For the love of the game

 Doing something purely for one’s love of something rather than for money or any other benefit.  This is doing something for the love of the game.  I’ve kind of forgotten this and thinking about my love of Kung fu has brought me back a little.  This year there is a lot on my plate, I Ho Chuan requirements, earning my second degree so that I earn the right to grade for my black belt. I started to doubt myself as to why exactly I decided that I wanted to make this year my potential grading year.  Things have started to overwhelm me a little and I needed to take a pause for a brief moment.  A moment to reflect on why I chose to be a martial artist and why I decided that I wanted to earn my black belt?  I needed to get back to my love of the game.

That love was why I made my first step inside the Kwoon over a decade ago.  That first step was to get into better physical shape by doing something I knew I always wanted to try.  I kept going back to class because the people become like family members to me.  We laughed, we cried and we shed blood sweat and tears together.  The whole while we grew closer by helping each other grow and become better people.  That better person has become me because I loved attending class, I loved learning new things and building some great relationships with everyone there.  That was and still is my love for the game I just forgot about it.  

I’ve come to realize that when I lose this I need to do the simple things.  For me that includes putting my uniform on and tying my belt.  It may seem like a simple thing but it get’s me in the right mental state to train.  My next step is to pick up my nunchucks, they are the weapon I love the most and just holding them motivates me to want to train.  When times are mentally difficult for me these are two things that help bring me back.  It’s the little things along with the big things (structure) that I lean on to make sure that I’m not losing what I love.

Mr. Repay