Need the Challange

    1000 front thrust kicks in 11 days then 1000 side heel in 12 days. I  love these challenges. I have learned so much about my kicks and stances during these 2 challenges. Normally I would practice a few kicks here and there, never with any real purpose or goal, but the 1000 in "X" days I find to be a real personal motivator. While not many students have chosen to partake in these challenges, those who do participate, and post their results, inspire me to try harder, to NOT quit. Thank you for this.

   The one that has been an eye opener for me is the side heel from different stances. I love the flexibility of this kick. While the goal of the kick is the same regardless of the stance, the path to finishing the technique varies based on that stance. From a bow stance, I have a ton of "snap" at the point of impact but my speed between kicks is marginal, from a horse stance I have way more speed between kicks but the power at the point of impact diminishes. I am still playing with the cross step (thanks for that Mrs Ferris!), 

   I also find that with each stance, my body "hurts" in different places. My knees from a bow and my ankles from a horse. This has forced some reflection on why there is pain    ( good pain = learning pain ), and I now see that the pain is pointing to where I am doing the technique wrong. Like a big neon sign saying "eliminate your pain now with a few doses of eye for detail". When I am in a bow, I am not pivoting my rear foot enough to relieve the stress on my knee, solution, pivot more ( duh ). When I am in a horse, I am to tall in my stance and my center  makes me unstable in  the lower extremities putting extra stress on my ankles, solution, lower my center ( double duh ). 

   I doubt I would of had there revelations if not for these challenges, or at least not in as short a time frame. WE ALL NEED MORE CHALLENGES to achieve mastery. Are we saying "good enough" or are we saying "good, enough" in our training? The first is mediocrity, the second is the path to mastery. I know which path I want to follow, do you?

Trolls Under My Bridge

    Sifu Rybak's recent post about the 18 concepts for total Kung Fu is awesome. As with any great post, it made me think, a lot. The idea or concept of these 18 techniques as being bridges and not boxes to be checked, brilliant! So the next step in my understanding of her post was to think about my "bridges", are they strong, stable and easy to use? Or, are they weak, unstable and surrounded by trolls? Trolls you say? Sorry to say yes, this is my analogy. The trolls I talk of infest every bridge, grabbing at my legs, blocking my way, their only purpose is to make crossing the bridge hard. But if I am strong enough, if my gallant white steed can hold his course, I can fight off the trolls and make it across the bridge to the other side to the realm of understanding and harmony, victorious in my quest for the holy.....sorry, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, to many scary fairy tales in my past.

   Anyways, thank you Sifu Rybak, that post has made me start to fine tune my thinking on the different connections and flow that our techniques require in order for us to properly use our Kung Fu in the way it is intended to be used. I will now go and try every one of our school forms the I currently know and see if I can find those bridges, and then see what I do when I get there. Do I cross with confidence or fight trolls every step of the way. Onward noble steed, a great adventure awaits!

Practice with a goal

   In our last class before the fall break, and now the latest shut down (grrrrrr), a challenge was issued to all students to do 1000 front thrust kicks before classes resumed.  That is 11 days to do 1000 kicks, less than 100 a day. Totally doable, and I will admit, much needed. While only a handful of students and instructors participated, to me it seems like we had some fun doing it, I know I did. As of writing this blog, I am at 800 out of 1000, with 1 day to go in the allotted time frame, I need to put a big push on to make this goal. And that's kind of the point of this blog. 

   Without a goal, it is hard to push yourself. If the goal had been to do "some" front thrust kicks, I never would have even considered 1000 in 11 days. But the goal was set, the bar was raised, the challenge laid out for all to see. I accepted the challenge and started towards the goal, and every kick I made suddenly had multiple purposes. Not only an I trying to reach the goal set by the Sifus but about half way through my 1000 kicks, my understanding of my kicks changed. BOOM!!! Again, what I thought was going to be just a routine set of kicks to reach a number turned into a quantum leap in the understanding of my front thrust kicks. I started to "feel" like the "kickers" look ( the kickers are the students and instructors who's kicks look like poetry, natural and smooth with beautiful timing and power ). My upper and lower body suddenly connected, I felt rotation and transition in my hips and upper torso where before it was disconnected and just along for the ride. 

   Thank you Sifus for this learning experience, to be taught without knowing you are being taught is a great feeling to suddenly be aware of. It wasn't about the numbers, it was about the self discovery, I am looking forward to the next challenge, maybe 1000 round house or side heel in the same time frame?

 

Righteous and Harmonious Fist

 This week in class, Master Hayes wanted us to really think about what the I Ho Chuan is. I have been mulling this over and I am looking at it from two different perspectives. Now right or wrong, these are MY perspectives and I would love feed back on my thinking because no two people are going to see the same thing the same way. So here we go.

   When I think about what the I Ho Chuan is ( see title of blog ), my mind breaks it into two different camps, emotional (spiritual) and physical. Both of these are very deep rabbit holes that I can chase ideas down all day long, but for this blogs sake, I won't. I will try not to make this an 7000 word essay.

   

   The easiest one for me to reflect on is the physical. Push ups,  sit ups,  mastering two forms, attendance ( this is a multi layered one ), sparring, 1609km, weekly blogging,  you know the rest ( our at least you should ). Pushing yourself physically is monumentally important to achieving mastery, and as it talks about in Mastery, you must learn to go beyond your "arbitrary" limits that you have set for yourself. As Yoda would say, "there is no try, only do". You must find a way to not make it about the "numbers" and make it about the effort required to achieve perfection in yourself. What does Kung Fu mean - HARD WORK! So know your bodies so called limits, find them, explore them, and then find a way to go past them. The requirements we all signed up for help us achieve that.

   

   Then there is the emotional or spiritual part of the I Ho Chuan. This is going to mean different things to different people but to me......simply put, the meaning is in the first requirement,  no quitting. That requirement, to me, says all that needs to be said. How so? Well, to quit the team is to quit yourself, it is to give up on the quest for mastery. And that snowballs throughout your life once it gets started. I am going to use what I shared at the meeting on Thursday as my example. 

   This year I could have graded for my black belt, I chose not to. HUGE mistake on my part. I have regretted it from the moment the words let my lips. I have spent the last 6 weeks wallowing in regret and self pity. My numbers all but stopped, my focus blurred to a haze, I was ( and still am ) furious with myself for this. I questioned the vary reason why I am in Kung Fu. I didn't feel ready for what was to come, fitness test - nope, forms - nope, 5 applications - nope, techniques - nope. None of it! While I may have "qualified" to grade, I definitely did not feel qualified to be a black belt. My mind was telling my body , "no chance so don't try", my body was telling my mind, "I'm lost, just go home". I had forgotten the first rule of our fight club, NO QUITTING!! I had just quit. That felt like a sledge hammer to the face. My spirit took a huge hit, my emotions darkened, I felt utterly defeated. Not a happy place for me to be, nor was it familiar. That is not who I am, so I needed this apocalypse of being to make me realize that.

   Now here I am, back at square one. I need to polish the stain off my soul. This has made me rethink my entire approach to Kung Fu. Where do I begin? What do I do? But wait! Isn't there already a perfect plan out there that has already set my path out there form me?? Why yes there is young Padawan. The I Ho Chuan program. The ultimate tool to build "me" into a worthy candidate for a black belt. It has the physical, it has the spiritual, it is a complete package, it is the best way for me to prepare myself to earn the right to be a black belt. I can feel the glow, the spirituality that being a martial artist brings, time to embrace it.

   I'm going to stop there as to long of a blog becomes white noise and boring.

   As a side note - attendance and blogging to me are about being present and in the moment, you can't do either if you are physically not there.

Short and Sweet

 Kicks. 

   For some reason I have been preoccupied with kicks lately. Between watching some truly incredible people perform their kicks on you tube and in class, as well as analyzing my own, I feel I am starting to understand my body more on where I need to change or refine my techniques. 

   If you were at Thursday's IHC, you heard my talk about Bill "superfoot" Wallace and his simple but effective exercises. These really work for me, I can feel all sorts of strengths and weaknesses when I do these exercises. Perfect, this is just what I was looking for. Not only are his videos entertaining but he keeps them SO simple. So enough about that, time to go do instead of talk (or blog).