Merry Christmas (it's a little late)

Well, I don't have much to say this week. I've been sick, and incredible busy with all this Christmas jazz. Got some tonsillitis, and a nice fever to keep me warm on Monday night and for several nights after. And just today am starting to feel like a normal person again.

But I had such a nice time with my family, although I didn't get to see everyone. It was a little bit quieter than usual which I appreciated since I was under the weather. I felt like a kid, hanging at my aunt and uncle's place playing games with my cousins. It was refreshing. Like an old school family Christmas where people used to actually spend time together. It reminded me how lucky I am to be part of the family I was born into. Sometimes I forget.

This week

I had a rough week this week. I came back from Canmore last Thursday and discovered a few days later that I was covered in bites (what I assumed to be bed bug bites). So I proceeded to tear apart my entire room, wash and dry everything on high heat. I sprayed my mattress down with a bug killer, and was then forced to sleep on the couch for 3 nights.

Meanwhile, early in the week I discovered a lump in the back of my neck. Like an abnormal lump. And three days later I find that it's grown and it's much harder. Suddenly my mind runs to everything from a nest of spider eggs to crazy malignant cancer. I know these things are both totally unlikely, but the fact that  I'm already exhausted and covered in horribly itchy bites doesn't make me particularly rational.

I couldn't find my Alberta health care card and was convinced that I was going to miss my doctor's appointment. I did make it to the doctor, and no I don't have cancer or a nest of spider eggs. Just a possibly swollen lymph gland.

I wake up on the couch on Friday morning and my back is killing me.

Thankfully, I decided I should still give training a shot. I felt so much better after getting some really good practice in. Kung fu saves me again. Whew!

My Turn

Well I see many people have decided to blog yesterday and today. And like Sifu Brinker said in the meeting, it's really helpful to see where other people are at.

I'm really excited about the new people that are joining this year, along with the people that will be on the team again. I wasn't really here for the whole year last time, so I'm looking forward to being at more meetings and really getting a chance to follow other peoples' journeys.

Sifu Brinker was right when he was talking about an acquired skill. It reminded me that when I was in China, I didn't always have something super inspiring to write, but I still came up with something pretty much weekly. I guess the thing with me being home is that I've still kind of been struggling to come up with a daily/weekly routine.

I spent so much time before I started the I Ho Chuan team last time just coming up with my goals and a plan and a routine, and then completely upending that whole plan sort of left me drifting a little bit. Thankfully, I've been getting the chance to still do a lot of training, and practice of all kinds. Just having the opportunity  to be a part of the team and Silent River as a school has kept me really engaged. I just have to sit down, and really take the time to do some planning.

Nice to read everyone's blogs so far. I'll be looking forward to more. :)

Growth

Here's the funny thing. I have so much going on right now, and so many half written blogs that I just can't seem to really ever make a point of. I like writing not just to say, this is where I am. But to say, this is where I am, and where are you? I realized last night, and today, that I have chosen to surround myself with people that may not necessarily understand kung fu, but support me because they understand the higher goal. Kung fu is nothing without students, and one of my life long goals is to forever practice and grow. The other day I was listening to a Deepak Chopra guided meditation where he said growth is the most noble desire.

I've been reading a lot of my team member's journals and it seems like many people are at the same place. I like to use the word floundering because that's how I feel. We all know we have goals that are important to us, and that we want to achieve, but we're struggling with the discipline, motivation, and follow through. During my time in China I encountered this at least once a year. My yearly plateau. Usually it was in the spring, but I know the feeling. You look at yourself and you're like, "I'm not improving, I'm unmotivated, uninspired, unfocused", and you start to be pretty hard on yourself. You know, why am I wasting my time here? What's the point of this? Why do I keep forcing myself to do this stuff? What's the point, what's the point, what's the point? I don't know how many times I've said that in the past 5 years.

And I guess the answer is, and my point is, that whether you're following through on all your goals or not, if you look back, maybe sometimes farther back than you really want to, you'll see why you're doing what you're doing. You'll remember what your life was like before you had put all this pressure on yourself. You'll see how much you've grown and you'll see that it's worth it. It was worth it back then, and it's worth it now, because in the future, you'll look back at yourself today and see how much more you've grown. That's the point. And that's the life I want to live. How about you?

Thanks

I haven`t been blogging regularly. As I shared with the I Ho Chuan team, I`ve been struggling to come up with a new routine for my requirements. This week has been a big improvement. I didn`t get everything done every day, but I did 6 out of the 8 days since then. So I`m happy with that. Now I`ve got to make Sunday my regular blogging day, and hopefully I`ll be back on track. This Thanksgiving I thought about what I`m thankful for and it`s so clear what has been the biggest impact in my life. My family and friends have been amazing. Supporting me in any way they can, even when they don`t realize it. But I would not be the person that I am without kung fu. I started when I was 10 years old, and now 19 years later, it`s still changing me every day. I`ve had many struggles in my life, but it has always been there for me. The great thing about focusing on something that`s conceptual for so many years is that it`s always there for you whenever you need it.

Butterflies

Thailand was amazing. I can't believe how much I needed that. Just fun times and relaxing. Mixed with a little bit of learning of course..

Well, I'm home! It's so strange and so wonderful. Moving back into my parents' house is incredible strange. This is the house I grew up in since I was four. It's strange to be unpacking in Brandi's old bedroom and also trying to organize the house for four. 

I've been sort of walking around with a constant belly full of butterflies. Everything feels so different. I still have jet lag as well, so I'm feeling a bit funny. I have no idea what I'm going to experience here. I've gotten so used to pretty much literally doing the exact same thing every day. Now I feel as though every day is full of surprises. I'm sure at some point after I start working and stuff, I'll be wishing for some surprises, so I'm just trying to enjoy these feelings. I can't wait to get back to Silent River and see everyone again (although I feel like I barely know anyone anymore).... 

Graduation

I didn't blog last week. This whole wind up process I'm finding to be really overwhelming. Packing up our room felt so good. Brandi and I are more or less ready to leave. We did a preliminary pack today, and I think all is going well. I'm trying not to think about all the things I'm going to have waiting for me when I get home. It's hard though.. I'm excited about all the new things I get to experience, but I'm also feeling a lot of anxiety about trying to get back into a normal lifestyle. I mean normal by my standards anyways. So I'm not sleeping great, and I'm pretty exhausted. Thankfully, all of my classmates and I are sort of dealing with this at the same time, so everyone's been really supportive of one another. The funniest thing about it is, that as far as a class goes, we're pretty much done. Many of my classmates haven't been going to training for almost two weeks, and sometimes I don't even see them for days. But emotionally, we're all so much more in tune than we've ever been before. Strange how we couldn't seem to manage that over the years... Anyways, I'm going to share a quote that I've been repeating to myself pretty frequently the last couple of weeks.

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”  ― Dalai Lama XIV

Gansu

Well, I went on a totally awesome holiday. I haven't blogged in ages due to lack of VPN, but now I'm back!

Went to a province in China called Gansu which ethnically is very interesting. There's a lot of minority groups including Tibetans and Muslims and so everywhere we went was very culturally diverse. We stopped first at a town with Tibetan grottoes and I hiked my butt off. After our first day My calves were literally too shaky to hold me up if I straightened my legs. It was so beautiful, but very freezing at night time. I also managed to get a sunburn at the same time. High altitude is funny like that...

Next went to the rainbow mountains. Fantastic, although there were an incredible amount of tourists there. Some of the viewing platforms were so crowded you couldn't even move. Reminded me of taking the metro. Watched the sunset there and it was truly awe inspiring.


After this went to a town called Dunhuang which is located in the Gobi Desert. I've never seen the desert before so this kinda blew my mind. We spent the first night sleeping in the desert with a small tour group. I haven't seen the stars like that in I don't know how long. There was no moon also so I could see the milky way really clearly. Hiking up sand mountains though.. hard.  I was sweating, but since it was so dry it was like I was just pushing salt out through my pores. Also riding a camel.. not comfortable. After the desert we went to some Buddhist caves built on the ancient silk road and the art there was pretty incredible. Went to a desert oasis and watched the sunset. It was an amazing experience.

The best thing about the trip though was the reminder that Chinese people are really interesting and that there's so many fascinating places in China that I've never seen. There's so much history here and different landscapes to explore. You can go from desert to jungle, to mountainous to ocean side. It's really an amazing country but it can be easy to forget when you feel like you're training in a zoo (due to the numerous photographers/spectators at the temple), and when you feel trapped in the place you're living. Sometimes a change of scenery can really change your perspective. 

The Shower

So living in China often presents many difficulties while trying to be environmentally conscious. There's no phosphate free soaps, all of the prepackaged foods have like 4 layers of packaging, the tap water is undrinkable, so any short term students just buy bottles of water.  There's so many things every day that really bother me, but I have little communication skills, and so I mostly end up bottling up a lot of the words I want to say.

Brandi and I do our best to be conscious consumers. I reuse bags, I buy very little of the prepackaged foods, and we've bought a water filter. I try to every day make conscious choices about how much clothing I'm going to wear and how often I'm going to wash it. It's summertime here now though and it's usually around 40degrees, and training outside you sweat a lot and don't smell too pretty. So in the past I've been showering twice a day, once after morning practice, and once in the evening. I wasn't satisfied with this, so I've exchanged my morning shower with a 'French' bath. Which is really just me washing myself with a cloth in the sink I just try to make it feel fancy.

You know it's funny. We're all so obsessed with our hygiene at home, it probably seems normal to many people to be showering twice a day, but it's something that I can't imagine I'll pick up. If I can more or less roll around on the ground and sweat all day, and not really smell too bad, then I can't imagine, while living at home in my nice clean house, going to nice clean gym, and sitting in some nice fresh grass, that I would be all that dirty. Now I'm not saying I don't intend to bathe anymore, but I think if we all just let go of our ideas of what clean is, we could really do the earth a favour. I just read an article, that's got some old school ideas that we might want to consider reusing.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/15/why-modern-bathroom-wasteful-unhealthy-design?CMP=fb_gu

The Struggle

So I've been struggling to think about things to blog about recently. My training's sort of in a place where I'm not learning anything new, but instead I'm learning new things about the old stuff I learned. I'm really enjoying having the time to review my forms, and to be conscious of my movement.

So much of my time here has been spent working on group forms and performances, that this opportunity to figure out my own movement is something I've been needing for a long time. It's pretty incredible how you can practice something hundreds of times, and then you come back to look at the details of it, and you don't really even know what you're doing. Mindless movement is sometimes in it's own way meditative. But it's hard to improve what you're doing without being truly engaged.

I've also been working on my emotions, and I feel like I've changed so much since I've been here. Just recently my class encountered some turbulence in regards to what we are trying to accomplish and what our Master expects from us. I was proud of myself for not falling into the emotional traps he lays out for us. I handled it very calmly and I feel even more confident in myself now because of it. I'm strong enough to deal with these situations.

Friendship

I've noticed something about a lot of the Chinese people that live in Wudang. Most of the adults here don't seem to have many, if any, friends. At first it's something that you don't notice, because most Chinese people are very friendly to one another, so you'll see complete strangers sitting around talking at the park together. But when you really get to know some of the people, you start to see a pattern. There's many people that are business associates, or other sorts of acquaintances, but it's rare to see friends spending a lot of time together.

So I expressed this observation to one of my classmates, and he said something that I found confusing. He said he didn't find it strange because many of us think that we have many friends, but then in a few years, how many of them will still be around? So are they 'real' friends?

I've made so many new friends over the past five years here and I consider myself lucky to have met so many people from around the world. During my time here, I've also lost some friends. People that I've bonded with but never seen again from home that I just can't seem to manage to keep in touch with. Maybe they've started families and just don't have as much time to spend with their ol' pal Mel.

But when this happens, I've learned to accept it. People grow apart, and they change, and sometimes that means that you lose a friend. But to me, that has never meant that they weren't a "true" friend. They were a part of my life when I needed them, or when we had something to share with one another. Maybe now, that part of our lives is over. But I cherish the love and memories of every person that has impacted my life and helped me to become who I am today.

Apathy

I've been fighting my own personal battle against apathy for most of my adult life. When I'm disappointed in society and individual people it becomes very difficult to stay passionate and present in my own life. I think it can be so easy to become cynical and bitter. This state of mind leads me directly into feeling apathetic towards life in general.  Just sit down, and forget about the world around me. I find myself asking the questions like "why should I care?" and "what's the point?".

I've been disappointed so many times in the past 5 years here, and I imagine I will be struggling with these feelings throughout the rest of my life. I expect a lot from myself, and so have a tendency to also expect a lot from other people. It's hard for me to keep in mind sometimes that other people aren't me, and they have different values and ideas about what is important to them.

At the same time, I try to maintain the faith that people are inherently good. I've been following the news of the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, and in some ways, I'm so disappointed in the Federal governments' decision. But, I'm also really happy that so many people are standing up for their rights and what they want. I watched a pretty interesting Ted Talk recently about apathy and I thought it had a very valuable message.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy?utm_medium=on.ted.com-facebook-share&utm_campaign=&utm_content=awesm-publisher&utm_source=facebook.com&awesm=on.ted.com_stqZ

It's been too long

So I've fallen off track with some of my goals lately. Particularly, calligraphy and blogging. When I made these commitments at the beginning of the year I wasn't cooking for myself because I knew it would be really difficult to manage my free time to maintain these goals. But, since I've had worms, I've started cooking all my own food again, and it's reminded me how sometimes even when you're making simple things, it can take a fair amount of time. If I had proper equipment and a kitchen, I'm sure I could cut this time down, but I don't, so I'm just working with what I've got. Which is basically a paring knife, and a hotplate with wok. It can be interesting sometimes.

So this week I've been trying to reorganize my daily schedule a little bit and I've been able to pick up some of the things I let fall off. We've also been having a fair amount of internet troubles of late, which has thrown off my blogging schedule. I've discovered that I'm really becoming a creature of habit.

My good friend MoMo is back for the summer, so I'm pretty excited about that. We also had a great class yesterday on jump kicks and aerials (which I am far from achieving) but we were actually given some good feedback and also some steps we can work on to possible improve our coordination. When it comes to jumps, it usually ends up being the people that can already do them practicing, and everyone else kind of standing around watching. But this time we split up into two groups and spent some time working on the actual technique. I think I improved more in that one class than I have in the past few years.

Is kung fu fun??

I have had a strange experience several times since coming to train at my school in China. I've heard from many different people, that training isn't fun. It's not supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be hard work and grueling, but it's definitely not fun. This always gets me a little bit upset.

Who decided that kung fu shouldn't be fun? Yeah, it's hard, and it's sweaty, and sometimes it's frustrating and difficult, but why can't it be fun too? Someone said to me today, yeah it's fun if you're just taking it easy and not practicing hard. I was a bit insulted. Just because I'm out there sweating my butt off and having fun at the same time, does it mean that you're training harder than I am? Or is there just something strange about me that I really love getting the shaky legs that you have after a really brutal class, or I finish class drenched in sweat but with a smile on my face?

Or is it that to them hard work is something that you're not supposed to enjoy? Is it important that you're forcing yourself to do something that you don't have fun doing? I really just can't understand this...

~~~~

I've recently discovered that I have an intestinal parasite. It's nothing serious, mostly just disturbing. I went to the doctor on Friday, and got some medicine. I'm really tired, and the medicine makes me a little nauseous, but all in all I'm physically holding up well.

It's really scary to be a foreign country and have to deal with this stuff. It's more stressful than any of the other stuff I've had to handle here. I know I'm going to be fine, but I still find myself struggling to fall asleep at night. 

Friends

Over the years here I have had the privilege of meeting so many incredible people (and lots of crazy ones). I've met people from all over the world and some of them have become a second family to me. I know that if I were to be in their respective countries, I could always count on them to do whatever they could for me and vice versa. It's amazing that I've had this opportunity and I've learned a lot about other cultures because of all these people.

Sometimes it's really hard to see them go. It's like you've met a person that you have become so close to, in however long they've been here (sometimes a couple of months, sometimes a year or more), and when it's time, they just get up and walk out of your life. And of course I know many of them I will see again, and many of them I keep in touch with. But sometimes there's a question in your mind. You think, I really love this person, but will I ever see them again? I always of course hope the answer is yes, but I imagine there will be people that I won't have the opportunity to see again. We aren't all on the same path.

Three wonderful people left the school this week. They made an important impact on my time here, and I guess all I can do is say thank you. I'm so grateful we got to know one another.

Shoulder Rolls

One of the things I love about our training is the amount of time I get to spend in the open air. Yesterday because it was raining we were stuck training inside. So our coach decided that we should practice rolls, which was cool because I don't get much time to work on them, and I've never been super comfortable with my rolls.

I had an accident when I was younger, and besides a minor neck injury I came out fine physically, but mentally, well not so much. I was so afraid to fall, roll, and be thrown, or even throw another person. Yesterday was fun for me, because although my rolls are a little rusty, I realized that my mind has changed a lot. I'm much less afraid of injury in general. The interesting thing is that since I started training here, I've been injured so many times. And although the recovery period usually really sucks, my body's a lot heartier than I ever gave it credit for when I was younger. I just find ways to be more resourceful.

I also feel like in my time here that my self confidence has really improved. And considering the emotional strain I'm sometimes under, I'm glad that I've come out stronger. Of course I still have my confidence issues sometimes, but I always have, and now I can really see that I've made some changes for the better. Of course as I write this I feel like I'm tempting fate... We shall see.

The Mountain

I had a pretty great birthday weekend. Since Wednesday/Thursday is the time I have off, I went with some friends for a very long hike up the mountain. I'm not sure when the last time I've walked that far is. I can't think of a time I ever have. I'm not sure it exists, it seems so crazy. Myself and three friends left at 5am on Wednesday morning and arrived at the area with the cable car at 2pm. So it ended up being a good 9 hours of walking. Finishing off with a very large number of stairs. Of course that's including a few breaks for food and water, and a good foot soak in the very 'refreshing' stream.

My intention was to sleep at the cable car and climb to the peak the next day, but unfortunately, it was raining and I had a big blister on my foot. So I didn't make it to the peak, but I was pretty happy with the walk I had. The thing about China is, climbing a mountain basically means climbing what feels like a neverending staircase. It was beautiful though. I don't have any pictures because I don't have a camera, but I'm hoping to get some from my friends for a keepsake. All in all, a great time to be had. Welcome 29!

Yay April!

Well I missed my blog last week for the first time this year. Kind of a bummer, but I had a great holiday and I feel like a lot has happened since I wrote the last one.

Xi'an was awesome, I've been there before, but I had a great time just spending some time relaxing with my classmates. Some of my class members are pretty much already on their way out (heading back for university etc.) so it was nice to get the chance to spend some time together outside of training.

My calligraphy is going really great at the moment. Started moving on from the basic characters to a bit more cursive style which is challenging, therefore interesting.

I've learned a new guitar song including a solo which I've never tried to tackle before. Thanks to a friend from Israel, I've got a better understanding of reading tabs now too.

I've had to make some adjustments to my personal goals. I've unfortunately had to admit that I can't handle the 150 pushups a day. It's nothing to do with the time, or the discipline, but my body is just not recovering enough and I'm hurting myself. It got to the point where not just my shoulders hurt, but my elbows and wrists were also giving me problems before I had to face the facts that it's just too much for me.

I've decided to keep the number 150, but I'll throw some other exercises into the mix. Squats, calves and some glute exercises. I want to keep the practice of doing extra strength building stuff, so I'll just have to listen to my body. I don't want to spend the next 5 months recovering from injuries.

It's my 29th birthday in a week. I'm looking forward to spending next weekend hiking up to the mountain peak. Give me a sense of accomplishment on my birthday.

Vacation Time!

We're leaving on a trip tomorrow to Xi'an. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm also kind of looking forward to testing myself to see how I can keep up with my requirements. It will be pretty interesting to stay mindful of my training. I also hurt my wrist a little bit, so I'll be modifying some of my pushups. But anyways, I hope to come back feeling refreshed.

Trash

So living in a small Chinese town(city?) has it's pros and cons. As I think of things to do on my day off I'm always saying to myself "why don't they have more parks with grass and trees like at home?" Most of the areas in town where people congregate are just concrete and stone and I find them very uncomfortable and uninviting. In the past year or two they've finished renovating the temple that we train at. They've planted gardens and grass and all kinds of beautiful trees and now on the weekends there's literally hundreds of people who just want to spend some time outside. The people can be irritating when you're trying to train, but because there's not really any other parks, I've always understood the attraction of coming to the temple.

On Sunday we had the day off for our annual disciple ceremony. When we went back to the temple on Monday, I walked through the doors and I was shocked and disappointed. There was trash everywhere. It really brought down my spirits. I was thinking about littering and about how China in some ways is so far behind the West. But then I started thinking about it more and I realized that in so many ways we're no better. Just because we pick up our trash and put it in the bin doesn't make us smarter or more conscious consumers. At home, so often the mentality is out of sight out of mind, so once it's out of our garbage bins, people don't want to think about where it's going to. So many people don't think about taking their own bags to the grocery store, or how the things they're buying are packaged, or produced. Maybe it's better that you can see the garbage on the ground. Once in a while it might inspire a change of heart.

MoMo

I'm not normally the type that's a sucker for small children, but I've been completely sucked in by the cutest 4 year old Chinese boy. His name, as you can guess, is MoMo and he's ridiculously adorable. He's staying at the school with his mom and dad and has been training full time with the traditional Chinese kids' class. He's incredible coordinated for his age, but certainly more than a little spacey, so if you watch him in training he varies between being amazing and looking really silly staring off into the distance.

Funny story. I made him cry. Not just a little, but slightly hysterically. That cry where his face just crumpled and he slowly lost his composure. Boogers running out of his nose, while he's trying to eat his lunch and explain to his mom why he's so upset. So, I might have just very lightly scolded him for hitting our mangy kitchen cat on the head with a metal plate. But I think because there were a lot of people around he was very embarrassed and cried about it for at least 10 minutes. I don't know when I've ever felt that guilty. But my friend pointed out that it showed that he had a conscience, which was a good sign. Made me think even better of him. I was afraid he'd never speak to me again, but luckily he's 4 and has a short memory.

Next day, it's like we're the best of friends again. Although half the time I can't understand the things he says to me. The real kicker is that shy smile he gives. You all know the one. The cute shy kid that just looks at you and smiles but can barely contain themselves. It was his birthday on Wednesday and he gave everyone candy in class. Such a cutie. He makes me smile every day.

Break the Routine

This week was a great week in terms of keeping things fresh, not a great week though in terms of my goals. Again I really struggled to keep up with my numbers when my routine changed. On Saturday we went to a movie in they city, so that was fun and everything, but I didn't complete even half of my pushups and situps. Then two days later I was lucky enough to catch a cold that's been going around and so again, didn't complete my pushups. Pretty frustrating. But this is a new week, I can do better.

The Master/Disciple Dynamic

I really struggle with the concept of this relationship. I tend to base most of my relationships on an open and honest communication. Although this isn't achieved with every person I interact with, I often try to keep my side of the relationship held to this type of standard. Living in China and being a disciple of a real "traditional" Master, I've realized that the level of closeness and bonding that I enjoy through communication can never be achieved with my master here. There's certain types of interaction that are acceptable and many that are not. It is not acceptable to go to my master and tell him that I am unhappy with my training. Not directly. There's the concept of 'face' in Chinese culture and if I were to approach my master directly with this complaint it would cause him to lose face. You're supposed to be 'round'. So saying something, but not really saying it. Or hinting at it without really saying it. Or just not saying it at all and through your actions hopefully communicating it to him. I can't understand this type of interaction. It's exhausting. It takes ten times longer to accomplish anything and it is incredibly frustrating for me.

If I were at home and I went to my master, and told him why I was unhappy with some aspect of my training, he would likely explain to me the reason behind whatever the issue is and I would have a certain level of understanding. Whether I agreed or not is irrelevant. I would much easier be able to look at it from my master's perspective and see the value in it. It's completely against my nature to follow blindly if I really can't see the purpose in my actions. The more people try convince me to swim downstream, the more convinced I am that I need to go against the current. I have a tendency to be very stubborn.

I try my best to be respectful to everyone in my life. I have to try even harder to be respectful when I'm constantly forced to bite my tongue. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't born in China, but I guess if I were, it's unlikely I would be who I am.

Dragon Clawz

This week I made a cool breakthrough with my dragon claw. We had a great class on Wednesday morning of TaiJi walking followed by some TaiJi 28 and then free training so I took the opportunity to work on my dragon claw. I don't always get a lot of free time to work on the things that I 'want'. This is sort of something that we've learned but don't practice in class, so we're expected to work on it on our own if we really want to improve. 

My classmate Avi gave me a clever piece of advice as a stepping stone to try and build up to holding a dragon claw pushup. So I tried it, and I held my dragon claw plank position for 10 seconds, 2 times! Cool right? 

Now I know most people that read this, aren't going to really know what a dragon claw pushup is, so I'll try and take a photo this week sometime that I can maybe include in next week's blog entry. But anyways, it was exciting for me.

The weather still hasn't warmed up, which is so frustrating because I can't practice guitar for more than like 5 minutes, and I'm falling behind with my calligraphy. It's pretty hard to write characters in a refrigerator. But that's all the complaining I'm going to do. 

Chinese New Year

This week we had four days off for Chinese New Year celebrations. The interesting thing for me was that I found it more difficult to keep up with my daily goals. It's so strange because I have so much more free time, but it's hard to motivate myself to do push ups when I'm 'resting'. It kind of gave me a look at what it will be like when I go home and how important it will be to stay engaged in my practice.

Food

I'm someone that makes food decisions pretty thoughtfully. While I'm home, I find it much easier to maintain a healthy diet. Every day the food that I eat is a choice, and because I have little control over a lot of my life while I'm here, I can exercise what control I have over my eating habits. That doesn't mean that I never indulge, but when I do it's always a conscious decision to do so. Nearing the end of last year I started cooking all of my own food. I haven't been able to keep up with that so far this year because I have some more commitments than I had last year and so, less free time.

I usually start the week off really well. Friday starts and I'm eating healthy. Lots of fruit and nuts, and very little of the school food. I usually eat chocolate every day, but generally just a couple of pieces and I have pretty good control over my consumption. By the time Tuesday comes around though, I'm struggling. The more physically and mentally tired I get over the week, the harder it is to practice mindfulness in regards to food.

The thing that I've noticed though is that my self-perception seems to be directly related to what I eat. If I eat really well for three days straight, I generally feel pretty confident, and content. It's just so fascinating to me that I can look in the mirror and see myself completely different day to day.

I'm constantly a work in progress.

“Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.”

― Katherine Mansfield

150 push ups/sit ups

So the goals I set this year are of course really pushing my boundaries. I mean, that's the point right? So now I need to think a little bit. I may have been a bit ambitious with my push ups in particular. I don't know why, but you know doing 150 sit ups in a day is kind of like nothing. I probably could have doubled it and been okay, except I might run out of spare time to actually accomplish them.

The push ups though I need to be more careful. I have an issue with the right shoulder that I've been dealing with for I don't even know how long. I've really been trying to mix up the type of push ups I'm doing, and how often and how many. I want to improve so I can't just do 10 all the time. Sometimes I want to do 40. Saying that though, I've been feeling it a bit this week and I've decided I've got to be careful. Doing push ups is a great exercise for strength building and of course for discipline, but I have to factor in all the other actions in a day I'm expected to perform. I should have left myself one day a week to recover.

So I haven't accomplished all of my pushups. I can be really hard on myself at times, and failing is not something I take lightly. But I thought about it and I've come to the decision that it's okay. For now, I can only do what I can do. So instead of beating myself up about it and getting discouraged and depressed, I've just been reminding myself that every day is a new day. If I didn't finish my push ups yesterday it doesn't matter. I can finish them today. Maybe today I can do extra. The numbers in the end aren't what's important to me. Just pushing myself to continue trying is how I'm really going to improve.

Freezing!

I remember now why I hate January here. For anyone that I haven't already complained to about this, we have no heater in our room. So if it's cold outside, it definitely cold inside. Sometimes it's actually colder inside than it is outside. Usually the reverse. Anyways. I've taken to surrounding myself with hot water bottles and trying to spend as much time as possible under the blanket on my bed.

This week has been so cold. It's been around a high of 3. I was trying to think of things that I've learned from living like this. It's interesting because the lesson is always the same. Living here sucks, and I don't have the things that make me feel comfortable. And so, when I'm home, I appreciate those things so much more. Just being inside my parents' house on a cold night, enjoying the wood burning stove is something that I fantasize about. It's made me realize how much I have at home, and how little I really need.

I don't need a mansion. I don't need gadgets and toys to keep me entertained. I don't even want to have a television. I love living a simple life. I can come home to my warm house, cook myself some home made food, drink some delicious tea. Maybe enjoy a glass of wine. Listen to music. Play the guitar. Read. Meditate. Train. What else do I need?

Back at it

Week number 1. Finished. I know it's only Wednesday there, but here, my weekend starts on Wednesday. I'm pretty sore. I had a fairly brutal cold this week. I took Monday off of training due to a very sore cough, but was back at it on Tuesday afternoon. One of my goals is 150 pushups and situps per day. So I missed a few on the day I took off, but I made them up on the following day. I have to say that going from being on break and not doing hardly any pushups, to doing 150 a day, maybe not a great idea. I should have.. I dunno. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

So far the thing I've really enjoyed is practicing calligraphy every day. I only usually do 20 to 30 minutes a day, but it's so nice to just sit down at my desk, and just focus on something so complex. Calligraphy is so much like kung fu in some ways. Probably one of the reasons I enjoy it so much. Some of the characters that one would assume would be the easiest, maybe only have 2 or 3 strokes, but they're the most difficult to make beautiful. Because they are so simple, there's nothing to distract the eye from the three strokes on the paper in front of you. If the proportions are wrong, or if your strokes are shaky, it's very noticeable.

That's why the basics are so important. The foundations of your practice really show through.