How it's taught & servant leadership.

This is so important to me, how I'm being taught or how I'm teaching someone.  There is so much that I want to learn in my martial journey and sometimes I can be guilty of wanting quantity over quality.  Recently I've come to realize that how I'm being taught is so important, actually more important than quantity of what's being taught.  

As an instructor or leader I need to be in tune to others mental state.  Are they ready to learn, are they open and willing to accept what I'm teaching?  Everyone is different and everyone is in different mental places.  As that leader, it's up to me to realize this and at times adapt my approach to suit.  

There is a concept called servant leadership.  This is the style of leadership that I employ and gets me very excited.  The definition of this is simply the leader/teacher exists to serve thier students/employees. I feel that the better I am with empathy and understanding the other person the better the leader/teacher I'll become.  In order for this to work I have to have an absence of ego.  There is NO WAY that servant leadership works if it's all about me as the leader/teacher.  

This is kind of a rambling blog but it really encompasses where I am mentally right now.  I'm getting taught the right way and I'm taking opportunities to servantly lead where I can in both my personal and professional life.  I'm pretty happy with where I am right now.  

Mr. Repay

My knee was screaming at me.

I've realized that as I get older I can't ignore what my body is telling me like when I was younger.  Those days of pushing through injuries or pain are well behind me. 

My right knee has been aching and it's been pretty painful for the past month.  I've been doing at lot of open x stances and practicing the opening and closing bow alot, trying to get a deeper stance.  What I didn't realize until I stopped to listen to my body was that I've been torquing my right knee especially on the bow sequence.  The area of issue is after the retreat, I was stepping forward (into an open x with my front right leg) with the twisting action then into the left leading cat stance.  I've realized that instead of rotating my back heel to align my knee properly I was performing my cat stance with my back right foot still in the open x stance.  This was putting a huge amount of stress on my knee causing the swelling and the resulting pain.  

Once I realized this and rotated my heel enough to have a solid cat stance the pain has gone away!

Just another reason for me to keep listening to my body.  If there's pain or something doesn't feel right, I'm steping back and thinking about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it that way.

Mr. Repay

Re energized!

I've felt that over the past week I've refocused and re energized.  What's helped is meeting with my mentor and really opening up about some of things have been bothering me.  That ability to have someone to open up with is so important not only in my Kung Fu but in my life as a whole.  

My training is getting back on track.  I've been finding that I'm not nesicarily dedicating a set time for my Kung Fu but fitting in bits and pieces through out the day.  I've performed 18 temples motions in my kitchen on a whim because I felt like it.  I've performed my forms in a parking lot during my lunch break when I'm traveling for work.  This morning I actually got the hand motion corrected from last night's class in the shower lol!!  I'm thinking about my Kung Fu almost all the time.  I'm thinking about what I learnt in class and I'm going over and over it my head. I'm embracing the spirit of it and I feel like a white belt again.  What I mean is that everything feels new again and when it feels new and exciting I can't get enough.  

One area that I do need to improve upon is the leadership with the I Ho Chuan.  We have a fantastic team but through the pandemic we seem to have lost our voice, our energy and our passion.  It almost feels like we need a unstructured group activity, a bonding of sorts to get everyone jacked up again.  I have some ideas rattling around in my head, just need to act on them!

Mr. Ian Repay 

Engagement

The meeting on Saturday was eye opening for me.  I was silent because everything that was being said, felt like it was said about me. I've been coasting for the past month.  I have been doing the bare minimum and sometimes not even that.  I've retreated into my "closet" and I'm on this journey by myself. All of this can be fixed it's just a matter of making it happen.  I've reflected back on my Kung Fu journey and I've realized that I've been the most successful when I sourounded myself with a group of people that shared the journey with me.  I can recall the competitiveness of the Tuesday San Shou class, the crazy Saturday morning fitness classes and the open training that followed.  I have fond memories of Canada Day demo's, dropping my nu chucks and not dropping them on the bridge.  I can honestly say that I miss those years the most and I haven't been able to re create them since I've been back. Most of those people have become Sifu's and moved on, some never came back as students.  So why is it that I haven't been able to build those same relationships now?  I've concluded that it's my ego and my own resentment of where I currently am with my training.  This is 100% on me and me alone.  In the past I've gone through the ranks with friends that we at the same rank or right around my rank.  We pushed each other to become better, there was a healthy competition and we all thrived.  I want that again, I want to push and be pushed to become better.  I know it's not going to be easy within the world we are living in but it's not impossible either.  I'm reaching out my hand to who ever wants to pick up this journey with me, to push each other and have some fun.

Mr. Ian Repay  

Back to "normal".

Over the past couple of weeks I've experienced our new "normal" and I feel this is going to be the way it is for some time.  I've been locked down to my home office since early March.  It's been a struggle for me as I love traveling and being with my clients.  Some people who've been working steadily and haven't seen a disruption in their work schedule have thought that I've been on a paid three month holiday.  This couldn't have been further from my truth.  You see there is a definite impact on mental health that I feel has impacted me to a certain degree.  I feel that humans are inheritantly sociable and they we need the company of other people.  We need the interaction and touch to stimulate our brains and activate all sorts of chemical reactions in our brain.  When your unable to have these interactions there is a change in your body and mind.  

I've also seen the impact of not being able to train like we used to.  Master Brinker did an amazing job adapting and providing us with the platform to train during this time.  I feel that if it wasn't for this virtual connection I would have retreated further into myself.  

No one can predict what the future is going to hold.  For now I'm going to embrace this new "normal" and keep moving forward.

Mr. Repay

Tiger Challenge 2020 Corona Virus edition

Thank you to Sifu Brinker and all of the SRKF Sifu's that helped maked this possible.  Your vision and passion to see this through is beyond appreicated.

It was amazing to see the students who participated.  I was astounded by how good thier forms have become.  I watched a lot of my fellow students Loa Gar form, which they mostly learned online.  I remember that most of them started learning Loa Gar just before the pandemic shut the kwoon down.  Now to see the same students not only know the whole form but to see them move with flow was amazing!

My hand form I felt was adequate but not great.  I need to continue to practise and hone it through more one on one's.  I also reminded myself that I also just started learning 18 Temple motions before the kwoon shut down so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself.  

Some learnings that I want to share about the Tiger challenge.  

- Know your space.  Do your form in the space that you'll be using to be judged in. Do you have enough room?  How's the footing?  Are you too far away from the camera?

- lighting. How's the lighting being picked up by your camera?  If it's too dark or too bright neither is going to be good for the judges to see you.

- Camera.  Know the limitations of your camera both in quality and how wide the angle is.  I saw alot of people go outside of what the camera's angle was able to record.  This obviously  makes it impossible for the Sifu's to see what your doing.

Finally take all of these things into account and record your form ahead of time in the exact conditions your going to judged in.  Watch the recording to see if the lighting is good, do you stay in focus and can the judges see all parts of your form?  I think that this perspective will serve us well even when we're performing in person. 

Mr. Repay

Where and I and what am I doing?

I've been wanting to write about this for some time.

I started to hear about this from Sifu Wiebe a number of years ago.  He talked about it with me and shared that he always internally asked himself this just before bowing in and bowing out.  He said it helped him ground himself and put himself into the moment.  It took me a while to start to incorporate this into my Kung Fu but I've been doing it consitantly at bow in and outs for at least the past three years.  

I started asking myself these questions because I wanted to focus on what I was about to do.  I want 💯% of my mental focus to be on Kung Fu and not what my day has been or what it will be after class.  When we step through the Kwoon doors we're carrying the days baggage with us.  It's understandable that we carried it in with us.  What we shouldn't do is allow it to control us.  By asking these questions we immediately refocus and prioritize what's important.  When I'm in the Kwoon nothing is more important than my training.  I need to forget about what's behind me and what's after class.  When you think about it, I can't fix the past and I don't live in the future so why am I worrying about things I can't change?  That's why this concept is so powerful, it puts us in the moment where we can control things. 

I'm moving to incorporate this strategy into my daily life to go along with some deep meditative breathing.  I've found that when I'm stressed I remember my training.  I take deep cleansing butterfly breaths and bring myself back to the moment.  It helps lower my heart rate and focuses my mind on the moment vs the stress and anxiety of what I think may occur.  

Mr. Repay