Mr. Spruce Grove

I lived in Spruce Grove when I was in junior high and wanted nothing more than to get as far away from it as possible. Thankfully my family moved and what would have turned out to be three years of absolute hell in high school only turned out to be the typical excruciating and unusually cruel experience that only high school can promise and then deliver.

Years later when we were about to have our first kid and were moving back to this general area we decided to move to Spruce Grove for the fact that it was close enough to the city and therefore close to work, and a better place for kids as far as schools and such went. So despite the fact that I could have left Spruce Grove behind forever and I didn't ever want to run into anyone I had gone to school with we moved to SG anyways.

A few years after we moved I started at Silent River and found a group of people who were all focused on a common goal -self improvement through physical discipline. A lot has happened since I started and if this was a movie I could do a 30 sec collage of all of the things that have transpired in that time but since it isn't I will fast forward to the end.

If it would have not been for my involvement in Kung-Fu I would not have become a part of the community in the way that I have. I have realized that this community is very important especially for my kids, I think that there needs to be a group of people in your life that you identify with, that you look out for and who are looking out for you - that you share a bit of a journey with - a community.

The way our society is structured now there is less and less need (on the surface) to have a community - families are smaller and we no longer need to band together for survival or protection - we have a system (albeit full of negative side affects) in place to take care of all of these survival and protection needs on a grand scale.

Also, less and less people are going to church on sundays so we are losing the connection to the people who we live close to because we don't 'touch base' with our neighbors on a regular basis the same way we would have in nifty fifties.

That's why kung-fu has been so good for us. I know and have a connection with dozens of people who are my neighbors because we frequent the kwoon. I see them when I take my kids to swimming lessons or when I go to the grocery store - I am very unlikely to speed in front of someone and cut them off if I'm feeling impatient driving around town, because the next time I see that person they might turn out to be a student in my class. Community makes you more accountable and responsible for how you conduct yourself because there are people who you want to keep a good repore with or you will lose their respect. In other words community helps keep you from becoming too self absorbed (a big fat jerk).

There is nothing especially special about SG or Stony Plain, but there are the people. Lately I have been feeling a stronger sense of community as I go about my routines around town and when I'm at the kwoon - this feeling (which is fairly new to me), I believe, has made me more conscientious. The topping on the cake was when I took my girls to invite the couple from our driveway to the banquet. I wasn't sure what to expect - I thought I would have to do a little more coaxing. But the lady was delighted and it's going to really make it impossible for me to ever begrudge having to clear snow for them - it served to remind me that we need to see it as a privilege rather than a chore to help the seniors in our community.

I think that we need to stop thinking about the things that we want to have, and start thinking about the things that we need to do.