Learning & Centering

I have learnt a lot about myself through my training and especially through the past year.  I have realized truly what my strengths are and I have been humbled by my weaknesses.  I now have a much better understand of who am I deep inside.  

Through this past year I have realized why I choose to do the things I do and the repercussions for those decisions both good and bad.  I have a lot more clarity on what's important in my life and how I assign my time and energy to those priorities.  

Number 1 is my family and the quality of those relationships.  For far to long I took them for granted.  Not anymore as every day with my family is blessing and I won't waste them.

Secondly the quality of life and how I see my life.  Money, power, title etc are things that no longer have the "cachet" they used to have.  If I continue to chase them at the expense of my family then was it truly worth it?  Not at all!  I have started to realize that those things don't matter as much and the true wealth is my family and the health of the realtionship I truly value.

Mr. Repay

Silent River Kung Fu is priviledge and a gift

This past Saturday I was invited by Sifu Brinker to come and speak to his current I Ho Chuan team.  I was humbled and honoured by the request as I haven't been a student of Silent River Kung Fu for the past two years.

I thought for a long time about what I wanted to talk about as a lot has gone on in my life since I left.  I decided that I would talk about how Kung Fu is a privilege and a gift. I talked a lot about how we take it for granted and that our Kung Fu training will always be there.  That sort of thinking is the farthest thing from the reality for most.  No one knows what tomorrow has in store for us.  No one has any idea if we will even be here and if we are what tomorrow will even look like. 

SRKF is such a special place with a whole lot of special people.  Don't take your training or your network of people for granted, ever.

Mr. Ian Repay

Pandamonium and coming home

I stopped by the kwoon for the first time in what feels like years when in fact it's been over a year since I left Stony Plain for Winnipeg to pursue a dream of business ownership. 

My life for the past year can be described by one word and one phrase.  The word is "perseverance" and the phrase is "figure it out".  I can write every day for a year about how these two things have come to describe my life and that of my families, especially this past year.  In future blog posts I will share some specific events that have taken place this past year that has truly defined these two things for me.

One thing that has remained constant throughout this year is SRKF and I havent even trained or placed a single step inside the kwoon for over a year.  It's always on my mind and it's truly part of my soul.  The thing that has allowed me to stay in touch with the kwoon has been the blogging by the I Ho Chaun team and Sifu Brinker's blog and yet no one even knew it...no one knew how important it was to me. 

I would look forward to seeing Sifu's blog land in my inbox.  I was the one thing (other than my immediate family) that kept me connected with home.  Those that have trained at SRKF can understand when I refer to the kwoon as my my home.  I would cruise over to the SRKF website and see who had posted thier blog there for me to read.  Sometimes it was disappointing to see that no one had posted for over a month.  I would read everyone of the blogs to see how everyone was doing and seeing the struggles and the success they they had experienced.  I can't articulate enough how important blogging is.  Not only do I understand now how important it is to share these journies when we write them but it's just as important to the lost souls who depend on them to stay connected and engaged, even if you don't ever see the impact on them.

This last week for me has been one of the best ones that I have had in such a long time.  I spent some great time with my family.  I had a great day with my adult daughter and a great little lunch spot that has become "ours".  I reconnected with my good friend Kevin Lindstrom for coffee this week.  I had lunch with Shau Lietz whom I hadn't seen in over a year.  And I got to see my family again at this year's Pandamonium.  It's like I had never left. 

Finally the best news I have to share is that I am moving back to Stony Plain by mid June.  I'm going to be coming back to resume my training and I couldn't be happier!

See everyone on the mats very soon.

Mr. Ian Repay