I am alive

I can feel the warmth of the spring sun on my face.

The gentle breeze across my cheeks.

In the distance I hear geese making thier arrival known.

The woodpecker looking for a late breakfast.

I hear the rustling of last year's grass and leaves in the breeze.

I feel alive

My friend you can't feel any of these things but,

Your all of these things around me.

I am alive. 

Mr. Repay

I am blessed

 True friendship is something that's hard and takes work but when the relationship is at that level it is something truly special.  I choose to be friendly with a lot of people but I carefully choose who I let in.  True friend ship is something that doesn't require anything from the other person.  In fact I would say that true friendship is more giving than receiving.  

I had a great conversation with my friend Tim this morning.  We've gotten to know each other through work and have known each other for almost five years.  Tim's a person who's very genuine and our conversations and time spent with each other is effortless.  The last time we spoke with each other was at the world junior championships before they got shut down because of Covid.  Those couple of days where spent watching some great hockey but we spent more time just talking about our families, life and just anything that came to mind.  The conversations we have together are often deeper than we realize but the way we have them is so effortless.  We don't judge each other's views we just listen to each other and enjoy the differences.  

What I value the most about our friendship is how we lift each other up and most of the time we don't even know were doing it.  We have this way of talking and sharing with each other things that are important in our lives.  So many times the same things are relevant in my life so to be able to share them and understand the impacts to our lives is incredible.  

I am blessed to have friends in my life like Tim.

Mr, Ian Repay

Struggling but not hiding

 Only a few weeks in and things have started to get a little off of the path.  It's been tough to keep a routine in place because I'm traveling every single week.  I would thought that by now I'd have figured out a routine as my job hasn't really changed for years.  However I've come to terms with my self that I'm not a creature of routine, its not in my DNA.  What I'm doing now is taking advantage of small windows of opportunity.  I'm at my best when I squeeze in a few minutes of training between meetings, pushup and sit ups after breakfast and before my next coffee (BTW I'm a HUGE espresso fan).  I used to get upset with myself for not "scheduling" my training for a set time of the day like early mornings.  I found that this would work for a while then when I wasn't able to get to this time it was especially de motivating.  

Coming to this realization helped me to smooth out the "ups and downs" and realize that any amount of training is still training.  In my business world I have the perfect mix of structure and randomness.  This is who I am and this is what works for me.  

I used to get envious of people that had structure in their lives.  It must be so much easier for them to accomplish their goals, on the surface it seemed effortless.  I've come to realize that what's on the surface can be very different to what's bubbling underneath.  It's easy to get caught up comparing myself to these kinds of people and then trying to change who I am.  I won't do that anymore because that's not who I am and it almost derailed my entire Kung Fu life last year.  I got caught up in comparing myself to others and when I felt that I wasn't measuring up I retreated and retreated and retreated.  I retreated so far the I was a breath away from pulling the pin and giving up for good.

So here I am, less than a month into the year of the Tiger and I'm struggling.  I'm behind on some of my requirements and to be honest I'm behind on most of them.  BUT I'm not comparing my progress with anyone else's.  This is my journey and I'm not going to hide under that glass rock.  I'm going to admit when I'm struggling.  I'm going to struggle and I'm going to fail but I'm not going to let those struggles and failures de rail the real progress that I'm making this year.  I'm still moving forward and the best part is, I'm having fun doing it.

Mr. Repay

What's my intent?

 '

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and my wife and I were just talking about this.  Tensions are high right across the country with the protesting at the boarder crossings and in Ottawa.  I can see things coming to a head and I'm concerned with the outcome.  

My wife and I started to talk about the outcomes of the protesters.  We talked a lot about them, what they're doing, their families, their livelihoods and the repercussions that some of them will feel as a result of their actions.

This brings me to intent.  What was their intent?  Was it to freely express their views as I think a majority of them did.  Did the intent change from day one to today?  It's important to reflect back on this question as I'm curious if it's changed over the course of two weeks?

When I think about intent personally I sometimes need to take a step back and really think about it.  Sometimes it's easy to see but many times it isn't.  I further reflect on my intent and what it's serving?  Is it serving my ego or it serving something else?  In the past my ego drove my intent, 100% of the time.  Today my ego is still there but because of my training I can see it at work.  I can see it manifest it's self way quicker than I could in the past.  I'm not blind to it and it's not controlling me like it used to.  

My training at SRKF has taught me to ask the question "what's my intent?" and it's impact on me is far greater than my physical Kung Fu.  It's become part of me, part of my personality and I couldn't be more grateful.

Mr. Repay

Engaging my hips

I've really started to focus on releasing my hip and then engaging my hips with my shoulders.  What I've noticed was the huge disconnect in my Kung Fu especially when it came to generating power.  At this point in my Kung Fu I know my forms and the moves within them. What I was doing and what I'm working on is engaging my hips in conjunction with my shoulders. I've noticed a big difference in my Kung Fu.  I'm starting to feel more consistently the "push and the pull" and last night's class was very important to my progression.  I really enjoyed how Sifu Ryback used Loa Gar and the double wrist escapes to try to teach us this with out telling us exactly that. 

When I'm doing 18 Temple Motions I'm really focusing on my hips and shoulders.  Am I connecting them to my form?  I'm thinking about each movement in the form and asking myself "am I engaging my hip and connecting my shoulders?". Sometimes is easy to see the opportunity but sometimes it's very subtle.  

I'm really enjoying my training and when I uncover these nugest of gold it motivates me to want more. 

Mr. Repay

Eyes on the road

I’m a huge racing fan and through the career I’ve chosen, I’ve been lucky enough to get some time on racetracks and learn the very basics of driving a race car.  The very first lesson I was taught happened well before I was behind the wheel.  I was told by my instructor that safety was above all else.  That kind of goes without saying but when you flying down the race track as high speeds your not really thinking that much, your more reacting to the situation.  

When my instructor started teaching me about safety he talked A LOT about where I should be looking.  He said if you look where you want to go, you’ll go there.  Sounds simple enough but then he added on.  If your looking just in front of your car your not going to be able to see the cars that are a few lengths in front of me nor am I able to see the upcoming corner.  That corner comes up so quickly and if you want to get around it safely and with speed you need to see it coming, place the car where it needs to be, brake and downshift then hit the apex. If you do all of these things correctly you’ll hit the apex and carry the speed out of the corner.  

If I move my eyes too far down the track how can that be a bad thing?  I’m looking far down the track too see how far the next car is in front of me, I’m looking to position my car where it needs to be in two turns down the track.  Doesn’t seem like a bad idea right?  Nope not the best either.  If I’m constantly looking that far ahead I’m missing the small details in the track that are right in front of me.  Missing these small details will scrub speed off of my car and ultimately slow me down and or I’ll miss the corner and off the track goes my car.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about racing and how it relates to my Kung Fu.  I believe they’re almost identical in how I approach my vision to my training and the track.  I have a set of goals and promises that I made at the start of this year.  These are the same as looking down the track with the right amount of vision.  They’re in front of me but they aren’t too far away as I’ve broken down the requirements into daily goals.  If I looked at the 50,000 push up target as one big number that would be like looking at turn nine when I’m turning into turn two.  Now if I focus only on push ups and sit ups and nothing else then I’ll make that turn but I’m missing what’s ahead of me because I’m so focused on that micro target.  I’d be happy that I made the number at the end of the year but I was so slow that I didn’t finish the race.

There is balance to my training this year.  I have my promises and they are in front of me.  Not too close that I can’t see anything else but far enough a way that I can make the corner, carry the speed and set myself up for the next.  

Mr. Repay

I don't want to train, I train.

This is something I've heard over and over for a very long time but before I got to the parking lot I started to forget about it. It's a simple concept that I've only started to put into practise. 

I will grade for my black belt this year.  

I will not be able to do that if I don't start to control my training. I can't rely on talent alone of which my Kung Fu skills are no where near being good enough anyway. 

I must accept that I need to apply myself to train in a way that's sustainable daily.  This morning I most certainly didn't want to train. However there was something nagging at me in the back my brain.  Something that kept getting louder and louder so that I couldn't ignore it anymore. It was the promise I made to myself, that promise of mastery. Down I went into my training hall and started to train.  Slowly at first, just swinging my stick and loosening up.  Things started to feel better, looser and then they felt great!  I did what I needed to do, more because I want to live up to that promise I made to myself than anything else.  

Mr. Repay