Shoulders Update

When you train as consistent and frequent as we do on the I Ho Chuan, you need to be careful not to injure yourself. I have taken the fact that I have been generally chronic injury free to this point. I had a short scare with my knees on my first year and now the shoulders are giving me a hard time. Like I said previously, I don't believe it is anything serious, YET. The key term is yet. Since my last blog concerning my shoulders I have had many insightful discussions with team members, instructors and fellow students alike. I've now been taking several precautions to make sure it doesn't get worse. 

I have started varying the types of pushups I do and began different arm and shoulder exercises in order to balance the muscles in the area. I have also been limiting the amount I do in one given time in order to not damage them any further.

I might also simply take a week off the pushups entirely. We are away on holidays here for the next couple weeks starting on Tuesday anyway, no better time to take a break and allow myself to heal.

I appreciate all the advice and wise words, if I don't see you tomorrow then I'll see you after our return.

Take care everyone. 

Donating

One of my personal goals this year for the I Ho Chuan is to eliminate of all my excess credit card debt and be rid of any cards I don't need anymore. This was the plan for last year, but we all know how that story ended up. To facilitate my plan this year, I decided to rent my house out to my brother and his friends to pay the bulk of the expenses. Whatever money I would have been paying to my mortgage and bills now goes to paying off my debt. 

One of the most difficult parts of this was the need to pack up my stuff and store it. I had to find a way to minimize the space required to store all of my belongings. The solution was to simply free myself of anything I haven't used or even looked at in a year or see any practical use for in the future. I was trying to find a way to do so without just throwing everything in the garbage. Selling everything would have taken too long for the timeline we had and quite frankly, some of my stuff probably wouldn't be worth much to sell anyway. 

We did some research and found that there was a donation centre in Spruce Grove attached to the Value Village. This was the perfect solution! Not only did I loosen the load of junk in my house, it didn't go to waste AND someone else will be able to use it instead of buying something new. It felt great to do my part in helping those who are not able to afford brand new things, do my part in helping conserve the environment and not have as many possessions weighing me down. 

I like the concept of donating, some may not agree with me and think that I should have sold my things to go towards my debt. However that's alright with me, I am quite satisfied with my choice.

Take care everyone.

The Price

Everything has a price, in one form or another, you pay. A few weeks ago as the year of the Monkey was closing, my shoulders became progressively sore. Rather, I started noting the soreness, who knows when it actually began. I have been denying how serious it might be, hoping that once things settled down a bit they would have the time they need to recover. That was the case last year after all, sadly not this year.

Now is the time to come clean, I am very likely developing a problem in my shoulders. Pushups are becoming more difficult, not in the sense that I don't have the strength, but the front area of my shoulders are feeling it more and more. It really clicked in this past Saturday at Tai Chi when I could feel the strain while executing the movements.

Why did I let it get this far? I have seen what happens when you damage yourself in your training. Have I been using bad technique this whole time? Probably. In my first year in the I Ho Chuan a good half of my 50,000 pushups were piston pushups. The way I did them put incredible strain on my shoulders, chipping away at them bit by bit and I failed to notice. It could also be caused by the months of shovelling I did last year.

Whatever the reason I need to remedy this before it becomes any worse. I want to continue pushing myself to become the best martial artist I can, it just seems I need to go about it in a different way. I have been humbled by my own body... I do want to have pushed so hard up to this point only to be stopped short by my own arrogance.

Any advice that anyone can send my way would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Take care everyone.

Intent

This week we were reminded of the vital importance of having intent in our kung fu. Why are you doing something and what do you plan on doing afterwards. It really puts purpose and meaning into everything you do. Respond instead of react, now this is a concept I have been trying to work around in my brain for years and not just regarding my training.

In the past I found I impulsively made decisions without any follow through and more times than not ended up kicking myself for not giving any true thought into what it is I was hoping to accomplish. I still struggle with this to this day. I think the difference now is that I recognize the problem. It is difficult to fix a problem if you don't know it exists.

I'm slowly becoming more aware of how my actions affect the world around me. Becoming more wise on how to respond to events. Not only am I thinking about how a decision will affect me, but those around me as well. The decisions I made that lacked any sort of intent not only hurt me, but my family and friends as well in varying degrees and forms.

I do feel I am making progress in this though, another slow process in which the end result will be well worth the time invested.

Take care everyone.

Food For Thought

I love food, this cannot be denied. Why not, really? It is our fuel, preparing it is an art form and above all, it is tasty! What you eat is important as it is what your body will use to create new cells and grow. How much you eat is also incredibly important. If you eat too little, you will not have enough energy to sustain yourself, but if you eat too much you can become sleepy, slow and may even gain excess weight.

I am having a problem with the latter. It’s not that I am worried about becoming overweight, my metabolism is still quite fast enough to mitigate any such fears. However, I do find I have been excessively tired lately and can surmise that it may have to do with the amount of food I put in my body. I certainly eat more than my body NEEDS. I tend to eat too fast for my brain to catch up and recognize when I am full, usually ending up truly stuffed in the end. The energy required to digest this extra food takes away from my brain and limbs and I am not as effective in my day to day activities as I know I could and should. I don’t train as hard and I don’t focus as much at work, this is a big problem.

To address this problem, I need to make an agreement with myself to take time when I eat and savor what I am eating. Don’t eat past a certain time of day, don’t snack so much. When you feel the urge to snack, you are most likely thirsty, drink water instead. I feel this will help me greatly and allow me to take full advantage of the time I have in a day.

Take care everyone.