Spending Time

These past weeks has been great, I have been blessed with the opportunity to be able to spend a lot of time visiting with family and friends, catching up on whats new, reminiscing on past events and planing some future events to come.

Where am I? What am I doing?

A Hard Lesson Learned

I was in a fender bender on Sunday and while I was 100% not at fault legally, I can't help but think I was still responsible. I was going northbound on Jennifer Heil Way when another driver turned left out of the Superstore parking lot and hit me. He clearly didn't look before he turned as I would have been easy to spot since I was driving straight toward him. I saw that he was inching out and he had even started to block one lane of oncoming traffic. 

I could have stopped even though he absolutely did not have the right of way but instead I slowed down a bit and kept driving,  assuming that he saw me and was not going to proceed with his turn. He didn't hit me that hard as neither of us were going very fast and nobody was hurt. 

My vehicle has a good amount of cosmetic damage and the other driver had insurance so, in the end, this is all just a big inconvenience. However, the lesson is not lost on me. Last night in class we were talking abut how out style of kung fu is a defensive style and that discussion seemed prudent, given the recent circumstances. It would be easy for me to take no responsibility in my accident as the law says I was not at fault whatsoever. The other driver made an illegal left turn and struck my vehicle. 

But could I have prevented the accident? I believe so. I wasn't speeding and I was driving within the law but I wasn't driving defensively. Upon seeing that the other driver was inching into traffic and recognizing that he was oblivious to the other vehicles around him, I should have acted defensively and yielded. My ego would have suffered for a moment but my vehicle would have emerged unscathed. 

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

Together

All week Sifu Kichko and I have been meeting in the morning to practice our forms. I must say that this week has been one of the most enjoyable weeks that I have had in while. What can be a better way to start your day each morning, then to start it with a session of Tai Chi followed up with weapon forms and then finishing with hand forms. All in the company of a friend.

Where am I? What am I doing?

Yellow Belt

I received my promotion last night and, after some reflection, I've decided that it feels good. I have to admit that, at first, the only thing I felt was disappointment in myself for not getting it sooner. I have failed to take advantage of a lot of opportunities over the last year in the form of missed classes and not going to open training. But then I realized that the path I took was the one that I chose and the amount of time I put in was exactly what I was able to commit to at that point in time. 

One of the things that I still struggle with is not comparing myself with others. When I was at open training last Saturday I noticed that the people that were there are the same people that are progressing fairly quickly, which, obviously, makes a lot of sense. If I want to progress faster, I have to put in more time; I can't complain to myself for not moving forward if I'm not doing that. 

The point of this is that I realized that I achieved my promotion at exactly the time I was supposed to. While I think it's healthy to always want to do better, you have to be able to appreciate how far you've come and I think I do.

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

Tomorrow

Every one has a Tomorrow. We all put things off that we need to do or get done. We all say, I’ll do it tomorrow, I will Start that tomorrow, It can wait till tomorrow. The thing is when tomorrow arrives it’s now today, and the cycle repeats it’s self. It becomes never ending, and what was once something small to do at the time, has now turned into a mountain and almost seems impossible to accomplish. So don’t wait for Tomorrow to start. Start Today as if there is no Tomorrow.

Where am I? What am I doing?

AHA!

I just had a light bulb go off so I wanted to get it down while it's still in my head. I'm looking at things from the wrong angle. I need to change my point of view and look at this as an opportunity. This is a chance for me to push myself and see what I can do. Working toward a goal should be inspiring and enjoyable, not disheartening.

That's better.

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

Mixed Feelings

Tonight's class was awesome and frustrating at the same time. I was reviewing the curriculum with Sifu Freitag working toward grading for my yellow belt. I received some much needed corrections in a lot of areas. It was really great to get some one on one instruction and I feel like I covered a lot and I will be able to make the improvement needed.

The frustrating part is that I feel like I've put in so much time and effort and I still have so much to work on. And this is just my first belt. It's only going to get more difficult from here. I know I can always do more but it's not like I'm not training. I put in practice of some kind pretty much every day. I know that the biggest problem is that because of my job my attendance in class is not consistent and therefore I can't get the corrections that I need sooner. I reinforce incorrect technique and now I have to fix it.

I feel like my goal to get my yellow belt by Christmas is in jeopardy. The positive is that I am off work for a month now so I can practice all I want. I told Sifu Freitag I would be ready to grade on the 22nd but I don't know if that's realistic based on where I am at right now. I hope it is. 

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

December 8, 2014

Staying aware with what is right with your body.  That is something I am realizing lately.  Some of the reasons for the major slides in peoples health I think is really because body change is generally very gradual.  It is easy to forget how a healthy body feels, and to make matters worse, the body is very good at adapting and working the best it can under the worst of situations.  I am working through that right now.  Where I am getting a little extra time due the job circumstances I am putting time into kicks (which have really slid on me in the last 6 months) and horse stances.  I also was kept up all night because I had forgotten the transition on a particular form that I have completed probably a couple thousand times.  How does this happen?  Anyway, come 2 am It finally came to me, and I have been practicing that transition several times a day.

Currently still in Dawson Creek, where the job is taking much longer than expected.  I will probably be here up to Christmas.

Can't wait to get back training with you all.
P.S. - Sent my rope dart into the hotel TV, so I will be taking a break from that for now.

Vince.

Self-Awareness

I've noticed over the last few days that one of the keys to success for me is self-awareness. The more that I train, the more a technique or pattern of thought becomes closer to becoming second nature. I want everything to become automatic so that I don't have to think about doing something; I just do it. Until I get to that point, however, I need to be consciously aware of what I'm doing.

Case in point -  today I had a pretty good day for kindnesses. I said hello to a lot of different people, which I don't always do. The difference today was that I was trying hard to find opportunities to be friendly. I was looking people in the eye and saying hello wherever I could. Most other days I don't really think about doing this and it's not automatic yet. Despite the progress I've made on this front, I still have to be aware of what I'm doing and what I'm trying to accomplish.

This applies to other aspects of my training as well. If I do my forms without concentrating on my stances, my footwork is poor. If I practice roundhouse kicks without concentrating on where my knee is pointing, my kicks will be poor. This probably sounds pretty obvious to most people reading this but it's important for me because I feel like with all the reps I've done as part of the I Ho Chuan, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of what I'm trying to do and instead get caught up in the raw numbers. Quantity is important but so is quality and I find it difficult to achieve consistent quality in my training if I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. This all comes down to self-awareness.

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

Physical Harmonies

Out of the six harmonies there are three internal and three external. The external ones are the ones that I am going to talk about. These are some realizations I have come too through mindful practice of the forms and applying the six harmonies. The first one is hands and feet, This one is all about timing and making sure everything arrives at the same time. Without this one none of the others can effectively come into play. Without this aspect your techniques are thrown only from the limb and not the entire body. It works on perfectly timing the body and the technique so that after a lot of practice technique and body become one. The next is elbows and knees. This one is all about vector training. you can have great timing with your technique and body but without the ability to move into you objective efficiently you cant effectively attack or defend from any position. elbows and knees need to work together in order so all that timing is put to proper use with the proper angle of attack or defence. Last is hips and shoulders these are where all your power comes from. Well actually it come from the ground but it is transferred into the hips through proper stances then transformed into power as it travels from hips to shoulders then into the wrist and finally into the objective. Without hips and shoulders in proper position it is impossible to achieve proper power transfer from the ground into the wrist. This is only achievable with the proper timing, and vector because without those two aspect all the power in the world is just wasted into nothingness.

http://michaelplayter.blogspot.ca/2014/12/physical-harmonies.html