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.

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.