What's my intent?

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I've been thinking about this a lot lately and my wife and I were just talking about this.  Tensions are high right across the country with the protesting at the boarder crossings and in Ottawa.  I can see things coming to a head and I'm concerned with the outcome.  

My wife and I started to talk about the outcomes of the protesters.  We talked a lot about them, what they're doing, their families, their livelihoods and the repercussions that some of them will feel as a result of their actions.

This brings me to intent.  What was their intent?  Was it to freely express their views as I think a majority of them did.  Did the intent change from day one to today?  It's important to reflect back on this question as I'm curious if it's changed over the course of two weeks?

When I think about intent personally I sometimes need to take a step back and really think about it.  Sometimes it's easy to see but many times it isn't.  I further reflect on my intent and what it's serving?  Is it serving my ego or it serving something else?  In the past my ego drove my intent, 100% of the time.  Today my ego is still there but because of my training I can see it at work.  I can see it manifest it's self way quicker than I could in the past.  I'm not blind to it and it's not controlling me like it used to.  

My training at SRKF has taught me to ask the question "what's my intent?" and it's impact on me is far greater than my physical Kung Fu.  It's become part of me, part of my personality and I couldn't be more grateful.

Mr. Repay

Engaging my hips

I've really started to focus on releasing my hip and then engaging my hips with my shoulders.  What I've noticed was the huge disconnect in my Kung Fu especially when it came to generating power.  At this point in my Kung Fu I know my forms and the moves within them. What I was doing and what I'm working on is engaging my hips in conjunction with my shoulders. I've noticed a big difference in my Kung Fu.  I'm starting to feel more consistently the "push and the pull" and last night's class was very important to my progression.  I really enjoyed how Sifu Ryback used Loa Gar and the double wrist escapes to try to teach us this with out telling us exactly that. 

When I'm doing 18 Temple Motions I'm really focusing on my hips and shoulders.  Am I connecting them to my form?  I'm thinking about each movement in the form and asking myself "am I engaging my hip and connecting my shoulders?". Sometimes is easy to see the opportunity but sometimes it's very subtle.  

I'm really enjoying my training and when I uncover these nugest of gold it motivates me to want more. 

Mr. Repay

Eyes on the road

I’m a huge racing fan and through the career I’ve chosen, I’ve been lucky enough to get some time on racetracks and learn the very basics of driving a race car.  The very first lesson I was taught happened well before I was behind the wheel.  I was told by my instructor that safety was above all else.  That kind of goes without saying but when you flying down the race track as high speeds your not really thinking that much, your more reacting to the situation.  

When my instructor started teaching me about safety he talked A LOT about where I should be looking.  He said if you look where you want to go, you’ll go there.  Sounds simple enough but then he added on.  If your looking just in front of your car your not going to be able to see the cars that are a few lengths in front of me nor am I able to see the upcoming corner.  That corner comes up so quickly and if you want to get around it safely and with speed you need to see it coming, place the car where it needs to be, brake and downshift then hit the apex. If you do all of these things correctly you’ll hit the apex and carry the speed out of the corner.  

If I move my eyes too far down the track how can that be a bad thing?  I’m looking far down the track too see how far the next car is in front of me, I’m looking to position my car where it needs to be in two turns down the track.  Doesn’t seem like a bad idea right?  Nope not the best either.  If I’m constantly looking that far ahead I’m missing the small details in the track that are right in front of me.  Missing these small details will scrub speed off of my car and ultimately slow me down and or I’ll miss the corner and off the track goes my car.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about racing and how it relates to my Kung Fu.  I believe they’re almost identical in how I approach my vision to my training and the track.  I have a set of goals and promises that I made at the start of this year.  These are the same as looking down the track with the right amount of vision.  They’re in front of me but they aren’t too far away as I’ve broken down the requirements into daily goals.  If I looked at the 50,000 push up target as one big number that would be like looking at turn nine when I’m turning into turn two.  Now if I focus only on push ups and sit ups and nothing else then I’ll make that turn but I’m missing what’s ahead of me because I’m so focused on that micro target.  I’d be happy that I made the number at the end of the year but I was so slow that I didn’t finish the race.

There is balance to my training this year.  I have my promises and they are in front of me.  Not too close that I can’t see anything else but far enough a way that I can make the corner, carry the speed and set myself up for the next.  

Mr. Repay

I don't want to train, I train.

This is something I've heard over and over for a very long time but before I got to the parking lot I started to forget about it. It's a simple concept that I've only started to put into practise. 

I will grade for my black belt this year.  

I will not be able to do that if I don't start to control my training. I can't rely on talent alone of which my Kung Fu skills are no where near being good enough anyway. 

I must accept that I need to apply myself to train in a way that's sustainable daily.  This morning I most certainly didn't want to train. However there was something nagging at me in the back my brain.  Something that kept getting louder and louder so that I couldn't ignore it anymore. It was the promise I made to myself, that promise of mastery. Down I went into my training hall and started to train.  Slowly at first, just swinging my stick and loosening up.  Things started to feel better, looser and then they felt great!  I did what I needed to do, more because I want to live up to that promise I made to myself than anything else.  

Mr. Repay

I am a teacher

 I think if I could do things over as a career, I’d be a teacher. Being a teacher comes with a lot of responsibility and good teachers understand that. I look at myself as a teacher that practises empathy and can bring out the best in people. I really enjoy teaching and I find that when I’m in that role I learn more than I think the person I’m teaching is learning. Perhaps we’re getting the same amount but in different ways? I recently joined the level one class in which I hadn’t attended in over a year. I was back in a place I forgot how much I enjoyed. I really liked watching all the students learn and adapt to what they were being taught. I could see the raw talent but also how they looked at their kung fu in ways I’d forgotten.  Then came the opportunity to teach. I wasn’t the sifu leading the class but yet I felt that I could help and contribute to some of the students. It was such a great feeling to help them with that technique and then watch them grow from my little bit of help for the rest of the class.

There was one time in my life that I want to share that’s changed my life forever. It’s when I moved to Winnipeg and was a partner in a business there. I arrived to a very broken and dysfunctional group of people. I must say that these were some of what people told me were “the worst of the worst” in the industry and to be honest a lot of them were, expect for Joey. Joey was a young man with a young family trying to do his best to support them. He wasn’t happy in the current role and when I asked him what he wanted to do he said he always enjoyed selling but no one gave him the opportunity. You see everyone in that shop didn’t think much of him and bullied him at times. I decided on the spot that I was going to take him out the next day and teach him how to sell. He was rough around the edges but he had some key personality characteristics that I liked. He was sincere and genuine and understood how to look after people the right way. My job was to teach him the other aspects of selling but it was worth it as I knew he’d succeed. And sure enough he became the best salesman on my team, but what happened next shook me to the core. One Saturday his wife and kids came to pick him up at the end of his shift. His wife came over to talk to me and thanked me for believing in Joey and giving him an opportunity to do sales. Then she said “It changed his/our lives”.

This is the most powerful and humbling things all at the same time. Being a teacher is so important to me as a kung fu martial artist but it’s also just as powerful in my life outside the kwoon. Thank you, Joey.

Mr. Repay

Participation & Engagment

With today being the lunar new year I'm taking a brief looking back on last year.  When I mean brief I do mean brief as there isn't anything I can do about last year.  When I create business reviews for my clients I limit the review on past years business to no more than 15% of my total time.  I'm much more focused on the year in front of my clients than what's behind them.  I can't change the past for my clients so why spend so much time dweling on it? We're focused on what we can do together and the plan for the upcoming year.  Guess what's needed for the plan to succeed?  Yup everyone has to participate and live up to thier commitments that we've made to each other. 

My lack of partcipation with my training and more importantly my team was abysmal.  Because I wasn't participating on a regular basis I started to feel myself pull away and dis engage for long periods of time.  I'd gotten to the point that I was a hairs breath away from throwing in the towel on my Kung Fu journey.  It's hard to admit that becuase Kung Fu has become such a posative part of my life for almost twelve years and yet I was ready to walk away.

When I look back, I can clearly see that most important thing I needed to do was participate more.  I gave myself so many excuses to justify that Kung Fu wasn't for me anymore.  The more I told myself this the more I fell backwards and disengaged even more.  

That's the key to most everything isn't it, partcipating?  Showing up and and taking part with like minded individuals is all I need to stay the course and see the benefits of my Kung Fu.  I just need to make sure that I'm participating but I see it as a key part, no the most important part to staying engaged.  

Mr. Repay