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

Throwing kicks in the kitchen while boiling eggs.

 By reading the title of this blog your probably thinking waaaaaaaa????

I forgot how much fun it was to throw kicks in my kitchen.  I used to do this all the time and I actually got a lot out of this.  Let me explain, when your cooking in the kitchen there are all sorts of sharp and hot things all around you.  

Like this morning when I was cooking some boiled eggs for breakfast.  Hot pot of boiling water on the front burner of my stove.  Right next to the stove I thought it would be fun to practice a part of Loa Gar.  The part where there is a low kicking block followed by a palm sweeping block then the crane's wings with a front thrust kick.  I love how this flows so I started to play around with it WHILE the pot of boiling water was bubbling away right next to me.  

I was aware that it was there but I was also away of my technique all at the same time.  I found this "dual" awareness pretty cool and I loosely likened it to a bit of self defense.  When I reflected back on this, it has similarities to a multiple attacker scenario.  I would have to be aware of my surroundings while at the same time execute my techniques with precision.

Pretty cool realization and it all came from throwing kicks in my kitchen.

Mr. Repay

Year of the stick

 2022 is going to be the year of the stick for me.  This is the weapon that I’ve chosen for the Year of the Tiger.  Interestingly this is the first weapon I learned and the the one I want to master in the run up to my black belt grading. 

I’ve been drawn to hinged weapons (nunchucks to be exact) as I liked watching Bruce Lee movies as a kid.  They’re flashy and super cool.  The stick at first glance doesn’t look like a flashy style of weapon.  But I won’t let looks deceive me as I feel that the stick is a very cool weapon in it’s own right.  I’m pretty confident that a skilled martial artist can more than hold his own using a stick against nunchucks.

Last nights class was pretty amazing.  I hadn’t really picked up my stick (oh and it showed lol) in a long time.  However after a few minutes of getting to know each other we felt good together.  I enjoyed dusting off the HUGE amounts of cob webs from the stick form.  By the end of the night I was feeling a lot better and today I picked up my stick and kept going. I’m really enjoying the movements of the form, I can feel both the connection and disconnection of the six harmonies.  There are moments when things feel really good and there are a few more moments where they don’t.  

I’m grateful to have this next year to work on mastering the stick.  There are so many things that I’m going to learn and perfect along the way.  The best part of training with my stick is it makes the rest of my Kung Fu that much better.

Mr. Ian Repay

Time

This is the #1 most important thing in my life.  I never realized how important time is but I'm guessing many of us don't.  I also think that we all get to the realization but for some it's often too late.  I've spent most of my adult life chasing things I thought were more important than time.  Money being at the top of the list becuase I really didn't have much of it.  I chased prestige and titles at the expense of time with my family.  I thought that in order to be happy I needed to have more money and more "stuff".  How very very wrong I was.  What I needed was to find a balance between money and time spent on the things that truly matter.  

For many years I made decions based on chasing that "wealth goal" because when you don't have much of it you think this will solve your problems and deliver happiness.  It also doesn't help growing up and living in a society that preaches consumerism and wealth.  Chasing money and wealth consumed me for a good portion of my life.

Not anymore and not for the past few years.  I've come to realize that time is the most valuable thing in my life.  I have absolutley no idea how much more of it I have in front of me.  What good is all of the money in the world if I sacrificed time to get it?  What will I have lost?  What I enjoy the most is the time with my family, my wife, my children and being able to have the flexability to do the things that make me happy with them.  I wouldn't trade my current career for 10X the salary if it meant that I'd have to give up what I have right now.  Remember the old saying "careful what you wish for?", it's true.  There are times when opportunities are presented to me that make me take a step back.  At these moments in my life I really think and weigh the opportunity against my current situation.  I'm extra careful to weigh the pros and the cons and I make decisons based on what's most important to me and not for my ego.  And that's time.  

Mr. Ian Repay

Busy and engaging day

Today was one of those very busy days.  One of those days when everything you need to get done get's done and it feels like an hour's past when in fact it's been nine.  Today was one of those days and I really enjoyed it.  I worked on a infographic for my marketing course, completed a bunch of chapters in one of of managment courses, got in some Spanish practice, wrote this blog and even managed to record eveything I ate.  It's got me to thinkning about my I Ho Chuan requirements and where I've wasted a lot of time this past year.  

This year was a struggle to say the least and it was 100% my own doing.  Nothing got in the way of my training and commitments other than myself.  I wrote about it in my previous blog and how I didn't priortize my Kung Fu like I should have.  I got on that slippery slope and I never really got off.  Sure I slowed down the slide a few times but I never really stopped and gave my self a course corretion.  I should have pulled out my I Ho Chuan promises and reviewed them becuase when I looked at them today I realized that I had worked on almost all of them.  The problem I found was I didn't record any of the progress on my personal requirements so I felt like I wasn't progressing and down the slippery slide I went.  All I found along that slide was dissengagment and resentment.  

I'm working on this years goals and to be honest a few of them are going to be carry overs from my 2021 year.  They're more tangible to my life than they actually were in 2021.  What I've realized this past year is I need to do a better job setting goals both big and small.  I'm the most motivated when the goals are motivating to me and when the smaller goals line up with the bigger ones.  A HUGE goal of mine is to finish my business degree so that I can position myself for an ex pat role.  The big goal is the move, the smaller goal is earning my degree and the even smaller goal is finishing my second year.  I could and should even break them down into even smaller goals of credits by mid year 2022 and courses completed.  This is something I haven't done a good job with as I've floated along the "ego cloud" thinking I was smarter and better than I am.  I realize now that this isn't the way forward for me and if I want to get where I want to go I have to put the effort in and the discipine required to get there.  

Days like today are motivating and I'm capturing the essence of it by writing.  Today was a good day.

Mr. Repay  

The power of the streak

I've been learning Spanish for a few reasons.  It's one of my I Ho Chuan goals from years past, secondly I've always been intrugued by the Spanish language and thirdly it's part of my preperation for a move to South America in the future.  I've been using Duo Lingo as the main tool for this of which I really enjoy the platform.  What's really interesting about it is how it tracks and uses streaks to keep you motivated to learn.  If I miss a day obviously the streak is over and I have to start again.  I don't loose the progress I've made but I loose the postivity of the streak.  The app also has a leaderboard of everyone that is learning a new language.  The top ten people with the highest points accumulated over the seven days span get's promoted to a new higher league.  

There are so many similiarities between the aproach that Duo Lingo takes and SRKF.  We have stripes and belts that signify our progression to the next level just like Duo Lingo has with accumulated points and rewards through out the week.  Right now I'm on a 18 day streak and I will made sure that even on Christmas Day I got some language training in so that I didn't lose the streak.  I used to take the same approach with my Kung Fu.  I used to be so rabbid about not missing a class that I would leave Calgary at certain time just to make sure that I made it to Stony in time to get to my class.  I'm looking back at these times and I'm actually jealous of MYSELF if that's even possible?  So I have to ask myself "why"?  Why was I so motivated as a lower cue belt to never miss a class and right now I'm struggling to attend classes regularly?  What's changed in me?  The answer is priorities.  With Duo Lingo I'm making it a priority becuase I have a goal of one day working in country that only speaks Spanish.  I know that If I can't comminucate I can't get afforded that opportunity.  I'm extra motivated by that goal and I can visualize my self in that opportunity that I've desired for a very long time.  

When I think about my Kung Fu back then I was visualizing that Black Belt.  I was seeing myself on the stage at the New Years banquet in front of Sifu Brinker and all of my family and friends giving my speech.  Telling everyone what Kung Fu has done for me and being there with everyone that helped me along the way to realize that moment.  Over the past years that vision has faded, replaced by other things that have taken a higher priority than my Kung Fu.  I'm taking a hard look at this past year and looking at the new year.  I have to be brutally honest with myself, can I visualize myself as a black belt like I did those years ago?  If so then I can't break the Kung Fu streak because it's a high priority in my life.

Mr. Repay

That glass rock.

It's no surprise that over my 10 years of training at SRKF I've hid under my own fair share of glass rocks. Every time I would hide under that rock it was because I was withdrawing from something. Various reasons and excuses went through my mind for the reasons for hiding under that rock. But make no mistake I knew and actively hid when I should have did the opposite.

Recently a colleague of mine was supposed to come out to Alberta and spend this week with me in the market. There were some warning signs that not all was right with him. Well today I finally found out that he wasn't coming and we had a bit of a conversation as to why. The similarities that I saw with his actions yesterday we're all too similar to mine at times. He withdrew and ignored my phone calls and texts because he felt embarrassed. In my opinion there was absolutely no reason to feel embarrassed but yet he felt like he was letting me down and instead of communicating with me he withdrew. This was a light bulb moment for me because I'm done the exact same things I've just never seen it from this perspective before. How can I help? How can I be a friend and mentor to him? How do I share all the different times that I've withdrawn and the effect that it had on me with him?

I'm personally going through another tough time. I've been traveling and working a lot over the past 5 weeks and I've prioritized that over my kung fu. I haven't necessarily fully withdrawn but because I haven't attended class I can feel the pull of that withdrawal. Going through the past few days with my colleague has brought some perspective to my own withdrawal and inspired me to write. I've been embarrassed at times because I haven't been at class and I also feel that I've let down my I Ho Chuan team. I do know that I don't need to feel this way because my team mates are awesome like minded people.  I need them to pick me up when I'm down and many of you have!  I want to be that same person to my colleagues so that I can help him persevere and get stronger through this experience.

Mr. Repay