Huff and Puff the Wheezing Lion

Two out of the last three Lion Dance Practices I have experienced an asthma attack.  Given the Lion Dance is strenuous on my lungs, but with medication I have been able to strive off the asthma attacks. But lately I am having less success. Both times an asthma attack has occurred have been during the evening practices, and I am thinking there has to be another contributing trigger to them, since it has not happen at every practice. I keep playing back the events of each day trying to figure out what I had encounter, ate, or did that was different then on the days I did not have an asthma attack. I need to figure this out.

Where am I? What am I doing?

Gut Check Time

The last few months have been tough for me. As I've found out, my shoulder injuries were not themselves the problem, but a symptom of other underlying issues. I'm not very good at explaining it but suffice it to say that I have issues with my skeletal alignment and, over time, this has caused several problems for me, including the stress on my shoulders, tendonitis on my left side, and severe migraines, the latter of which has severely affected my sleep to the point where there have been a few instances where I didn't sleep for a few days straight and the only relief I got was from drinking half a bottle of Nyquil and essentially knocking myself out. 

I've had limited success with my physiotherapy but the limited part is because my work schedule hadn't allowed me to go to physio even semi-regularly and so I would start from scratch every time. 

This has changed now as my employer is allowing me to stay at home for several weeks to get treated. To be honest, between my shoulder injuries, tendonitis, insomnia, and migraines, I'm tired (no pun intended) of thinking about all of this. I'm also tired of writing about all of this and I'm sure everyone is tired of reading about it. I hate to admit it, but when you never feel 100% physically, it weighs on your self-esteem and motivation. Negativity creeps in. My attendance in class has become even worse, not just from work but because I just didn't want to attend, and my training has suffered too. There's also a bit of guilt from perceiving myself as a bad teammate, which I posted about earlier. My physiotherapist is quite confident that regular treatment for several weeks combined with homework will take care of things. I'm really hoping that's the case. 

I guess these are the kind of situations that build character in a person. I was recently watching an episode of "Chopped" on the Food Network and one of the contestants was very confident, stating that she knew she would win because she had never failed at anything before. I laughed when I heard that, knowing from personal experience that failure is what makes a person stronger. This is something that I need to remember. It doesn't matter if you get knocked down, as long as you get back up again. 

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

Where Am I and Where Am I Going?

My first year in the I Ho Chuan is coming to a close in less than a month. The year of the Horse has filled my life with great experiences with so many people from and beyond the kwoon and I have pushed myself harder than any year prior. Although I have hit a wall, although my health is still unsure, I have still accomplished so much.

It's hard not to compare yourself to others. The leaps and bounds of progress my teammates are making is so inspiring but at the same time make me look at my apparent lack of progress. I feel like I do not deserve my teammates but I know that the I Ho Chuan is not about judging others lack of involvement.

I will be returning to the I Ho Chuan for the year of the Monkey. During my year away from the program I will be restructuring and strengthening my foundations. In March I'll be seeing an ENT specialist and am hopeful that I will get the answers I need. I feel that my lack of balance has been the largest hindrance in my training but I know my inactivity is just as much of a liability.

The year of the Sheep will be a new starting point along a trail of milestones, how I proceed will determine the path before me.

Pyramid rebuild

I have recently been completing a great deal of review of previous curriculum and am really unimpressed with what is not coming to me second nature.  We speak of training as a pyramid in which a strong established base leads to a successful uprising of the training pyramid.

Call it neglect of the pyramid base, but I think it has led to some bad habits.  I think that at times when we train we sometimes get a little ignorant of what makes the pyramid….the pyramid.  It is not something that can be established and forgotten, but has to be revisited, practiced and re-polished more often than we realize.

For the time being the focus is going to be reworking things from the beginning, rebuilding the blocks that have been neglected.

Ramping Up the Practices

As Chinese New Year draws closer, we start to ramp up the practice days to prepare for our banquet where we celebrate the Chinese New Yew and the promotion of our newest Black Belts. At this time our practices are three time a week, as we get closer and closer to our banquet date we will add to the practice days until it feels like we are practicing every day of the week, which we very well could be. This is one of my favorite times of the year, spending days upon days, and hours upon hours with like-minded individual’s preparing for one goal “Perfection”, or just not to make fools out of ourselves on the day of the banquet. Either way a person looks at it, it will be an experience that is worth every ounce of their effort that they have given.

Where am I? What am I doing?

A good dose of support

 I just returned from field camp in Red Earth yesterday.  It is awesome to know that things are really going to turn into full on Kung Fu mode for the next few months anyway, as nothing seems to be on the horizon for field work.

I just want to give a great thank you to all the support that the students and Sifu's have offered to me in order to get my kung fu feet back up and running.  Mostly though, I want to thank my wife and family for the support they have shown in the last little while.  The picture is what I came down to find in my Kung Fu laboratory tonight.

Support is so grand when you embark on a program like the I Ho Chuan.  I am fortunate to have a wonderful supportive family, and furthermore a great group of people at Silent River.

So on another note, I found an excellent way to practice rearward break falls.  Sitting on a large exercise ball, roll backward for a controlled type fall to the mats.  I noticed the Kwoon had a couple of these balls as well.  I find this is a great intermediate transition method for people trying to make the jump from a rear break fall from the squat position, to a full on airborne rearward fall.  The ball allows for a slower descent that is more controlled and easier to time, helping to build confidence to a fall that might be required in a throw for instance.

Anyway, hope to see you all the Kwoon this week.

Vince.

Lion Dance Practice Jan 17th

Its somewhat crazy having 5 lions with 10 dancers and senior blackbelts with multiple opinions and hordes of questions and everyone trying to fine tune the lion dance performance.  Despite the chaos I think the last practice put alot of really cool things in place.  It was noisy but productive.  Although my legs were pretty tired and it looked like everybody else was in the same boat, swimming in sweat and exhausted we ironed out a bunch of kinks in the performance.  The stack and roll happened successfully a number of times.  The wave has had a change in orientation I think it looks better.  The polka step feels ridiculous but looks neat, and with the tail action of the lions adds some serious cute factor to the performance.  We are so going to WOW everyone with this performance.