Putting In The Work

I've missed a heck of a lot of classes lately. I've also put in basically zero practice. That is until yesterday. I couldn't figure out what happened to my motivation until tonight when I was working on my nunchuk form. I committed to putting in at least 30 min and by the time I was done I had put in about two hours. I worked on forms, kicks, and stretching. I realized two things:

One - all the times I felt like I wasn't making any progress - I was wrong. I know this because I know how my body felt tonight during my training. My hips weren't as strong and flexible as they were. My kicks weren't as good as they were. And I was short of breath when I was doing simple things, which I wasn't before. I had clearly come a long way (relatively speaking) and I didn't give myself enough credit.

Two - the reason that I lost my motivation was because I stopped putting in the work. When I look back at when I was the most engaged, right before I went on holidays, it was when I was putting in the most work. I think that when I got back form holidays, I had a hard time getting back into my routine and then everything snowballed.

Over the last week or so, a lot of people have helped me get back on track. There were some great Sifu blogs that really hit home. I also received a lot of helpful comments on my own journal entries, as well as some in-person coaching. To be honest, there was a period there where I was starting to question the whole team concept and I wondered how anyone else on the team could truly help me. But it's clear to me now that there are many ways we can all help each other stay on track.

The biggest takeaway from the blogs written by Sifu Rybak and Sifu Prince was for me to remember why I joined Kung Fu in the first place and also for me to focus how good I feel when I'm engaged. Hopefully I won't get off track like this again but I know that if I do, there is a team of awesome people there to help me. Thank you.

Cory Smid
http://kungfucory.blogspot.ca/