Missed Opportunities

This weekend I missed the Tiger Challenge, the opportunity to compete in a safe and fun environment with my kung fu peers. This is something I will not be able to take back, it is a shame because I support why we have this event, its vital importance for our school and its students. It brings us closer and gives us a fresh perspective on our training.

I did take up another opportunity though, to travel somewhere I have never been and experience the culture, food and landscape. I love it here in Scotland and we have only been here a few days with many more ahead. I am really looking forward to the days to come.

I feel we concentrate too much on opportunities we miss and not enough on the ones we take advantage of. This trip is a life experience, spending time travelling with family will always be something I cherish. This is what I am concentrating on, this is where my mind is.

Congratulations all who participated in the Tiger Challenge this year. From what I saw in the pictures a great time was had. Feel good about the opportunity you took advantage of this weekend.

Switching Up

This week I was presented another opportunity to try something new. They changed the hours on me at work, I now work too late to make the Monday/Wednesday classes.

As always, you gotta do what you gotta do, but I want to stay engaged in my training. I will start going to the early morning classes from now on. I tried it out this past Thursday and loved it! There is nothing like starting the day with a kung fu class right before work.

This is a great way to freshen up my training. A new perspective and a new group of classmates. I am not sure how permanent this will be, but either way I will miss my classmates in the evening classes.

Part of the greatness of training is the friendships you build with and I feel grateful to have the opportunity to train with such awesome people.

Steps

There is a balance to life. Eventually the priorities you had in years past are accompanied by new ones and you can't spend as much time as you like on them.

When you need to spend less time than you wish to on training, that does not necessarily mean that it suffers. If you keep the essence and the intensity of your training as pure as it was, it does not suffer, to a point of course. You will progress slower, but the quality of your progress will remain at a high level. If you train less AND put less effort in then your training will suffer faster.

This is why it is also vital to take what you learn in kung fu and apply it to everything else. Those new priorities that are popping up in your life, take them on with the enthusiasm that you train with. Use the principles of accountability and compassion that you learn in the kwoon and take it into the real world. Everything you do is kung fu if you work hard at it.

Is that not what kung fu means in the first place?

Morning Training

Starting this week a small group of us are going to start a morning video conference training schedule with join.me. This is an ingenious idea as it utilizes the technology available to us to make a huge difference in our training.

Early in the morning, when you are still half asleep, it can be very difficult want to to train. However, this is the best time to train, even for a short amount of time. It starts your day with a positive note. Bettering yourself before the day even starts, how cool is that?

This video conference idea could be the solution many of us need to get that 20-30 minute early morning workout we need to push our training up a notch. A bunch of people getting together from the comfort of their own homes to train. Not only would it have physical benefits, but mental and intellectual ones as well. The extra opportunity to share insight and experience would be well worth it.

The first attempt will be Tuesday at 5:30am. I only have the free version so I believe there is only room for three in a conference. So far there are only two of us confirmed so if you would like to join us you are more than welcome.

The link is join.me/morningworkout. I will put up another post soon to reflect on how well this works.