Pain and Ego

    For about one month now, my left shoulder has been just plain old wrong. I can't lift my arm above my shoulder height without sharp pains, push ups are very difficult, even putting on my seat belt is a chore. It is not healing, I know I need professional help but unfortunately in jumps Stupidman (cue lighting bolt and thunder). "I don't need help!" he shouts, "I am invincible!!".  What a maroon. Sometimes my Ego is kinda a twit, okay, most times he is a twit.

   So this last Wednesday I finally went to a physiotherapist, Karen at Risen Health. Last time I saw her it was for my hip that I was treating the same way, ignoring it and living with constant pain. Within a few weeks of her treatments the pain was gone like it was never there, only the memory of it remains. Amazing. So why have I waited so long to see her for this latest ailment? One word, Ego.

   It takes a lot for me to ask for help, that is how I am wired, old school, suck it up princess cause there are billions who have it way worse than you, suffer in silence, all the old cliques. 

   After less than an hour with her, I am diagnosed and have a plan on how to heal my pesky bicep tendon. Ta Da!!! Ask for help, receive help, start to move on. So simple yet so hard for me to do. 

   While I may be a little set in my ways, at least I am now acknowledging the problem. I do not know everything, I do not need to suffer alone, stop waiting for a mole hill to turn into a mountain - if I need hep - ask!

   I know I am aging, we all are. I know my physical well being is changing as quickly now as when I hit puberty as a teenager oh soooo many many years ago. I know I injure quicker and take longer to heal. I also know without a doubt that this will not deter me from loving and practicing my Kung Fu, I just need to be more cognisant of my actions and how they will affect both my short term and long term health. 

   So see y'all on the mats, I'll be the one in the corner with the walker - hmmm - next years IHC weapon maybe?

Funny What You See

    The more I look, the more I see the ideals and tenements of Kung Fu everywhere. Is it just me overthinking (nah, not me), because I am seeing it all over the place. Example time.

   This last weekend (Sept 23rd) Deb and I where in Banff to celebrate Deb winning a huge award from ATB. We stayed at the Banff springs hotel, amazing place. While there, I met some truly remarkable people, saw some breathtaking sights, and experienced the presence of Kung Fu repeatedly. 

   One these people that I had the pleasure of meeting was the key note speaker, David. In his speech he talked about "seeing" people and the good they do, "seeing" the effort, positivity, energy, growth, and their continuing effort to be better than they where the day before. This really struck a cord with me. It wasn't a new idea to me, we talk about in our classes frequently, but the way he presented the thought process on it was. And it made me think about how I could apply this to my Kung Fu. 

   After he was done his speech, I went over and sat with him for a bit to explore this ideal with him. The next half an hour was a great conversation. We explored many concepts on self motivation and positive encouragement. Just those three words, "I see you", that was what the conversation came down to. How to encourage someone by acknowledging them, their effort, their successes, their failures, just by letting them know that we see them and we are there for them.. It was a powerful conversation. My blog just cannot do it justice, but the thought wheel is moving and I need to see where it is going.

   Now I need to figure out how to weave this into my interactions with other students, including myself.

My Bad

    I am not giving myself enough time to reflect and blog. This blog is a prime example. My blogs have been stones skipping across a pond. No depth. Only I can change that. Yes I have lots of excuses, but that is my bad and my bad alone. I am trying to live in the moment but I am not living the moment. I will try to blog later today after I have finished beating myself up over this.

Right or Left, the Choice is Now Mine

   Am I a lefty or righty?  Apparently the line between the two has become very thin. I found this out this week when we were doing a portion of Da Mu Hsing. We were working on the  knife hand near the beginning of DMH two and the trajectory needed to engage it properly. Most (myself primarily) were misdirecting our release on this move causing our following punch to swing slightly in an arc sideways before release. 

Enter the ball. 

   It was put to us like this. Throw a ball. You can't throw a ball with a straight locked arm/wrist/shoulder and expect it to have any reasonable trajectory, it will be a dud, splat.. Now release the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist, allow the natural movements and rotations of your arm to guide the ball to your intended target. Now we are talking. Zip, right on target (ish). Now for the rub, use the other arm, you know, your NON-THROWING arm. So rightys must try being a lefty and vise versa. 

   At first I thought, uh oh, this is going to be a train wreck. But to my absolute surprise, it wasn't that bad. The first couple throws weren't pretty, but that was more mental than anything else, I expected to fail, so I did, that was on me. I adjusted my thinking to trust my instructors teachings and low and behold, suddenly after 50+ years of being a strict Lefthandarian (?), I was now feeling an awaking in my right that I hadn't noticed till exactly that moment. Wow, I love Kung Fu!

   Without me even realizing it, a balance was exerting itself within my body, left or right were becoming less separated by my arbitrary mental division. Allowing my body to move without prejudice gave me a new doorway to go through, one I didn't even know I wasn't seeing. Mind officially blown. 💣

   So now I am trying different things with my right side that I would normally do with my left, and you know what, it feels much less wrong than I thought it would. Now I am not saying I am abandoning my leftyness, I love my leftyness, but now using scissors just became so much easier.

The Blog Knows

    I was struggling this morning about what to blog about. I realized that it is because my training was almost no existent this week. All excuses aside, that is all on me. To have no thoughts to ponder about the previous weeks training proves the power of the Blog. 

   I could talk about back to school week (awesome by the way), or the potato bake (epic), but that doesn't feel right to me. My blogging allows/forces me to review my previous week and the ups and downs its brought. The blogging highlights (for me) progression and deficiency, and this week if I try to do this, it feels forced. So I won't force a self reflection and I will admit that this week was out of the ordinary for me. 

   And that is the power of the blog, because I wouldn't have realized this unless I was blogging. So "cheers" to you blog, I bow to your usefulness.