Day four

 Tougher day as I twisted my right knee and aggravated my sciatica nerve at last nights class.  I didn’t sleep much last night as there was no way to get comfortable with my leg fully extended in bed.  

Food wise, I’ve tracked my diet and over indulged a little but the tracking is the key regardless of what I eat.  Sifu Brinker and I had a great conversation about food and inflammation.  He peaked my curiosity to do some more digging.

Training wasn’t that great today but what I did I tracked.

The meeting this evening was amazing.  It’s alway awesome to hear where everyone is and how they’re doing.  It’s hard not to come away from these in person meetings even the tiniest more energized and engaged.

That’s it for now.

Mr. Repay

Three days in a row

 Yup it’s been three days in row and I’m starting to feel just a little like I felt a year ago.  What I’m keeping in mind this time is my mini goal that I set for myself.  This goal is achievable and it’s what I keep thinking about when I don’t feel like training or I feel like eating poorly. 

    My diet today was pretty good.  I switched it up to some raw overnight oats with Greek yogurt, skim milk, splash of maple syrup and some whole frozen strawberries.  I made it last night so that everything had time to get happy and thick for this morning’s breakfast.  I liked the change but It didn’t fill me up and I found myself reaching for a hard boiled egg and some protein about 10:30am.  I really find that if I in corporate a diet with whole eggs I stay full longer and my blood sugar levels stay very steady.

    Lunch was a quick thin crust pizza on a high fibre, high protein crust.  Tasty and filling and a nice break from eggs.  Only downside was heating up my oven on a very hot day.

    I’ve stayed on top of my tracking both food and training.  I almost missed tracking breakfast but I got a friendly reminder from my wife =)  I also updated the tracking on my I Ho Chuan requirements.  Not going to sugar coat this, my numbers are awe full.  What else should I expect considering my training hasn’t been where it needs to be for the last couple of months.  However I’m not dwelling on negative, but focusing on just getting back to that routine.  Consistent training and more importantly consistent with logging my numbers.  I can honestly say that when I’m logging my food and or my physical requirements I can fell myself pushing back on mediocrity.  

    Class tonight was amazing.  It seemed like every exercise Sifu had us do was the very same things I’ve been working on at home!  I think I need to check my training room for a hidden camera LOL!  At the end of class Sifu Brinker told us that there is going to be a boot camp on Sept 18th as long as things remain the same with the pandemic.  I was soooooo excited to hear this as I have very fond memories of the boot camp I attended almost 8 years ago.  What a cool experience and I have to believe that this will be the same.  Finally I heard that this Saturday we are getting our open training slot back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

That it’s for now.

Mr. Repay

Day two - updates

 Well it’s been two days and these are some things I’ve added to my plan and some general observations.

    Made and executed two days of meal planning.  We’ve made a conscience effort to reduce the sugar in our diets.  We don’t drink soda or eat a lot of sugar heavy desserts.  However there is a TON of added sugar that we don’t realize we’re eating if were not mindful.  Our current diet is a throw back to what worked for us a year ago.  A balanced diet of lean protein and high fibre foods such as fruit and veggies and whole grains and lots of eggs.  Increased our water intake to around two litres per day from about one.  Feeling full for longer periods is the goal and what we are eating is getting us there.

    Diet tracking has been a big thing.  It’s as important as recorded my push ups and sit-ups.  It helps me understand what I’m putting in my body.  Also by recording what I’m eating it helping me resist those late evening snacks.

    I’ve found that I enjoy training in the evenings at the same time that my class starts at.  I’ve tried mornings but I prefer to enjoy the quiet time with my espresso and breakfast. 

    The push up challenge is fun and I’m enjoying participating.  It’s also something that gives me a target and or a purpose for training.  I start my evening training by warming up with the goal of completing the days challenge.  I’ve found that with this goal in mind I’m accomplishing way more that initially set out to do.

    I Ho Chuan recording.  It’s only been two days but I’ve recorded and totalled them up.  

    Spinning back kicks have been one kick that I’ve chosen to spend a little extra time on.  This evening I’ve noticed that if I move my lead leg across the centre line (slightly) it's helping with my rotation.

    Hand combinations have been a favourite and I’ve been playing with my jab and fade.  I’ve really enjoyed using the jab not to make heavy contact but to feel out my distance and to set up my reverse hand.  I’ve been playing with my fade as well.  Keeping my chin tucked in and rotating the lead shoulder over to allow the jab to glance off and create some distance without moving my feet.  This allows me to quickly counter.

We’ll that’s it for now.

Mr. Repay

Fail to plan, plan to fail

 I’m not a planner, it’s not in my DNA.  I do plan but It’s an effort all of the time.  I like to float along, see where things take me which hasn’t been the best approach for my life at times.  When I have been successful it’s because I’ve put in the planning AND the effort to see it through.  This is one of those “a ha” moments for me.  It’s not always lack of planning and it’s not always lack of effort but these two are my nemesis.  When I do plan the effort and follow through seem to make an appearance.  When I have effort with out planning I still get “stuff done” but it normally isn’t what I needed to get done I just got “stuff”done.  What I’ve come to realize is that this approach isn’t one that will consistently bear fruit for me.  Sure, I’ll progress and I’ll get stuff done but It won’t get me where I want to be very quickly and most importantly WHERE I want to be.  You know the old adage “any road will take you someone where” well that’s kinda me.  

So where if any road will take you somewhere which road will take me where I want to go?  That road is the one that has lot’s of pot holes, overgrown with weeds and basically the “road less travelled”.  But on this road I’m going to find the things that will serve me for the rest of my life.  Things like fitness, good physical and mental health, a solid relationship with my family, empathy towards others.  So why are all of these things found on the less travelled road?  Because for everyone the road is unique to thier own journey.  For me these are the things at this point in my life that are important to me but require consistent effort to achieve.  I’ve let my physical health deteriorate over the past number of years.  Because of this my fitness isn’t where I need it to be.  Because of this my mental health has suffered etc etc.  Where I want to be requires me to bring myself back to the moment and ask myself “am I where I want to be”?  “Am I the best version of myself?”.  The answer is absolutely not.  

So here I am deciding that I want to be that absolute best version of myself.  I also realize that the approach I’ve taken to this point doesn’t work.  I realize that I need help, help with the journey, and help with the planning.  I need someone to pull me along when I don’t want to go any further, someone to help me be accountable and give a little pep talk, some extra motivation.  In steps my best friend to lend me that hand.  Together we’ll hold each other accountable and pull each other along when the other doesn’t want to.  In steps my I Ho Chuan team, they’ve always lent their hands and pulled me along when I’ve needed.  And now I have to step up and put the consistent effort out there.  I’m the only one that can do the push ups, sit ups and the requirements that I’ve signed up for and made that promise.

Mr. Repay

Perspective

 I’ve blogged about this in the past but this is something that keeps coming back to the forefront.  What’s my perspective?  It changes and shifts every single moment.  It’s affected by my environment, the people around me, the noise of society yet I have the ability to choose my perspective.  This is the great thing about being a human, we have choice.  With that choice comes consequences and we have to be able to accept them if we want to have free choice.  With those consequences comes perspective, they are completely and 100% linked.  

My wife and I have recently taken some holidays together and it was amazing.  We never set an agenda we just did what we wanted to do in that moment.  This was a little odd as I’m kind of a person that likes having a “loose” agenda.  However we didn’t have one of those and it was perfect!  I was able to get some training in, some forms practise but most importantly I was able to just enjoy being in the moment.  I was able to tune out the noise from society, the constant pull of the mobile device and just enjoy the moment.  I was able to evaluate my perspective on a lot things both Kung Fu related and non with most things having Kung Fu woven into them in some way.  

I realized during this time that my perspective has changed from chasing money and title most commonly known as “The American/Canadian Dream” to chasing time.  The ability to realize that I have enough money, enough stuff but never enough time.  Perhaps I’ve come to this realization because I’m at the mid point in my life?  It doesn’t matter to me why it just matters that I have realized this, finally.  I want more than anything to enjoy life, the smells, the tastes, the moment.  I’ve finally found peace with myself, a place and time that I’m truly happy both work and personally.  I can’t tell you why it’s taken this long other than I was always looking at the other side of the fence, what everyone else had and what I thought I wanted.  By doing this it affected my perspective.  You see I felt that I needed a title, more money etc to be happy when I didn’t need that at all.  

I just needed to change my perspective.

Mr. Repay

Public training

 I want to say that I really enjoy training in public but I don’t.  I actually enjoy the public demos we do as a group and I really really enjoy public speaking.  So it’s hard to understand the reasons for not enjoying training in public?  I’m feeling that are a few things coming into play and the one that I think is most prevalent is shyness.  I guess when I’m by myself I feel this emotion and I pull back and retreat.  However this is also odd as I don’t have any issues striking up a conversation with complete strangers and I actually enjoy this “on the spot” sort of conversation.  So then this must not be all of the reason.

Is is self confidence?  Perhaps as I don’t always think that my forms are worthy of display.  This was touched on by Sifu Brinker in last nights class when he asked if anyone thought their forms were black belt level, mine are not.  So if I think this is the case I also think that most people watching me are going to laugh at how bad my stances are, how low my kicks are and how pitiful my form looks as a whole.   I know this isn’t the case as so few people actually are martial artists and those that are are, are very kind and helpful.  I think about what I would do if I came across someone practising their martial art in a public park.  I would watch, intrigued by their form, the foot work the flow of the form itself.  I would wait for them to finish and I may or may not walk up to them and compliment them and ask them about their style.  Or I may just quietly walk away letting them enjoy their training time.  One thing I wouldn’t ever do is judge, laugh or critique them.  So if this is the way I would handle myself as a traditional martial artist then I must assume that most other martial artists would do the same.  

I’m limiting myself and I have to stop and I’ve slowly begin to change my thinking. Last week I was with my daughter in the mountains with some of her horse training friends.  I took some time to do some of my forms while they went ahead to the next part of their course.  While I was doing my forms some people walked by, none stopped to watch me and no one said anything to me.  I was surprised as I had these pre conceived notions going through my head.  I finished up and rejoined the group, no one said anything to me and we all went about our business.  Now there are some limits that I will still impose and one of those is public training with my nunchucks.  These are a prohibited weapons in Canada and I’m extremely careful with them.  Right now my wife and I are camping in provincial park and tonight is our IHC class.  I want to break them out but I won’t just because of the environment that I’m in.  This won’t stop me from practicing Loa Gar which is my IHC form.  The harder part is finding a better internet connection but that’s the least of my concerns right now.

I’ve been missing opportunities to train just because I’ve self imposed limits based on pre conceived notions that just aren’t there.  I’ve started to change my perspective =)

Mr. Repay

Mr. Repay

Struggling...with weight.

This is something that has been both motivating and demotivating at the same time. Last summer I was cruising with motivation. I was back at the Kwoon and I was losing weight and feeling great.  I was feeling and seeing results which is such a motivating factor.  Then I slowly stopped doing the things that made me successful.  The second lockdown happened, no more Kwoon and straight into the holidays and eating terrible.  This cascaded itself into the next six months of not training consistently and eating terribly. 

The success that I had when I was losing weight was tracking what I ate, mindfully eating and doing it with my wife. Together we would share what each other was eating and most importantly we meal planned and cooked together. 

Yesterday was one of those days that really made me realize that I need to make a change for my health. I had an in person (what are those lol) yesterday.  Now I had to put my suit back on and it didn't fit well.  I also noticed that I'm getting pain in my knees that I've never really felt before.  This is my body telling me that I've got too much weight on my joints. 

My wife and I had a great discussion and together we are going to get back to it.  We've set a large goal and a few small goals along the way.  We are doing this together.  Together we're going to have some fun and work toward getting our health back to where we want it to be.

Mr. Repay