Oh Failure, Please Teach Me

    Success is built into failure. But you must look for it in every failure and you absolutely must not give up until you find it. Giving up is true failure. Learning from your failure is actually success. This is a lesson I learn over and over, cause I have a lot of failures, a lot. And each failure drives me to un-fail it. 

    Today's example is of course board breaking. I brought 13 boards to break, why 13? Well because 10 is the minimum and I don't like minimums. So everything was going great, boom bang crack smack, I'm on number 9 and Deb challenges me to do a spinning back kick. Oakey Doakey, load it up. And..... swing and a miss. I didn't even look at my target, way wide right, I may have broke wind but I did not break the board, what a let down. But wait! There is no way this is going to stop me now. Time to apply the lesson. Why did I miss? How do I not miss next time and can I repeat that correction over and over? Let's see.

   Center, breathe, stance, focus to unfocus, there is no board, only Kody's face behind the board. Go! Bang, board broken. Good, but repeat, again, again (this time in the air). I knew I know better. But in a way, I am glad I didn’t break the board the first time. It forced me reset and go back to basics. And the basics work. 

   So while not breaking the board sucked, learning from my error and correcting it was incredibly rewarding. And what will be even more satisfying will be if this lesson sticks with me, and that is up to me.

P/up  14582

S/up  14176

Spar  440

1609 km  1907.76km

Aok  549

Hand form  485

Weapon form  425 

Breaking My Mistakes

    Board breaking. Needs to be bang on or it brings the pain. I was reminded of this again this week during one of the classes. I had brought in a board in to show my fellow students, to give them a "feel" for what a regulation board looks and feels like. I was immediately asked if I would break it in front of the class. "sure", I said, why not, I've broken them before, easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

   So I spent a few minutes prepping myself, I'll do a knife hand, my fave. One, two, three, visualize, breathe, relax, I'm ready. But wait! I am asked to do a front thrust kick!! Screeeeech!!! Whoa there big fella, front thrust kick?! Well now I'm committed to do this so bring it on! But I didn't prep like I had for what I thought was going to be my knife hand. Idiot.

   So as you can guess the outcome was less than stellar. The showman in me took over, I wanted fanfare, cheering, a frenzy that I could feed off of. What I really should have wanted was quiet and stillness. So of course my first attempt was a failure. I almost missed the board. Wow, that sucked, but boy did it p@#s me off. I know better than this, I have been taught better than this. So without asking for permission, I line up everything for a proper attempt. I am going to break this board! 

   Sihing Ward looked me in the eye, got ready, I took a breath and reset EVERYTHING. There was no noise, no distraction, only me and the board. Then the board disappeared and all I saw was the space where the board had been, time to strike. Bang, success. 

   So I learned many things, most important was to cut out the showman crap. I'm here to learn Kung Fu, not build a fan base. If I am to represent myself properly, I need to act accordingly. This is a tough pill to swallow because it means I must accept my limitations, and there are many. I cannot act like the superhero that my ego thinks I am, I need to act like a practicing thoughtful Martial Arts student, here to learn not perform.

Why

    Blank. That is my mind this last week or so. A cold/flu/bug?? snuck up on me and laid me out for a couple of days. It sucked, I felt like crap but by Thursday of last week it was gone(ish) and I was mostly back to normal. I did a lot of sleeping and very little Kung Fu but it did give me a chance to review my numbers, but that actually sucked even more. 

   I have been terrible this year for recording my numbers. If I go by actual recorded numbers, it should be late May right now, yikes! What the heck happened? I found I had numerous post-it notes and scraps of paper here and there with numbers on them, but I have a wonderful little book for keeping track of everything so why did I do this to myself? I know better, or do I? 

   I know I have done more than what I have written down, but that doesn't matter, there is no proof, just best guesses. I have hesitated putting these out there because I am ashamed of my actions. I talk a good game but in the end that is all it was, talk.

So here are my recorded numbers, numbers that I took the time to write down not best guesses.

Push up 13861 recorded

Sit up  13635 recorded

Sparring 425 recorded

1609km - this one my watch records, yay! 1813.84km (lots of Dog walks)

Aok 502 recorded

Hand Form 473 recorded

Weapon Form 401 recorded

Lesson learned.