Smiles are Free

Two days ago was the first time in my life I have watched the sun rise, and watched the sun set in the same day.  It was pretty neat.  I am a person that strongly believes in the power of positive influence to life longevity.

Weird things that made me smile in the last 2 weeks:

-On his first day of kindergarten, my son telling my wife she should really leave the classroom now.

 -Deep dark rain clouds mixed in with intense sunsets.  

-Flying.

-Johnny Horton on the radio while driving to the mountains.

-Untangling my kids fishing lines.

-Catching a salamander and moving it off the work site. (I haven’t seen a salamander since I was a kid!)

-Old barns in wheat fields

-Two ravens having a conversation on a roof top.

I find it is easy to focus on the things more tangible to maintain health and happiness.  Diet and exercise always take the forefront in my life.  More importantly though, health of mind.  Being involved in the martial arts we know how important the mind is in controlling the body.  Presence of mind determines completing 50 push-ups or completing 500 in a day.  It’s the difference between breaking a knuckle and snapping a board.  Presence of mind affects health in a big way. Staying positive, taking joy in things you pass by every day will mean a healthier lifestyle. 

If you are conscious of them, there are a million things that you pass by everyday that will affect your presence of mind in a positive light.  Positivity breeds positivity.  Surrounding oneself with other individuals of positive presence of mind is important to me, and important to maintaining a strong mindset.  It is partially why I joined the I Ho Chuan in the first place. In the presence of engaged individuals, I will be a stronger individual.  In the presence of positive engaged individuals, I will be stronger in body, but also in mind and spirit.

In the I Ho Chuan we are expected to show leadership, and make positive advancements in our lifestyle.  Positive advancements seldom come from negative leadership regardless of engagement.  Expecting results under continual criticism, anger, disappointment, won’t inspire the school and our community or cause the changes we wish to see.  I believe we should be inspiring for more than our accomplishments, but also for our strong positive presence of mind.  

Expatriate

It's been a long time since my last entry. Lately, my lack of journaling seems to be stemming largely from my inability to express what I'm thinking. I've been mulling things over lately, collecting thoughts, many of which led to half written, unintelligible discarded drafts. Thoughts and ideas come by and I store them away. They start as hazy, vague outlines, and take time to become fully realized. Next thing I know, I've spent all my time thinking instead of writing. Time to start putting things on paper.

Topic of the day is how I've felt so confused lately about what community means to me. I feel divided among three different homes. The first is Stony Plain. The place of my childhood, teenage years and, at the youngish age of twenty six, where I've lived most of my life. The second is Edmonton where I've lived for the past six years or so. Where I've gone to college, matured into adulthood and met most of my current friends. Lastly there's my place of work in Sherwood Park. Honestly it's far too early for me to have any feelings for Sherwood Park. I'm only a year and a half into my first genuine career and my job has me working all over the province more than it does in Sherwood Park. Therefore I'm mostly indifferent to Sherwood Park. Nevertheless I do spend the majority of my week there and that takes a toll.

My condo in downtown Edmonton is a base camp for frequent journeys to the East and West. I've been living away from Stony Plain long enough that I've become disconnected from it. My sense of community in Stony Plain now comes from Silent River and my parents house. My parents place is an acreage about eight kilometers West of Stony so growing up I always had a slight rural disconnect from the town. As Silent River becomes more and more involved in the parkland community, the harder it is for me to feel like I'm part of the parkland community. I can't hop out the door and be at class in a few minutes. I can't shovel a seniors driveway after breakfast, before heading to work. I don't have the luxury of acting on impulse anymore. Most of everything I do in Stony is planned and so damn deliberate.

As this very moment, reading what I just wrote, I realize I should have said I have four homes. Don't think I've forgotten you dear readers. The community of the Kwoon is the most powerful of them all. I didn't mention it earlier because, really, you could say that the Silent River community IS my Stony Plain community.

There's no question that Edmonton is where I belong right now. I like it here. I love living within walking distance of an amazing Thai restaurant. I love the proximity of so many cultural, artistic and social venues. I cherish my freedom and the oh so accessible ability to go wherever I want, to do anything I want, whenever I want. My social life and activities with friends is very important to me. Edmonton is where I want to live right now. Still in the background of my consciousness there is the distant call of a rural parkland life. I can see myself eventually ending up there. But that would be for when I decide to settle down and adopt a more domestic life. The family, wife, kids and a dog idea.

This post has gotten out of control and I'm going to have to continue it later. Until next time.

Sifu J. Wetter

Whew...

Wow, the past two weeks have been pretty strenuous, mentally and emotionally. I'm glad that through cooperation, determination, persistence, and brutal honesty at times, the light at the end of the tunnel was finally reached. Feels nice to be able to sleep well again.

Not much else to say at this point...busy as ever. The prior promises for the blog posts on weight training for martial artists and the back injury post will be posted within Kwoon Talk sometime this week, in the threads that were initiated.

Cheers,

Sifu Harrigan

Mirror Within

I have mentioned before in my blog posts that I am taking an intensive program called Quantum Leap to greatly go forward in my life with the major focus being career/business. Since being in Quantum Leap, I have discovered that my business is creativity and artistry and how I express it is through my glass art, food art, and chain maille. I have also discovered that there is a time for glass, a time for the kitchen, and that chain maille will be woven throughout (considering that chain maille is ring weaving, I find the pun humorous). My schedule will be based on a year's outlook seeing when my shows are, when kitchen ramps up, and when is downtime. Plus where do I want to market what? Lots of questions with answers yet to come.

I had my coaching call on Tuesday and, to say the least, it was very stellar and revealing. My focus for my call was that in career I lack follow-through. I get to a point and bam! block, change direction, stuck! Basically I'm a starter, not a finisher and it's very frustrating considering I don't know why I'm like this especially in this area of my life.

My coach asked me how my Kung Fu serves me. I answered by saying that Kung Fu keeps me in getting in shape, going forward, and is a template to apply to my business. Her next question was "who is a brown belt?". Me. Next question "who is on special teams?" Me again. She revealed that I am very much a finisher, in fact, a very high achiever and where I demonstrate this is in Kung Fu. The stellar revealing point she revealed was that Kung Fu serves me so that I can see who I truly am and the characteristics I truly have. You see, no one in Kung Fu has ever told me that I can't do something. I might not be able to do something yet and I have access to tools to get there, but no one has ever told me (in Kung Fu) that "I can't", "I'm too fat", "you must do this", or that "I'll never amount to anything." Very much the opposite for career, hence, the blocks. I had just been shown the answer to my patterns in career. Wow!

As a result of the parental influence (parental including someone in a parent role such as an older sibling, teacher, etc) I had, I have a lot of anger and rebellion still bubbling and needs to come out for me to go forward in career and yes, I was given a particular exercise for release and dispersal that I am to do at least daily. As well I am to journal my findings and post them on our Quantum Leap site. I also have goal tactics and strategies, but this exercise is specifically to release the emotion and the blocks.

Right now Kung Fu is also showing me where my blocks are. If something comes as easy as my pushups and situps, it's clear sailing. If I have resistance with something, there's stuff for me to work on and move. Plus, if I'm pissy about something in Kung Fu, where is it really in my life? Translation: go deeper, because that's the source. Last night I did find and work on the source to the block I have with my forms. Yay!

Because of the tools, strategies, discipline and related qualities that I gained through Kung Fu and UBBT, I can now see how to apply them to my business and yes, I have follow-through. Kung Fu has shown me how with the latest victory being my fitness stripe for Sihing. I started training for that stripe as a white belt because then I could not do plank pushups or squat thrusts, now I can. Persistence, discipline, and a lot of various reps paid off.

At the circus there is the "house of mirrors" and that's okay for amusement, but I prefer the mirror that I have in front of me right now. Not always sparkles, rainbows, and stripes, but it does show me the truth.
Sherri Donohue
http://www.sherridlampworkglass.blogspot.ca/

That is illogical Captain..

Emotion and logic sometimes seem to be opposing forces.

It’s easy when the Logic follows the Emotions but when it doesn’t, this is the time to stop and take stock.

When stuff happens and we need to make choices and decisions in our lives, our emotions can get the best of us and we may take a knee-jerk reaction. In the worst case scenario we deeply regret our actions and find ourselves with more problems then what we started with.

On the other end of the scale we find the path of logic.

Putting our problems into a mathematical equation to formulate the desired outcome.

Sound like the way to go, however we then eliminate empathy, compassion, love and various other positive human traits.

Way back, when I used to watch Star Trek, the first version, I didn’t recognize the brilliant writer’s ability to identify Logic and Emotion thru Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk.

What spectacular dilemmas they had to solve! .cute, cuddly, soothing Tribbles, you can never have too many Tribbles…or can you! (for those too young you will have to Google).

How impressive and exciting as a kid, to watch them combine emotion with logic to solve the problem in less than a half hour, commercials included. If only all problems were scripted this way.

So fast forward  30 years give or take, I find myself solving my own problems with Logic and Emotion. The important addition is Control.

Control as a Black belt, control of myself. How I choose to react.

How I weigh out the emotional reasoning with the logic will depend on my own self control. Ask myself what is the right outcome, what emotions are driving my thoughts, what is the best outcome for everyone not just myself.

The balance between emotion and logic, not an easy achievement, but a work in progress through one‘s own self control.

Secret Weapons... Fail

So I'm happy with the demo so far, and I can't believe how well its coming together. I knew what I wanted before we even got together on Monday, but whether it was realistic was uncertain until everyone showed me it was. I'm excited to see the final product. And you should see Sihing Lagner with his shades on- super awesome!

As soon as I find the charge cord for my camera, the first part of Operation Pistachio will commence. Perfect timing too- one of my unknowing targets will be around for the next while. The other will have to settle for mail...

I want to wait until the demo is done before I start my other project. Sifu Kichko, I'd love it if you were my partner with this one. You have a great way of keeping me focused and on track. I am exceptionally good at following unrelated tangents and as my mother says, I can be very scatter brained.

Lastly, I went to the Sanshou class last night. Whoa. Sifu Bryant, I know where you're coming from now in regard to Sifu Leitz. Oi, I haven't had my butt whooped like that... ever. Sihing Chessal came in a close second for the beat-down-and-destroy-Sifu-Rybak marathon. Here I thought I'd have a secret weapon against Sihing Chessal, being able to kick him in the head. Tall guy like that probably isn't used to that... right. Quick block followed by a fist in the face taught me otherwise. Oh, and thanks to Mr. Hamilton for being my very own (laughing)cheer team! But you know what? I loved every minute of it!

http://dogsthinking.blogspot.ca/

More power

I need full power Mr. Scott.............Captain, I can't give anymore...she's going to blow.

A little flashback to my younger days of watching Star Trek.  

Last week in sihing class we practiced our forms.  When we got to Lao Gar, sifu M. Playter mentioned that this form is different then the others as the majority of power was generated by rotational power instead of more linear power from the other forms. 

That Sunday was Kurtis's 13th birthday and I took him to be driving range to hit some balls. A little time passed and something clicked. If I can take my driver and hit a little white ball 250 yads straight down the range, I should be able to generate that same force with my techniques. 

With my golf swing, I take the club back in arc about 70 degrees from vertical and twist about 40 degrees into my backswing. Once at the top of my swing, my hip and shoulders start the down swing following a similar arc as my backswing generating speed and power as I fire my hips, shoulders, arms, hands, and legs at certain points of the downswing. All of that momentum and force is concentrated at the bottom of my arc as the club head makes contact with the ball. The contact fires the balls along its merry way. If any part of my swing is off, and we are talking about a millimeter or a millisecond, the ball doesn't go straight.  I will still hit the ball but it won't be at full power or as accurate as I would like it to be. 

This translate to our Kung fu training, since day one, the Sifu's have always harped on the fact that we have to rotate our punches and blocks to generate effortless power. Stepping forward and punching is an excellent example of this. As you slide step forward, your hand fires off your hip towards your target. As you plant you feet, you rotate your hands to the proper contact position. Everything coming together to generate a large amount of power. More then if we just used our shoulders and arms to push out the punch. Yes, you still generate power but it's not as powerful as it can be. 

Both my golf and Kung fu rely on the the precise timing of my movements to generate power and complete the technique. The six harmonies, your feet and hands, knees and elbows, and hips and shoulders. They all have to work in harmony of each to maximize  efficiency and power.  I will have to keep this at the forefront as I try to master myself and excel at Kung fu and golf.