What Defines and What Doesn't

Achieving the rank of Black Belt is something most martial artists look forward to and work towards. All arts and disciplines have different ways and different beliefs on what exactly is a black belt and how you should become one. In our school the rank does not come easy. You just can't buy the rank, you just can't wing it through and expect to be passed. To become a black belt in our school is not done in private, it is done out in open so the whole student body can witness what it takes to become one. Sihing in a traditional setting, means "Big Brother", and we all know what the position entails. It is the position of a leader, people look to you for guidance and all your moves are watched because you are the example and the cornerstone of inspiration to other students. It is your responsibilty to hold and work towards the standard and uphold the potency of the art. Holding the rank of Sihing shows that you have earned the chance to test for the rank of black belt and you have earned the trust and respect of your instructors. There are perameters set in place such as the I Ho Chuan and Sihing assignments, to insure you are following the necessary guidelines and holding the respect to the art along with a well thought out plan to ensure your success. All you have to do is follow them, with vigor, vitality, and respect..... publically.

In my opinion I have failed these responsibities on many counts. I have been a very poor example of upholding my rank and following through on my responsibities as a Sihing and to the I Ho Chuan team, and most importantly to my instuctors and the school. I have shown exactly what not to do. I'm not going to go into details of all the things I dealt with this year, as I see it all though difficult yes, they are life and life doesn't care about your plans or what your excuses are. You must forge ahead and take control of your situations. I had a very difficult time this year doing this. I would grab the reigns and then let go. Get mad and grab them again, only to let go of them once again. I was about as consistant as the readings of a heart rate monitor. My ego, my stuborness, and the inability to recover and climb out of a valley that I fell into basically hampered any success. I would claw and then stop, meanwhile things continued to pile up, so congested that I didn't know where to start. I lost my way, my direction, along with who and what I am.

Even IF I succeded this year as a Black Belt candidate, I would have never been proud or honestly feel I earned the rank, let alone don the belt. A black belt should be able to be placed in any position and perform to the standard you have earned. What kind of Black belt would I be if a student asked me for an example or help and I didn't know or couldn't perform to the level that is asked of me. What if I was asked about my journey and what I did to overcome? Am I going to honestly say, I don't know because I didn't do it or that was an area I failed. I know how I would look at this person and I am not this type of person so why I put myself in that position and see it as okay. I take this all very seriously. I believe in standards and believe in traditions, that's the excitement and it instilles a feeling of great accomplishment. To acomplish something that very few people can.

I went into my grading this year with very little time to prepare due to an injury. I feel I had no business being there in the first place. I saw my attempt at black belt grading as a joke. I should have listened to a close friend of mine and put it off until November. Instead I chose to dive right into it and do it any way. I felt it was now or never and it turned out to be a huge mistake and the end result resonated bad energy and feelings of regret. The fact that there was so many loose ends and so much that had to be redefined or completed that as far as I was concerned, I failed the year right then and there. I felt this is not what I envisioned as my grading and I couldn't continue on knowing that this was what defined my year as a successful black belt. As many times as I tried to pick up where I left off and move forward, my thoughts and beliefs wouldn't let me. I wasn't striving for perfection as this is a myth, but I wanted to do this right and no matter what angle I looked at or approached, nothing would suffice. I felt shame and felt like a complete failure most of the year. I also felt that I made way too many open public claims that never came through and this made me feel like a liar, someone that cant back up their words with action. I struggled with this because I am not this person and never would I be comfortable in my own skin being this type. I am hard on myself and will not accept half attempt or sub standard practices, this is what defines me. Those of you that know me on a personal level or have worked with me know this. If you don't know me you should witness this by what you see from me. This is what made me who I am and the standards I live by. There is no way I am going to bend or relax them, especially in the presence of my instructuors and mentors in the school. But I did just that on many levels and knocked myself down so far that trying to move forward on a level of redemption couldn't be found.  I want to take a moment here to appologize to my instructors, my fellow candidates, the board, the I Ho Chuan team, and to the students for my actions. I never meant to be disrespectful to anyone. It's just how things played out and I appreciate all your time and support that was offered even if I didn't accept or participate.

I will not be promoted to black belt this year as a result of my actions and my inability to lead by example, to complete my tasks to the standard that was expected and asked of me. Instead of dwelling on what could have been, I will be moving forward on what is to be. I have been dragging around many things that no matter how I approach them they will never be sorted out, they are loose baggage that is clogging my thoughts and ambitions to move forward. They must be severed and I need to reset myself. I need to get back to who and what I am and the only way to do this is to move forward and leave behind what is meant to be left behind. I have requested to retest next year in May. Today is December 1 which is to be my starting point of six month preparation to achieve Black Belt. Incremental progress is what will be key to have me prepared to where I want to be. To be the example of what is expected of me. I want to approach this year with out the all or nothing menatlity that has crippled my ability to do this properly. This alone will be a difficult task in itself because I have been that way all my life and with somethings this is great, but for this, not so much. I have my success coaches in place and I am laying out the plans for the upcoming year. I am going to do this right so in the end this will be one of the greatest moments of my life. When I achieve the rank of Black Belt I will be proud and wear my belt with pride, knowing that all I did was done right and everyone seen me do it and was a part of it. That's just the way it has to be. See you at the Kwoon.

Stubborn and Non Conforming

These may seem like bad points, but to me they are not. To me these are strong points of character and acts of survival provided they are used properly. My success rate on this balance is questionable at times and yes, it does get me in trouble or make things that much more difficult. Other times it has kept me alive or has brought me through tough times and even better yet, really cool achievements. With this I will continue to hold my beliefs solid and be myself and take on any challenge or interest I want.

Being yourself and standing firm for what you believe in, is to me, the most important thing in the world. Without these two characteristics kept in mind one tends to forget you are in control of your life and just where it's going to go. As soon as I sense that I am losing my freedom to act and think within respectable grounds, or someone is trying to remove something from me with absolutely no solid ground to back this action.....the heels dig in and you might as well pack a lunch if you want to move me. I become angry and my thought process kicks in high and the anger processing begins. This takes a while as I have learnt that rage anger is basically useless and an non productive direction. Not saying I don't snap once in a while, but that ends very quickly. No, this is different. I start to balance the situation on all counts and figure out from there what parts need to be severed and forgotten and which parts need to be salvaged and kept close. This type of anger is what keeps me in tune with my surroundings and keeps me on my journey to where ever it is I am heading. This also keeps me from letting go of some very important things in my life. Things that perhaps under an irrational thought process, would have been tossed and forgotten, just to be constantly reminded later of a mistake and regret following me.

We are constantly losing our freedom to chose and think on our own. It seems a fair amount of people are content with being told how to act, how to think, and alot of times things are taken away from us in the name of safety or lack of accountability. This is all crap to me. People shouldn't be scared to pursue their goals or make new discoveries because they are led to believe risk is bad, taking chances is bad, being yourself is bad, fear mongering to install the thoughts and visions of worse case scenario. This is where the acceptance of mediocrity comes into play.  A majority of people now a days have no desire to think outside of the box. To question their boss or company, to stand up and say what you believe in proudly and firmly, to raise their family the way they see fit. Also to live under the guide of what everyone else thinks of you, honestly, who cares what others think because most people have no clue how to be themselves either. We are not designed or designated to be the same or think or act the same. No, we were meant to pursue our own hopes and dreams, prompted to develop a unique skill and master it, that's how you survived and if you couldn't be bothered to do so, well you probably died. There was a time when thinking outside of the box was encouraged, using the motto of the skies the limit was a way of life.

The whole point of this blog was to remind myself and others to teach themselves and the children to never let anyone or anything stop you from pursuing whatever the hell it is you want to. It's the people that have all the power, not the companies, not our governments, and certainly not an ideology of you can't do that, or nobody does that any more. Prove to others and above all else yourself and your children that anything is possible. Absolutely nothing has the right to stop you from believing in or pursuing your dreams, taking risks or practicing sacrifice in order to achieve a unique skill or goal, or what ever it is your passionate about. Never mind being scared, flourish your personality, promote individuality and support those that chose to be unique. Enough with the cookie cutter mentality and being a sheep. Take what is yours and run with it, you have the freedom to do so, use it.

Sickness, Gratefulness, and Continuous Rebuild

Things change quick. Sometimes right under your nose, and of course hindsight is always 20/20. I had a blood test performed a short while ago and a doctors appointment soon after. Turns out my thyroid has not been working.... at all really. He was in amazement as to how I was even functioning. I told him what I do for a living and that I train in Kung Fu. He kind of shook his head and I sat there with a stupid look on my face, ignorant to it all. A lot of the symptoms that come with a failing thyroid weren't really there, to me everything was operating some what normal. With the exception that I would get tired quicker than usual, foggy moments mentally and difficulty concentrating. As it sits, my T3 and T4 hormones are not balanced, one is in a high abundance and the other not so much, and my body is producing a huge level of TSH. This leans toward the autoimune system attacking my thyroid which is a result of me being allergic to something. My testosterone levels are above average but that doesn't matter because my body is producing too much estrogen which hampers the testosterone. Sounds like a big mess to me and thank goodness I never grew a set of boobs through it all. So I am now on pills and some vitamins along with a serious change up in my diet. I am scheduled for a more in depth blood test that will find out what exactly I am allergic too. After reading up on a few items I found coffee is very bad for us. I always knew this but ignored it. Coffee makes you pee your bones out and is a major cause of men producing high levels of estrogen..... hmmmmm. So that needs to go along with a bunch of other things. The countless times I have heard of mindful eating.... I guess it's time to get it together. Kind of goes back to that hind sight thing. My stubborness is my worst enemy at times.

Moving on to other things my work schedule has exploded once again and it will continue to be that way for a while. Six to seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day. As difficult as this may sound and the changes I will have to make to my training, they are what they are. To be honest I am very grateful for two reasons. One, there are a lot of people at the moment that have lost their jobs. There are a lot of people in this province that will be turning over the keys to their home and others that cannot afford to feed themselves. Between the crazy price of groceries and a bleek looking future ahead of us all, I feel terrible for many. I also feel quite angry with our current government. Everyone is cutting back except them. Want to lower costs, lay off people just like everyone else. Our government and health care system is bloated with beaurucrats that hold no use or purpose. Our governmnet in this province is one of the largest in the country. Time to trim the fat. Never mind borrowing billions to pay the useless. I don't get these idiots.
 The second reason is I will have to adjust my training. I don't want to lose the momentium I have developed over the last while. I will have to go straight from work to the kwoon and put in some hours at the kwoon at every available moment. At night, on the weekends, whenever possible. This last week has been difficult though. Between working with a new company and a unpredictable work schedule and fighting the cold from hell, it has hampered my ability to move forward at the moment. I am resting and reading, laying out plans to adapt my lifestyle and keep the engagement in front of me. A positive atitude and concrete focus always prevails. The sooner I can get over this cold, the sooner I can turn on the gas. I can't do both and expect to get better.I am eagerto get back to classes, get back to working with my partner and back to it all. Well that's all I really have at the moment, see you at the kwoon.

The Tiger Challenge and Everything Else

What an awesome tournament. I like the Tiger Challenge, it's an awesome opportunity that gives back so much. It was cool to see all the skilled martial artists of all ages really show their stuff. Witnessing and being part of  the various moments of triumphs and defeats, the ah ha moments and the "Man, I cant believe I just did that! moments, and let's not gloss over the "Oh oh I'm out of room" moments.
 I can honestly say I experienced all of them. From not taking the space that was offered and completely jamming myself on my weapon form and screwing up the whole flow and timing, I was lucky to even finish the form, but I did.... almost. My hand form was not good, and for some reason I took off into this mutated, puppy scratching the door to be let in, Loa Gar tiger claws when sparing with Sihing Fuhr. That was the, "Man I can't believe I just did that!" moment. Plus we should not let the board break fail go with out mention. Lack of being prepared, not being in the moment, rushing through things, really screwed up just about everything for me. I felt I could have done better in my sparring if I didn't move like a D9 Cat, but this goes back to lack of preparation. This is all a lesson that goes back to training discipline and overall balance, and preparation. Being in the moment and taking control of yourself instead of running on auto pilot. It doesn't work. But it is experiences like the Tiger Challenge that can expose these things and give you the tools to do better. Leaving the Kwoon yesterday, I didn't feel good at all about my performance, but I did feel good about what I learned and what I witnessed. I left with a motivation to do better. To work harder. I left with a bag of tools to apply and a lesson learned on all about being in the moment at all times. Aside from all of that and how it may appear, I'm in a good place and can't wait to get back to the kwoon and work on all of the things that makes it all worth it. See you at the Kwoon.

Moving Forward Under Load

I've been having some great moments at the Kwoon lately and I'm sure there is plenty to come. Changing my perspective and perhaps to a degree, I have gotten over myself and I am feeling myself gravitating towards a very positive place. So much going on right now, and to be honest, I love it. This is going to sky rocket my engagement to extraordinary levels. Pushing myself to the extreme is what I need to do to accelerate my well being and my character back to where it needs to be and being able to be at the kwoon as much as I am able is going to be the key.

I am continuing the pursuit of optimal fitness level and being able to lead a fair amount of warm ups lately is helping a lot. The students are doing awesome and they keep the energy high. So doing this together with my fellow students just makes it that much better and motivates me to be more creative and push harder.

Form reps has been my go to place to cover a high number of basics and new discoveries. As I have said before if you don't have a lot of time, forms are the best part of your training to use if you want to cover a lot of areas by doing one thing. Forms cover all of your core needs; stances, kicks, techniques, technique completion, timing, muscle building, and mental exercise, focus, breathing..... you get the picture I'm sure.

As far as my weapon form goes, well to be honest, everything up until last Friday I hated. In fact I hated every part of it so I scrapped the whole form, smashed it to pieces, and started from scratch. The timing couldn't have been worse, but I always say, if not happy doing something, change it or don't do it. So, I changed it. I feel a lot better with what I have now and what you seen last Friday was about half of my new form. I have the rest of it almost pieced together and I am in a much better place physically and mentally with my weapon. I will have to work very hard at it in order to get any where near 1000 reps, but I'm up for it. Me and "MINE" is going to blow some minds. Well that's the goal anyway.

Last but not even close to least is my five personal techniques. Due to circumstances out of my control, I had to take on a new partner. Lot's of work to do here, different guy, different build.... well different everything. Teaching the techniques, the timing, reactions, stuff not working the same is all a great learning curve and helps me really learn a lot about the fundamentals and efficiency of these techniques and an education in, "holy crap are these going to actually work?!?!" Whatever. The bottom line is I am very happy that Mr. Sand has offered to work with me and I feel very confident about it all. He's great to work with and offers honest feed back and helpful suggestions. Things are rolling ahead and that's all that matters.

Aside from a whole pile of other things, that's basically what's going on as of late. See you at the Kwoon.

Gathering the Pieces

When it comes to my training I struggle a lot with keeping to a program or an agenda, and it's been that way for a long time. I'm not sure if it is just utter defiance when I feel like I can not be myself or someone or something has come into my space and is telling me what to do. Perhaps I struggle with commitment under that brain pattern. Maybe I'm just plain nuts. But I can tell you this much it hasn't served me well. I go day to day in a scattered form of madness accomplishing pieces of things but never completing the plan. I make a plan, think it out front to back and say to myself, "Hah, that is beyond awesome and no one has ever tried that." A few days in and then suddenly... off the beaten path I roam like someone that has taken on a bad habit of sniffing glue. Then out comes the giant failure stamp with the 4 by 8 ink pad and I go on a ink stamping extravaganza. I'm very good when it comes to layout, but bright as a sack of hammers at times when it comes to following through and carrying the plan forward. Unless it has nothing to do with my training. Then I can plan a multitude of steps and have absolutely no issues seeing it all work the way it's supposed to and adapt on the fly at the drop of a hat and not skip a beat. Jump into anything pretty much and continuing on like it's nothing. Logging repairs, activities, work plans, vision, all good. Training, suck ass, period. I just don't know.

I know one thing for sure this year and it's events has drained my passion and drive in the things in my life that are supposed to beneficial. I realize this. All of my focus and energy has been put forward to several things that I was not really prepared for and things that required a painful path to closure. It's very difficult to make those around you have an understanding of what's going on or what is happening when these things cannot be shared. It's a very difficult place to be when things are happening way outside your character, stuff is said, but not followed through, and you can't explain a damn thing. Your reasons, although may or not be true, are only a front for what is really going on. The only choice you have really is to use action in the place of words, and at the moment that is my rekindled starting point. You must find a way to rekindle the fires of your deepest passions and go to work hard on your well being if you have run out of, or don't have the words. You have to pick up the pieces of the carnage and rebuild through action. You must build a bridge over that valley in order to get back to where you came from, and while you cross over, have a look down and insure that what is meant to stay down there, stay's down there for good. Sometimes that takes time, and sometimes that involves sacrifice to some of the most important things in your life. Sometimes you lose a lot of face to the people you respect the most.  Sometimes things happen that you can't even bring tools to the task, because you have either dropped them, or you have to go to the print table and design and forge new ones that you really don't know how to use. You must dive in and learn on the fly. You must continue to move forward even if it means dragging your sorry ass with one finger.

But once when you stop and think about things and look back, you realize you would have never made it through if you weren't who you are and what you stand for. The people in your life that have made that influence. The tools and people that helped make your structure. Regardless of the situation there is always a way, always. You just have to fight and never give up, and keep your passions solid. Tattered to shreds or not, you can always rebuild anything from a solid foundation. I don't know if this blog really makes any sense at all, but for now, it will have too. See you at the kwoon

Taking Ownership

This is a powerful word ownership. It's a shame that it almost appears to be a discipline that is going extinct...fast. I myself have let the discipline of my own personal ownership slip into an abyss of uncontrolled madness. So many things have happened to me this year. Some of which I have shared openly with the few I trust, other things on a much larger scale, I have shared with no one. It's just the way it had to be and as result many things have suffered but not unrestorable. My passion towards my Kung Fu and work took a back seat to everything else that was going on. However, if those passions weren't as strong as they were, I would have definitely had a tougher time getting through them. Absence from the kwoon is very damaging. You cannot possibly invest that much time into your physical and mental growth and expect to just shut it off and run on reserve. But that's what I did. Never realizing at the time how when I thought I needed to swap around my priorities in order to facilitate my adaptations in order to push through, just how much further I knocked myself off of the path and relaxed the reigns on my ownership. Anger can completely corrupt your mind and lead you astray quite easily. It can turn you into a different person with different beliefs. Mix this emotion with some ego and a severe back stabbing and who knows where you will end up. But if severe enough, it will change you whether you like it or not.  I'm not a weak minded person nor do I tolerate any kind of over demanding control in my life by others. But some where along the way, I relaxed my grip on what is mine and what I believe in. At the moment though I couldn't see a damn thing, all I could see was someone needed my time or assistance and because of my ethics of hard work and strong will, I took on everything I possibly could all at the same time.

But you see, if you don't continually maintain your strengths and passions and keep them in front of you, no matter how strong you are, you will fall into areas you don't venture and begin to adopt the mindset you are surrounded by. This will only happen if you let it. But when the exposure is so high and you don't maintain, you can't help but become a part of it. Suddenly your mixed up in a group of people that are judgemental, refuse to take accountability for their actions, lack any sort of standards or pride, and constantly put blame on everything and everyone around them. The exact kind of people that I try to avoid and have disassociated myself from in the past. The kind of people I can't stand to look at and am embarrassed to hell by. Fighting this battle of my own beliefs and morals and being surrounded by this stuff  took it's toll for sure, but in the end it worked out. In the end I took back what was mine, I took complete ownership what it is I am and what it is I am about.

The moment of clarity for me was memorizing mastery and the energy I get from the kwoon that wasn't as present on a potent level. Also a class I attended just over two weeks ago on a Wednesday made a huge difference and influence on me. I received three different points of critique on a single form from three different Black Belts and in a matter of an hour, all my problems where balanced. Also the words that were passed onto the class that evening really hit home for me. They were words that shook me to the bone and I will never forget.
I didn't really see the overall importance of memorizing mastery. Running on ignorance, I read it and thought, "Well this is pretty straight forward, thanks king of the obvious! Why should I memorize this?" I understand why now. If you actually take the time to memorize this and recite it before your day begins, this is a tool that will keep you in check on every single thing you do and will remind you why you are doing what you are and what you don't want to be. Mediocre. It's kind of cool really and this alone punched me right square in the face and helped me get back on track. My teachers and mentors are everything to me as is where I train. I didn't want to bring my darkness into the kwoon with me. I didn't want to expose that person to the kwoon or for that matter anyone in it. I needed the time to be alone, an isolation from everything. I am a thinker and I solve my problems before I venture forth. Smaller ones are no big deal, but ones on a much larger scale require time and they must be balanced or else I become unbalanced and this is no good. The fog has finally lifted and I am on the recovery to take back what was mine, to take complete control of my life. To hold myself and others around me accountable. To take full and complete ownership of my Kung Fu, my work, my family and my passions. To embrace my masters and mentors and all of their teachings. Has this all cost me valuable time? Perhaps, but if I run out I'll go look for some. The year isn't over yet and I have a lot to do. See you at the Kwoon.