Priorities

Got to spend the day with Julia which was nice.
I'm a little nervous about the demo this weekend. I don't feel like we are prepared enough as so many of us have been away for practices. We'll have to see how it goes this Thursday.
One thing I've learned about demos (from the big-cheese himself) is that a big part of being in them is being at the right place at the right time and being prepared. You don't know when the right time will be but you know the right place (the kwoon) and you can always try and be prepared. Two out of the three things are in our control.
If you want to be in a demo, you show up to all of the practices and hope that your stuff is good enough and needed. Sometimes you won't be needed, sometimes you will. The idea is that we all show up and build a demo out of the best of us. You can't show up to practices once in a while and expect to get in the demo.
That's one of the most difficult things about putting together a demo....consistent attendance. If you don't get the same people showing up then you have to start from square one every time and your demo suffers. Consistent attendance is a direct product of commitment and priorities. If you are not 100% committed, you won't show up 100% of the time. Likewise, if something else (say work) is a higher priority, then that will take up your time instead.

You have to decide your priorities for yourself. For me, this past weekend my work was more important so I was away for practices. That choice meant that I missed training time and also affected the training time of my team-mates. The choice of priorities is a personal one that you have to live with, but there are consequences. If I consistently place training and practices as a lower priority, then I will get passed over for demos and I won't progress. To achieve success, you have to put in the time.

I think a lot of us have been putting the I Ho Chuan as a lower priority. If we want to pass and succeed then we need to put it number 1 on our list.....
If we truly embrace the idea of the I Ho Chuan then we will realize that by putting it as the first priority we are not bumping our work or family down the list, we realize that the success of the I Ho Chuan upholds our families, work and lives. If we truly embrace it and become better people as a whole, then every aspect of our lives will benefit. We will be better family members and better workers. You can't compartmentalize things. Kung-Fu permeated every aspect of your whole life, not just your kwoon life and when you realize that, then prioritizing is easy.

Today for acts of kindness I made coffee for my husband and made his lunch, I cuddled my dog and cat and I found my husbands keys.

Today I consumed: a bowl of oatmeal with nuts and raisons, some left over chinese, some pasta with broccoli and sausage and 3 chocolate chip cookies. I drank a cup of decaf coffee, 4 cups of tea and 6 glasses of water.