A New Beginning

The Year of the horse has ended. It will be another 12 years before the Year of the Horse occurs again. I hope everyone’s journey towards mastery has been one full of learning. Here is to a New Year the Year of the Sheep, and may it be an even better one.

Where am I? What am I doing?

Failure

A failure is not failure if you can learn from it. Take that failure analyze it, come to a conclusion of what has caused it to be a failure, and change what you did or did not do, so that it can becomes a success in the future. A failure is only a failure if you choose not to learn from it.

Where am I? What am I doing?

Priorities

Everyone has things to do, and everyone is busy, some more then others. So we must all choose on what gets done by setting priorities. If something in our lives has a low priority it will most likely be the thing that gets put off to the side to be done later, and the ones that have a high priority will happen right away. Only us as individuals can choose and set what priority each of the things in our lives have. Some times it can become a juggling act, and  we must do the best we can to try to accomplish everything. And there are times when we fail. Those are the times a person must look at and see if things could have been done differently, and if so learn from it. 

Where am I? What am I doing?

Fitness

I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to my training, I haven't placed enough emphasis on fitness. There are many reasons for this but the biggest one is laziness. The type of training that makes you fitter is not enjoyable for me and there is no instant payoff. Weight training, which is very enjoyable for me, gives you that instant feedback in the form of muscle pump. You feel tired but you also have that pump to let you know that you've done a good job. 

A few weeks back, Sifu Brinker asked everyone if we were in the best shape of our lives, and if not, why not? I thought about it and there was no good reason for me not to be. My 40th birthday is tomorrow but I still feel much younger than that. I don't have any physical limitations that prevent me from being in better shape.


I've decided to set a standard for myself where I will keep at least one belt ahead as far as the fitness test goes. So, if I'm a yellow belt, I will challenge myself to be at an orange belt fitness level. This will be one small step for me and maybe just that little bit will make me feel good enough to take it further. If I take a page from the rest of my training, I know that just by taking action, I will increase my engagement and eventually, motivation will follow. 

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

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.