12/5 tuishou
I was at a movie premiere last Wednesday, and slept too late on Saturday, so yesterday was my first practice in a while, and I was even late for that. I was still tired; my knees have been aching lately for some reason. I did some stretching and then practiced with the interior designer, who has become quite pliant but still resorts to The Big Shove strategy a bit too often. I let him shove away, sometimes stepping back so we could get back to more subtle tuishou. For my part, whenever I felt that I was resorting to brute force, I’d reign myself in. “What’s wrong,” my partner asked. “Why don’t you follow through?” I didn’t answer, mostly because I can’t really explain it, and I didn’t want to implicate him in any anti-Big Shove rhetoric I might let slip.
After everyone had left, I stayed behind to go through my forms, which were terrible. I felt stiff and sore, but doing the forms half a dozen times improved things, at least to the point I felt I could finish my practice with a free conscience.
