12 rounds with Iron Mike

Well I have kinda felt like this guy in the past couple of weeks.  I had a very difficult call with a customer and by the time call was completed I felt like I had gone 12 rounds with Iron Mike.

The thing is, it was totally my fault.  I had been having a great couple of weeks and my confidence was a little higher than I needed it to be.  I was overconfident.

Well the result of that "overconfidence" was that the customer exploited every area where I failed to prepare.  He exposed my weaknesses like opponents have done in sparring class.

As difficult as it was to sit there and take it, I learned more than I ever ever had before.  It humbled me and showed me that I am nowhere as good as thought I was.  I learned more from that one call than I could have ever learned from all the good calls I had done in the past three weeks.  I learned that preparation and proper mindset are the most important things.  If I had the proper mindset, I would not have overlooked some of the things I needed to do.  If I was in the proper mindset I would have been better equipped to answer the customers questions.  I can't say enough about the lesson that the customer taught me that afternoon.

Thanks John for teaching me a very important lesson.

Mr. Repay
Student Of Silent River Kung Fu.

Home stretch!

I have one final week of training and then I am back home. I can't wait to get back and get some resemblance of normality again. This week I'm in Montreal and I'm very happy to be back on Canadian soil.

I really miss the kwoon and my training mates. I will admit that my training has been no where, where I need it to be. I have a little resemblance to the Michelin Man lol! Oh well i'll work it off and I am really looking forward to sweating and feeling the pain =)

My first day back home is this Saturday and I am going to take up Sifu's challenge of 1000 sit ups and push ups. I can't think of a better way to kick start my training.

Of note, reading Sihing's Chervenka's blog where he mentioned me and others helped motivate me to write this blog. Writing blogs helps motivate those of us that need a little extra push, thanks Sihing!

Mr. Repay
Student of Silent River Kung Fu

Evaluation

This blog is over a week old and forgot to post in on my personal blog page.

"Tomorrow is a big day for me. Tomorrow I get evaluated in the field and I am a little nervous. These past months have all about learning and getting tested and evaluated. I can tell you that I am looking forward to putting tomorrow behind me.

 I can tell you that I am getting a little tired of being evaluated every single day. However this brings into perspective my kung fu. I know one day I will be grading for my  black belt. One day I will be in front of all of those Sifu's proving to them that I am good enough to earn my black black.  Every day that I am in the kwoon training I know that I am being evaluated. I am being evaluated not only on test days or when it's time to test for a stripe or a belt but I am being evaluated every time I step on those mats. I am being evaluated by how I carry my self in the community, how I represent our school, every day is a day for evaluation.

Tomorrow is a another day, another day of evaluation. I will wake up tomorrow and embrace this opportunity."

Mr.Repay
Student of Silent River Kung Fu

Structure

I have always known that structure is important to my kung fu but also in my life.  I have struggled with implementing consistent structure in my training. I have very big highs and very big lows in my training.  Structure is a way to help smooths these highs and lows and it is something that I have started to implement this past week.  I am starting with something small and will build upon this day by day.  What is the easiest thing to do that takes very little time to do and would be an obvious starting point...?  Push up and sit ups.

I have begun to get back to building my structure by doing my daily requirement of 130 sit ups and push ups as soon as I get up in the morning.  So far I have done this for the past 4 days, incremental progression!

Ian Repay

Student of Silent River Kung Fu
Stony Plain, Alberta

Struggling...

Where to start?  Well the past four weeks have been the most intense and stressful weeks that I can ever remember.  Not only am I away from home in South Carolina, the training is something that is incredibly intense.  Recently I finished up the first phase of my training and maintained one of the highest overall averages in the class.  I am proud of that but it came at a price.

When I was home last, I was able to stop into the kwoon and made it to the I Ho Chuan meeting.  That was an amazing meeting and I was so happy to share my journey and to “re charge” after being away.  However, when I returned to SC my training there increased in intensity by almost 100%.  I wasn’t expecting this and I shed everything that would interfere with my Michelin training.  

As a result I stopped my kung fu training.  I stopped doing and recording my sit ups and push ups.  I stopped doing my forms, I stopped everything including blogging.  Blogging is the MOST important aspect of the I Ho Chuan in my mind and I stopped writing.  I have no excuses and actually I am ashamed and angry with my failure.  I had every good intention of keeping up and at the minimum maintain where I was.  I FAILED, I failed to even do the very basic of basics.  I am feeling very lonely and out of touch with my Kwoon and training mates.  I have lost that connection that to me is so important and seeing the team train and prepare for the lion/dragon dance really got me down.  Before I left I was part of the team, I was part of the demo’s and I felt like a contributing part of the team and now I feel quite the opposite. 

I am sooooo very proud of the team and all that they have done to get ready and perform today.  I have decided that I am going to start writing again and to get back to my Kung Fu training.  It is going to be a long road back to where I was before I left but I am going to start today.  I am going to start small and build upon every day. 

If I go silent, please give me a nudge!

Ian Repay

Student Of Silent River Kung Fu

Eye for detail - part 2

I wanted to write about this topic as it's very relevant to my journey.  I am currently involved in the most intense and most in depth training that I have ever experienced.  Many people have compared this level of training to an abbreviated University master program.

Due to the intensity and type of information covered the "eye for detail" is so incredibly important.  I have never been that person that has the attention span nor the desire to pay attention to the details.  However I have no other choice but to continue to work on developing it here in South Carolina.  I just took another exam and I got caught not reading some questions thoroughly and as a result I lost some points on the exam.  I am really disappointed in myself as my focus this past week is to slow down and really focus on the details.  I kind of liken this to the progression of our Kung Fu that our Sifu's talk about.  So many of us (including myself) want to go straight to the realism.  We don't take enough time to really understand the technique as we want to go and show our strength and realism.  Well this is the same thing that I am experiencing here.  I know the material that is being tested, I am just not at times having that eye for detail.  I need to continue to be mindful of my kung fu training and keep applying it to my training here.

I can say that if it were not for my level of Kung Fu training, I would have much lower scores.  My kung Fu is serving me and this has been one of those "a ha" moments again.  I am so grateful for my training and I am seeing every day how my kung fu is serving me.

Mr. Ian Repay
Student Of Silent River Kung Fu

Week one in the books

We the first week is in the books down here in SC.  What a week it has been!  Never have I ever been exposed to soooooo much information in such a short period of time.  It is an amazing the level of training that Michelin provides to the new hires in the PLNA division.  I have been on boarded a few times in my career and have on boarded many reps that I have hired.  Nothing even comes close to Michelin and the program they are putting us through.  Sure there are lots of technical aspects to learn but the other important aspect of this training is to build strong, long lasting relationships with each other.  We are all going to be going into the field when we are done and we are all going to be doing the same things.  Solid relationships will be vital when we need to lean on each other for support.  Learning to build solid genuine relationships with our team will also help us to understand the importance of building good relationships with our customers.  

On a different subject, I am really sad that I am going to be missing the boot camp this weekend.  I went last year and it was a day to remember.  It was incredibly hard but at the same time it was so rewarding.  I hope all of the students that attend the boot camp this weekend take time to enjoy the experience and take some time to reflect upon the benefits of the boot camp.

Mr. Ian Repay

Student of Silent River Kung Fu