Archive for the ‘random’ Category

Due to a busy schedule and some negligence on my own part, I didn’t have time to post up a blog about yesterday’s wushu class.  So I’m going to cover two days with this one blog. 

Monday (1/25)

But first I should mention that Friday Ruhi was feeling under the weather so I stayed home from Wushu to take care of her (Soup Making Skills courtesy of Shahaub’s Father).  So when Monday came around I hadn’t actually trained since the previous Wednesday.  Again, taking that much time off means two things: First, my body will have recovered a bit and I will feel stronger.  Second, the day after I will be sore as heck.

But due to some drama in the Taiji group at the beginning of class I ended up getting a bit of a light workout.  In fact, for a few minutes after my group had done some of their basics, they were all told to go back to their rooms so I joined in with the kids from northern Shaanxi for a few lines of basics.  But then my group came back so I joined back in with them.

We mainly did some combination training and I kept working out the kinks in my 3rd section.  But since the coach had to take off and there wasn’t really anyone there to oversee things, it eventually turned in to a wushu hangout session.  Zhang Yang and Xiao Yu were doing some stuff with a spear while Yuan Ming practiced Qin Na techniques on all of the other boys. (How to get out of a full nelson, etc.)

The other thing that was interesting was that there was a new guy with the Taiji group.  A taller, somewhat overweight young man who I found out was a son of a teacher and was learning some Taiji.  “Now you aren’t the biggest one in the room” one of my training partners told me. 

There goes my special-ness.

Tuesday (1/26)

This week I’m trying to increase the number of workouts so I will be training 4 mornings (Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri) with the team.  So the next day, sore body and all, I headed out to the wushu guan for some more torture.

I have never actually been there on a Tuesday or Thursday morning before so I was curious if it was any different than the other days.

Not so much.

One thing is that today was a weapon’s practice day for most of my group.  With the exception of Xiao Yu and the young NQ guy, the rest of us did weapons.

After basics I spent my time working on nangun and getting down my new choreography.  I would practice for a while off to the side until I felt like I had it down, and then I would join in on the sections.  They did 6 or 8 single sections and then a half set at the end.  I practiced my first section, with emphasis on the opening, and then fine tuned my second section.

One of the things I had to do today was ask Zhang Laoshi about having some friends come to visit to watch a practice.  Charisse and James were interested in checking out the “professional” athletes, so I asked him at the end of class.  He said he would tell me later on.  Then I saw him walk over to Han Laoshi (Taolu Head Coach) and ask him.  He came up a little later and said it would be okay.

So, that also means I will probably be able to get a little bit of video on Thursday. I’ve been focusing more on my own practice these days so I haven’t been taking much footage of the classes.  Not really since January 1, actually. But if all goes well (and my wife doesn’t mind) I should have some more footage on Thursday or Friday.  Cross your fingers.

The other thing I did today was talk to Han Laoshi about the cost for people to train here.  I’ve had a couple requests from folks to know what was involved in training with the Shaanxi Wushu Team, so I have been putting out some feelers.  But it has been a little slow-going so I had to go straight to the big dog today.  He asked me to write some stuff up for him and then he will let me know, but according to Xiao Yu, he is slow as molasses and it takes him a while to respond to requests for information. Hope it is before I leave for Hong Kong on the 7th!

And, just because I have zero wushu-related media on the blog today, I’ll leave you with this random photo from my past:

L-R: Sun Jian Ming, Wu Bin, Jet Li, Liu Xiao Lei, Cui Ya Hui, Qiu Hui Fang (January 20, 2006, Beijing, Huo Yuan Jia (aka “Fearless”) Chinese Premiere)

• my user name changed to @wushuzilla. please make a note of it! lots of wushu-related stuff on the horizon at http://www.wushuzilla.com #
• Fever has mostly broken. Feeling mildly better. Might be the Chinese children's flu and not swine flu. Either way, not pleasant at all. #
• It looks like I have swine flu …. and it is brutal … #
• I don't think I have been this sick in a while. It better not be the pig thing… #
• I'm stuck in Anhui! Thanks to the first snow storm of the year, all trains are delayed so I got off and am staying at a hotel. #
• I'm off to run some errands in #hongkong, meet up with the boys of @alivenotdead (they should make a calendar) and to Ma On Shan! #

• why do i always forget how muggy it is in HK? It isn't like i wasn't just here 3 weeks ago … #
• In Hong Kong. 2 Days and then back to China! #
• I'm heading to #HongKong tomorrow for 2 days! Then back to China on Tuesday. #
• All my All China Games Footage is finally uploaded to youtube. Phew! If it ain't there, I don't got it. http://www.youtube.com/wushuzilla #
• Updating the last #wushu #videos from the 11th All China Games. #Duilian! http://www.youtube.com/wushuzilla #
• NaNoWriMo Update: 1462 words. Subscribe to my novel at http://www.narom.net/?p=364 #

• Check out our latest adventures! A video just for you. http://bit.ly/OqxRh #
• Interview with @rainnwilson on @nightline: The Meaning of Life: http://bit.ly/4sPYqu via @addthis #
• I'm so sore I think I tore a hole in the fabric of time and space … #
• Yay! We have Yue Laoshi to help us out now. I'm off for another round of nanquan goodness. Say prayers for my quads. #
• 3rd day back to #wushu and I did 6 sections in a 4-man rotation. I am hurty … #
• Heading off to another week of wushu with the Shaanxi Wushu Team. #

For those of you who were around here 2 years ago, It is time once again for NaNoWriMo! And I’m going to participate again. If you liked my last novel, “Dream World”, then be sure to sign up for updates this time around since I’m planning on writing another chapter in the same series.

Actually, it is a prequel.

Actually, I’m not sure what I’m writing yet…

It might be part of the same story. Or I might just decide to write something completely new.  If I don’t know yet, then I’m pretty sure you don’t either.  But isn’t the curiosity just driving you crazy?  Sure it is!  So sign up!

You can sign up by sending an e-mail to wushuzilla@gmail.com with the subject like “nanowrimo” and I will add the e-mail address to the list. Then, whenever I finish a chapter, I will send it out in PDF format for all of you to enjoy.

• The third day after your first time back to wushu from a break is always brutal. So happy I have a 2 day rest … #
• women's gunshu done, men's jianshu almost done. women's nanquan next! http://www.youtube.com/wushuzilla #
• We have internet at home! Yay! #
• No internet at home yet, so I'm hopping around various coffee shops in Xi'an. Yay for free wi-fi. #

• men's nangun finished. women's gunshu starting. http://www.youtube.com/wushuzilla #
• I am finding that the more a person brags about how great they are, the less interested i am in them. Thanks coffee shop patron! #
• new photo blog from the 11th all china games! http://www.narom.net/?p=333 #
• i'm in xi'an, but no internet at home, so no updates for a little while or until i hang out at starbucks for the afternoon. #
• competition is over. had fun hanging out with wu di, yyh, jenn, marla, ruhi and gaosong tonight. going to miss my friends! #
• wei jian 1st in combined ss/sp. wu di 4th. cao jing 1st in combined bs/st, liu xiao lei 2nd. #
• update: shandong 1st in men's gun/dao. lin fan messed up nanquan nandu. #
• 8 Men's Changquan videos are posted. Next is Women's Jianshu: http://www.youtube.com/wushuzilla #
• Update: Woman's Jianshu: Ma Ling Juan 1st, Li Na 2nd; Men's Jianshu: Wei Jain 1st, Wu Di 3rd. #
• The uploads have begun (slowly)! 11th All China Games Videos on my youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/wushuzilla #
• Update from Jenn: ZQJ got 7th. HK Colin got last. Shandong got 1st and 3rd. #
• Update from Jenn: ZQJ got 9.72 in Daoshu and is currently in 6th with 2 left to compete, including HK Colin #
• First session was good. Men's CQ & NQ, Women's CQ & ND. ZQJ got gold. CaoJing / LXL were 1 &2. #

Just wanted to share a change in how I plan on blogging in the future.

My personal blogs (i.e. travel blogs, what I ate today, who I’m hanging out with, etc) will be only on narom.net, which actually feeds to my facebook notes.  But if you aren’t my friend on facebook no worries.  Just read narom.net or subscribe to the RSS feed from there.

My “artist” type blogs (i.e. my work, photography, editing, writing, drawing, and related topics) will be onnaromdesigns.com, my work website, which feeds to my artist profile on alivenotdead.com.

I figured this will be a little clearer and more interesting for those who aren’t really interested in my personal life, and only want to know about my artistic endeavors.

Speaking of which, the next artist/work blog should have some of my photography work while at the 11th All China Games in Binzhou, Shandong, China.  Here is a quick pic to give you a small teaser.

• Staying at a super cheap hotel down the street from the All China Games in Binzhou. They start tomorrow! #
• In a hotel in Jinan for the night. Heading to Binzhou tomorrow on the 9:30 bus. #
• Today's Plan: Catch a train from Shenzhen to Jinan #
• Sitting in a cafe in Shenzhen. I'm back in China!! #

Back in 2003 I went through a phase of studying manga art.  I had a friend, Inori, who was helping me learn a few of the various aspects of drawing, inking and finishing a manga.  So, I did a quick two page manga strip and catalogued thed steps I took during the inking process.

I am by no means proficient at manga art (or comics in general) but it was a very educational experience for me so I thought I would share it here.

The first thing I did was draw out my manga strip idea with pencil.  “penciling” I believe is the technical term.   (I’m going to show the second page of the strip for the purposes of this article)

Next, I started going through with ink, blocking out the panels and caption bubbles:

And then I inked further, outlining the characters:

Then I went through and inked the background text and various action lines and cross hatching effects:

Then it was time to clean things up a bit. I went through and erased all of the pencil lines to make it look a little sharper

Then I went in with a thicker marker to create all of the dark areas, like shadows and dark hair, etc.

As you can see, there were still some rough areas and the ink doesn’t dry completely evenly.  This is when I imported it to Photoshop to improve the contrast and touch up a few of the areas that don’t look quite right (such as the smudges on the upper right side of the page where I tested the ink brush).

And last but not least I went through in photoshop and did all of the lettering.  I didn’t try any coloring this time around but did experiment with it in some other projects.  Needless to say, after doing all of this I had a newfound respect for comic book artists.