Spark

    I love Kung Fu. It is such a part of my life now that I see it's benefits in everything I see and do. I'll keep this blog short as I could go on forever about this but I'd be preaching to the choir, right?!

   A person has entered our family circle recently, nice person, not your regular 20 something meat stick that seems to be everywhere nowadays. So we where sitting around having a family dinner a while ago, chatting, enjoying each other's company, and the topic shifted to Martial Arts, sweet, my favorite topic. We knew she has a back round in Karate, in fact she is a black belt, she had mentioned it before. At first, she just mentioned very casually that she was a black belt in Karate, testing our waters of acceptance. She is now starting to talk about it a little more every time we see her because she now sees that we have a common passion. As we talked about different aspects of both our and her art, I can see the spark growing in her eyes to take up her art again. I have not asked her yet why she stopped practicing, that is for another day. Baby steps. 

   If not for my family's background in Kung Fu, this conversation with her probably would have fizzled long before this stage, and another martial artist might have lost their connection to their art. But because of Kung Fu, and in her case Karate, a gentle breath has been blown on the ember burning in her, hopefully sparking a flame that just may turn into the fire that she needs to re-embrace her art. And I don't mind being a gentle prod now and then, encouraging her to share her knowledge with us, who knows what we may learn from her, it actually gives me goosebumps thinking about it.

Opportunities

    I currently have 16 days off work, that is a veeery long time for me. Usually I only take off a few days here or there, constantly trying to micro manage my staff during that time off. This time, with this amount of time I have taken off, I am going to concentrate on Me. I am planning to really use this time as a golden opportunity. Normally there would be relaxation, a road trip, a few naps (okay, a lot of naps), in my days off. This year though, I am forcing myself to look back at all the time I have wasted waiting for the cosmos to reset and get back to something I recognize, bad Don, and because of that, I screwed myself over for grading. I spent to many hours waiting and waiting for who knows what. Time wasted. Time I will never get back. But what's the big deal? I'm getting younger, right? Right? RIGHT!? Nope.

   So everyday of my 16 days off, I am going to treat like a golden goose. An opportunity to be greedily protected, squeezed till all the opportunity juice is gone.

mmmm, opportunity juice

 

 

   Day one, yesterday, was going great till I popped my back, to much juice I guess. Today though, I'm feeling great, rested and energetic.............. Sorry, opportunity was knocking so I decided to answer (Zen!).

Cascade of Indolence

    Time to cut the cord, unplug, wake up, relearn to focus more than 2 feet in front of my face. Lately I have been wasting far to much time on my phone, or watching TV, or surfing the net, or playing games. My brain is numb. It is getting hard to tell one day from the next. All my fault, my choice, and it gets me nowhere. The lack of physical and mental engagement is actually painful this morning. I feel tired even though I have done nothing. I look back at the last few days and try to add up any positive forward progression and all I see is sloth and inaction. Time to move, unplugged.

More Mental Spaghetti

    This blog was a tough one, I had so many thoughts and ideas that I wanted to touch on, but who wants to read another opinionated essay by a middle aged man. I think to much about things I can't control and don't focus enough on the things I can control, like my training. I can sit in my easy chair and lament the craziness of 2020 all day long, pointing my finger at injustices and saying "I remember when..." or I can get up and pour that energy into Kung Fu. Guess which one is going to bear fruit?

   Two current challenges have been presented to us/me today, Mrs Ferris's daily challenge, 100 snap kicks on both legs, and Master Brinker's "Master Dave McNeill's 80th birthday" push up challenge of 800 push ups. Today I choose to focus on these 2 challenges and relish on the pleasure that physical exertion brings. 

   That is all for today, time for some Kung Fu soul cleansing.

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?