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.