Sunday 30 October 2016

From a Tree Trunk to Gumby

Over the last while I have learned a lot more about my 5 techniques and how you must take into consideration each individuals body mechanics and just how they react. Height, weight, stiff, excessively flexible, strong, weak, fast, slow, focused aggression or spastic, angry, scared, trained or street fighter etc. All of things are and should be a consideration but it's not like you are able to ask an attacker to fill out a questionnaire or tell him, "No you don't match the requirements to my techniques so you'll have to fight someone else...have a nice day!" It just doesn't work like that.

Your techniques must not only be universal, but adaptable as well. Not to mention considerations or alterations on the fly and split second execution must be a part of it as well. In your mind you picture and practice the form. Form is the path, application is the commitment, and the intensity is just how far you are willing to take the commitment or the actual end result. I have practiced my personal techniques with a variety of body types, but the latest has been mostly with one type, taller, slim, fairly flexible, and I started to feel quite good about them until I worked on them with two levels of extreme on the weight/flexibility spectrum. For example on one technique the individual was heavier and less flexible, so it almost didn't work at all. I had to alter the initial part of the technique to work with the extra weight and manipulate the locks or alter my own and his body positioning in order for anything to be effective and have the ability to move the extra mass were I needed it to be and what I had to do in order to insure they landed in the position required to complete the technique. Without going into a long worded visualization of it all, I ended up sweeping only one leg as opposed to two and changed the initial lock in order to force the individual into the required position to complete the technique.

The other individual was like working with a light piece of rubber, very difficult to lock, so you really had to look for body reaction as opposed to taking the training partners word for it. I found accuracy was very important when working with someone that isn't easy to lock. You have to really get into that deep fulcrum point of the joint or the lock is next to impossible. This can be very difficult when they are a light person as well because you can't really use their mass to assist you in taking the individual off center or directing them to a desired position. You have to be fast and use more than one joint for manipulation. For example I would try to lock the wrist in such a position that the elbow would come into play along with the shoulder, think of twisting a towel. It may take more to your technique to have any kind of effectiveness with this type of person but I think the intial contact should be the starting point.

 There are many factors to consider but I feel an eye for detail is the most essential in order not to hurt somebody very badly or unintentionally that you are training with, but also to troubleshoot the technique and make it universally effective. I have learned a lot this last while and obviously much more to learn but I think with this gained experience I can have the confidence and assurance that if I ever had too, my techniques will protect me and disable an attacker and there are options available that must be considered when applying them and to what extent. See you at the Kwoon.


Tiger Challenge 2016

Amazing, inspiring, and extraordinary with a heart beat. Those are the words that come to mind when I reminisce on what I witnessed yesterday. From kids to adults the display of courage, skillset and hard work was just awesome. The amount of children in attendance was incredible as was the mindset and leadership of our instructors and their obvious ability to influence a positive encouragement to push yourself and doing your best is the goal. Seeing all of this was definitely a look into the future of our school and the standard that is to be expected. I think overall the results speak for themselves.

The hard work and discipline of all the Que belts as they prepared and competed in the tournament was way cool. From hand forms, to weapons, to fight choreography, both point and continuous sparring was just amazing. It takes a lot of courage to get up in front of everyone and perform or take on a challenge publicly and from what I seen from the students as a whole was just awesome. Kudos to all of the students and the efforts of our instructors.

My fellow candidates did so awesome at everything they did. I feel so proud and fortunate to train with these two highly skilled martial artists. They never cease to inspire me and keep me honest. Well done Sihings!

The Tiger Challenge also gives the students an opportunity to watch the Black Belts compete and perform and it was awesome. Having the privilege to witness that much skill and advancement was very inspirational. They all did so awesome I would need a whole page just to explain what I took away from it. But some of the more memorable parts was Sifu Reiger's unique signature on Loa Gar, Sifu Vanderham's performance of a form I dont know how to spell, (so I'm not going to try) and Sifu Rybak performing snake was awesome. I honestly don't know if I could ever move like that, but there will come a day where I will have too. Seeing these two different styles was interesting and an exciting look ahead as to what the future holds once a student receives the rank of Black Belt. Sifu Becketts Horse whip was amazing, the intensity in the eyes and definition of the form was very cool, Sifu M Becketts musical sword form was really incredible and she performed extremely well. I really enjoyed the unique Bench of Death form by Sifu Lindstrom. His form shows a huge level of creativity and is a good reminder that anything is a weapon.
As for my own experience, I could have done much better and to me in my mind, it was somewhat of a disaster. Nonetheless, it was a great day and I'm glad I was fortunate to be a part of it. My performance anxiety was next to nothing so that shows an area of growth. Looking forward to next year for sure as it will be on another level. So much to look forward too.

One last note a big hats off to all those that were the back bone of it all. From Sifu Csillag and others that organized and laid out the tournament, to all of the Sifu's that judgded the events, to Sifu Dennis pounding out the numbers and tracking the overall tournament and to all the volunteers that made it all happen, thank you very much. Your time and effort are very much appreciated by us all.


Thursday 13 October 2016

The Mental Approach

This last little while has had it's moments of testing true grit if you will, not only from a physical stand point but a mental as well. I firmly believe if you let the brain run you and not you run your brain the simplest things can become long division using the alphabet instead of numbers. The mind is the king of instilling doubt and fear. If you don't declutter the mind and always approach things with the what if syndrome, then you just let it destroy your advancement and impair your focus. Don't get me wrong I'm no expert at this but I can say this much, the skies the limit unless you fear yourself and what you can do. I believe in myself and what I can do because I have made goals and saw them through regardless of the circumstances.

 My year from the beginning to present has been under my control when it comes to approaching Kung Fu. I was recently going over what's left to sort out or polish and once I ran through the list, here came the mind messing with stuff from several angles. This isn't good enough, that's not good enough, are you sure you know this to Black Belt standards, are you sure you approached this year with the proper discipline and approach? Do you honestly believe you can pass the physical requirement to the standard that is expected of you? Are you going to just waste everyones' time once again? What if this and what if that? You know what mind? How about you take a flying leap into a tree shredder! Beat it!

Yes, I have had some drawbacks lately. Starting from the top, my hips are slowly loosening up but much slower than expected. Oh well, move forward and stay on the path. I felt off a few weeks ago and had a pretty good idea of what was happening, my prescription was once again having no effect. Now this really sucks because energy levels fall and me not accepting it and pushing through is not good for me or my longevity. Okay, blood test and now the dosage is doubled to .125 mg. Holy #@$% right! Hopefully this keeps my internal balance levelled out because when this stuff goes south, it not only effects me physically, but messes with my wiring as well. I really can't afford this right now but as far as I can tell, I should be okay. My knee is feeling much better as is my back so this is great. Lastly I caught one heck of a cold/flu type thing that really knocked the crap right of me and I'm just coming around now. I thought maybe I could sweat it out and kill it off with a fitness class and black belt test. Umm no, there were times when I asked myself, " Who's messing with the lights and why do I need to grab onto something?" I didn't make it through the test but I did do most of it. This was a moment where I let the mind fool me and give me bad advice. I should've stayed home and rested, but instead I listened to my stubborn side and pushed myself too much. Now this was not only really dumb, but really irresponsible on my behalf. It just became worse and I lost almost a week of valuable training time. I brought a sickness into the kwoon and was coughing and hacking relentlessly, working in close proximity of others that really can't afford any down time either or don't need to be sick as a result of my drive to push through type selfishness. So to those at the Kwoon on Saturday, I appologize and thanks for not hanging a beating on me.

Alright so this journal entry is super long and maybe a little bit stupid and perhaps has put a few of you to sleep. So I'll close it off with I guess the whole point and what it all means. I never let my mind distract me and when it got cute, I decluttered and prioritized. I stayed true to my path and my destination regardless of the drawbacks, I didn't fall into all or nothing mode and I've kept the three C's intact through it all. Now that in itself is an awesome accomplishment for me because a questionable approach and doubt has been mostly defeated and my passion for Kung Fu is once again mine. I have paced back and forth at the foot of this mountain far too long and embraced distraction as acceptable reasoning as to why I have not advanced. I cannot wait to achieve the rank of Black Belt and advance my skill and training and if I stay in the drivers seat of my mind, the possibilities are endless. See you at the Kwoon.

Sunday 2 October 2016

Hips, Knees, and Self Imposed Vulnerbilities

Training in Kung Fu is always a good learning experience when it comes to listening and learning about our bodies. I guess that's why Kung Fu provides such a vast and excellent opportunity for knowledge and adaptability. When something is going wrong or you are limited in your abilities due to and injury or lack a balanced discipline, as in my case stretching and changing things up a bit,  Kung Fu will prompt you to heal and educate yourself about your body and source information from other martial artists.

Case in point, some little bastard goblins have snuck into my hips and welded them together.... okay not really. I have been having trouble with my hips lately. Not pain, but lack of flexibilty and they seemed to be getting worse. I have been thrown off balance during forms and kicks just at belt level. When practing some kicks last week in Sihing class, like cross stepping behind and throwing a High Rising kick I just about drove my face into the mats. As funny as that may have been, it would have ultimately sucked. When I move into a horse stance, rather than sitting in the horse stance with a straight back, I am hunched over and using my legs which makes your legs burn out way faster and also burns up your energy.

So what do I have to do here to aleviate this issue. Well for starters ask those around you that train, so I did and in doing so I was given some stretches to do and some good insight on another area that may be contributing to this. My IT band. That actually made a lot of sense and may perhaps explain why I have so much trouble lately opening up the chest during forms. With this all in mind and all of the cross stepping we did from both leads during Sihing class my hips felt a lot better and have lossened up a bit. I have been doing Qi Gong lately and finding the snake to be very helpful in this area as well. Horse stances and open X stances in motion seem to have helped as well.  I think ultimately though what needs to happen is I may designate Sundays to a full day of stretching both dynamically and static. A few minutes here and there after classes is definately going to help, but I think with the amount of training that needs to be ramped up a full day of more stretching than taxing may help quite a bit. I guess we'll see.

I fell asleep unintentionally in a chair last week and awoke to a really bad cramp in my knee, like the kind of cramp you feel in your neck when you think it was okay to sleep with your ear touching your shoulder and your head jammed between the cushion and the arm rest... yah that kind of cramp. I'm not quite sure what happened but it took me a good minute or more to adjust my leg. It seems I fell asleep with my legs crossed and when the weight of the other one resting on my knee, and my muscles relaxed it did something. I'm not sure what but either way it hurts. There's no bruising at all so I don't think it's a ruptured blood vessel and I don't think it is mechanical, as there is no grinding or shoots of pain, but there is a steady pull in the muscle that gets sharper as I kneel down on the inside of knee but it does subside. I don't know it's weird. So I gave it a good solid rest on Saturday with heat and ice and good old tiger balm. It feels better today but still sends signals from the same origin but now a little different frequency. I kept mobile all day and worked it a little at a time but it seems the same. Little more heat and tiger balm and see how things are in the morning.

One last note to touch on is my punches, I have discovered that for some reason I think it is okay to over extend the arm which leaves my elbow extremely vulnerable. Not cool at all. I think what may have happened is I am improving on keeping the arm relaxed until the point of rotation and contact. I'm not sure completely but I noticed my when practicing some techniques with others I feel it in the elbow. This is not good and must be fixed sooner than later. I also noticed this on the back fist as well, another technique applied incorrectly but that came as a fairly easy fix. I was swinging the back fist from the chest using both arms and opening the chest but failing to lead with the elbow and rolling out the technique. This was happening more on the left arm than the right which was mentioned before about a balanced body. Nonetheless it would not take much to blow out your own elbow by throwing a back fist with full power and bad technique. Another bad habit that must be fixed. Well I think that about covers it for now. See you at the kwoon.

So definately a few things to work on here and something else to report on. We'll see how things are in a week. See you at the Kwoon.

The Other Side

Grading is coming up soon and survival of the day is paramount. You really have to be ready for anything, which is difficult when you really don't know whats coming except what you are supposed to know. Yah I know...what!?!? Keep reading and hopefully that handful of mud I just tossed into your eyes dissipates.

When practicing lately I have been practicing most techniques and combinations from the curriculum all from the same lead. I have been practicing my kicks for grading from a horse stance and making progress there as well. Sounds normal but there is just one thing to keep in mind. Injuries that come out of nowhere and they always do. So under that point, what happens if I injure an arm, shoulder, knee, back, or whatever. Have I trained my body enough to make drastic changes, such as switching leads or stances on the fly? Would I be able to perform a technique from the opposite lead and still perform with proper technique, effectiveness, and intensity. Am I able to switch to a Bow stance and still get in the amount of kicks needed to pass with the proper speed and technique? What about outside of grading, like real life applications and you lose the ability to apply your Kung Fu because you haven't trained the other side of your body?

This is something that should apply to all martial artists and their training. Now I'm not saying that you should train ambidextrous or your completely useless, but you should definitely be able to apply your techniques from both sides of your body. I'm kind of fortunate this way as earlier in our training we were encouraged to try techniques from both leads as I advanced through my que belts. It wasn't overly emphasized, but it was there and I haven't forgotten that.... except as of late. I have been working mostly from one lead and I could tell immediately when I ran through a few combinations and techniques from the opposite lead. It wasn't good. Then I thought back to when was the last time I ran through combinations from both leads.... about 3 months or better.

So the next little while I am going to run through some combos from both leads and practice my kicks from a Bow stance. Maybe this will help to improve some of my kick issues.  Nothing too extreme as there is much to be worked on and I have a solid base to work from but I hope in doing so I can add that confidence knowing that I have a plan and I am able to adapt on the fly. I think this practice would help my forms, kicks, stance transitions, and build a better balance in my muscle groups.  Time will tell I guess but options are a good thing! See you at the Kwoon.