Perspective

Let me start by saying that I would not recommend that you take time off from your training.  However because I took some time away I see things in a different perspective.  For the past couple of years I was very competitive in my training.  I wanted to be the fastest, strongest and best at everything I did.  I didn’t realize at the time but this was going to be the detriment to myself and my training partners.  I wasn’t always the best training partner because I always wanted to “win” or be the best regardless of how I treated my training partners.

Since I have come back, I have started to look at my training differently.  I am looking for less power and more flow.  I am starting to break my training down and stepping back a little.  I am still very competitive as I always have been but I am looking at my training and my training partners with a new perspective.  I have a new found appreciation for how much I have learnt but I wonder if I would have approached my training differently where I might be right now?  If I would have taken the time to listen more and act a little less I feel that my training as well as life would have taken a slightly different course.  I must continue to be mindful of my weaknesses and work extra hard to continue to make the positive changes in my life. 

We can’t live life with one eye focused on the future and one eye looking into the past.  The past is the past which we can never change but we can and should work toward being a little bit very day.  Incremental progression and being mindful of ones actions and thoughts is going to be the only way to continue on this new path, this new perspective.

Ian Repay

Student of Silent River Kung Fu

Journey Back

What a journey it has been this past 6 weeks.  Things have been tumultuous, stressful, and sobering all at the same time. 

Recently I was witness to a moving presentation given by a passionate member of my business team.  He talked at length about how we are all on a river, moving at times very quickly and at times slowly.  There are rapids that move very fast and can change elevation with little notice.  He talked about how we are very small little “twigs” on this large river.  This meant to me that no matter how we try we really can’t change how it flows and where it flows but rather we have to get as close to the middle of that river and do our best to ride it. 

When I reflect on these past six weeks in my life I see how I was on this river.  However I wasn’t in the middle riding it as best as I could, rather I was trying to change it’s flow.  I have realized that things are not in my control as I thought they were.  I realized that I was trying to change things and due to my inability at the time to realize that this was not a sound plan, I found my self getting very overwhelmed.  Stress was starting to take hold in my life and I wasn’t able to cope.  I started to pull back from my Kung Fu as I felt I didn’t have the time to devote to it.  What I didn’t realize that it was my Kung Fu that was going to help me get through this.  The discipline and structure that I have learnt through the UBBT was what I needed to lean on to get me through.  However I didn’t come to realize this until recently. 

What I have learnt and have grown from is the realization is that I was and am still in need of more discipline and structure in my life.  This journey that I am on has become such an integral part of who I have become and who I still want to grow into. 

Walking into the Kwoon this past Saturday was such an emotional experience.  To see everyone that I have not seem for a little while and to see them welcome me back with open arms was such as amazing feeling that is hard to explain.  The positive energy in the Kwoon is addictive in many ways that I wish more people would have the ability to experience.  Once I reconnected on Saturday I can honestly say that what I was missing spiritually was found in the Kwoon .  I was missing my connection with the Kwoon these past six weeks.  I was not feeding myself spiritualy and was "starved" inside.  There is a lot to be said about how important to feed ourselves spiritually just as much as it is need physically.

This may seem “corny”, but we are all in this river and we have to get in the middle and ride it as best we can.    Take time to feed yourself spiritually as this is such an important aspect of  our lives that too may of us overlook.

To Master Brinker – Thank you.

Mr. Repay

Student Of Silent River Kung Fu