Short and Sweet

    I'm having one of those "I have lots to blog about, I have nothing to blog about" moments. Realistically there is always something to blog about though, right? I guess where I am at is I have so much to blog about that I am having a hard time focusing on one thing. So I will look at the ceiling and grab the first thought that looks back.......

   Sleep, or lack of. I have been sleeping very poorly lately. Don't know why, no real big changes in my life, just 4 or 5 hours of sleep if I am lucky, then up and moving. It is wearing me down. Maybe too much mental flotsam floating around in my noggin. I am going to try some of the meditation we have been working on at SRKF,, right before bed, and see what happens. Thing is, I don't have a problem falling asleep, I have a problem staying asleep. Guess I will see where this takes me, more to follow.

  I just erased a whole paragraph, thought it was something I wanted to share, I was wrong. Kind of amazing that what started as a blog about having nothing to really write about has turned into ideas that I am going to implement, guess that goes back to what a very wise man once (and still) says, "when you don't want to train, go train, when you don't want to blog, go write a blog". So I will and I did.

My Foundation

    My Sifus are my architects, they lay out a plan, give instructions, correct where needed, give guidance, they have all the tools I need to be a martial artist. Right from day one they showed me how to build a foundation that should last my entire lifetime and beyond. 

   Now, did I follow their instructions or did I let ego drive my thinking that I can do better than their 2000+ year old map of mastery?

   The big question I am currently asking myself is what is my foundation like. Am I built like a pyramid that is totally solid, able to last more than 5000 years and still be as solid as the day it was constructed? Or am I more like a Dr Seuss Whoville house that sways and leans even in the slightest breeze, ready to topple over for lack of balance and structure? I am scared to answer that because it may mean a complete overhaul of my current level of skills (or lack of). 

   This all started with a question in class and in our meeting about the depth of my bow stance, or lack of depth to be accurate. So I took a hard look at it yesterday, tape measure and all, and low and behold, what I thought was right was actually only comfortable, not solid at all. Complacency and mediocrity had crept into my stance, I don't remember opening the door to let them in but that is why those two jerks are so dangerous, they are silent and sneaky, I must be vigilant, ruthless and constantly aware of their presence. Remember that the end of Mastery is "correct don't protect". And I shall do just that.

   With grading only a heart beat away, I know that this is not the time for a revamp of my foundation but it is now on  my radar as something to explore and work at, because Kung Fu is a lifelong journey, not a single grading day, so I might as well do incremental little steps when I can, not giant leaps that may do more harm than good.

 

 

             

                                                  what I think my foundation feels like

 

                                     what my foundation is actually like

Of Course it's Boot Camp

    Of course this blog is going to be about Boot Camp 2021. Let me break it down (from my perspective of course). 

   Morning meditation. Calm, quiet, guided, peaceful, learning about yourself. Focuses on your breathing, let Master Brinker guide you while enjoying the crisp morning air in the peaceful Hamlet of Keephills. Poke and prod thoughts and ideas deep inside you that you would normally not even acknowledge. 

   Joint locks. Worked your body and mind while moving your way through a series of connected moves of joint locks. Helped me enormously with my centering and footwork, because without both, the locks don't work. Thank you Mr Bauer for being my awesome partner.

   Drumming. How fun was this?! Buckets load of fun (if you where there you will get this bad pun). Rhythm, timing, adaptation, coordination, focusing and unfocusing at the same time. While I may never be ready for my solo, I loved the feeling when the beat actually seemed to represent a usable rhythm, something passable for drumming, then I would see a squirrel and it would all fall apart. Alas, back to my day job.

   Lunch, with a side of a motivational seminar on leadership. Nice, thanks John and Greg.

   Fight Choreography. Fun to say the least. Some great performances! And as a bonus, my wife got to kick me in the gut nice and hard, sweet!! Realism, showmanship, and of course proper form and techniques. So much to stuff into a short performance in front of your peers no less, ahh pressure, how I love thee.

   Then the fitness test. Sweat, exhaustion, mental fortitude, focus, dig deeeeep, keep going!! Most will shy away from this test, I relish it. To know yourself you must push yourself. You cannot fake or lie your way through this test, it is all on you. Pass or fail, finish or quit, just do your best and learn from this. I will never be a runner, I will never be as fit and nimble as most the young-lings in our school. Their best years are ahead of them, mine are not, but that drives me even harder. 

   To sum it all up, if you missed out on this day, that is unfortunate, hopefully it was for a good reason cause boy did you miss out. I loved this day, I will immediately sign up for the next one as soon as it becomes available. This is an extremely valuable day of Kung Fu, 9 hours of non-stop learning, both about Kung Fu and yourself. Thank you to all the instructors and to Master Brinker for making this day possible.

Trigger

    This is a very stressful time of year for me. It is tire season at work and the next two months are insanely busy for me, it is all I think about right now. To add to that, there is a worldwide tire shortage (thanks Covid), to add to that, my tire inventory control guy just quit (greener pastures apparently), to add to that, the promised expansion of my tire storage facility never happened again this year (thanks shiny new rich guy toy), it is going to be a very difficult fall for me to say the least. I get worked up just thinking about what is coming, my own personal Armageddon. My boss brushes it off like shoulder dandruff, he has no idea of what is coming, he is oblivious, not his problem, it is my problem. So why do I do this, what keeps me there amid all the anger and confusion? Why do I allow this to rule my days and stress me out so badly that it effects almost every aspect of my life? Is it time to pull the plug and leave them to their own self created disaster? I ask myself that everyday now when I go to work. 

   The only reason I can think of as to why I am still there is I hate to quit. I truly want to believe that I can make a difference and see my staff through this maelstrom to the calmer shores of "not tire season". I have good people under me, honest, mostly hard working, almost the perfect staff (except the booger that just quit on me), I want to do right by them. Making them succeed makes me succeed. Their triumphs are mine as well. I know to my employer I am just another employee, replaceable with a Walmart floor mat, that is their problem. But I want to be the best floor mat I can be, so I allow myself to be stepped on, because I know that is what is expected of me. 

   Enough of this topic, my hands are sweating just typing this, my current heart rate is 115bpm just writing this, move on Don, move on.....

   Stress triggers. That was the point of this blog. We talked about that yesterday in our meeting, well this is one of my biggest stress trigger, and it is a monster. This topic is definitely the negative trigger to the positive triggers in my life. But the positives in my life crush this trigger with it's little pinky finger. Squish it like a tiny bug. So I will focus on the positives because the negatives are insignificant to what really matters to me. My wife, my family, my dog, my health and my Kung Fu. Goose bumps, that is what I just got thinking about these positives, they are irreplaceable, money can't buy them and they are woven into my life like a suit of chainmail armour, protecting me from head to soul, tough as diamonds. Take that negative trigger!

Back to Reality

    So much has happened in the past week or so. Major events; Back to school week at the Kwoon, potato bake and my favorite nieces wedding. Minor events, yard work/winter prep, general organizing and cleaning. It has been a very full week off of work and my training has definitely suffered. My routine in the morning was shot to spit, my evening form reps were pretty much just mental, but I did my best to keep Kung Fu in my thoughts as much as possible. 

   Now that life has gotten back to semi-normal, I can finally get back to putting my training back at the top or near top of my priority list. I won't say that I have wasted the last week because there was a ton of positive moments and memories in it, but now my focus needs to be grading. 

   So enough talking about it, time to do it.

Easy to Read

    I am an open book. Laid bare for the world to see, ask me a question and I will give you an honest answer. Life is to short for me to not be an easy read. I try to be as positive as I can be at all times, even when I am getting kicked in the (fill in what you like). I have been a negative person, I have been a narcissist, pessimist, mean spirited, etc. I look back at that previous me and wonder how I ever survived. It was eating me alive, it was a dead end. 

   Then it all changed, I found the martial arts and my wife (Deb), almost at the exact same time (coincidence?? or providence??). The world was suddenly brighter, life made sense finally. At last, I had (and have) a purpose. 

   That is why this last weekend was a kick to the soft squishy underbelly for me, a real eye opener. Fitness and forms for 5-1/2 hours, what could possibly go wrong, right? Well, everything and nothing, all at the same time. Believe it or not, I loved every second of it, even the 2km run. I felt alive, I was part of something greater than me, I testing myself, pushing myself, seeing what I was made of. 

   I may not have been overly happy with the end results but now I have a much better understanding of ME. I surprised myself and disappointed myself, all at the same time. Yes I found myself holding back on certain things, now I can ask myself why, and what it is going to take for me to give it everything I have, not 90% but 100%. Yes I was as nervous as stink when I was doing my forms, but holy smack did I learn from this, sooo much insight, so much to correct and work on. To do the fitness test from start to finish, to do the school forms in front of the SRKF grading board, this is life changing. I am only just now starting to fully comprehend the magnitude of the things I learned. 

   I will continue to blog as I have more insight to this, but for now suffice to say, wow, this is why I am in Kung Fu. Where else can I learn so much about me by failing so spectacularly? Where else do so many people want you to succeed, where else is failure actually success?

   This may not have come across the way I wanted but I am still processing "stuff". more to follow.

Please Sifu, May I Have Another?

    What a glorious day it was. Five and a half hours of getting to know myself. Pass or fail was secondary, self awareness and personal growth was everything, to me. I learned so much about my Kung Fu yesterday, it was a poke with a stick to the eye for detail for me. Keep my eyes up, expand and contract my moves, flow but finish, breath, relax and explode, it goes on and on. Awesome. So much to learn from just one day, I can't wait for the next opportunity to take this knowledge and apply it to what was taught to me. And that will come sooner than I think, cause that starts today, aches and pains be damned! 

   Now don't get me wrong about the pass or fail part, I gave it my all. I pushed and pulled till my body gave out, then pushed and pulled a little more. But I didn't try to "work" the test. I know that pass or fail,  this is but a step on my journey. Black belt or cue belt, I will be here tomorrow, learning from the best people I have ever met. This is a lifelong experience, growth not goal orientated. That doesn't mean I don't want a black belt, but I want to earn my black belt for the right reasons, I want to BE a black belt, not get a black belt. If that takes the rest of my life, so be it, I'm in this for the long haul. And yesterday sure felt like a door being opened to show me the right way to proceed on that path. Now to go through that door and follow that path and grow from what it brings.

   Thank you to all the Sifus who took the time out of their lives to allow me to participate in yesterdays grading. I greatly appreciated all the efforts you put into the guiding of your student towards mastery. I am a better person for just knowing you, Thank you all.

Now to go do some Kung Fu