My Journal On Mastery

My Martial Arts School Website: silentriverkungfu.ca

[letstalkkungfu]

2021 Is Gone

It’s that time again. The blog after a long hiatus, an un-excused hiatus. My last journal entry was sometime shortly after the tiger challenge so around 6-7 months ago.

There is no beating around the bush on this one. I went absent for half a year and not just from the I Ho Chuan but from all classes. I’m not to sure what led to that in the first place but just like with blogging, once you stop it just gets harder to start again the longer you are gone. My best guess as to why I went absent was for some kind of mental break or stress relief or something. Instead, the guilt of my absence was staring me in the face each day I was gone so really I was just trapping myself. Chinese New Year is fast approaching and with it the end of the year of the ox. At this point it’s hard not to feel like the guy who takes credit for a group project when he only did 10% of the work. Guess I’ll take credit for that 10%.

Just the other day we had our private black belt ceremony and although the focus wasn’t for me it was still special. Last year we had no choice but to do it online so it was a vastly different experience than in person and really it was my first time getting the proper experience. It was very refreshing to see everyone after being absent for so long and they were glad to see me. I’ve freshened up my forms in preparation for tonight’s I Ho Chuan class as I haven’t had mine recorded yet, (part of that 10% from earlier) and I look forward to seeing you, the rest of the team in tonight’s formal class.

[letstalkkungfu]

All The Forms

FORMS! After staring at my phone for an hour trying to come up with an opening sentence, yelling the intended topic first seemed far simply. Creating two forms simultaneously has been a brain raking process. After working on one form for a time until satisfactory progress has been made, then switching to the other to only find similarities between the two. That’s only natural as they are being made at the same time and by the same person, but to have an entire segment be almost identical is kinda annoying. At the same time, I’ve been learning Mlun Kwoon(not 100% sure how that’s spelled) and other black belt concepts. It’s not a bad thing to incorporate those things into the forms but the goal is still two unique forms.

[letstalkkungfu]

Missing Out

Up until a few days ago I was all set for the tiger challenge. Just yesterday though I was informed that I can’t take this Saturday off. Our storage facilities are overflowing from donations that need to be moved and sorted. My co worker is partially disabled and can’t handle heavy loads for long periods of time so I can’t leave everything to him. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to keep to this requirement. I still have one last grand champion title to win, the Black Belt Grand Champion. I first got children’s grand champ in 2007, then teen adult grand champ 10 years later in 2017, so hopefully I can complete the collection before 2027. It could very well take longer, many of the black belts I need to compete against have been black belts longer than I’ve been in the school. Still, failure means there’s something to learn and improve upon.

[letstalkkungfu]

Employed Again!

Guess who’s no longer a detriment to society! Oh right, it’s me. I started work this week at the Stony Plain Thrift Store as general muscle. So far my task as been to collect donations and move them to the sorting shed. There they get sorted into what can be sold in the store, what gets passed on to charity, and what is recyclable or garbage. When everything is finished being sorted I move everything to where it’s supposed to go. A tedious task but a easy one of which I enjoy. I also get more opportunities to do acts of kindness, a requirement that can be tough to do when your at home all day.

[letstalkkungfu]

Yard Work Season

Goodbye snow! Hello grass! Anyone else find spring and fall really refreshing seasons? For me, the best kind of chores are the ones outside in the fresh air. Especially now when we all need to stay home as much as possible. I’ve filled the green bin twice last week with grass, leaves, and branches but there is more to go. I don’t mind being the family lawn tender, it gives me a reason to be outside besides just because I want to. There is more than lawn care to be done, I also tend to our small orchard which contains five apple trees and four grape plants which later in the fall can be processed into wine or whatever drinks we want.

[letstalkkungfu]

Success At Last

Three attempts and nearly three hundred dollars, my class five operators license is in the mail. Most people would be upset with having to spend so much money for this. As martial artists we learn what works and what doesn’t in sparring with a slap to the face, or several. Same concept here except it’s a financial slap in the face instead of an actual slap in the face. I didn’t make the same mistakes during each test, just made different ones.

[letstalkkungfu]

Attempt Three

My last road test attempt was nearly flawless only being deducted 30 points. However one of those flaws was an instant fail. Living in Stony Plain my whole life I know where all the schools are and so I assumed that I would know where all the school zones are. That was until the tester informed me I was flying through one. There are no schools near that zone so I wasn’t looking for any. Turns out there is either a daycare or children’s shelter there.

Where I wanted to go with this entry is that the same mistakes I made during my black belt grading are still being made. Making assumptions. I assumed there were no school zones in the area and so I didn’t look for the signs. During my black belt grading, I made assumptions that the pandemic would prevent us from doing certain things and didn’t bring the equipment for those things. Gotta be more open to the possibility that I’m wrong, could’ve saved $100 from booking another test then.

[letstalkkungfu]

More Fa Jin

In the making of my I Ho Chuan forms and in these last few classes I’ve noticed I need more Fa Jin. Explosive power if you have forgotten. Explosive tiger? That works to I guess.

It’s the explosive retraction and reset that I need to work on. Strike like lightning, retract like thunder by comparison. Lightning both ways is ideal. My techniques aren’t the only thing that could use more Fa Jin, my blogs of late have felt low effort and have come out late. My focus has been split between making my forms and preparing for my second attempt at my road test. Thankfully there are no 2-3 month wait times anymore. First attempt, driving was nearly flawless only failing my parking and not seeing a pedestrian crossing the road before starting my turn. Now that I have experienced the test and better know what not to do so, no mistakes this time.

[letstalkkungfu]

Face My Face

Once again we have been welcomed back into the kwoon and once again it’s been a refreshing experience. Some degree of normalcy. Even though we were spaced farther apart, we or at least I felt a lot more cramped than before. That makes sense as it’s not more space to work with but more distance to keep from each other like a bunch of same charge magnets repelling one another.

Everyone’s forms are progressing well, as sifu said being locked at home more often has given us all plenty of time to develop or learn our forms. In this process I try to remind myself on what a form actually is, often times I find myself making more of a choreography or even what seems like shadow sparring. Form isn’t application, it’s a tool for learning. Sure they are usually taught to lower belts but that doesn’t mean you won’t learn anything when you make your own.

[letstalkkungfu]

Cheers From Everywhere

It’s been one week now since the banquet and I’m still getting congratulations from everywhere. Not that it’s a bad thing but still, there has been a bit of a tidal wave of congratulations coming from family, friends, and SRKF students. It’s slowly sinking in that I am a black belt now. The first black belt class went really well, took a few moments to review the bow then got straight to business. Business that I cannot share on my blogs anymore. A small kink to be added to my blogging as I now have to be super mindful of what I post. I have made that mistake once before where I got carried away in helping a student without realizing that I was teaching second degree brown belt concepts to white belts.

What I do want to talk about right out of the gate for the year of the ox is daily blogging. This is now my fifth consecutive year in the I Ho Chuan and my biggest achilles’ heel has been blogging. When I found it hard to blog about anything is also when there was an abundance of mediocrity in my life keeping me distracted from my promises. Blogging daily was suggested several times to me and I immediately thought, it’s already hard enough to blog once a week. It wasn’t until I finally tried to blog each day for a month that I found it easier to put one out everyday than one a week. It also is really good for staying engaged as you start reflecting on your training all the time. I also got better at writing my blogs in a reasonable amount of time, 4-5 hours was very discouraging and unfortunately was normal for me. Now that has dropped to around 1 hour at most so far more feasible.

I’d like to encourage my fellow ox team to at some point this year give a month of daily blogging a try, especially if you find yourself in an abundance of mediocrity. March 1 is tomorrow if you happen to already meet the criteria. I plan to keep a fast pace for blogging throughout the year to make up for previous years and to stay ahead of mediocrity, until it becomes mediocrity, I’ll figure out what to do when that happens.

[letstalkkungfu]

Beginning Anew

Year five on the I Ho Chuan team is now underway and so are the new forms everyone is making. Time to get to work, or rather continue the pace in a new direction. This year I am working with my tanto sword, the little sword on the top of my weapon rack in the background of my training space. I am utilizing the sheath as if it’s a second weapon so the form should present itself similarly to a dual knife form. I have also decided to try making my own hand form. Which means I won’t be able to tally reps of either form until I have a beta version for each.

Looking forward to seeing what the rest of you come up with and what weapons you are using.

[letstalkkungfu]

Neither Rain, Sleet or Snow

I originally planned on recording my forms in the basement. Moved all the furniture, recorded my forms, then recorded my five applications in case we planned on using them. Basement carpet is not padded much at all so we were basically doing them on concrete. The next day I found out my footage was in the wrong quality. Turns out the camera settings for my phone only apply to the rear facing camera while the front facing camera is locked to one setting. It was still in 1080p quality but at 30 frames per second which isn’t ideal for footage with fast moving objects in it. When I reshot I also decided to do so outside, bitter cold but much better lighting.

[letstalkkungfu]

Can’t Slow Down

Earning your black belt is a moment that will stay with you forever. I’d imagine this moment normally occurs at the promotion ceremony but I already have a moment that will stay with me forever and it came about 2 seconds after we were told we had passed. With how our grading was going this year we started going into meetings with the mindset of: everything is a test so be prepared for anything. The one thing it seems we were not prepared for was excitement as after we were told, sifu said “I was expecting a lot more excitement”, he was met with a bunch of stone faced null expressions as we were processing whether it was a test or not or something. I gave myself a quick golf clap after that but yeah, that moment won’t go away in a hurry.

Though the grading is over, the work is not. The belt has to be continuously earned and the standard maintained and so in a way the process isn’t over. Now the gears have shifted a little bit as I now work on my What Kung Fu has Done for Me speech. A task that has always seemed so daunting but hopefully delivered over zoom it won’t be as bad, plus it only needs to be done once.

[letstalkkungfu]

Staying Focused

With the year of the ox fast approaching and 2020 in the rear view mirror. It’s easy to get drawn into working on our next years forms early. Although I am excited to work on something new and original we are still in the year of the rat and I am still in the grading process. If I don’t keep focused on the here and now I will only be failing myself and have to go through the whole process again.

[letstalkkungfu]

Wired Freedom

First week of classes without being limited by a three foot headphone cord was much better than the half deaf guessing I was doing before. Ran into my first problem yesterday though, these earbuds normally last about 6 hours however zoom seems to drain devices very quickly as my one earbud with the mic cut out about 20 minutes before our meeting ended. This is only a problem for back to back classes so for those nights I just need my second pair ready.

Mr. Thomson’s workouts have been a big boost for my endurance and training as a whole. They are well structured and provide a similar feel of drain that the fitness test provides. I know he and Sifu Ward were talking about running their own fitness class at some point, I’d say this has been a successful trial run so far and I look forward to when it does become a class.

[letstalkkungfu]

Year End

Normally the holidays is when we spend more time with family, this year there has been lots of family time. I now have two pairs of wireless earbuds so I can hear throughout the entirety of classes. No idea if they are waterproof and hopefully I don’t sweat enough to find out. Not much else to write about. Training has slowed a little but is still present and ramping back up. With how much family time I’ve been having I forgot about my blog and so this one is almost a week late. Hopefully everyone had a good Christmas and as I write this it’s New Years Eve so happy New Year everyone.

[letstalkkungfu]

Preparation

This last round of grading left us feeling disappointed in ourselves and for me personally feeling a little stupid. When it comes to preparing for your black belt grading the only assumption you should make is that you will be tested on everything you have ever done on the mats. We all made different assumptions that all ended with us not bringing something. Even if you think you don’t need something you should have it there anyway, otherwise your jeopardizing your grading. There is currently a large number of second degrees in the school and so it is our responsibility to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes.