Calm

As I progress in my Kung Fu training, I am quickly starting to realize mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness. Several sifus explained it to me tonight, the ability to land kicks, throw punches properly, or perform a combination means very little if your mind is not engaged, focused and most importantly, calm. 

I feel this is apparent in my sparring. I'm focused, but I'm not really calm. I start moving and striking without really thinking about it and lose myself to my adrenaline. It's quite interesting to describe. It almost feels like I was along for the ride, like a dream. This is no good. I'd rather be in control, who wouldn't? 

I'm making progress though, I am catching myself when this happens and I am taking steps to slow my mind, control my breathing and concentrate what is happening right in front of me. I'm getting this, bit by bit, and I'm loving the challenge! See you on the mats.

Words

I have never been all that good at conversing. Whether it's face to face, on the phone or through an email, I have always struggled to get my point through. I also usually find it very difficult to go and speak to someone at all. I'm not sure what it might be. Am I not focused? Do I need to read and write more? Or do I just need to calm my mind? I have used this as an excuse for not involving myself in anything worth while. I would usually try to stay in the sidelines, shying away from everyone who even looks at me, afraid they will try to start a conversation with me and I will have nothing to say to them.

This has been changing, thankfully, since I started Kung Fu. More so when I joined the I Ho Chuan team. Everyone seems so charismatic and helpful. Asking how I'm doing when they haven't even met me. This friendly outlook towards other people is starting to influence me. The more time I spend at the Kwoon, the more confidence I gain, and the easier it is for me to speak to others.

I find I go up to speak to people way more often now, and with more intelligent things to say. The change is slow-going though, I still find myself fumbling with words or completely forgetting sentences. There is improvement non-the-less. Like anything in Kung Fu, or life even, it will take a long time with great effort to get better with words, so I will be patient. 

No time! Right?

I am hitting my first "wall", I guess, in my I Ho Chuan experience. Everything seems to be happening this week that requires more time out of kung fu than I wish to give out of a single week. My sister and her husband are in the final stages of selling their house. Being that I live with them, I am required to move temporarily until my own house has finished construction in August.

Fortunately, my parents have been gracious enough to take me in for the next few months. I am grateful for this and will do whatever I can while I am there to help out around the place. I have been spending the evenings this week moving and organizing my belongings and my attentiveness to I Ho Chuan suffered a bit. 

This situation is reinforcing to me the point of time management. Even with a week this busy, I still feel there were missed opportunities to do some reps or write my blog. I'm not sure if it's laziness or lack of engagement, either way, it is something I will work towards so when life comes knocking at my door, I Ho Chuan does not need halt so abruptly.

Thank you for your patience everyone, see you on the mats.

Why?

Sifu Freitag and Sifu Playter both taught me a lesson beyond the lesson tonight. What I mean by that is they made me ponder a bit. What is the purpose of the lesson? What can the lesson be applied to? Why is the lesson important? 

Anytime we are instructed to do anything in a class, say a thrust kick for example, I do that to my best ability and call it that. However, that is only half the point. I find a lot of the time I fail to visualize or think about those vital questions. I did not catch the correlation between what was taught tonight and techniques used in board breaking until it was explained to me after. As well, I did not realize the fact that control played a big part in the exercise, and everything else for that matter.

I will definitely keep this in mind for next time and every time after that. I will open my mind more and be more inquisitive instead of just blindly doing what I'm told without thought. It's easier the grasp the "What" when you understand the "Why". Thanks for another great class, Sifus! See you all out there!