Respect

Respect is a large part of our intelligent curriculum. We teach empathy and compassion and discipline and respect. We teach how to have respect for ourselves and our bodies, and how to treat everyone around us.

I think as youths sometimes we don't understand how fortunate we are to have the leaders we do in our lives. We don't enjoy discipline, we think we know best, and we often make poor choices because of it. We may overlook how fortunate we are to have great teachers and mentors, but hopefully somewhere along the way, we've learned that those people are rare and valuable.

As adults, I expect many people to have outgrown this behaviour. We have had many opportunities to learn that our lives are full of precious gifts. We don't all live lives of glamour and riches, but those things are not what make our lives fulfilling. It's often in the least fortunate people that you see the most amount of gratitude. They know what it means to suffer, and they are more open to showing gratitude and appreciation for everything they do receive.

I find it difficult to watch someone be, what I consider, disrespectful. I have been taught from a young age, through my family and through my training, that people deserve to be treated respectfully. In different scenarios, this means something different, but should always mean gratitude for that person in your life. I wish there was a way to make that a universal truth.

Roots

When I first started working for my parents, all of the office plants were either dead, or on the verge of death. They looked pathetic and in need of some serious love and attention. I re-potted some, I watered them all and some, I fertilized.

I recently planted a couple of young aloe plants in a pot and I've been watching them closely. At first, they weren't doing too well and I couldn't understand. I thought maybe the office was just bad luck. Then my aunt mentioned that aloe doesn't grow roots unless you water it from the bottom. Since I started this, they have really begun to thrive.

It's amazing some things in our lives that make the biggest impressions. The significance of nourishing the roots to make the aloe strong has really made me re-evaluate my training and where my focus is. Nature inspires me in complex ways.

I have spent the last two weeks with the Orange/Green class and I really tried to focus on the basics. I felt it would be valuable to spend our time focusing on our root system, in order to improve all of our skills. I made a point in one of the classes that I don't work on my horse stance to pass any tests or because anyone tells me I need to. I work on my horse stance for myself, because it affects everything else that I practice. Every time I step into the stance, I evaluate how it feels and how I can improve it.

I'm not saying that having a large and diverse syllabus is not valuable, but we need to recognize the roots in all of the things that we practice. The techniques in the syllabus are all just tools for developing our six harmonies. And in order to do that, we must make sure we're practicing with mindfulness and the right intentions.

What Kung Fu Has Done For Me

For years since I was sick, I have been working to come to terms with what happened to me. Or I guess the thing that my body did to itself. Either way, I've had a lot of muddled emotions to work through, and it will be a long process still to come. I've been looking back through some of my old journal entries, and have recently had some memories come back to me of my hospital stay and soon after. It's amazing the perspective you have when you look back at something that you struggled through.

I have made a realization about what kung fu has done for me. In order to be promoted to black belt, you have to write an essay on this topic. At the time, most of the things I had gone through were not hugely trying. Sure, I've had injuries, and I've struggled with making good choices throughout my youth, but I think a lot of people go through those things, and as long as you come out on top, you've been successful. I would also say looking back that, although I had many struggles in China including some emotional abuse, I consider myself lucky to have had that opportunity and did my best to make the most of it.

But my experience with GBS has really given me a different perspective on what kung fu has done for me. After something so traumatic, it would be easy to decide that I  could no longer function the way I could before, and couldn't carry on with my normal life. It would be easy to stay on pain medications and resign myself to a lifetime of discomfort. And it would be easy to ignore the emotional and psychological impacts of my experience.

So kung fu has given me the courage to continue to push my limits. To look inwards with honesty and compassion to see where I am, and how I can continue to improve. It has helped me notice the symptoms of anxiety and made me brave enough to seek help. It has given me the motivation to care, and a community of people who are supportive and encouraging on my path of recovery. This has made me the person I am today. Capable of empathy and compassion and inspiration.

New Perspective

I'm in a pretty good mental space right now. I've been spending a lot of my time recently working on my perspective. As I said, it kind of started with the realization that I had made an agreement with myself that I was going to be tired, at the beginning of the day every day, and then just making that my reality.

This small sort of epiphany has led me to think a lot about all of the decisions I make regularly, consciously and unconsciously, that make up my personal reality. In the four agreements, the author talks at one point about how if you decide that you are stupid, you will take actions that affirm the belief that you are stupid.

I am starting to realize that there are many decisions I have made about who I am that are not really serving me. "I'm unmotivated" for example. Saying to myself, I'm not a very motivated person, makes that a reality for me. I make decisions throughout my life that reflect the belief I have about myself.

I got sick, and I believed that my nervous system was not working properly. Since then, I have had more and more problems with anxiety and stress. Is it okay to be struggling with these things? Of course. We all have difficulties that we work through in our lives.

I am just trying to be more in tune with what is happening with my mind and body, and spending less time making decisions about how or who I am or what I should be feeling and living in this reality. I am happy, I am healthy and I am blessed, in this life, right now.

Tiger Challenge 2017

I had a tonne of fun yesterday. It was a learning experience as far as judging and scoring goes. I learned a lot. I was also very excited to see a lot of the students that I help teach in the Monday/Wednesday advanced class really show off the stuff they've been working on.

I was ridiculously nervous about the dragon dance. But, it went very smoothly. I wouldn't say flawless, but pretty well considering the amount of practice time we had together. Being black belt grand champion was exciting and unexpected. But, what I took away the most from it, is how much I have improved, even since last year. I remember struggling with my balance in all of my forms, in particular, kempo. Just something else that helps indicate how far I've come in the past couple years.

Thanks to everyone for being super supportive, and congratulations on great performances and a lot of hard work.

Casting the I Ching

So I've received a promotion at work. Which is cool, although it will make my work more demanding. But I also think I could use it as an opportunity to improve on some of my administration skills and take some courses that would help me in the future with some of my business goals.

The I Ching is a super ancient type of Chinese divination. Now I don't know how much weight I put into any kind of divination, but I do believe in the power of synchronicity, and I know in Daoism, there is the theory that our paths all cross like a spider's web. I believe the term that my master used to used was "fen". The idea that we all have a role to play in each other's reality. As we have all experienced, what seems like a very small and simple decision, can have very large repercussions to someone else.

Anyways, casting the I Ching. I got a changing hexagram; yin changing to yang. Which is cool because the first hexagram I got was considered an "evil" hexagram. So now I'm moving into what would be called an auspicious time. Although it's hard to say when one will end and the next begins. But for now, what I've taken from it, is that I have an abyss in front of me, and an abyss behind me, and the best thing to do is wait. But soon, I will move forward into a time where the tree falls and the monkeys will scatter (yep, one of the interpretations, figure that one out!)

Well, that was an odd blog....

Accountability

I was thinking a little bit about what I talked about in the meeting. Making commitments to people so that I stay engaged with my kung fu. Whether or not they are acknowledged, they are things that matter to me. I feel like I'm an integral part of something, and that drives me to be there as much as possible. Whether or not it's reality, it helps drive me to improve and keep moving forward.

I hope someday I can make a commitment just to myself. Making myself accountable to me. The only one I let down is me, but that's something huge. I feel the importance of this already. Being honest with myself is the first step. I won't be accountable to myself, if I don't acknowledge where I'm truly at. Did I do my pushups today? No. Why? Because I chose not to. I have to be willing to have these conversations with myself.

At the same time, there's always this thought in my mind. Would I be able to stop doing kung fu? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Even if I became mediocre for a while, there's something inside of me that feels like kung fu gives my life purpose. And not because my occupation is not valuable, or because I don't play a very active role in my family. But kung fu makes me recognize the quality of everything I'm doing in my life and question whether or not I could be doing it better. It makes me practice my compassion and empathy, because I can always be growing as a person, and even those skills take practice.

So I hope one day I will be accountable to me. And I know that the path I'm on, the path that kung fu has shown me but that I have chose to walk down, is the best way for me to get there.