Changing Things Up

Today I felt like I needed to change things up. I had been feeling like things were lacking for me physically. My diet hasn't been very good over the last three weeks or so and I've been feeling lethargic with my training, as well as with gym workouts.

My past experience at the gym has taught me that breaking out of a rut can usually be done with something as simple as trying new exercises or changing the music on your iPod (for those of us that use technologically superior Apple products). I applied a similar approach today and had good results.

Doing my forms with footwork only really helped me feel my stances. Dropping down into a bow stance really made me aware that my flexibility has improved and my bow stance felt lower and stronger. I was also more aware of how poor footwork messed up my power vector.

When I was doing crunches I tried to slow down and feel them more than usual and I found that it was a lot harder to do them this way. It's easy for me to let quality slip sometimes when I focus on quantity so this was a good reminder for a lesson that I had already learned.

Post Holiday Update

The Christmas break was great for me. I caught up with friends and family and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also pretty much completely neglected Kung Fu. The great thing is that I don't feel guilty about it but instead I feel refreshed and ready to go. On second thought, maybe it's not correct to say that I neglected Kung Fu because, while it's true that I didn't do much in the way of training, I still continued with acts of kindness. I also pushed myself out of my comfort zone a couple of times over the holidays and kept up with my stretching routine. These things helped me keep a certain level of engagement while getting a break at the same time. 

A Hard Lesson Learned

I was in a fender bender on Sunday and while I was 100% not at fault legally, I can't help but think I was still responsible. I was going northbound on Jennifer Heil Way when another driver turned left out of the Superstore parking lot and hit me. He clearly didn't look before he turned as I would have been easy to spot since I was driving straight toward him. I saw that he was inching out and he had even started to block one lane of oncoming traffic. 

I could have stopped even though he absolutely did not have the right of way but instead I slowed down a bit and kept driving,  assuming that he saw me and was not going to proceed with his turn. He didn't hit me that hard as neither of us were going very fast and nobody was hurt. 

My vehicle has a good amount of cosmetic damage and the other driver had insurance so, in the end, this is all just a big inconvenience. However, the lesson is not lost on me. Last night in class we were talking abut how out style of kung fu is a defensive style and that discussion seemed prudent, given the recent circumstances. It would be easy for me to take no responsibility in my accident as the law says I was not at fault whatsoever. The other driver made an illegal left turn and struck my vehicle. 

But could I have prevented the accident? I believe so. I wasn't speeding and I was driving within the law but I wasn't driving defensively. Upon seeing that the other driver was inching into traffic and recognizing that he was oblivious to the other vehicles around him, I should have acted defensively and yielded. My ego would have suffered for a moment but my vehicle would have emerged unscathed.

Yellow Belt

I received my promotion last night and, after some reflection, I've decided that it feels good. I have to admit that, at first, the only thing I felt was disappointment in myself for not getting it sooner. I have failed to take advantage of a lot of opportunities over the last year in the form of missed classes and not going to open training. But then I realized that the path I took was the one that I chose and the amount of time I put in was exactly what I was able to commit to at that point in time. 

One of the things that I still struggle with is not comparing myself with others. When I was at open training last Saturday I noticed that the people that were there are the same people that are progressing fairly quickly, which, obviously, makes a lot of sense. If I want to progress faster, I have to put in more time; I can't complain to myself for not moving forward if I'm not doing that. 

The point of this is that I realized that I achieved my promotion at exactly the time I was supposed to. While I think it's healthy to always want to do better, you have to be able to appreciate how far you've come and I think I do.

AHA!

I just had a light bulb go off so I wanted to get it down while it's still in my head. I'm looking at things from the wrong angle. I need to change my point of view and look at this as an opportunity. This is a chance for me to push myself and see what I can do. Working toward a goal should be inspiring and enjoyable, not disheartening.

That's better.

Mixed Feelings

Tonight's class was awesome and frustrating at the same time. I was reviewing the curriculum with Sifu Freitag working toward grading for my yellow belt. I received some much needed corrections in a lot of areas. It was really great to get some one on one instruction and I feel like I covered a lot and I will be able to make the improvement needed.

The frustrating part is that I feel like I've put in so much time and effort and I still have so much to work on. And this is just my first belt. It's only going to get more difficult from here. I know I can always do more but it's not like I'm not training. I put in practice of some kind pretty much every day. I know that the biggest problem is that because of my job my attendance in class is not consistent and therefore I can't get the corrections that I need sooner. I reinforce incorrect technique and now I have to fix it.

I feel like my goal to get my yellow belt by Christmas is in jeopardy. The positive is that I am off work for a month now so I can practice all I want. I told Sifu Freitag I would be ready to grade on the 22nd but I don't know if that's realistic based on where I am at right now. I hope it is.

Self-Awareness

I've noticed over the last few days that one of the keys to success for me is self-awareness. The more that I train, the more a technique or pattern of thought becomes closer to becoming second nature. I want everything to become automatic so that I don't have to think about doing something; I just do it. Until I get to that point, however, I need to be consciously aware of what I'm doing.

Case in point -  today I had a pretty good day for kindnesses. I said hello to a lot of different people, which I don't always do. The difference today was that I was trying hard to find opportunities to be friendly. I was looking people in the eye and saying hello wherever I could. Most other days I don't really think about doing this and it's not automatic yet. Despite the progress I've made on this front, I still have to be aware of what I'm doing and what I'm trying to accomplish.

This applies to other aspects of my training as well. If I do my forms without concentrating on my stances, my footwork is poor. If I practice roundhouse kicks without concentrating on where my knee is pointing, my kicks will be poor. This probably sounds pretty obvious to most people reading this but it's important for me because I feel like with all the reps I've done as part of the I Ho Chuan, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of what I'm trying to do and instead get caught up in the raw numbers. Quantity is important but so is quality and I find it difficult to achieve consistent quality in my training if I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. This all comes down to self-awareness.