy to help him with the various strikes and blocks he needed to practice. Often we would spar, stopping just a hair’s breadth before the actual strike. Some say this is not the best way to practice sparring because in a real fight one might not be prepared to use the amount of force needed. In any event, blocks and strikes were becoming second nature to me. I had always been interested in his martial arts skills and wanted to learn even more. I had practiced some of the Tai Chi techniques with him previously, and he had taught some basic self defense skills when we first got together.
Michelle says, Never enough babies!
