Loading Up the Machine in Incremental Fashion

One thing that never strays too far from memory at every attempt I have ever made towards a year of engaged mastery with the I Ho Chuan class, is approach and perspective. The wrong approach can be amplified disaster with a ripple effect that turns into a wave of absolute chaos and a dulled and distorted perspective leaves you with no way to calm the situation and nothing to work with. The right approach and perspective will provide clarity and evolution along with some of the wildest opportunities and tools to work with.

 Let's look at this honestly. This isn't a hard class and the curriculum is a clear and solid base to work off of. You just have to put your own signature on it. Really though, what makes it hard and difficult is us. We tend to pile on all of these things and complicate the living s$#t out of almost everything we do instead of just staying true to basic plan of getting from point A to point B. We all tend to run out the gate...guns a blazing, foot to the floor, head first, all of nothing!! I'm going to do 400 of this, 250 a day of that, I've got this and that, I'm gonna do this, 42 different things going on in the first month!!! Aaaaaaaaggghh!! I'VE SO GOT THIS!! Then comes the 3rd month and your burnt out, angry, turn into a excuse factory, and blame the class and lack of time to do all of this stuff.....and then we isolate ourselves.  I know this for a fact...because I've done it...more than once. But really the whole problem in the first place was my approach and perspective. So, I'm not going use the insane approach this time or the all or nothing, because it doesn't work.  This time I'm going to go by one of my favourite motivational terms..Keep it simple stupid!! because it works.

My plan this year is to approach mastery with a clear and strategic perspective and a incremental approach. I want to go about it the same way I did when I went for the rank of Black Belt. I laid out the plan and upgraded each month. By the end of the month I looked back at what I set out to do and made changes for the following month to keep things rolling as smooth as I could.  This way if there was something that needed some attention or extra work, or I couldn't get to it, I had the capacity to adapt and make changes on the fly that kept things on track.  There was really never any stress this way and everything I was doing was of a quality that I aimed for at the beginning of the year and landed where I aimed for at the end.  It wasn't absolutely perfect and some things did get missed. But as a whole, that system worked very well for me and a mangle balance was maintained throughout. It may or may not work but I have a pretty good feeling about it.

So from now to the end of March I will be the setting it all in motion and develop a routine that is manageable and adaptable in regards to the curriculum and my personal requirements. First and foremost the goal is my hand and weapon forms, physical requirements and of course the mental part of it, the mind will make or break you. A little at a time and load up the machine so by the end of the year I'm moving plenty at an idle, and when I need to crank it up...all your going to see is dust and tail lights. Water and fuel is everything too, if it's not healthy or in some sort structure, count on burning out. I'll share my progress and fails at the end of each month and just go from there.

 Learning is failing and failing is learning, with out the two you'll never see mastery and for me, I really want to kick mastery's ass this year! See you at the Kwoon.

Year of The Dog

The year of the Rooster went by quick and another animal is bestowed upon us, the Dog. When I think of a dog, many characteristics come to mind and just how fitting it is to the requirements I have laid out this year on my quest for mastery.

 This year is going to be one of the most challenging and difficult list of requirements I have ever planned to see through. Much personal change and redirection as I feel I have reached a point in my life where I have to make some big decisions and difficult sacrifices in order to be successful and promote positive change. There is going to be plenty of risk involved, which is going to be very exciting as I have been a risk taker all my life and that isn't going to change.  I've always believed that life never goes anywhere or makes any progress or creates incredible opportunites if you don't take risks. This approach hasn't always served me well, but the incredible lessons of knowledge and success far out weigh the consequences I've had to deal with.

One area in particular that will be very difficult for me will be change. Adaptability is not really the issue here, troubleshooting is one of my stronger points. No, this is something else entirely. I'll be digging deep this year and hopefully by the end of it, things will be incredibly different and I will be cutting a new path. I also hope by the end of it I can communicate that openly. I guess we'll see.

I have chosen to resurrect my favourite weapon.....the Long Axe.....or more formally known as "MINE".  I absolutely love this weapon and I want to build off of my base form. If things go well enough I may be able to upgrade along the way to a live Qwan Do.

As far as my hand form goes I have chosen one I don't know at all. The strategy behind this is to keep the engagement level high as well as the challenge of mastering an unknown form in a year.

I'm looking forward to working with a new team and embracing a year of mastery through the I Ho Chuan class. I'm pretty excited about it actually, to completely immerse myself and my engagement set on demon training.

Here's to a successful year, here's to the dog. See you at the Kwoon.