Sacrifice vs Investment

This is one point of view I could never really grasp in regards to the I Ho Chuan class. Life in general can be of high demand with work and family responsibilities, let alone completing all of these requirements successfully and still finding your personal time to reset or wind down. How can this possibly be of any kind of investment when it seems like a lot of sacrifice and stress? Suddenly it feels like this is more of an infringement of your life and damaging to your well being. I've been there and often thought that Sifu has lost his mind and just doesn't get what it's like for other people that lead different lives. But in actuality, I was the one the missed the whole point of what this is about....I think I get it now.

When a person comes to this point, we fail to recognize what we agreed to do in the first place and the whole point of committing to a year of mastery. It may be hard to see or understand when you have to make a decision between going out to do something fun or not doing anything at all, to doing some requirements such as push up or form reps, but the investment is you and the example you will leave as a result of making that decision is where your investment begins to yield and provide opportunity and peace within. Sure your doing it with others, and that's a good thing, but this is your journey, what works for others may not work for you. So leaving ego, comparison, and judgemental positions out of the agenda is paramount. You are the captain of your destiny period, anybody messes with it, they walk the plank!

If you look at it from this perspective over the course of the year, you will see the investment over sacrifice. This year is all about you. You are going to take a whole year to improve yourself and strengthen all of your characteristics and immerse yourself in the ancient art of Kung Fu. The goal is to learn how to use your time efficiently and rid yourself of those things you don't need and recognize those things you do. Your going to figure out just what it means to see your goals through by self reflection, self honesty, and a test to pride and integrity in yourself. Think about it for a second, is it really a big deal to not do all of those extra things you do for just one year? Why do we beat ourselves up because we want to take some time to better ourselves, like one measly year. I think with this position as one progresses, one will find all the time in the world and then some to get their stuff done.

Yes, you are going to be some what selfish in the eyes of those close to you and at times not meeting your daily goals may encourage guilt, but it shouldn't and don't let these things interfere with what you set out to do. Guilt is a waste of time and an easy way to avoid a situation that requires a solution of action. So to hell with guilt, take the reigns and carry on forward. To hell with sacrifice of what you might miss, work those tools of awesomeness and build the best damn you ever!! Ha!

Over time your self improvements both mentally and physically and the obvious changes in how you carry yourself will speak volumes to those close to you. Those that don't accept are perhaps taking a good look at themselves and realizing just how much they suck and how they wish they could be like you! Committing a whole year to self improvement and a commitment to mastery to this magnitude is not for the faint of heart, so be proud of yourself and who you are.....just do it. Your doing what many people can't be bothered to do, your investing in yourself and laying it all out on the table, tearing it apart and rebuilding an awesome you. So put your signature on it, own it. Own the greatest investment you could ever make to your family and life, the investment of Kung Fu in you. See you at the Kwoon

Training with Weapons

Training with weapons can be a very fun, challenging, frustrating, and at times painful structure. Your going to hit yourself and other things with it, drop it on your foot, get it stuck in things, it's going to wreck stuff in your house or garage, your going to throw it....just to see if it really will stick in whatever your throwing it at, and then finally your going to come up with some really good ideas. Now you need to actually move with it and that requires picking the right stances. Great you've got the stances down for these killer moves but now they have to flow together. Here's where the creativity comes in and the test to see if you can actually do all of these cool things in these cool stances and still take out the bad guys with a grounded stance and complete definition to your next technique and bad guy without losing your weapon, hitting yourself with it, twisting yourself into a pretzel, sticking it in your foot or through your clothes or completely gift wrapping yourself. These are one of those times where you go back to seeing if it will actually stick in something 40 feet away, or maybe your dog won't find it this time when you throw it.(especially when you don't own a dog!!)  and once you get past the parts where you knock yourself out....it becomes awesomeness!!!

I hope everyone is doing well and making good progress with their weapons. I look forward to seeing what you all come up with. I did have much more serious thoughts to add but I couldn't get to journalling until late so I leave with this instead. See you at the kwoon.

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. 

Hidden Tools

Along the way of our Kung Fu training a common question always seems to come up, "What's the point of this?" or "Why is this even part our curriculum?. A lot of times we fail to recognize the value of something or it's purpose especially when it seems like a never ending fail or we can't "see the forest through the trees", so to speak. If we can't see the mechanism or inner workings of something that seems so basic, and we don't see and feel instant results, it suddenly becomes stupid, pointless, and maybe even antiquated. If we adopt this mindset, we miss the intricacy and miss the opportunity to apply a hidden tool to it's fullest potential.

Have you ever wondered what's the point of board breaking? Why do we start breaking boards at white belt? How does breaking a board serve my Kung Fu, my instructors, and personal progress and understanding of Kung Fu? Why is a sequential break a requirement in order to become a Black Belt? Why does it have to be a public requirement? There is much more to it than just punching or kicking a board in half and I wanted to share a few points and cover a few of these questions from my own perspective.

What's the point? and why do we start at white belt? Board breaking provides a window for instructors to observe students on an individual basis to measure progress and understanding of sound technique with definition and just how they are applying it. Basically this gives an instructor the ability to troubleshoot all aspects of a students Kung Fu and help them pin point troubled areas which in turn will give them something to work on and grow with a better understanding of Kung Fu. Once they are promoted to the next belt level and they are asked to break a board, again this provides a window to a students progress and see just where they are at and are they learning. Yes, a high level instructor can see that much as they observe a student punch or kick a board because you are actually applying your Kung Fu to something. At a white Belt level a student is also beginning to learn and slowly apply the cornerstone of all Kung Fu, the six harmonies.

Once a student reaches the level of Sihing and is preparing to grade to become a Black Belt, a public sequential board break is required. The sequential board breaking requirement can summarize a number of important key factors to a students skill set and provide much information for the instructors. Not to mention this provides an opportunity to show personal creativity and discovery in relation to the student themselves. Things such as grounded stances, flow with definition and sound technique, accuracy while in motion, target distancing, progress to the understanding and application of the six harmonies and mental fortitude while under duress. By this I mean publicly or if attacked making this an excellent mental focus exercise as well.  I don't think there is any better way to test this or for your instructors to see if you can keep your cool and still apply Kung Fu to the level of a black belt than a public board break. This as opposed to being thrown in the middle of 4 people that want to beat the crap out of you and see how you do.

So as you can see there is a great tool that is given to us to work on many aspects of our Kung Fu. I have learned much over the years breaking boards and of course not breaking them but to me this is a very valuable tool that should not be overlooked. In fact one of the very few rare moments I have felt the void was during a public board break. The last thing I remembered was my foot going through the first board and the only thing that brought me out of it was when I kicked the holders hand on the fourth board, cool stuff. I've also have been using boards this past summer to improve my technique and to try to get a better understanding of the six harmonies. I have been trying to break boards by having them simply dangle from a small clamp.  I have had way more fails than success, but when I did, I never felt a thing and the board shattered. When I failed the board flew across the garage and my hand hurt. The good news is I could tell what was wrong and they usually always went straight. Once I get the hand techniques down, I'll move to kicks.

Boards can really mess with your head and make things swollen, but what they can give back is pretty amazing. See you at the Kwoon

The 45 Degree Foot

I have been working a lot lately on stances and stance transitions. Trying to get my head inside the fundamentals of the internal mechanics that release your power working from the core or center out. I have to put things into a mechanical view in order to sort out my thoughts and apply the changes necessary or troubleshoot an unknown area I cannot quite comprehend, it's just how I am wired. One of the things I discovered that hinders transitions, creates huge resistance throughout the body, compromises grounding, and impairs speed/power, is the back foot at a 45 degree angle, a bad habit that is hard to break.

This alone effects a ton of things and reduces your power by a huge margin. How is it possible to engage the hip fully and achieve maximum power and efficiency of skeletal alignment and transferring into full release when you basically have your hip tied back so to speak? How is it possible to move smoothly through forms and various applications and still have power through execution when you are bypassing your target and placing huge restrictions on the ability to achieve full definition? You can't. By moving the back foot forward slightly and straight, (as we were taught) I noticed a lot of changes. The hip begins to lead the technique or application and smooths out directional changes. This in itself increases the power and speed and a full body snap driven by your center as opposed to isolated muscle groups, in other words, your whole body becomes involved and the first half of the six harmonies becomes smoother and less forced because your already in position to do so. No adjustment is required and forced movements are no longer present because the alignment is correct as is the removal of resistance in your core. Now you have unrestricted torque that becomes obvious as movements and striking power are increased substantially. Power created with full body torque to me becomes very smilier to a clock spring. 

Keeping this all in mind while practicing forms has changed other areas where I have noticed less resistance and better control and/or maintaining center throughout. Instability is drastically reduced during stance transitions and there is way less torque on the knees and hips as well because you are lined up correctly so it becomes a lot easier to settle into the stance and apply full body torque. To me a lot of the pauses or choppy areas of forms start to disappear. I have a long ways to go on all of this but things are becoming clearer and these new discoveries are what keeps my training exciting. 

So as try to gain a better understanding of the external and internal aspects of the six harmonies I created a goal/tool to work on that I think will advance my knowledge somewhat or at least keep it interesting. I will start by shattering boards that are suspended, not supported and work my way towards jumping in the air and shattering them with a punch. If I can get a handle on this I will work towards a kick. We'll see how this works for now. 

Other than that I have been battling some injuries that are causing havoc but fortunately there is a ton of things to work in Kung Fu so the training only stops if you let it. See you at the Kwoon.

 

Awareness via Sciatic

I'ts always a tough balance sometimes to work and train hard and take the time to maintain, such as a proper warm up and stretching. Proper warm up and stretching should be approached and practiced with discipline and a common component to well rounded martial arts training. I struggle with this discipline and I know better and a couple weeks ago I learnt this the hard way. I developed pain in my sciatic nerve that amplified to intense and the inability to walk. Not really a good thing as it basically demobilized me and cost me training time and a couple days of work.  After a visit to the chiropractor and a reflexologist, along with some intense rolling, stretching, and some hot tub time, I could finally walk. My alignment was completely out of whack. My right leg was a few inches shorter due to hip and pelvis misalignment and when I laid down on the bed, my right foot was straight up and my left was pointing down at a 45 degree angle. One shoulder was much lower than the other and my wrist was all out of alignment. Talk about a bent frame.

So I thought back to some of the things I was doing that may have contributed to this and what I need to do to avoid it. I did a lot of sporadic intense training with not really warming up properly or proper stretching after words. Qi Gong was hit and miss as well. I did some different types of kick work with ankle weights and some weight training with heavier weights. Basically I drove it, like I stole it. I always make the mistake of pushing through injuries....take the pain, the show must go on and you need to work....until you can't walk and then it's like, "man your stupid!!" Things must change if I want to train until I can't.

So obviously a plan must be drawn out and followed. First off hydration and the proper food my body needs to run and operate smoothly. It sucks our food is so messed with and lacks a high concentration of the nutrients it is supposed to obtain and loaded with crap we don't need and causes health issues and inflammation. So in order to facilitate my needs I am taking different vitamins and supplements. Fuel, covered. Qi Gong, Tai Chi, stretching, and my new friend, the roller must become routine. For the next little while I am going to focus more on this and some form work. I am going to remove some of the higher impact training for now aside from some high rep and light weight work. Definitely going to need some cardio to get that blood flowing properly and improve my circulation in order for all of those intricate parts to get what they need to run and operate correctly. My goal is to reach a balanced structure and rebuild my base muscles. In other words all of the smaller ones around joints and supporting muscles. We'll see how it all goes after a few weeks. See you at the Kwoon.