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