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.