Projects

I've challenged myself to two new projects this past week; one is a short-term, and one is long term.

Down over at Westview, we have a lady that absolutely loves arts and crafts.  Before she was disabled by MS and a massive stroke, she loved to make homemade cards and send them out to everyone.  Thank-you cards, birthday cards, sympathy cards, you name it.  However, her MS and the stroke she suffered caused her the loss of use of both her legs, her ability to eat, the use of her left arm, and severely impairing her right.  She is the sweetest little lady I've ever met, and her kindness and happiness touched me in a way.  So, another student and I decided to create a whole whack of blank cards for her and put them in a decorative box with her name on it; giving it to her as a parting gift before our internship ends.  I am definitely not an artistic person what so ever, but I get an overwhelming feeling of happiness when I work on this project, and I cannot wait to share pictures of it with everyone when I have completed it.

I mentioned in my last post that I've been having troubles keeping my motivation up towards my Kung Fu training lately.  So, I created another task for myself to keep me somewhat involved and experimenting with my knowledge and skills.  I've been taking the curriculum, and picking techniques (right now, it's the roundhouse kick) and looking at different things that we can do to make learning and perfecting it 'fun'.  So I've been racking my brain, and looking at past things that we have done in other classes that involve each technique and writing them all down.  Eventually, I want to be able to print off a page or two per technique that are just loaded full of drills, stations, combinations, etc. so that when you want to plan a class around a technique, you can just pop open the binder, and see a series of different ideas that could possibly be incorporated into a class setting.  It'll be the binder of creative repetition.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing really to report in the past week.  I celebrated my birthday on Saturday with plenty of family and friends; I was treated to a couple of nice dinners, and visits.    I've come to realize how grateful I am to have everyone that I do by my side throughout my life.

Work has been extremely busy.  I've been all over the hospital this week running around working in different departments.  It's quite the whirlwind.

But I love it.

I'm Still Here!

It been forever and a day since I've blogged, I know.  Bad Sifu, Bad!  But, I'm trying to get myself back into the swing of things.  I feel completely off the band wagon once school started winding up.  I completely lost my focus and it made quite the mess of things.

For the past few months, I've hit a bit of a rough spot with my training; just completely lost my motivation when it comes to actually getting my butt in gear and practicing.  I've hit ruts before, but nothing like this.  I haven't been coming to classes, and my training at home has been next to nothing.  The only bit of training I really get in is when I'm here teaching the kids classes.  However, this month I've been really keeping it in front of me that I've got to keep my Kung-Fu at its full potential to set an example for my students.  If I'm not keeping up with my curriculum, why should they?  We'll see where this takes me.  I'm taking things one step at a time for now.

I just came back from a 2 week holiday with my family.  We road tripped down to Portland, then from there drove the Oregon Coast to Lincoln City, where we got to see the Redwood forest.  This was by far my favourite leg of the trip.  I love the ocean and the peacefulness that it brings to me.  From there, we went to San Francisco for a few days, then to Vegas and back home!  It was by far one of the best family trips we've ever experiences.  My brother and I usually get along pretty good, but I feel that this trip was a real turning point in our relationship as siblings.  I think it brought us closer, and really allowed us to build trust in each other. . . I guess that's what happens when you're stuck next to each other in the car to 16 hours.

Back in May I was offered an internship at Westview Health Centre in Stony for 6 weeks in the summer.  So, that's what I've been up to!  I've been working there 5 days a week, 8 1/2 hours a day, and I love every minute of it.  So far I've spent my time down in Continuing Care, the Operating Room, as well as in the Wound Clinic.  It's an absolutely amazing experience and I'm definitely learning a lot from it.  Keeps me busy.

Watch for my blogs once a week, this is my first goal for myself to try and get over this hump that's in front of me.  I know that if I keep myself mentally involved in my training, the physical part will come with it.

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.  For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." - M. Scott Peck

Know Your Dignity.

Every year as part of the Religion courses at my school, for 3 days we have speakers come into our classes to do presentations and host discussions as part of a workshop called, "Know Your Dignity."  I look foreword to it every year because it gives us a chance to really reflect as who we are as human beings, and what our purpose is here on our lovely planet.

Today was the last day of the workshop for my World Religion 30 class, and we were split up into two groups, boys in one room with a guy named Mike from our church, and girls in the other with one of the youth coordinators, Gillian.  

In our group, we went through and discussed this blog post by Kate Connor called, "10 Things I Want To Tell Teenage Girls." And, number 10 really stuck with me, and I wanted to share it with everyone reading my blog.

10.  You are beautiful.  You are enough.  The world we live in is twisted and broken and for your entire life you will be subjected to all kinds of lies that tell you that you are not enough. 

You are not thin enough.  You are not tan enough.  You are not smooth, soft, shiny, firm, tight, fit, silky, blonde, hairless enough.  Your teeth are not white enough.  Your legs are not long enough.  Your clothes are not stylish enough.  You are not educated enough.  You don’t have enough experience.  You are not creative enough.

There is a beauty industry, a fashion industry, a television industry: and all of these have unique ways of communicating to bright young women: you are not beautiful, sexy, smart or valuable enough.

You must have the clarity and common sense to know that none of that is true. None of it.

You were created for a purpose, exactly so.  You have innate value.  You are loved more than you could ever comprehend; it is mind-boggling how much you are adored.  There has never been, and there will never be another you.  Therefore, you have unique thoughts to offer the world.  They are only yours, and we all lose out if you are too fearful to share them.

You are beautiful.  You are valuable.  You are enough.

This message is extremely powerful.  Every day, all over the world there are so many people that suffer from depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem because they feel that they are not good enough to live the lives that everyone else is living.  I know that I've found myself saying that I'm not good enough to do what I want, and it takes a lot to get yourself out of that funk.  Positive self-talk is so important.

For anyone that's interested, here's the rest of that post:

http://kateelizabethconner.com/ten-things-i-want-to-tell-teenage-girls/

And, there's another one called "Ten Things I Want To Tell Teenage Boys" if you want to check that one out too.

http://kateelizabethconner.com/dear-boys/

Bullying

Pink Shirt day was this week, to spread awareness of bullying.  This tradition started in Nova Scotia when a high school boy was picked on by his peers for wearing a pink shirt.  The next day, some of the football players at his school responded by wearing the same pink shirt the next day.  Cool right?

I've had my fair share of experience with bullying.  In grade 6, I starting getting picked on for being a 'Teachers Pet' for staying after school was done to help clean the white boards.  It seems silly to me now, but I know that back then it really hurt me.  In grade 8, I had a group of kids that I thought were my really good friends make a facebook group about me, posting things about me that weren't true, and trying to make me seem, literally, like a 'devil'.

Last year in grade 10, I was bullied even worse by a group of guys that were in my gym/science class.  They liked to mock me in the hallways and throw things at me as I walked by.  In class, they would single me out, and make extremely inappropriate comments towards me in front of my peers and teachers.  The disappointing part was, my teachers knew it was going on, and didn't do anything to stop it from happening; it started getting so bad, that I didn't want to wake up to go to school in the morning, and I would make any excuse I could think of to get out of class for extended periods of time.  But, I didn't retaliate.  I could have easily sat back and ridiculed them as hard as they ridiculed me; and there were times that I made that choice to say something back that I knew was wrong.  I didn't reach out for someone to put an end to it until these guys added me to their conversation on facebook so that I could read their conversation that completely tore me apart.

Why am I posting this on my blog?  It's not to try and gain sympathy points from everyone; yeah, this stuff was pretty bad, and I felt sorry for myself at the time, but I AM a stronger person because of what these kids did to me.  I realize that now, but there are unfortunately some individuals that are bullied 10x worse than I every have been, and they most likely will never reach out for help.  

As an instructor of the kids classes, I believe that it is important to make my story public so that maybe my students can some day read it and learn from it.  And maybe, someone will see that they can push through and find a safe-haven from bullying.  

Bullying hurts; and believe it or not, we have all been the 'big bully on the playground' at one point in our lives.  Bullying hurts, but there IS help out there to make it stop.  

This Is It!

Needless to say, I'm completely fired up for tomorrow.

I like to think of the banquet tomorrow as our final test as a team.  I think we've got everything really well organized, and the performance quality of our demo's are the highest they've ever been in my opinion.  We've all peaked at the perfect time!  Tomorrow is our 'graduation' as Sifu Brinker referred to it.  Let's all keep in mind how far we've come, the relationships we've formed, and everything that we have accomplished both individually and as a team tomorrow.

It's going to be a great night.

Sifu Wonsiak
www.kwonsiak.blogspot.com

Tai Chi

I've been thinking about writing about my Tai Chi for quite awhile now; but, every time that I sat down to write up a post, nothing I wrote down made sense.  But I think I've finally got something that somewhat lets you into my 'journey' with my Tai Chi, and how much it's benefited me.

When Sifu Edge was still here in Stony, I would snag rides to and from the studio with her all the time. And usually, I found myself sitting on the bench watching her partake in the Tai Chi class after we were done with the Tiny Tigers.  There was a few times where, Sifu Brinker would come up to me sitting on the bench and ask me why I wasn't in class.  I would always just shrug my shoulders and not say anything but the truth was, I had absolutely no interest in Tai Chi.  It seemed way too slow for me and I saw no benefit in it at all.  I liked doing my forms fast and as hard as I could, I loved swinging weapons around; to me, Tai Chi satisfied none of that.

After I got my Black Belt, my mom basically told me that I had no choice but to start doing Tai Chi.  I was reluctant, but I did it anyways.  I'm not going to lie when I say that I absolutely hated the first few months of attending classes; it was too slow, I couldn't understand how to achieve the same type of flow that everyone else had, and I looked like a robot with all of my limbs attached by strings.  I expected to walk into the class and just get it, like I did with some of my hand forms.  That clearly wasn't the case here, and it was extremely frustrating to me. 

After the first few months of frustration, and having to drag my butt out on the mats to participate, I had a 'burst of realization.'  It came one class when Sifu Dennis walked up to me, put two fingers under my chin and lifted my head up.  I was confused, but she then explained to me that in my Tai Chi and ALL of my hand forms, I sucked my chin down.  This was something that I had never realized before.  I rushed home afterwards and recorded myself doing every single form that I knew and sure enough, my chin was tucked in every single time.  After, I tried doing my Kempo, being very conscious of keeping my head up, and WOW! Did it ever make a difference.  My shoulders became relaxed, my flow from technique to technique improved, and I looked a lot more confident.  I can almost guarantee that I wouldn't have had this opportunity to discover this about my forms if it weren't for my Tai Chi.

I've now been actively participating in the Tai Chi class for 2 years now, and I know that I have just barely grasped the surface of what it can truley do for me.  I had a conversation with Sifu Brinker at the beginning of last week, and he expressed how impressed he was with how far my Tai Chi has come, and how much it has benefitted all of my forms.  I know that Tai Chi has served me exponentially, and I would recommend it to anyone that struggles with flow and unity in their Kung Fu.  I love Tai Chi class, and it's definitely one of those things that I couldn't imagine not being apart of my Kung Fu training.  Funny, considereing how reluctant I was to join. 

My Year

What has the I Ho Chuan done for me?

This is a question I find myself thinking about daily.  This year went by in a blur, it seems like yesterday we were having our first meeting and declaring our requirements, and today we're in crunch time getting ready for the banquet in two weeks.

The most difficult thing for me during my I Ho Chuan year was finding a way to make my year extraordinary for me.  I remember about 3 months into the year, sitting down with Sifu Brinker in his office explaining to him that I had already hit a road block.  I didn't feel like I was on the way to completing anything amazing.  I set goals all the time, I complete challenges that I've made for myself every single day, I'm always doing push-ups and sit-ups; my participation and commitment to the I Ho Chuan felt like I was just putting an unnecessary label on my normal routine.  This was definitely NOT what I wanted my year to be about.  I wanted it to be something that I could sit down the morning of February 16th and think, "Wow.  I really accomplished something extraordinary here.  I've changed myself."

It wasn't until a few months later that one I finally realized the one thing that I've been silently struggling with: Getting involved with the team, and taking on a leadership role for a big project.  These were two things that I wanted to change about myself by the end of the year.  Unfortunately for me, I realized that I was way too independent.  I didn't like asking others for help, and definitely didn't like having to rely on others to complete a goal.  It wasn't until I was laying in bed one night that I realized that I've always been like this; it wasn't just this year that I was finding this hard for me.  I'm that one student in school that gets put in a group for a project, and takes all the work and does it herself.  I also realized that that's why people want to be my partner so much for projects in school ;).  But, I knew that this was something I needed to change.  I pushed myself to start getting involved in group discussions on Kwoon Talk, and on the I Ho Chuan google group.  I also started to get more involved with others during our Friday class.  But, the biggest step for me was organizing the Tiger Challenge.  I'd never done anything like that before, and it took a lot of courage for me to step up and volunteer to look after the organizing of the divisions.  When I went home and told my mom what I was doing, she thought I was crazy; and so did I.  But I pushed myself through it, and I found it to be a very rewarding experience.  I had a lot of people compliment me for my work, and it really made me realize what I've pushed myself towards this year.  This was truly the highlight of my entire year.

My school work took a big hit this year.  I find that every odd year of school, I really struggle, and the first half of this year was definitely the worst.  I like to pride myself in being an honour roll student with an above 80 average in all my subjects.  But, that didn't' happen this semester.  I finished with a 72 in Physics, 74 in Math, and 83 in English.  Don't get me wrong, those are still really good marks, but I didn't reach my full potential, and I know that.  But, that's all the reason to work even harder this semester.  I did complete one of my 'sub-goals' that I set for myself after I got my first English essay mark of 75% at the beginning of the year; I wanted to work hard so that when I write my final essay, I'm able to get above an 80%.  I got my final essay mark back yesterday from my teacher: 92%, highest mark in the class.  It's amazing what a little extra effort, and some extra help can do.  I took a 30-1 course in Bio this term, which means that I write one of my diplomas.  Scary.

That's all I have to say for today, I'll be back next week.

What A Blur.

These past few weeks have been absolute mayhem for me, and it's not about to get any more relaxing haha! 

I had a very good Christmas Break.  I got to go up to Saskatoon and spend time with my whole extended family; including my two brand new baby cousins =)  I'm a family person, and I've always been.  There is nothing that I find more satisfying than being around everyone.  Both my mom and dad's side of the family are extremely close; even if there are a lot of us.  I'm the happiest when I'm with them.  But most of all,  Christmas gave me a lot of time to reflect on how lucky I am to have such a close family, and so many people by my side supporting me.  Sometimes I take it foregranted, so I took the time to really count my blessings and be thankful for everything that I have. 

But, now it's back to the grind.  The next month is going to be super busy with final exams, and everything going on at the studio right now.  Plus, I had my first assesment for my back at the physiotherapy clinic in Spruce Grove; turns out my hips are uneven and my joints wont compress properly, which explains all of the pain I've been having.  I'm supposed to be going twice a week for 3 weeks, which should fix the problem. 

During the last I Ho Chuan meeting, Sifu Brinker told us to reflect on what we have gotten out of our experiences this past year.  I've been thinking a lot about lately, and have started writing it down in my journal.  Once I get everything down that I have to say, I'll be posting it on my blog.

Until next time,
Sifu Wonsiak

An Apology

I'd like to post a public apology to everyone, not only tho apart of the I Ho Chaun, but the entire school for my absence in my blog posts this past month.  I find that every year I struggle with the month of school leading up to Christmas because of the intense workload our teachers put on us; and my grades have been suffering.  I am in no way making up excuses, or trying to point out why it's okay that I haven't been slogging, because it's not.  This isn't the first time I've done this, but it will certainly be the last.

I apologize for leaving everyone hanging, and I will be posting a proper blog post tonight after all of my homework is done :)

Sifu Wonsiak 

Campaign For Peace

At my school, in preparation for remembrance day, we decided to initiate a week long 'campaign for peace.'  We started off with one of our teachers going around the school at lunch time, and snapping pictures of students making a peace sign, and then uploading them on our website.  (My friend and I made it... that's where I got the picture from.) 

Then, on Friday, everyone in the school was encouraged to wear a white shirt, or white pants; emphasizing our commitment to peace.

Our remembrance day ceremony was quite emotional, and we were confronted a lot with the question, "what does peace mean to you?"

So, I encourage everyone this rememberance day to think about what peace means to you.  I'm going to be blogging about what I've come up with next week sometime.  

The following poem is one that one of our drama classes performed at the ceremony, and I find it to be a very moving poem that I thought I'd share.  The performance done by the class was breath taking, and moved a lot of us to tears; including me. 

The Final Inspection
The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To my Church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his soldiers and said,
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills just got too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."

There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgement of his God.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."

Hello...

Alright, I know this blog post is late.

Last week was a pretty stressful week; my mom had eye surgery and was in recovery mode.  She had to keep her head down, parallel to the floor, 24hrs a day for 7 days with a 10 minute break every hour.  Needless to say, it was pretty hard on her.  But all is well now, and we're just waiting to see if the hole is gone in her vision.  I'm crossing my fingers.

I had the privilege of teaching at the forms seminar this weekend, and it was amazing!  The main reason I love helping someone else with their forms, is that I'm able to find and fix a lot of flaws that I have in my forms.  My favourite aspect of Kung Fu is our forms, and I love any opportunity that comes along to help someone else develop the same love for them that I have.   

I'd like to write more, but my next class starts in 5 minutes and I should probably be on time for that. =)

Until next time...

It's Still Dragging On...

(The picture is me as of yesterday night... still slightly chipmunk-ish.  But so much better than all the other days.  A picture is worth a thousand words right? )

Well, its day 4 after getting my wisdom teeth out and I'm still blown up like a balloon, but on the bright side . . . the swelling has finally started to go down.  Turns out I'm a huge wimp when it comes to stuff like this, so I'm not going into classes tonight at Kung Fu; I figured that I'd give myself another night of solid rest so that I can be back up on my feet for school tomorrow, and Kung Fu the rest of the week.

I'm getting quite anxious to go back to the studio.  I'm bummed out that I missed the demo on Saturday, but everyone looked fantastic!  I'm proud of my teammates.  You guys really came together and pulled off a spectacular demo.  Congratulations guys =)

Not Much To Say

Midterms in school are coming up in around three weeks and that's taking up a lot of my time.

I'm missing the demo this weekend because of my wisdom teeth... I feel like I'm letting down the team by not being there, I'm sorry guys! =(

Went to the doctor about my back today, sent me for an x-ray and got told to stop doing crunches and sit-ups... looks like i'll be substituting other exercises in the next few days.

What A Week.

This has been a pretty stressful week to say the least.  On Tuesday, my mom had to have emergency laser eye surgery on her left eye; they found two holes and a tear on her retina, so that had to be fixed.  She lost some vision at the bottom of her eye, but thankfully she's okay now.  I'm quickly blogging before we leave to head out for Saskatoon for thanksgiving, and my grandmas 90th birthday! 

At the beginning of the week, I had posted a challenge for everyone to blog about two of their requirements from the I Ho Chuan; one personal, and one "pre-set" requirement.  For my 'pre-set' requirement, I chose 'participate and organize all SRKF events.'  This has been my favorite requirement so far.  I remember a couple weeks ago when, in his video blog, Sihing Robinson had said that he wanted to start to get to know the members of the I Ho Chuan outside of formal training in Kung Fu.  To me, this requirement helps me to become more acquainted with other members of the team on more of a personal level.  It also makes me feel more apart of a 'second family' then a team.  The teamwork that this requirement entails has really helped me to enjoy my experience as a Silent River Kung Fu student, and an I Ho Chuan team member.

For my personal requirement, I chose 1000 repetitions of my Tai Chi form.  This year for all of my forms, I decided to focus on my slower, more tai-chi like forms; including my 18 Temple Motions.  I feel that these are the forms that I struggle the most with.  My mom had to force me into going to my first Tai Chi class... I did not want to do it.  But after a few sessions, it grew on me, and I noticed the benefits that it had for all of my forms.  The biggest thing was that I always had my chin down while I did my forms.  Tai Chi helped me fix that, and now I find that I have way better flow in all of my other forms.  I recommend that anyone struggling with their 'harder' hand forms take Tai Chi.  It's going to be frustrating at first, trust me, but there are so many benefits that will only serve you in the long run.  I wish that I hadn't waited to long to start taking it =)

I'm being called to run out the door now, so unfortunately, this is all I had time to write.  I encourage those of you who haven't done the challenge yet to do it, you'll be surprised what you discover about the personal benefits that you discover about each of your requirements. 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone =)

Apology

I'd like to apologize to everyone reading my blog.
There is a requirement in the I Ho Chuan that you must blog every week.  I have not failed that requirement, but I've had pointed out to me that for around 3 months, I did not copy my weekly blog posts to this blog, I was only posting them on the I Ho Chuan team blog. 

I will be back dating these missed posts throughout the week.

My Experience

I've been wanting to blog about my whole experience in the I Ho Chuan for quite awhile now, but I've never really been able to put it into words, until around 10 minutes ago when the light bulb went off in my head somewhere in between question 5 and 6 of my math homework ;)

Every two weeks, I like to sit down in a quiet place with my kung fu binder, and go through all of my requirements that I have to complete by the end of the UBBT.  I like to see where I'm at with my numbers, but I also like to remind myself why each requirement is there, and what it does to help me not only successfully complete my year in the I Ho Chuan, but also how it helps me to become a better martial artist.  I find that this has been my key to keeping me engaged despite all of the distractions that I have around me. 

The last time that I had sat down and looked at my requirements and numbers was the evening after we had our September meeting.  I found myself to be caught up, if not ahead on all of my requirements; I had exceeded the goal that I had set for myself at the beginning of the year for where I needed to be in September.  I should've been thrilled about this right? But I wasn't; I was actually disappointment at the lack-of excitement and accomplishment that I was feeling at that particular time. 

This concerned me, and it took a little but of thinking time, and a meeting with Sifu Brinker to understand why I was feeling this way. 

I'm a very goal orientated person; I've been setting goals for myself for as long as I can remember.  So, setting goals, to achieve my requirements isn't that much of a challenge for me.  Yes, sometimes it is difficult to find time to do my Kung Fu, and I have missed days before, but catching up is not something that I find so difficult to do.

I don't exactly know where I'm going with this, but I know that to successfully complete a year in the I Ho Chuan is extraordinary.  But right now, I don't feel like I've accomplished anything fantastic.  Sifu Brinker helped me to realize that I need to do something extraordinary.  Something that will not only leave an impact on me, but on the rest of the school as well.  I want to make my experience in the I Ho Chuan a defining moment in my entire Kung Fu 'career'.  I don't quite know what that is yet though.  I've been putting a lot of thought into it, and hopefully the idea will come to me soon. 

That's just where my head is right now =)

What A Week!!

It has definitely been quite the week. 

    School is here in two days... TWO DAYS!? Where has all of the time gone?  I cannot believe that we are in September already; it seems to me like I just wrote my final exams of grade 10, and now I'm going into grade 11.   I'm full of mixed emotions; I'm happy to be going back and seeing everyone that I haven't over the summer, but I know that I really have to step up my game as far as academics goes this year.  I'll be able to apply for university next year in November, which means that they won't just use my midterm marks from grade 12, but they will also use my grade 11 marks.

    I only got the chance to make it to Reno's two days this week, but I loved every minute of it.  To me, the annual renovations are my way to make a connection with everyone that comes into the studio at the same time as me to help.  But, I also feel a whole connection with the entire school.  It's one thing walking into the studio after a 'week off' and saying, "Oh wow! The studio looks awesome! Everyone did a really good job." But to actually go in, and put the time and the effort to make your studio look good; there's not a more satisfying feeling. 

Countdown

I wan't to blog about the renovations, and how much they influence my Kung Fu, but I can't put it into words quite yet.  It just sounds like a pile of rubbish.

Keep your eye out for that post soon.

Countdown to school: 6 days

Intensity

Sifu Kichko has been spending a lot of time with me, helping me finish learning the fourth part of the tai chi form. I just wanted to start off with that. Thanks Sifu :) 

Lately, Sifu Brinker has been talking to us a lot about intensity. This is a portion of my kung fu that I really struggle to keep constant, if that makes any sense at all. My ability to "channel my intensity" depends on what I'm doing. Which is something that I'd like to even out. I'd eventually like to know that I'm able to have the same amount of intensity in everything that I'm doing.

I love my forms. Out of everything that I do in Kung fu, they're my favorite. Of course, there are many things that I need to work on in them, but I'd like to think that whenever I go through one of my forms, that my intensity is peaking. Lately, I've been trying to focus on channelling that intensity Into other aspects of my Kung fu, like doing techniques with a partner and sparring. These are two areas that I defiantly lack confidence in, therefore, my ability to remain intense goes out the window. 

This is something that I've been working on over that past couple of months, and I really feel that I've made a lot of progress. I've found that I've started to doubt myself less, and I've noticed that the quality of my techniques has improved. 

I'm a long way from achieving my desired goal as far as intensity goes, but I'm getting there. I really need to stop questioning myself and "go with the flow." I'm going to make mistakes, but that's the best way to learn. I know that once I start to increase my self-confidence, my intensity will increase. It's just a matter of putting in the time and effort.