Passing of the torch

The new I Ho chuan team is now getting formed and will soon take its place in Silent River. It is a passing of the torch sort of event because the new team will have to live up to and try to overcome the highs and short comings of this years team. So far the team has had its ups and downs but in the end it is always the new teams ordeal to deal with the after math of both success and failure of the previous teams efforts. It is nothing short of the future of Kung Fu that the team is responsible for so everything has a price to pay and everything brings with it a new opportunity and a new sense of purpose. Good luck to next years team they as well as every future team will have its hands full.

http://michaelplayter.blogspot.ca

Excited and Disappointed

I am excited that we are ramping up the Lion Dance practices to every Friday in preparation for our Chinese New Year Celebration and this year is going to be one that a person does not want to miss. In the past preparing for our celebration has been one of the biggest most memorable aspects that I have been privileged to be part of. But this year I am a little disappointed, not with the practices or the amount of effort that will have to be put into preparing for this year’s Lion Dance. What I am disappointed about is that this year I will have to miss watching most of my son’s home games in his first year of Midget Hockey; I had thought I might be able to watch him play at some of the home games on the odd Fridays of each month.
But that is just not how things worked out, and I understand the importance of committed, consistent practice with the same people involved in then dance is the only way that we as a team will be successful. So I stay excited and committed but disappointed.

Where am I? What am I doing?

One small success

Calling all nerds...

Well, I really am trying to get a video blog posting up.  Not too sure why I am finding this so difficult.  I admit, I need help with this.  I am going to bring my computer to the Kwoon next opportunity and I am roping in the next nerd that passes by to help me with this.  I am finding this to be like Doctor Frankenstein trying to jump movement into his lifeless monster.

If nothing else this has forced me to break my stubborn independence and rely on the team....as a team member should do.  But before that, one more try.....one more bolt of lightening into this lifeless beast....

5 Keys to Success

After reflecting on the things that I've been doing well and not so well, as well as considering some of the recent blog comments that I've received, I've noticed a pattern and I've come up with 5 things that lead to success for me with my Kung Fu. This post is intended to act as a road map of sorts for when I need to wind my way out of a slump.

1) Acts of Kindness: When I perform AOK it completely transforms my mindset. The kinder I am to others, the kinder I am to myself and I am more open to doing the things that are important, like eating well, training, etc. It's a perpetual thing because kindness begets more kindness. AOKs are a good indicator (at least for me) of my overall engagement.

2) Diet: This is pretty simple. When I eat well, my body and mind respond accordingly. I don't think it's possible to sustain a high level of performance over time without a good diet. For me a good diet means I'm eating less processed foods, more vegetables, and drinking lots of water. 

3) Stretching: I started including stretching with my I Ho Chuan requirements a couple of months ago and it's really paid off. My flexibility has obviously improved and my body feels so much different. High kicks and low stances require flexibility and you can't beat the way a good stretching session makes you feel. I totally get the appeal of yoga now.

4) Getting An Early Start: The times that I am the most successful are the times that I am able to get in some reps first thing in the morning. The rest of the day is so much easier when you know that you have already completed 50 situps. Leaving it until the end of the day is a recipe for failure. I know that because that is still how I do it most of the time. There have been days that I get all my reps done before noon and those are inevitably the days that my numbers are super high and somehow I also have time to do other things as well. 

5) Journaling: If I look back at the times where I was in a really good place and highly engaged, I see that I more than met the minimum requirement for journaling. Conversely, there have been months where I barely met the minimum and those were months that I wasn't doing so well. This is not a coincidence. Journaling, for me, serves two purposes. It helps me organize my thoughts and also solicit advice from my teammates. More importantly, it documents my journey, and this allows me to go back and learn from my own failures and successes. Sifu Brinker talks to us constantly about journaling but I have never needed to be convinced. I have always understood the value in it.

I find that if I do all the things above, everything else falls into place. These things create a framework for me, physically and mentally, that I can build on each day. I'll be the first to admit that even with this framework, things are seldom easy. But hopefully writing this down will be one more tool that I can use when things get tough.

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

Diet and an Injury Update

I've come to realize that a proper diet is crucial. I've always paid attention to my nutrition, even it was poor, and I've always been interested in learning about how food affects the body. I hadn't been eating well over the last month or so and I don't think it's a coincidence that my training and attitude deteriorated along with my diet. I've turned things around a bit over the last couple of days and I already feel a difference. One of my personal requirements was to eat vegetables more regularly and I've only sporadically done so. It's something I need to keep working on as I can see tangible results when I eat well.

I've been seeing a new physiotherapist for a few weeks now and so far so good. In our first session she was already able to improve my range of motion. One of the thing that she told me is that my alignment is all messed up. In my relaxed state, my head tilts left and my shoulders are not square. I have been given a series of stretches and exercises to improve my alignment and improve my range of motion. After those improve we'll work on strength. The interesting thing to me is that it seems obvious that some of the issues I have in kung fu with body alignment are directly related to my injury. It just goes to show how important it is to attend to injuries. 

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

Focus

Focus is paramount when one is trying to accomplish a task. I lost focus this weekend at our annual fundraising tournament and suffered lousy results in the Hand Forms part of the competition. It was a great reminder to me on how important staying focused and in the moment is. I relearned a valuable lesson this weekend and had a great day spending time with like-minded people.

Where am I? What am I doing?

Frustration

I've been wanting to write a journal entry for a couple of days but I didn't because my mindset was a bit negative and I wanted to wait until I shook it off. Well, that hasn't happened yet and I suppose the negative posts serve a purpose, just the same as the positive ones. I can look back and remember how I felt when I was low and also remember that it didn't last forever. You have to remember where you've come from to appreciate where you are. 

So, with all that said - I'm very frustrated right now. Things were going so well for me and now I feel like I've taken several steps back. On a personal level things are not great at the moment and it's affecting every other part of my life. I remember a while back, Sifu Brinker was speaking about people letting their Kung Fu deteriorate because they didn't have time or their life was sapping their motivation. What those people didn't realize is, when your life is chaotic or turning downward, that's when Kung Fu is the most important. I understood what he said back then but I'm sure not practicing that now.

I've been feeling "meh" for a while now but I had temporarily pushed it down. It's creeping back and I don't know how to deal with it. I still struggle with finding meaning in almost everything. I feel like an outsider wherever I go and whatever I'm doing, and it's starting to wear on me. I think I need to make some kind of change in my life but I don't know what. At least not yet.

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

Tooling around

If you walk into my garage as of late you are likely to close the door and cause a shovel to fall off the wall.  It will nearly brain you except you step narrowly out the way.  That same shovel will flip the switch of the grinding wheel. Stepping to avoid a death by garden spade, you will probably trip over and spill a gas can.  Grabbing in desperation you will reach out to the work bench and land your hand in an old tub of rusty bent nails.  The bucket, being the cap of the massive junk heap will cause a catastrophic fault resulting in a slide of epic proportions knocking hammers, hacksaws, screw drivers, and drill bits onto the grinding wheel.

Sparks.

Projectiles

Previously mentioned gas can.  

Now explain to your wife over the smell of burnt hair that you need more tools….and probably a tetanus shot.

I have been given more than enough opportunity to be successful this year.  Certain Sifu’s that will remain unnamed have done so much to try to help me in my success and I am so grateful for that.  There are I Ho Chuan members that are blazing forward with these tools and putting them to tremendous use.  There are students that have cooked up a new solution for success, and showed off the recipe for those that can’t bake worth a darn.  Here it is, here are the tools and here is how to use them.  Still I find myself sawing off my arm with a reciprocating saw and jamming the hammer claw in my eye.

So this morning, I hopped out of the truck and looked at the orange hue of the horizon.  I have been witness to the eastern sky laying down some pretty brilliant sun rises the last five days.  But only today did I snort in a deep lung full of air, hold it, and exhale in Kung Fu fashion.  I am going to take one tool at a time, and master it.  And it is going to start with a video blog. If by next week I don’t have a video blog up, I hope you all hold me to task.

vincekrebs.blogspot.com

Back in the Saddle

Written Sept 23, 2014.    

Its great to be home, had a great vacation but I am tired and have missed the awesome country and culture that is Canada.  The girls came back to Canada with us and will be staying close to their mother where they belong!!!  Looking forward to living and training with my daughters they are after all the original reason I started to study Kung Fu and I missed training with them.

Written  Oct 6, 2014  Tommorrow

Enjoyed the I Ho Chuan meeting and it was really great to see and talk to my I Ho Chuan team mates, missed you guys and the training!  Sihing Tymchuk talked about the word tommorrow and I got right on that list of things to do and back into my training routine.  The shelving is installed and the rumpus room is cleared
pushups, situps and kicks are happening.   Did NOT get all my form reps in and my double stick form has a lame ending.

I also attempted to upload a picture of me (rather than a really cute panda) to my blog site as requested.  Failed ... not sure what went wrong.Will try again.  Terry post this with the new picture!!!

Written Oct 22, 2014  Lion Dancing

Hurt my neck pretty bad being the head of the lion,  agony for a week.!  I talked to Sifu Playter and he gave me some tips on how to do this without putting so much strain on my neck and using my arms more without setting the lion on the top of my head.  Very tired arms, still some discomfort in the neck but not agony thank god.   I am really enjoying the lion dancing and I am glad that I will be the tail for awhile it will give me some time to build up more strength in my arms and shoulders.  Missing the dragon dancing!

I think the picture worked.

Difficulties

Life has a habit of getting in the way. The last week has been difficult for me in that I’ve had a hard time fitting my training into my days. This obviously means that I haven’t done a very good job of taking advantage of my opportunities. Too much time wasted time on the internet, too much procrastination, and most of all - laziness has crept into my routine. I feel like there is a fine line between not beating yourself up for missing a class/training, and being complacent. I’ve worked hard to get rid of the guilt that I was feeling previously but now I feel like I have swung too far in the other direction. I have to find that balance where I take advantage of the times that I can train but I don’t sweat the times that I don’t.

I’ve often felt that, in the past, I’ve been too accepting of putting in a mediocre effort. Some people are perfectionists and I used to view myself (at times) as a “good enough-ist”. I don’t feel that way anymore but old habits die hard. It seems like every day I’m reminded that training your mind is way harder than training your body.

Cory Smid

http://kungfucory.blogspot.ca/

Tournaments

What is the purpose of the tournament we run at our Kwoon? like so many opportunities the school brings to us it has a unique set of things we as students can gain from it. Looking back at the tournaments I use to compete in as a colour belt I remember why I started to compete. Back then it was about testing my metal against the rest of the martial arts community but now I realize what the true benefits are. It helped my grow in many ways with improving my confidence. to put yourself out there like that was at that point not a normal thing for me so I gained a lot of confidence through competition that way.  It helped me with public speaking due to the boost in confidence. It also helped me improve me leadership skills because no one can follow you if you don't have the courage or confidence to speak up. The harder the event, the harder the competition the better the boost in confidence in the end.
Like all the other opportunities the school presents you must ask yourself why do you not participate. If you have other priorities then your Kung Fu you must be honest with yourself about them. If it is due to fear then again you must be very honest with yourself about it. Either way understand a lost opportunity is lick a burnt bridge you never get a second chance at it and fear makes for a poor friend.

http://michaelplayter.blogspot.ca/2014/10/tournments.html

Small Steps II

In my last post I talked about how I have been approaching my goals this year in the I Ho Chuan with the mind set of small steps, and how by applying this concept has made this year enjoyable and my goals sustainable. I would like to elaborate on how I have been applying this concept throughout this I Ho Chuan year. At the beginning of the year I set my goals the same as everyone else, 50,000 push-ups and sit-ups each, 1000 acts of kindness, 1000 miles (1609 km) walked, ran or biked, 1000 reps of two forms, etc. plus person goals. In past years I have learned that if I looked at each goal as a total my mind would find any excuse not to do them and I would surly fail. So I had to come up with a strategy to trick my mind into not seeing each goal as a total but as daily goals. So I took each goal and broke each of them up into daily goals and some I even broke up into even smaller goals that needed to be achieved multiple times throughout the day and then I would focus only on the daily goals and not the end of the year goal. I also made a habit to enter my progress multiple times throughout the day and not just at the end of a day, so as not to fall into the trap of forgetting to enter for a week or more at a time. This is by no means a perfect system and I am noticing that it needs a little more refinement to make it better, but it is working for me especially on the larger goals.

Where am I? What am I doing?

Small Steps

My approach this year to the I Ho Chuan has been to attack each of my goals with small steps in mind. By approaching each of the goals this way, I have never had the feeling that I am falling behind or will never be able to accomplish what I had set out to do. At times I still find that I will stumble along the path to mastery but with keeping the “Small Steps” approach in my mind it seems that I can just get back onto my feet and continue on, I don’t have the sense that I have to climb all the way up to the top of a cliff to get back on track. By applying the concept of incremental progression has made this year so far enjoyable and sustainable.

Where am I? What am I doing?

I Ho Chaun - Tool or Mountain?

Sifu Brinker has spoken many times about the idea of seeing the I Ho Chuan as a tool and not as a mountain to climb. I've always understood what he meant but I think I'm only just now starting to feel that way myself. Last class I received my green stripe, which was the last one I needed in order to get ready to grade for my yellow belt. The problem was that I didn't really feel like I deserved most of the stripes I have. I haven't always understood exactly what I did to earn a particular stripe. I think this is for two reasons. First, my instructor knows what a white belt skill level should look like, whereas I do not. I need to trust Sifu Playter's judgment. Second, I had a hard time understanding how I could be progressing when I wasn't practicing as much as I thought I should. But participating in the I Ho Chuan has changed the way I train. A lot of my training comes from form reps. I only viewed this as practicing one thing, but in actuality, forms train many aspects of my kung fu, all at once. If I improve my forms, there's a good chance I'm also improving my stances, my center, timing, flow, etc.

I've realized that just working toward getting all my requirements each day has been enough to continue progressing. I know that I am not hitting all my requirements and my consistency needs to improve but that's ok. I will improve as I go on. In the meantime, it's quite clear that the I Ho Chuan has been serving me. I'm been taking stock of where I'm at and I'm quite happy. I don't always feel like it, but I'm a kinder person these days. My attitude behind the wheel has done a complete 180 (maybe closer to 160 actually) and I feel calmer than I ever have before. My body is more flexible and I feel in better shape than I've been in a long time. All of these improvements have carried over into work as well. I have a challenging job right now but I'm having success, in large part to my application of some of the principles that kung fu has taught me.

To clarify - I'm not saying that I'm an expert or that any of this is easy. I'm just saying that I don't feel like this is an ordeal for me. It's something that has already changed the way I do things and I've only scratched the surface.

Things seem to be coming back

I guess I had this idea about ramping up my training, diet and lifestyle a while back and unfortunately it ended up tanking me instead of reaping any benefits; so, I figured I'd go back to where I was and what I was doing before as it's got me this far and in all reality, it wasn't and wouldn't be sustainable. My weight drop has stabilized and although I have settled into a weight that I'm not happy with, at least I can work with it from here; I guess it will be finding that healthy desirable balance that will be a daily inspiration to continue with as time goes on. On the mental front, I have been focusing so much on a "deadline day" that I forgot to focus on "the now, the after and the continuation" of what life will bring as I continue. "My temper" is still on active duty and ready to be unleashed at those certain trigger moments; for example; I did about a 3K run to pick up my car from the body shop one morning and when I walked in the door the "Chicklet girl" behind the counter asked me if  "I was ok"? Sure I was sweating and somewhat catching my breath, but that question took me to instant asshole status level 10 and I couldn't let it go at that (Chicklet girls are the ones that if you grab their neck and shake them they'd probably sound like a box of Chicklets). Grrrrrrr, WELL, I'll have you know, "I did a leg of the Death Race in August and at this time I'm preparing to challenge a Black Belt test plus after this transaction I'm off to the gym,..... the blank stare response was probably a result of her being so impressed by all that, .....yeah,.... I hate it when I fail those random serenity tests. I guess in all reality I'm just running through a lot of fears and uncertainty of the future.

keep on trying

I've been strugling with my kung fu lately. It's been tough going. I want to stay positive for myslef because I am really good at trashing myself. Excuses are endless and I've used them all. Staying positive is the only way to turn this around. By accomplishing little goals every day I can come back. One foot in front of the other keep on trying. I am cleaning my house more often. That was a goal for the year. I am eating healthier as well. Still prefer the fruits and veggies for snacks at work. Tom's cooking all the time so I have healthy lunches. My studies are continuing. I even got a 78% on a test I had recently. I haven't been blogging at all. My apologies for that will keep on trying to do better.Now to start on my kung fu and get that back on track.
Sifu Jeannette Langner

Failing but still in the fight

I have not been so good with the blogging in the past little while. I have a few updates to report tho. One my knee has been acting up again it popped on me twice recently and Im a little worried that It wont be ready for the tournment. On the other hand I have been working on stuff for the tournament  in hopes that my knee will be healthy enough for competition. I still need to work towards team forms and  choreography, but I need a partner for those two events so if anyone is interested let me know. I have been working on a escrima creative musical form and i think it is coming along ok but it is high risk for my knee so I hope I don't blow it out before the competition. it has been a really long time since I last competed I enjoy the process of working towards the goal and the different style of practice that goes along with it. tournament style practice is a total different boat as far as style of practice goes. I tend to start working on hard and fast technique as apposed to slow and methodical. Again not so good for the knee but a lot of fun just the same.

http://michaelplayter.blogspot.ca

Numbers Update

I thought now would be as good a time as any to revisit my numbers and see where I'm at.

	Completed	Remaining
Push Ups	4345	45655
Sit Ups	11055	38945
KM	34	1575
Da Mu Hsing Reps	334	666
Kicks	9720	15280
Acts of Kindness	165	835

As you can see, I have a long way to go. I looked at my tracking spreadsheet to see if I could see any patterns beyond the obvious (not getting in enough reps) and this is what I found:

My sit-ups have been pretty consistent. Since I really started doing well tracking my numbers in June, there have only been three times where I went more than two days without doing sit-ups, and that includes my summer holidays. I'm actually pretty happy with that.

Kicks and Form reps are another story. There were eight times where I went more than two days without doing forms, including a twenty day stretch. If I ever question why I haven't achieved my yellow belt yet, there's the answer. Kicks were almost as bad. What this comes down to is that I am missing an opportunity to build a foundation with the basics. I have not been consistent enough.

My KM could be higher but I haven't been counting anything other than a specific effort to run/walk/bike, etc. I haven't counted any day to day walking around. I've been told that it's ok to do so but it doesn't feel right to me. Maybe I'm wrong. Either way, running hasn't been a priority. I tried to start but I hate it and I didn't make it a priority.

Pushups will improve after my shoulders are better. I have a new physiotherapist that I'm seeing so hopefully it's all uphill from here. I have more good days than I had before but I still have a lot of healing to do.

My two big takeaways from this analysis are:

1) Consistency. If I was able to bang out even one form rep and twenty kicks on those days where I did none, I would have much better results. Something is always better than nothing and I have had too many days where I did nothing.

2) Regardless of the fact that I know I could have done better, I'm still pretty impressed when I look at what I've done. When I joined SRKF a year ago, I couldn't do a set of ten sit-ups. Now I can do a set of 50 and I've done 11,000 in the last seven months. I definitely appreciate how far I've come.

Cory Smid

http://kungfucory.blogspot.ca/

Overconfidence

I feel like I've maybe been a bit overconfident lately. Mentally, I've been in a really good place and I've felt like training hasn't been a lot of effort recently. My shoulders have been a bit better and I was pounding out a lot of situps, which when I was starting out, were tough for me to do. The Forms Seminar was a really good day for me and I had a lightbulb go off for me that afternoon. 

When we had our team meeting on Saturday Sifu Brinker asked who was having trouble and I didn't put up my hand. I still don't really feel like I'm having trouble but I'm realizing that keeping momentum is not easy. I tried to pump out 1000 Situps and Kicks last weekend but I ran out of gas on Sunday. I was a bit sore as a result and I haven't done much training for a few days. One of the things that I've been getting better at is recognizing slumps right away and trying to stomp them out right away. Keeping up with my journaling and training while working out of town is pretty challenging for me but it's definitely helping to tune my mental game. 

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

The Journey

We had our monthly I Ho Chuan meeting yesterday and it was great to see everyone again.  Its been almost two months since I have been at the kwoon due to work and its been wearing on me.

We discussed mastery as the path and not so much the destination.  I have always had a difficult time realizing something as abstract as a black belt or building something like a shed or a chicken coup (if you don't believe me come over and see my coup).  I see this very large end goal and I don't see the small ones that mark progress along the way.  I get distracted and disengaged from projects if I can't achieve some level of success along the way. 

With my kung Fu this is exactly the same.  Early on I had lots of success as the knowledge was all new and the belt promotions were closer together.  Now where I am the successes are farther apart and I'm getting distracted and discouraged.  I do look back on where I have been and when I do I become motivated again.  Its just hard to force myself to look behind when I have always looked ahead and to a certain extent been programmed that way. 

I'm working on getting back to enjoying the journey and celebrating the little successes as they come.  I'm now focusing on my next stripe (black) then the next and then my brown belt.  Little by little I'm back on the path and little by little I'm starting to enjoy the journey again.

Mr. Ian Repay
Student of Silent River Kung Fu