Saturday 28 July 2012

Traveling

Well I'm off on a vacation headed south to hopefully rack up some km's walking and riding my bike in the mountains of southern B.C. and Alberta. Looking forward to a long over due break with my girls. I have a training plan for August and of course the last few months to try and finish strong that I will share when I return. See you in a week.
Brian Chervenka

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Where I'm at and how I got here

When I first started this challenge it was in a land that had many different roads that I wasn't used to or with some requirements, wanted anything to do with. For example blogging, I have never blogged a thing in my life let alone work with a computer much. Recording a handwritten daily log of each step of accomplishment. Being nice to everybody, repairing a wounded relationship, setting personal goals that we all have but keep them on the back burner. Keeping it there until we believe the timing is right. But really we are just procrastinating or blatantly being chicken #$%&. All the more reason to jump into it with guns a blazing. I remember going over the requirements and thinking this is going to do wonders for all aspects of personal improvemnt in not only our training, but bettering ourselves as people. This is probably a very good thing because for the most part we all try to be decent, but there is a major #%&hole in all of us at some point that rears its irrational or selfish head. This made it very exciting and a stiff challenge, something we all seem to love as martial artists. It was also at the time when the black belt promotions were happening, there was a fire of inspiration that was blazing within. I still to this day hold each and everyone of those black belts in very high admiration and respect. It was the most influential group that I have witnessed and I hope to fulfill the standard that not only they set as candidates but to the school and our lineage. What better tool could you be given than this challenge to prepare and train to be a black belt. I went into it wide open, trying to do a count of every requirement daily. For a while this worked pretty good.
Then life and obligations and commitments kicked in. Soon keeping up with the challenge wasn't so manageable anymore. the guilt and the feeling of being uncommited set in. More and more requests for help came on kwoon talk and our monthly meetings came up and I couldn't make it. I never back down from a challenge or not do what I say I'm going to do. So in order to stay true to the challenge I started staying up later to fill the numbers, log them and so on. Staying up later and later to complete numbers and complete tasks around the house and whatever else came up. Time with family and my responsibility to my wife and youngest daughter, time that should always come first but doesn't always work out. Then lets start dealing with the guilt and the personal critizisms that we all beat the crap out of ourselves over and over until we are way down. A few months of this and exhaustion set in big time. If I sat down and didn't have anything to occupy my mind or body I would fall asleep. Nodding off driving home from work, not cool. I often thought to myself there is no way I'm going to make it through alive if I don't change something quick. When it came time to train I was beat and really started to just do things mindlessly and sloppy just to get it done. I started to resent the challenge and kung fu in general. Thinking I have to go do this, now I feel I am being forced to do this and if I don't I'm pussing out and should just backout. Yes quitting did come to mind so I knew at this point I really had to get it together. Like the old saying "there is no such thing as can't" and I never quit. Then the nonconformist nature I have fires up and teams up with super stubborn. Now I am doing very little everyday and living with the guilt and thought of being a poser. After all I am training with silent river black belts, the top of the line. You can't buy this kind of exposure and experience. Let alone all the sihings and fellow students that I train with.
So I stood back and really thought about a way to make this work and how commited I was to the challenge. So I looked and seen how far I have come and what requirements I have completed and really it wasn't so bad, but ofcourse to ourselves its never good enough. One goal I worked really hard at was to be a sihing by june, I earned 6 stripes in 5 months, I didn't fulfill the goal but nonetheless I felt good about how far I did get. I have participated in everything I could and felt extremely proud to be in our demo. I ignored the segregation and the numbers and started doing what I could whenever I could. Basing my progress daily and not concentrating on all, assessing my strong points and focusing on the weaker. My push ups and sittups have fallen behind but I'm not concerned about those, with my new approach some days I'll do 50-70 other days 300 plus and I feel good about them. I am mindful of the techniques and am doing things properly not just doing the old half push up or sittup at mock nine. Same with kicks, forms, sparring on my heavy bag or whatever. I am concentrating on quality. When I go for walks or bike rides I am being mindful of my steps or miles enjoying nature, thinking about Kung Fu or just spending time with my girls. I am not concerned with the final numbers, they are a goal setting process. The way I am approaching this thought process is if I am going to do all of these requirements in such a massive quantity they better be done properly and they should mean something. Otherwise I just wasted a pile of time and all of this training was for nothing.
Overall when it comes to some of the requirements I won't see completion, with others I will. I push very hard some days and others not so much but still getting something done. My engagement and adaptability to life and my Kung Fu is fairly balanced at the moment and my mind set on the whole thing has improved greatly. Now its more like it should be, I can't wait to do more Kung Fu, I can't wait to go to class or hit as many classes as I can. The only thing left hangin really is my absence at meetings or other times when I can't be there for the team. But I am doing my best. Sorry for the long post but since I have missed so many meetings I thought it would be the right thing to share with alittle more depth from me and the five animals.
Brian Chervenka

Sunday 8 July 2012

Long time, no word

Yes it has been a while since I have communicated in anyway and for that I apologize to all on the team. I hadn't really come across anything spectacular and really didn't have much to say. I'm not going to go into any excuses of work and family commitments because thats what everybody deals with everyday. I find it awkward to just put something down for the sake of blogging, and it not have any real thought or experience. I'm also new to blogging so I find that to be challenging at times as well.
As for the month of june, it was a good month for some catch up. The numbers don't total as plentiful as I would have liked but the effort was there and that was the fun part. It was a challenging month though with work and an aggressive schedule and a really bad sprain in my right foot that occurred in may. It made lots of things challenging like training, bootcamp, etc. but the show must go on. One thing about injuries is you learn to adapt and carry on with your day and your training, moving your body different ways and changing the procedures you are used to using without thought everyday. I think of it as reserved thoughts for survival.
 The best part of June though is how it ended. When I received the e-mail to perform in the Canada Day demo I was vapour locked, a little nervous and beaming with overwhelming excitement. I felt it a honour to go out and represent our school and do a demo with some of our black belts and fellow teamates from the I Ho Chuan team. Everyone from the lion dancers to all those who displayed full blown deadly art did awesome. It was just something I will never forget. And thanks to all the black belts I hounded for the pre show "wanting to puke all over the place" advice on how not too.
Brian Chervenka