Numbers Update

We are almost halfway through the I Ho Chuan year so I thought I'd look at my numbers and see where I'm at:

	Completed	Remaining
Push Ups	4345	45655
Sit Ups	4945	45055
KM	34	1575
Da Mu Hsing Reps	264	736
Kicks	7330	17670
Acts of Kindness	82	918

If you look at the numbers, it's obvious that I'm way behind and it doesn't look like I'm in a very good place. But if I analyze the numbers a little bit, it reveals a different story.


I'm splitting my numbers up into two phases: "Prior to June 23", and "June 23 and Onward". June 23 was the day that some of us started posting our numbers publicly on the UBBT Google Group.


This is the breakdown:

Prior to June 23	142 days	Avg/ Day
Push Ups	4240
Sit Ups	2470	17.4
KM	34
Da Mu Hsing Reps	183	1.3
Kicks	4700	33.1
Acts of Kindness	28	0.2

June 23 onward	36 days	Avg/ Day
Push Ups	105
Sit Ups	2475	68.8
KM	0
Da Mu Hsing Reps	81	2.3
Kicks	2630	73.1
Acts of Kindness	54	1.5

A couple of things to note - my shoulder injury has prevented me from doing pushups on a regular basis. Also, I clearly need to focus more on my KM.


My takeaway from this is that the benefit of training publicly can't be overstated. As soon as I started posting my numbers daily and creating that accountability, my numbers starting shooting up. I feel like things are starting to click for me. Two important concepts of the I Ho Chuan: Incremental Progress and Training Publicly now make sense to me and I am reaping the benefits of both. I obviously have a long way to go but I feel like I have a system that is working for me. All it's going to take is continued effort and some tweaking here and there. Thanks to everyone that continues to help me by posting their numbers daily.

The Weekend

The weekend was a good one.


I wasn't feeling well on Friday night so I watched from the sidelines while the team worked on Lion Dancing. One of the thoughts I had while watching was how funny it was that I was watching a group of grown adults dance around in lion costumes on a Friday night. Watching the team lion dance really gives you a sense of the teamwork that I feel we have. I know that there are other, more experienced, team members that feel our team is falling short, which we may well be, but the team that was present on Friday night was engaged and having fun together and it was inspiring to watch.


Saturday was Boot Camp. Between my shoulder injury and the onset of illness later in the day, I didn't participate 100%, but I had an amazing day nonetheless. We started off with a walk and I never realized how hard it is to quiet your mind. As we walked around the school grounds I found that my mind would wander every time I brought it back to focus on my breathing. It was cool how relaxed everyone was after the walk and even Sifu Brinker's normally loud voice was lower and more calm.


The fitness class put on by Sifu Lindstrom was tough and I wasn't able to do everything because of my shoulder but as of today I'm still having problems walking, so I obviously did a good job pushing myself. I already knew it, but it reinforced the fact that I'm not fit enough.


The seminar taught my Sifu Hayes taught us some moves with the cane. I felt like I picked it up reasonably quick, at least compared to how slowly I learn other things. Maybe weapons are something I will be good at.


I didn't attend any other seminars due to illness and I ended up going home early. Regardless, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. It was great to train with such a mixed group of people and it was nice to see some Sifus in a more relaxed setting. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Effortless effort

My goal today was to complete all my training/requirements without actually setting aside any time to do so. I wanted to go about my day as usual and just fit my training in wherever I could. Having been at the I Ho Chuan for over six months now, it's sad for me to say that today was the first time that I have actually tried this. 

I discovered two things with this approach:
1) Mentally, it's a lot easier to train this way. I never really felt like I was actually training. Doing 20 kicks here and 30 situps there never really made me feel burdened. Also, I don't have to adjust my lifestyle as much as I thought to get in all my requirements. Fitting them in here and there lets you make use of time that would have otherwise been wasted and they're not a hindrance to the rest of my daily activities.
2) I waste a lot of time.

One thing I should add is that, being a Sunday, I had a whole day off to complete my requirements and I didn't have a whole lot going on to begin with. Doing this on a weekday would be different as I would have 8 or more hours at work and I'm a lot more limited with what I can do at work versus what I can do at home. Still, the principle is the same. 

To a lot of you, this is probably old news, especially if you've been in the I Ho Chuan before. But I'm really happy with the way that today went for me. My numbers were good and hopefully I can build on this to work on changing my habits so that this type of day is the rule and not the exception.

Strength vs. Bulk

In tonight's class Sifu Brinker was talking briefly about strength vs. bulk as it relates to our bodies and our training. We want to train for strength, not bulk. We want to be strong but we don't want to add additional bulk. This is something that I have pondered a lot ever since I started at SRKF. I have trained with weights for many years and my goal has always been size and strength. I am not a big person naturally and I am proud of all the work that I have put in at the gym over the years. But over the last year it has become apparent that I would have to change the way I train if I want to excel in kung fu. 

I have already made changes to my workouts, some of them as a result of my shoulder injury, but others were a result of not wanting to be crippled by muscle soreness for the days following a heavy leg workout. The problem I have now is that I have changed my routines but my DOMS (delaed onset muscle soreness) still affect my kung fu. Tonight was a great example. My legs were sore and tired from yesterday and we had a pretty leg-intensive class; lots of horse stance and jumping. I had a pretty tough time with it. 

I am not ready to give up weight training and I am not sure if I can maintain the muscle mass I have now if I train lighter. I don't feel big and bulky and I am happy with the size I am now; I don;t want to get any bigger or smaller. I will continue to try and alter my workouts to try and minimize the impact they have on my kung fu. I'm really hoping I don't have to choose between the two.

Tonight's Class

I had a really good class tonight so I thought I'd write about it while it's still fresh in my mind. This is something that I wasn't doing before so when I'd think back, I'd think that I didn't have any positive experiences. 

What made tonight a good class wasn't that I did well. I struggled through parts of it, although there were a few things that I wasn't too bad at. What made the class good was my attitude. I asked for help and I tried to slow things down so I could concentrate on correct form. This is not easy to do when the heavy bags come out. Especially for a guy. All you want to do is hit it hard. But I resisted and I did feel like I made a bit of progress. Sifu Brinker also had some great things to say that really made sense to me, even if executing correctly is still quite challenging. 

It was also nice to have Sihing Chervenka pull me aside and let me know that I've been doing well. It's nice to have your hard work noticed and it confirms that I'm on the right track. The bottom line for me is that the quality of my experience in class has only changed because of my attitude. I'm not suddenly a more skilled student. I'm the same as I was before.  And I'm happy to have some positive journal entries to look back on instead of just the bad ones.

Revelation

I think I have finally realized why Kung Fu has been such a struggle for me. I was practicing combinations this morning and I was able to look at some of my punches in the mirror and what I noticed is that my whole body is turning. My punch is straight but my hips are pointed to the left.

Little things like this plague me at every turn but what I never thought about before now is that I am literally having to retrain my entire body. My center, my posture, my balance; almost everything I do needs to be retrained. This is not a quick or easy process. It's not easy to break 39 years of habits.

I guess the first step to correcting a problem is identifying the problem in the first place. That's the easy part. But at least I can try to stop beating my self up for not progressing. It's not that I'm a slow learner, it's that I'm an older student that has more years of bad habits to break and the only way I'm going to do that is consistent practice and a positive attitude.

Learning the Hard Way

I learned a valuable lesson last night when I got my form stripe. 

I had previously been very hard on myself for not progressing. I kept focusing on the fact that I was not making progress alongside my classmates. In reality I shouldn't have expected to keep up when I had missed so much class. My classmates were able to do their forms and receive constant corrections and feedback. Because I wasn't in class, I was doing all my work at home and, without correction, I had developed some bad habits. Once I returned to class, Sifu Player corrected me and I tried to apply those corrections. A few weeks later and the effort has paid off.

It's a constant struggle for me to give myself credit. I only see where I need to improve. Many people have been telling me this over the last few weeks. If you've tracked me down to speak with me or if you've commented on my blog, I was hearing you, but I guess I wasn't really listening. I'm very stubborn by nature and I learn EVERYTHING the hard way.

Hopefully this journal entry will act as a reminder the next time I start getting down on myself.

Acts of Kindness

I had been trying to think of something positive to post about instead of the negativity of some of my recent posts. The only thing I could think of is that I've been enjoying the way we've been posting our numbers publicly over the last week or so. I have been more focused on getting in my acts of kindness and I've noticed that I am subconsciously looking for ways to be kind. When I'm in my car, I catch myself thinking about letting other vehicles in front of me, and this morning, when I was at the sink at work, I almost washed out a bunch of cups that weren't mine. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I normally wouldn't even think about it; I would just walk away. Maybe next time I'll actually wash them.