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

Feeling my forms

I'm really starting to feel my forms.  There were parts of yesterday's class that really clicked for me.  Loa Gar and 18 Temple motions are my two favorite forms and each part is fairly effortless. 

What I felt yesterday was "next level" stuff and it was pretty exciting. While performing my forms I started to feel that things weren't quite aligned.  Things didn't quite feel right.  When this happens I stop and reflect back on the "why?".  Is it my hips?  Are the six harmonies really harmonious in this part of the form?  I also am finding that the timing of the harmonies are becoming more noticable.  This was especially apparent with 18 Temple motions.  I could tell when my hands finished before my feet and vise versa. I'm really bringing to feel the form and when the six harmonies are harmonious the form feels incredible, kind of like silk.  

More repition is needed on the forms I don't like as much especially during the transitions in certain parts of Da Mu Sing.

Overall I personally like our forms. All of the "good stuff" is packed into them.

Mr. Repay  

 

#5 Favorite part of the day

This is an easy one for me, morning and in particular early mornings between 5:30 and 6 am.  I love the quietness of the morning. I like watching the sunrise and things begin to awaken. This is something that I didn't always enjoy but as I got older it changed from later evenings to earlier mornings. 

My dad used to like early mornings and when I was younger and living at home it didn't make sense to me, now it does.

Mr. Repay

#4 Cats Vs Dogs

Dogs all the way!!!! Dogs just love you and want nothing in life but to be with you.  I never really had dogs growing up as a kid, just a cat.  I never knew the realtiobships with dogs until I met my wife who's a huge dog lover. We have five dogs and a couple of cats.  I don't personally have anything against cats but they just don't bring the same.realtionships that my dogs do.

Mr. Repay

Snails are still moving forward.

I'm happy to update that things are moving in the right direction even more this past week. With the first class back at the Kwoon under my belt things are starting to feel even more "normal" if that's even a thing anymore?  

I've been taking a slower approach to my training these past couple of weeks. I'm aware of where I failed and the causes of that failure. So to avoid falling back I've decided that in order to develope a sustainable pace I need to ease back into things. This is tough because I'm so far behind on my personal requirements every bone in my body is screaming at me to push hard and catch up. This isn't realistic nor sustainable. What I'm focusing on is moving forward, even if it's at a snails pace.  That forward progression will generate the results that I'm looking for and the pace will increase. 

I'm focusing on a couple of key areas.  Blogging, class attendance and forms.  Each one of these things are feeding my engament.  The next phase that I'll be moving into is my I Ho Chuan requirements that I've been slack on.  Most of these are additional personal requirements but would include push ups, sit ups etc. 

Just being back in the Kwoon with all of my training mates has made a world of difference to my mental health. I traveled (and have resumed recently) extensively prior to the pandemic and I've always struggled when I was away for prolonged periods of time. The virtual environment that has been created is a improvement but for me can never replace the in person experience. 

Snails pace for now but still moving in that all important forward direction.  

Mr. Repay