A Good Dose of Wind and Reason

Mr. Spruce Grove

2012-01-25T23:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Martial Immersion

2012-01-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

Martial arts is like any other skill or art. It will never truly be a part of you unless you completely immerse yourself in it. Going to a class 2 times a week without practicing in between, working out, reading about it, constantly thinking about, and many other supporting activities - may allow you to become someone who knows a martial art but not likely someone who is a really good martial artist.

Anyone that I know who has made it to black belt has been obsessed with their training. The obsession may take on different forms but what ensues is a constant forward drive to a specific goal (or set of goals). I cannot imagine entering a new year without having specific attainable goals that are designed to improve my skill, knowledge and connection to martial arts or other assets of my life.

The biggest revelation that I have had lately that I can share is that people (myself included) tend to deviate way to often from a set course of action. There are obviously good reasons to cease certain activities (injuries etc.) but for the most part I find that people get distracted, they don't get the results they wanted immediately, or find that something ended up being harder than they thought it would. With all the available distractions and avenues to explore it's easy to jump ship and catch the next thing with very little grief. The problem with this approach is it's tends to be one step forward, two steps back - you never really gain any ground.

My strategy to defeat this pitfall is to narrow my focus on a few key things each year, re-assess less and trust the goals and the methods that I have set out to achieve them more. Most of the time the path I set out for myself is based on research, expert advise and proven methods - therefore I need to question less once it's time to act. I have found lately that by sticking with a couple of key things that I am focused on, not allowing myself to get sidetracked - staying the course - and especially, taking consistent action! I have made serious improvements in a couple of areas.

The question now is: How was I able to teach that tiger to do Long underwater...

Go down swinging

2011-12-17T19:32:00.000-08:00

There are many elements to kung-fu but sparring has been the most cathartic for me.

Sparring has so many countless benefits for a martial artist. Development of timing and the ability to read an opponent, learning how to deal with adrenaline, overall cardio improvement, toughening up of an individual - and lots more.

Although it was a smaller part of my overall training I spent years sparring on a weekly basis and always got home with a deep sense of satisfaction from it. The satisfaction was akin to having had accomplished something. It was the kind of feeling I was looking for when I chose to start training in martial arts originally. I would not be close to the same martial artist if I did not have this experience, my 'vocabulary of motion' would not be the same.

It has very little to do with the 'fight' aspect of the activity, it is not a testosterone thing as some people may assume - it's more about being 'in the zone' and working at level 10. There is little else that has forced me to be in the moment more than sparring at a high level where is impossible to let your mind wander.

Sparring also serves as a fitness meter, it encourages you to stay in shape so you have speed, endurance and cardio week after week to rely on - if you don't stay in top shape you will fall behind and start to get your butt kicked - not much else keeps you this honest about your level of fitness by putting it to the test on a regular basis.

For a little while now sparring has not been part of my training in this way, and I have recently realized that I feel this as a big whole in my routine and a large contributor to how I feel about my martial arts.

I am going to take measures to rectify this (recognize and address). Since the world is going to end in 2012 anyways, I might as well go down swinging.

Overwhelmedness

2011-11-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

It's easy to get overwhelmed when beginning a new pursuit - a language, an art, an instrument - the martial arts. There's this moment when you realize just how much you've taken on. I've seen people get overwhelmed by this but I've also seen people who are just fascinated by it - it doesn't seem to intimidate them, it just leaves them awestruck.

I imagine that it's the same 2 separate reactions that a couple of strangers standing on a beach looking out at the ocean, who have just realized that the strange illusion they've been looking at and trying to understand is, in fact, a tidal wave.

Freedom

2011-11-09T14:04:00.001-08:00

I lost a long blog post I wrote while watching the girls' swimming lessons because I assumed that the blogger app would autosave what I was writing.

It was probably the most inspired blog post that I ever wrote (probably not). To make a long story short I was writing about how I had a pretty rough week on account of a few things and that one of my major issues is that I re-asses too much. Re-assessing as part of the black belt cycle is a good thing but you have to stay the course for a little while first.

It's so easy to get distracted with all of the information and opinions in the world (of martial arts and in general) that it proves to take a lot of discipline just to stay focused on any one given thing for any significant length of time, and a significant length of time is what it takes to gain a lot of the skills we are looking for. When we re-assess too often and find that maybe we haven't got as far as we wanted instead of re-applying ourselves we tend to change paths. This habit tends to put my training in a zig-zagging motion instead of a strait forward march as it should be.

I recognize that I am impatient when it comes to my training, I want have all of the eggs in my basket as soon as possible (planning for the rapture I suppose). To continue the bad analogy of eggs in a basket .. to put them in too quick means that they're getting tossed in and therefore cracked and tarnished rather than taking the time to place them in (e.i taking the time to properly develop skill and technique rather than just checking off a list of items that have been completed). Not to say that I think all of my eggs are broken - but there are some chipped ones that need a good spackling.

Trusting what our instructors have to say about how to progress is often like a child trusting the parent who tells them not to touch the stove. It's a lot less painful to just trust them then it is to find out for yourself that you should have just listened to some sound advise.

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On a completely different note I had my relocated finger re-assessed today, not too soon. The splint is gone and I have new found freedom in my right hand. I have to say that the doctor I saw was pretty awesome. It's a rare (way too rare) treat to have a doctor who does not look physically annoyed that you are wasting his time by being sick or injured. Dr. Weston at the St.Albert hospital was patient and thoughtful and he took the time to answer my questions and even let me take a picture of the original x-ray from last month - check it out.

(sideways view) I drew the outline of my hand to show how gnarly the dislocation was - awesome hey. My finger feels better already just being able to move it around but there is no way that I can make a fist, I will have to carry a tennis ball around with me to help strengthen my finger and to ensure that my finger doesn't get bent past it's range accidentally.

Insert title here

2011-10-30T03:34:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of my job is that I get more days off than the average guy, however I have to work 12 hr days as a trade off - so on the days I work, all I do is work. I can't go to class but thankfully there is a gym in the building so I can get in an hour of training in.

When I do have days off I tend to overdose on training - Monday to Wednesday this week I was on the mats more than 13 hrs - Thursday I slept well, woke up sore, and then went back to work.

Teaching the orange/green night class is a lot of fun - I feel like Sifu Masterson did all the hard work creating such a high quality group and now I just get to enjoy the fruits of her labor. I am becoming more and more aware of the awesome and humbling responsibility it is to teach people in the martial arts. Lately it has become very apparent to me how important it is to trust your instructors (mostly trusting that they have your best interest and your safety in mind) - I hope that I have earned the trust of the students.

I am a little more functional than I thought I would be with my Judas finger (the one that betrayed me), being able to wrap it up really good to digit #3 gives me the ability to do 95% of most things. It doesn't bend though - I take the splint off for a couple hours a day at home and there is no way that this thing is bending more than about 30 degrees away from the knuckle right now - to make a good fist digit #4 has to bend down at least 90 degrees from the 2nd knuckle. It's been almost 2 weeks, I wonder how long it's going to take to heal.

I usually play 1-2 hours of guitar on my days off - it's my form of meditation - that's killing me a bit. I can still kinda use a pick but it's not the same - fingerpicking is my style so I'm a little restless on this front. It hasn't affected my angry bird skills so far as I can tell.

Something that is important for me to keep in mind is that even if I don't feel like I am getting better at certain things it is impossible not to progress when I put in consistent and mindful time and effort - even if there are temporary setbacks along the way.

This little piggy.

2011-10-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

Got crushed!

On Monday I dislocated the forth digit on my right hand (ring finger). Not the kind of dislocation where you separate the joint or your finger bends sideways, I actually jammed the top part of my finger past the knuckle so that it was beside the bottom part. More like a relocation than a dislocation.

After two doctors yanked my finger back in place I had a splint put on it and told to hang with it for 3-4 weeks.

This makes life a little more awkward but it could be worse. I'm not worried about my training so much with the thing on, I can still do a million things to improve - especially forms wise and hang back from the hands on stuff. I'm more concerned about when the splint comes off and my dumb hand is going to cause me grief when I start getting rough and tumble again. How long before I can make a decent fist with it and hit something solid? How long before I can hold a gi grip without wincing? How long before I can play classical gas again?

It's a good thing that I wasn't wearing a ring at the time, my finger swelled up big time - the ring would have had to be cut off - don't train with jewelry on!! There's lots of reasons why.

One things for sure - this will slow me down for a bit. I suppose it's an opportunity for me to approach things differently for a little while.

Say no to yes

2011-10-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Recently I made one of the biggest decisions of my life. My managers wanted me to go to the darkside (management) - I had put them off a little because I didn't want to have to decide right away as a lot of things were going quite well status quo.

But a couple of weeks ago one of my managers told me that it was time to decide what I wanted to do (as I am currently protected under a union I have some choice in the matter). He said this is the time and my chance if I want to be a manager and this opportunity is not likely to come up again for a long time.

There were so many factors involved in making this choice it was dizzying. It was hard not to let my ego get involved - being a manager sounds prestigious - does it not. But I also have large issues fundamentally with big corporations and the way our whole system (market economy) is currently set up to run (cruise control headed over the cliff named 'total fall of western society' we already fell off the cliff named 'total breakdown of western culture').

There may be some progressive big companies out there but where I am at I fear I would just end up being a corporate yes-man. I would never make it to the level were I could make any real change (because I don't care to 'climb the ladder'- other things in my life motivate me other than career).

The more I thought about it and mulled it over the more my gut was telling me that it wasn't right - I could see myself a year or two from now barely being able to escape the office because this happened or that guy who is some big cheese is demanding something 'yesterday'.

But what really clinched it for me was that no matter how sweet the deal was it would mean less kung-fu. Family time takes precedent, and what time would be left over for martial arts would be very slim. Less time on the mats teaching, kicking, doing forms, rolling, perfecting techniques, etc.. etc.. And if it took away that away from me - what could it possibly offer me that would make up for it?

Nothing.

So I told them thanks but no thanks, fact is I am happy where I am and doing what I am doing. If I needed to work more or take something else on to provide for my family, I would - but I don't. It seems to me that it is a fundamental human flaw that we are not able to recognize when things are good and just be content - we always have to be chasing after the next best thing, and that thing is usually stuff (money - possessions) - even if we already have everything we need.

The true substance of life is intangible - you can't hold, it drive it, or spend it - but all around you if you care to see it.

Timing

2011-10-04T18:37:00.001-07:00

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Is everything

Trust the process

2011-09-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was flattered and humbled to discover that something that I had said had really stuck with a student. I'm sure that it was something that I heard at one time or another while I was facing the mirrors instead of facing the bathrooms. More than ever I felt the impact and responsibility of my role.

Generally the things I choose to talk about to students are things that I find I have to apply in my own training at the time, or ideas that I have rediscovered or finally learned to truly appreciate.

Some of the things that we say to our students don't mean that much to them at the time, but can really hit home a little later in their training. When they do find these things are true and applicable to their training it strengthens the bond of trust between them and their teachers and peers - and roots them a little deeper in the kwoon.

The hard part is to allow yourself to take that leap of faith in the first place - to put your trust in your instructors - and to trust the process.

Advice

2011-09-08T22:39:00.001-07:00

Some of the best advice that I ever got was advice that I did not take.

I don't mean to imply that advice is not welcomed, appreciated or respected but only to remind that said and done the heart should over-rule the head.

If something seems to reason well enough but it just does not feel quite right, if your gut or your heart is pulling you the other way, I would put my money on the heart -- every time.

The holy trinity (of martial arts)

2011-08-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

Fitness (health, nutrition, stamina, flexibility, endurance)

Skill (technique, form, flow, harmonies)

Spirit - Mental Fortitude (intensity, attitude, perspective, outlook, approach, tenacity)

I've always know that each of these elements exist in martial arts, but what hit me this week was how each of them is dependent on, and integral to the next.

Fitness without skill, skill without spirit, spirit without health, technique without endurance, approach without harmonies - etc... None of these things make sense without the next.

I realize as I write this that I just took the 6 harmonies, expanded it, gave it a bunch of other names and then tied them back together again.

There must be something to it.

Better Recognize!

2011-08-01T03:05:00.000-07:00

I have found lately that the key to success (in ones endeavors) is recognition. For example, if you don't realize or recognize that you procrastinate or don't give 100% when doing something (or any number of other shortfalls) - how can you ever take steps to improve yourself or eliminate the things that act as crutches in your training, or to your well being.

The recognition can come from the observation of others, in the form of constructive criticism or concern, when it comes to certain things, but for some things it needs to come from honest self examination.

When I was younger I used to think that the physiologists habit of sourcing things to childhood experiences was malarkey - but now that my kids are older, and I have been able to observe others raising kids and also reflecting on how I was brought up and the things that I experienced, it becomes completely obvious that this is quite true (in a general sense at least). Not that this is an excuse for behavior but it definitely has a big impact on so many aspects of your personality and general perspective.

The key, however, is to be able to see certain things about yourself and certain things in your life for what they are. To honestly recognize why you aren't happy, or why you seem to be always negative, or untrusting (as examples). Once you know why these things are a crutch to you, (or if not why, at least to gain a recognition* of what the things are that are holding you back), you can take steps to grow beyond them.

I have also come to recognize what some of the things are that I want in my life and why. This is quite important too as there is a direct link between my aspirations and my happiness. It is important that the things that I want in my life are not to be encumbered by any sense of obligation (real or imaginary) that I may feel I have - balanced out by the responsibilities that are certainly not imaginary - that I do have.

Recognition, in a sense, is an internal eye for detail, but also an acceptance of what's found there.

Sifu Brinker talks about how your Kung-Fu has to serve you. For myself I find that this has a direct link to the lesson, and constant reminders, of purpose. There is no purpose in your kung-fu if it is not serving you, and I think that each individual has to examine, understand and recognize what that purpose is (for them). Once this is established then your martial arts can begin to serve you endlessly.

*Sorry for the copious use the word recognize(and conjugations of the word - recognition, recognized, recognizing, recognization, recognizally, etc..)

Back to the grind

2011-07-24T22:40:00.000-07:00

I was away from home for a couple of weeks on a course and although the change of pace and routine was nice I was really looking forward to getting back into my training schedule.

After being cooped up in a hotel I had a strong urge to deliver a sound beating to a defenseless heavy bag. So yesterday we dragged out the bags and had at 'em. I'm a little sore today because I didn't really hold anything back - but it's a good sore.

Now it's back to the grind, hopefully we'll get some summer soon before it's gone and we're back into 8 months of winter again.

Wide Awake

2011-06-25T01:42:00.001-07:00

It's 2:40am as I write this. I took tonight off of work(I work midnights) so that I could re-adjust to day schedule and take part in boot camp tomorrow(by tomorrow I mean today, but later today after which I have supposed to have slept).

Problem is is that I tried to go to bed early, or rather early for my first day off - 11:30 or so but after only being up for 9 1/2 hrs I am not tired at all, so my body feels more like I went for a nap and about 45 min later I am up like a shot. Now it's 2:47 and I doubt if I will get more than an hour or two of sleep before 5:15 get up time.

I short this sucks but what can you do - I probably would have been better off just saving a vacation day, working the night and heading out after work - Usually I stay up late reading my first night off - to 1:00 or 1:30 and then get up at 7:00-7:30 and I'm back with the living but trying to do what I did last night is bunk.

Generally, I figure that as long as I have 6-8 hours sleep within the last 24 I should be good. That will get me to about 10 am tomorrow, we'll see how it goes after that, I may have to find a quite place to pass out for a while.

As far as my Kung-Fu goes as of late, I feel that I am steadily improving as I go. Physically over the last couple years (kick-started by last years UBBT 7) I can honestly say I have never been in better shape, as far as actual harmonies and movement go I am starting to see things differently then I did in years gone by. When you start out improvement happens at break-neck speed but at this point there doesn't seem to be those plateaus that you hit where you can really see what you've done - it is now a slow steady (hopefully forward) march. Even though the improvement is slower going I feel that I am learning at a much more accelerated pace. It's hard to appreciate the difference but basically I tend to be grasping, understanding and applying things quicker but the skill still takes a bit to catch up to the understanding. I hope that made sense.

Well is 3:15 - I am going to try to get a few hours of rest.

Some videos for you

2011-06-07T22:27:00.001-07:00

Thought I would just post a couple awesome MA videos. The first one is of a Pak Mei Kung-Fu Teacher out of France - this guys mad skill will give you goosebumps.

This video (28 min) documents a world champions journey to success and how he comes out of and learns from losing. Very good grappling and training footage. Very good profile of the sport/art. If you pause at 13:34 the gentleman in the white shirt is Master Silvio Behring (Red Belt in Jiu-Jitsu). I had the pleasure of meeting him a few months ago - he is the nicest guy that could rip me apart that I have ever met. It was really cool to have a red belt calling me Sifu all weekend.

Robert Drysdale Film from Bobby Razak on Vimeo.

To those that I am fortunate enough to have consider me as one of their teachers.

2011-05-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Man that's an ugly title but there's no other way to put it.

I constantly need to work to maintain and improve my skills. When I run - I get tired, when I spar - I get hit, when I compete - I am nervous, when I do forms - I struggle to put the harmonies together as I know I need to. I get sore, frustrated, broken and discouraged. But I am also constantly inspired, enlightened, engaged, and even if it feels uphill - moving forward.

I am far, far from perfect. If you have a teacher who claims to be perfect and know all there is to know then run, don't walk, and find yourself another teacher.

Though far from perfect, I am however (as far as kung-fu is concerned), more skilled, more knowledgeable, more experienced and more tried and true than a colored belt. It is the fact that I am further up the same road as you that gives me the right and the privilege to teach you - to be a guide, a coach and hopefully an inspiration.

As such I feel a responsibility not only to represent the school that has 'raised me' so to speak - but also a responsibility to the students who trust my guidance, advise and the information I give them. I am responsible to earn their trust and to earn and keep their respect.

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As such:

I will not lecture -- but I will relate my struggles, triumphs and experiences so that they may benefit your training and your progress.

I will not talk at my students but talk to them, directly and honestly.

I do not have the right to tell someone that they need to push themselves if I myself am not pushing my own limits. I will train like hell.

I will be humble and continue to learn, explore and seek out my place in the martial arts. I will be informed so that I can provide perspective and insight - never animosity, never derision.

I won't pretend to know something I don't or be something I'm not. I will work on my strengths and on my weaknesses. I will strive to be Chun-Tzu.

I will strive to represent the black belt for what it is. A standard of skill and achievement. A symbol of a way of living.

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The tao of windwarrior

2011-05-15T02:38:00.000-07:00

I got out windsurfing for the first time this year on Wednesday. The winds were pretty crazy and despite a few good crashes and the cold water I had a pretty good time.

When the wind is really cooking like it was you have to move yourself further back on the board and put your feet in foot straps because if you don't the power of the wind on the sail that transfers to your feet is too much - you can't keep a grip on the board with your feet and you get launched head over tails.

As I was getting back into the foot straps and trying to control the whole set-up in the wind it occurred to me that this was a very tai-chi type of move. Basically I had to slowly and smoothly transfer all of my weight to my back leg and then remain balanced and sturdy on that leg while I slowly lifted my front leg up, out and into the front strap -- then I transfer all the weight to my front leg while I do the same with the back to get into the back strap.

Instead of doing the move slowly and controlled I could have (and usually do) just try to get my foot in the strap really quickly, because if I put my foot down wrong I either throw the balance of the whole board off and end up struggling for control or I duff it and get a good taste of lake water (gross).

It's funny how I relate kung-fu and tai-chi to other things in my life that may not seem at first to really have a connection from windsurfing to being on a motorcycle to shoveling snow off of my roof (open-x stance saves man from falling off his house!).

Round Timer

2011-04-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

I have found the timer at the kwoon really nice to have for drills and sparring, we used it a couple weeks ago for timed kicks.

Wouldn't it be nice to have one at home? One step ahead of you!

Bring your laptop with you to your workout room and go to

Round Timer and you can have a timer too. This timer can be set for the amount of round time, rest time and rounds, for sparring, rolling, drills, kicks, punches, horse stance... ad nauseum.

If you want an offline (you dont need to be on the internet version) click here Zipped File to download and then you can unzip and run anytime from any computer. I have tested this with the latest versions of chrome, IE, Safari and firefox - so it should work for you. You will have to allow activeX, plugins, or whatever security warning the browser may give you.

If it doesn't work try another browser because their may be a plug-in or security issue.

I hope that someone finds this useful, the Sihings especially should get some use out of it.

Enjoy.

Benefit of kung-fu #486

2011-04-21T19:27:00.001-07:00

Probably about year ago now I really noticed for the first time how I carry tension in my shoulders. At the moment of realization it literally felt like I was holding a permanent shrug, like the muscles involved were constantly and permanently engaged in holding my shoulders up just a bit.

It wasn't a matter of breathing in and out deeply and relaxing, or trying to drop my shoulders - it was a matter of feeling what was happening and consciously releasing it.

Why did this even occur to me in the first place. Well, it was a matter of trying to sync up the harmonies, feel the connection and flow. It's like dominoes - if one domino in the middle of the row is twice as heavy stiff and immovable - it's going to really mess with the flow and momentum of things. That's what your shoulders and hips do to technique if they are not able to move freely with the rest of your body - they should not bottleneck your chi (so to speak).

It's become like breathing, most of us breath fairly shallow, quickly and to the chest rather than slowly and to the belly, filling up to the bottom of the lungs. You can consciously make yourself belly breath by concentrating on it and doing it over and over (one benefit of sitting meditation). After a while the belly breathing becomes the normal way you breath, without thinking about it.

Tension (anywhere that you may hold tension) is the same - you can focus on it and consciously release it, after a while you no longer hold it. Like breathing, once in a while you find yourself back in the old habits (shallow breathing/holding tension) but with less and less effort, you recognize and quickly correct.

I have noticed a big difference just in the way I walk around as a result, I feel like my candor is much more relaxed. I work in a safety sensitive environment where tensions get high and I feel like when I need to talk to someone about something I approach the situation much more calmly and grounded - partly due to not holding on to as much stress tension.

Without kung-fu, I would not have been in the mindset to focus internally and discover these things about myself. I wouldn't have the body awareness to recognize and correct things that add to my quality of life.

It is definitely true that there are other disciplines that you could be a part of other than the martial arts that would also give you this type of focus and body awareness but how many of them include spinning flying reverse cyclone kicks, right.

Warm Up

2011-04-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

My 2 cents. I think that you would be really hard pressed to find a black belt who hasn't done at least some basic research into stretching, warming up, proper workouts, etc.. - either through reading or taking a course or having joined a fitness class or yoga class or something like this.

Why, because it's such an important element of training and helps to prevent injuries that can put you out of training for any length of time. Your not likely to find any recent reading material that tells you that its a good idea to go strait into doing any kind of static stretching without any warm-up at all.

So why do we see people lead the warm up and do this? I think it's because people tend to want to structure the warm up so that your doing the 'easiest' stuff first and slowly building up intensity.

The way I see it, a warm up should start with a bit of loosening up (limbering up the joints), continue with exercises that get the blood flowing (look at the warm-up techniques in the curriculum - horse stance techniques, cross-stepping, fallout technique - and so much more ) - these exercises do not over-stretch the muscles but they warm them up so that they can take being stretched - think of a cold elastic band vs a warm elastic band. 10 min is all you need.

It's not necessary to use only curriculum items to warm up as there are lots of different exercises out there, but it doubles as practice time and allows for the black belts to observe students techniques as well.

A bit of stretching can be done intermittently after the body is warmed up and the limbs are full of blood, or for the last minute or two of the warm up. But this is not even really necessary unless the class is going to be all about really high kicks.

Stretching is very important but probably best left for the last thing that you do in class after you have warmed up and worked the muscles - now that the muscles are warmed up and full of blood you will get the most benefit out of stretching and prevent the muscles from tightening up. If your only stretching is during warm up then you are doing nothing to prevent muscle cramping and tightening after you have done a bunch of work.

This is the best time to ask questions and talk about the lesson.

Purpose

2011-03-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

I think that it is important for every element of your training to have a purpose. What is this element of your training doing for you, why are you doing it.

I'll give a couple of examples.

Not everyone likes doing forms - some people love it to varying degrees, some people think it's a chore. If you're among those who see it as a chore you need to put some purpose behind it, I don't mean pretending that there is a bunch of bad guys that you're beating up - I mean give yourself a reason that this element of training is important - how it benefits you and gets you where you want to be. I often look at my forms in a different light than others, I don't necessarily see it as a series of hidden techniques (although they are there to be found) but as a way of training your body to move in the way that it needs to move in order to be fluid, proficient and versatile with the techniques that we do learn.

If we skipped the form and just learnt technique after technique we would end up being very mechanical and lose logical flow and continuation between moves, we would lack agility, center and real power. If you think about what your forms do for you and how they help to make you better at all the other stuff - forms will no longer feel like a chore to moil over repeatedly. Forms train you to move in a way that keeps a consistency with all of your techniques so that they are not just a collection of isolated 'tricks' - Forms are the glue that hold your art together.

Some people don't like sparring, some people can't get enough. Same thing goes - this is an important part of your training - especially if you don't like it. Even though it needs to be recognized that sparring is not the way to handle real world self defense it is an important training tool. Sparring trains you how to stay calm and deal with your emotions and pumping adrenaline, it is instrumental in developing your timing and how to read an opponent quickly and react to their movements.

For these or any other element of your training, it's crucial that it means something to you - that it has purpose and serves you in your training.

that's all I have to say about that (drops the mic)

P.S - I also think it's important to have tiger pictures in your blog every once in a while.

Sorry that this is such a dumb blog post

2011-03-21T04:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple weeks since I blogged last. I'm not sure what to write about so I will just make a declaration. ahem... Blue is my favorite color and I am sick of snow.

ttfn

Kung-Fu Karma

2011-03-03T03:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you feel like your going around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail, getting nowhere.

Sometimes I feel a little crazy - not Charlie Sheen crazy - but crazy all the same.

I'm going to be making a conscious effort to bring a little more order into my life, I find that if I don't plan my days (at least a little), I feel very aimless even if I get a few things done.

Sooner or later everything has to come together. It feels like I have crafted a thousand pieces of a puzzle and it's just a matter of putting them all together - linking them up in a way that makes a complete picture but at the same time gives reason to why I made them to begin with.

Sometimes you come back around to the same spot but see it differently because of where you have just been.

Martial Maturity

2011-02-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping to coin a phrase with this one. This concept has occurred to me recently - it goes along with the whole progressing wisely thing and includes the idea of seeing the whole picture.

It's hard to put into words but I think this idea came to be as I thought about how differently I see things now then before and how I have observed (not necessarily in a bad way) the approach and attitude of newer martial artists.

It's like when you graduate from infatuation to love - the whole thing takes on a new dimension, it's not about learning at mad speed and trying to stock your brain with as much knowledge as possible - it becomes about fine tuning and understanding intimately what you already know (or think you know) - about bringing it all together. But remains about getting as wicked good as you can - with the understanding that the skill is attained differently then at first.

This comes to me as I think back to the things I was told for years - but now as I hear these things re-iterated to a new crowd by myself and others they have taken on a new meaning, like even though I knew what was being said - NOW I am just starting to understand.

Gentleman Warrior

2011-02-10T05:01:00.000-08:00

Respect and Discipline.

The nice thing about a system like Kung-Fu is that it takes a lot of discipline to get any good at it, and by doing so you tend to learn/gain/earn/understand respect along the way. I have yet to see someone with a huge ego or attitude make their way much past blue belt.

If you haven't humbled yourself a bit by that point nobody who's still around training is going to pay much attention to you and you will likely either feel greatly out of place or lose patience with the process- either way you will likely fall by the wayside.

I believe that anyone is capable of achieving black belt but I don't think most are willing to let go of the garbage (ego, attitude, vanity) that is necessary to let go of to actually succeed the endeavor.

One of the best things about Silent River is the atmosphere. The environment there is 100% a result of the people on the mats - white belt to 7th degree. As a black belt I feel a strong responsibility to lead the way when it comes to my attitude, approach and conduct on and off the mats.

It's wabbit season.

2011-02-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

Chinese new year is upon us. It's odd for me this year, for the last 4 years I've had a big part in the banquet. As a partner to a candidate, a Sihing organizing and busing, a candidate, a lion dancer... It's always been a busy time for me.

This year is a little different - My schedule at work has kept me away from practices, essentially cutting me out of a demo that I would have liked to have been a part of but also cutting me out of the grind that comes with being part of a demo. The practices, fine tuning, anticipation, nerves...

I am looking forward to Saturday, I will be helping out as much as possible and enjoying the day as usual. The banquet is the perfect way to bring in the year of the rabbit. - That and 1000 push-ups and sit-ups.

Dear snowmobilers, are you good yet?

2011-01-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

I finally set my goals on physout - it was hard to decide how to numerate them since I am more focused on putting a certain amount of time into kung-fu rather than reps - I have the luxury of doing this as a shift worker so I will take advantage of it.

The more I study martial arts, (reading, watching, learning, listening, training), the less I feel I know about it or understand it. It's like when your 18 and you think you have it all figured out and then by the time your 30 you (hopefully) realize you don't have a clue. If you don't feel this way you probably haven't looked around too much.

It's humbling in a good way but it definitely makes you question yourself. Should I be teaching other people when I have so many questions myself?

When you hit black belt and start teaching more you feel like you should know all the answers people might have - you fear exposing yourself as less than impervious or getting caught not knowing something. I feel that this can be detrimental to your own training.

A teacher a had once told me that he didn't have all the answers, that he was just my guide. I think that that is a respectable way of looking at it.

With great freedom...

2011-01-15T01:19:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that not being part of UBBT 8 does give me a certain sense of freedom. I do, however, realize that this is a dangerous type of freedom because even though I can say that it gives me the freedom to tailor my requirements and goals more fittingly it also gives me the freedom to do squat.

The thing that I like right now is the not counting. For example, last night I did a 'core workout'. I did a series of strengthening, balance and endurance exersizes with 3 or 4 reps of part 1 of tai chi in there. What was nice is that I didn't count anything, because, I didn't need to. I had 45 min to workout and I tried to get the most out of it as possible. A month ago I would have spent the same time doing mostly situps and pushups, horse stance, table tops. Sure it doesn't take 45 min to do 150 situps and pushups etc. but it does when you are perputually behind and always trying to catch up - hence my freedom.

The risk is that it is easy to abuse this freedom. Last year I really got in good shape and sorted a lot of things out - because of 7. So I will have to carry on the spirit and accountability of the program by listing tangible goals on physout - by making sure that I am blogging about my training and (most importantly) lots of mat time.

Goals 2011

2011-01-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

Major focus - forms form good form: Mostly Tai Chi and Cane

Weight training: come up with and follow a weight training regiment 2 times a week 40-45 min.

(not to gain bulk - just to maintain strength, gain muscular balance and repair)

Grappling: 50 hours of Grappling (one hour a week)

Cardio: One long distance (6-10k) run a week. One hour conditioning session a week (sprints, kicks, burpees, rope, jumps, shadow boxing)

Nutrition: Learn more about nutrition and apply this knowledge to my daily eating habits.

Learn more about reducing my environmental impact and being more energy efficient. Apply this to everyday life. Stop making excuses and being lazy about this stuff. Recycling is great but reducing is better, continue to reduce and reuse.

Guitar: Learn and perfect classical gas already. Learn more theory - chord progressions, scales and studies.

Continue to study chess, continue courses at AthabascaU, Take the next University french course.

By the end of the year I should be able to shop and cook for at least a full week of meals from new recipes that I have learned and prepared on my own - 4 vegatarian - 1 fish - 2 poultry.

That about sums it up. I'm planning to use 2011 as a launch pad to go for 2nd degree in 2012, to increase my skill level, knowledge and build momentum for the year after. Let's go!

3..2..1

2010-12-29T05:29:00.000-08:00

Today I completed all of my pushup & situp requirements for 7, I also ran the last 5Km for what I had set out as a goal of 400km of running.

After I did my last situp I sat quiet for a minute , dripping sweat onto the mat beneath me and reflected for a minute on what I had really accomplished this year - with 7 - and everything else.

I decided to finish it all off with an act of kindness. The gym had become pretty unkempt over the holidays - mats and paper towels - water cups, ropes, weights - literally strewn about all over the gym. So I tidied up and organized - put everything in it's place. It felt like the right way to cap it all off.

Resonance

2010-12-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of people who have no passion, no pursuit - nothing in their lives that drives them. They are part of no clubs or communities. They watch T.V or play video games, they tinker with this or that.

I've had discussions with individuals like this and I have found it discouraging to discover that they like it just fine this way, what's the point of having a hobby or a pursuit anyway - being sedentary suits them just fine - sitting around on the internet, watching T.V, playing video games, all makes them quite happy, they enjoy their lifestyle and they take care of the bills - their responsibilities - what's the problem. They don't feel like their missing out on anything and regard what your doing as tiresome and unnecessary.

So I think - what is it about what I do that's so much different or better - doing stuff is doing stuff right - to pass the time, whether it's getting to level 1000 or learning to perfect a new form or defense. Obviously there are health benefits to the activity martial arts demands but there are a lot of people who don't seem to want or need some type of pursuit in their lives such as the arts, seeming more than content without them.

===============================

I don't know if I will do this thought any justice as I try to put it into words - I'm hoping that it doesn't lose the gravity it holds for me in my head as I try to explain it on this page.

Electrical circuits have a quality called resonance. Some circuits are designed to have resonance at a specific frequency, like the radio in your car, when you 'tune' in a station you are manipulating the circuit in some way to make the circuit work (resonate) just for that station, cutting all the others out.

There is also mechanical resonance - a certain sound (or ultrasound) frequency reacts with an object based on its composition to amplify or reflect the frequency - like the object becomes 'alive' with that specific wavelength. Take an instrument for example - a high quality finely crafted violin will amplify the notes played with a tone and timbre that seems to bring a life of its own that is more than the sum of it's parts.

What I have found in the last little while when all the elements come together just right for fleeting moments my life has taken on a resonance as well. I believe that this resonance is what we talk about when we talk about being in the moment. I think that part of the reason for this is cutting out the 'noise' of life as much as possible, gaining more and more focus and a culmination of a series of smaller factors also coming together.

Like an instrument that is finely crafted played by a musician highly trained and disciplined - the martial artist's mind and body must also be in sync as the body is the instrument of the mind.

As the instrument can lose it's tuning, become warped and misshapen from poor maintenance so can the body. Like the musician who wavers on discipline and falls behind in practice so can the mind. When this is the case synchronicity is lost, the instrument buzzes and screeches and the timing and the rhythm are off.

However, body and mind, like a musician and instrument - when properly disciplined and tuned respectively can resonate strongly and clearly and the harmony of this relationship becomes clear.

I am nowhere close to the finely tuned instrument or the highly disciplined musician - but I am starting to become aware of the resonance that is acheivable, this may be closely tied to mastery or it may just be what it is to be in the moment - maybe it takes focus and practice to keep yourself in the moment and mastery is only possible from that state.

I'm also starting to recognize people who seem to resonate all the time - these people tend to wield a lot of influence - like a tuning fork they induce a response from those around them - they act as a catalyst and an inspiration.

So to be sedentary and happy is very possible I am sure. But to live with resonance seems so much better, it seems to carry more weight, more substance. I don't think that there is going to be any other way forward for humanity either if forward is where we decide we are trying to go.

Wait for it.

2010-12-13T23:43:00.000-08:00

Going into the last couple of weeks of the year I only have 1 focus: finishing my requirements. Finishing my requirements and practicing for the demo. OK, 2 focuses: finishing my requirements and practicing for the demo... and tai chi. 3, 3 main focuses. My 3 main focuses are finishing my requirements, practicing for the demo and tai chi... and..

I'll come in again.

This year in review

2010-12-07T01:48:00.000-08:00

It is really hard for me to figure out what UBBT 7 has done for me. To really examine what the program has done for me I have to ask myself the question 'where would be right now and what would I have accomplished if I hadn't have done the program?' which is a paradox that I can't get into without possibly causing the universe to implode - but I will give it my best shot.

I feel like I should have something profound to say but I don't so I feel almost guilty like I should have had a harder go at it, I didn't have any huge hurdles, I just tried to stick to the program and keep an open mind to everything that the members had to say in their blogs and their videos. By no means am I saying it was easy, there were many times that I had to force myself to do push-ups while my joints were burning from over stressing them, or drag myself onto the mats to do extra forms to catch up - just this week I have ran over 25K because I want to finish all my numbers if possible. One of the main points of the program for me (starting out) was to test my discipline so this was all very good.

The biggest thing I got out of the year (and this ties into being a newish black belt as much as the program) was just the process of figuring out where and how I fit into the marital arts world. Being a part of the discussion and reading what people had to say on the UBBT site was good for a lot of reflection and thought.

Yes I got a lot accomplished, but I set out to do things and get them done with or without a program, that's just me. I don't need an excuse or motivation to train, I love training - I just have to train.

What the program did is gave me a process in which I figured out where and how to focus myself to evolve into the martial artist I need to be, looking forward I have a good idea and feeling for what I want for at least 2 or 3 years before I need to re-evaluate things. It also helped bring in what the relevance is for me, what the martial arts actually does for someone, why it - over other things, provides such a solid platform by which to stand on for the rest of life's goals and challenges.

Martial arts is like music, such that there are so many ways to express it and none of them are wrong, some serve to different ends but what's important is to be honest and objective with yourself and others.

Too often I see martial arts being showcased as some kind of mystical magical 8th wonder of the world. The members of the UBBT strive to dispel the nonsense and prove to there peers, students and teachers that it's about hard work, sweat, blood, tears, thought and passion. This was refreshing and I needed it to keep my faith in the 'my style is better than your style' and the 'my house is bigger than your house and therefore I am more successful than you in all things' world.

The men and women involved in UUBT have confirmed that martial arts is not about knocking someone down or showing them up. It's about picking them up and showing them the way.

Perspectives

2010-11-30T12:57:00.000-08:00

Click on the video to see it full size - And get ready to click the [x] on the Ad - I can't get rid of it

Wake me when Movember ends

2010-11-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

I feel that accountability is a big part of 7 - so to stay true to the theme of accountability I will list the original requirements that I set out for myself below and comment on how I feel I did on them.

Physical Requirments:
50 000 pushups -- On track, shoulders and wrists hate me
50 000 sit-ups (or equivelant) -- On track, feel the burn
25 000 table top (back raises) -- On track
7 500 pull-ups – goal 20 reps per set -- A little behind but I believe I will get them all done. 17 is the most I have done consecutively even after thousands of reps - I don't know If Ill get to 20 without adding weight training - but that has to wait because I won't finish all 7 500 if I add in weights - a catch 22 of sorts

100 hrs ctt training -- further behind then I would like to admit but still working on it - I needed a training partner for this one and kept losing potential suiters to work and other things - I learned this year that you have to go to the training because no matter how hard you try the training does not come to you

25 000 kicks -- On track to complete this on 100%
400 kms – running -- A little behind but potentially I will finish this one as well, circumstances and injuries have been a real nemesis for this requirement

50 hrs horse stance (10 min a day min.) -- way behind on this one 10 min a day has become more like 5 min a day (average) It seems that at the end of the day it is really hard to make yourself do this one - I have definitely failed you on this one

1000 forms (mixed – focus on Kempo Loa Gar and Spear) -- On track, tai chi has taken a bit of the limelife away from kempo but such is the evolution of my martial arts

Grappling:

Boot camp: Run “ground survival basics” seminar -- done, it was fun to roll in the dirt
Kwoon: help incorporate grappling into cirriculum, run seminar to cover curriculum -- done, although the results are still to be revealed

Lifestyle:

Vegetarian Challenge -- Doing this one this month, certainly broadening our menu and tastes
1000 acts of kindness -- This challenge changed a few of my daily habits - for this challenge I admit that I didn't go out of my way to try and complete it, what I did was try and change my regular routine to make it a lasting change. I would say results are lukewarm here

5 changes or initiatives in my life to make a positive inpact on the future of the environment, economy or community. -- Going with paperless billing and record keeping, educating my children on the impact of consumption, Cutting way down on to go coffee (although not 100% which is no really that impressive), Cutting way way down - to practically no red meat, Making a huge effort not to buy new things unless they are very necessary or add to my quality of life (eg. my Taylor, or martial arts gear)

Write, maintain, manage and improve PysOut – The Martial Arts Fitness Community web site. -- Done, I don't know how many improvements I made but I debugged a few things thanks to Sifu Masterson noticing a glitch or two

Learn to cook (something better than macaroni) -- Done, I am now fairly competent in the kitchen (I even sharpen the knives). I am very proud of this accomplishment, I have always been useless in the kitchen and now I probably make about half of our meals which takes a lot of pressure of Andrea since she is in school full time and very involved at the kwoon.

Education:

Enroll in UofAthabasca online courses –- done, completed 3 coursed so far and working on my 4th

Study Tao: history – philosophy – meditation -- Did some reading on tao, I have to admit that I am not that interested in it, I thought I would be since it seemed to have a grounded approach to philosophy but as I study it, it seems to me as superstitious as many other religions and philosophies. Meditation has come to me in two ways. 1st - guitar, I finally bought myself a decent guitar after almost 20 years of playing and it have mad a big difference for me, I couple weeks ago I was sitting in the front room of my house with the winter sun shining in through the window filling the whole room in a golden hue - and as I played I realized that I had never been more relaxed or meditative in my life. The second form of meditation have come to me through tai chi - tai chi is awesome.

Discipline: Live Simple

in addition to the physical discipline:
no alcohol (there was mexico)– cursing (started out really good with this one but I think I had to put together some ikea furniture and that was the end of that. I will try to finish strong with this one because it really did have a positive effect on my attitude)– store bought junk food - pop (A few discretions but major improvement here as well)– study Tao(see above) – learn better focus and organizational skills (This one has turned out more to be a focus on simplifying life, I have done OK here too) – minimize red meat consumption (good) -

Here is the table from Physout from today detailing my goals (A little crunched to fit my blog):

Goal	Deadline	Completed to date	Left to Complete	catch-up	Days Left	Pace Needed to Meet Goal -Per Day - - * - - Per Week-
50000 reps pushups	Dec 31 2010	44956	5044.00	+38	37 days > 1 mo.	136.32 reps	954.27
50000 reps sit-ups	Dec 31 2010	44956	5044.00	+38	37 days > 1 mo.	136.32 reps	954.27
25000 reps table top (back-raises)	Dec 31 2010	22502	2498.00	+43	37 days > 1 mo.	67.51 reps	472.59
7500 reps pull-ups	Dec 31 2010	6283	1217.00	-455	37 days > 1 mo.	32.89 reps	230.24
100 hrs circuit training	Dec 31 2010	59.25	40.75	-31	37 days > 1 mo.	1.10 hrs	7.71
25000 reps kicks	Dec 31 2010	21238	3762.00	-1221	37 days > 1 mo.	101.68 reps	711.73
400 kms/miles running	Dec 31 2010	299.75	100.25	-60	37 days > 1 mo.	2.71 kms/miles	18.97
1000 reps (kempo lao gar spear)	Dec 31 2010	899	101.00	+1	37 days > 1 mo.	2.73 reps	19.11
3000 min Horse Stance	Dec 31 2010	1458	1542.00	-1237	37 days > 1 mo.	41.68 min	291.73
50 games chess	Dec 31 2010	52	-2.00	+7	37 days > 1 mo.	-0.05 games	-0.38

Don't be a hater

2010-11-16T13:16:00.001-08:00

Someone told me today that they just hated my guard. It's funny that usually when someone tells you something that they hate about you, you don't take it as such a compliment.

I've been thinking about mastery lately, what it really means, how it applies to me, my training, etcetera. I don't think that I will ever be a master. I started kung-fu late twenties, work full time, don't have my own school, ad nauseum.

However, I think that I have come to realize that mastery is not the place of master but the journey and the approach. Chun tzu again.

Moo

2010-11-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

Day 8 of the vegetarian challenge and it occurs to me that being a vegetarian does not automatically mean you are eating healthy, in fact quite the opposite - you have to work harder at eating healthy. It is certainly possible to be a vegetarian and not consume any vegetables.

Head out to do a few errands and instead of the usual sub at quizno's or subway to tide you over its just as easy to get coffee and donuts to fill the gap - hey, no meat in coffee and donuts. The point being that being vegetarian in no way = being healthy by default.

However, a well thought out diner plan and lots of fruits, vegetables, bagels, peanut butter, almonds, some pasta, brown rice, hemp, eggs, cereal, tofu and other soy things etc -- lots of variety - can keep you eating healthy with a good mixed menu.

I really like doing challenges like this because it expands your diet and forces you to discover things you otherwise may have never tried. For example we had tofu (soy) hot dogs the other day and honestly after the fixins' you put on it I would be hard pressed to tell the difference.

The challenge isn't actually that hard, I would say that at least half our meals already contained no meat of any kind. We have slowly cut more and more out over the years, red meat is something that we have rarely to never at this point having easily gone without or finding satisfactory substitutes for things like lasagna or pasta sauce.

I don't think I will ever be 100% vegetarian (forget vegan) - there will always be a little poultry and fish in my diet - but this challenge will definitely help to hone my diet even more to something that balances taste, nutrition and ecological consumption.

Oh yeah

2010-11-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

I had a dream the other night about one of my mentors (no one that anyone who reads this knows). Basically in the dream this person was in a situation and acted pretty much as badly as possible, making a scene and showing poor sportsmanship and judgement.

In the dream I was really upset by it. It was a huge dilemma because on one hand I really valued the knowledge and approach of this individual but on the other I had lost all respect for them -- how could I continue to be open to what this person had to offer me after this happened? I felt betrayed.

Thankfully this was just a dream. The dream was likely my head messing with me at a time were I feel too content with the current state of affairs. Right now I feel like I hit the right mix of everything with my training and I'm only dealing with like 2 or 3 minor injuries so I'm humming along nicely. Maybe I feel like the balance is too delicate, I don't know - but I do know that if I can keep it going the way it is I will progress steadily along and enjoy my time training at the same time which is all I can hope for.

This type of thing has happened to me before in my life where you lose all respect for someone because they turned out to be a person who did a lot of talking but did nothing to back themselves up with their actions. There is nothing that I can do about this outside of making sure that I am never one of these people.

I seem to be around a lot of people lately that figure that the more forcefully they say something the more they're right. I have trouble understanding how the people who walk around like they know so much are so unwilling to chill out and listen to the people around them. How did they get to know everything in the first place when they don't hear a word that anyone says.

The problem is is that unless you match the forcefulness of someones personality they will never even take a second to think about what your saying if you simply offer your thoughts - it's like trying to fight fire with gas - and I find this completely tiring and useless so more and more I just listen to what people say and only offer in return 'oh yeah'.

2010-10-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

I read over some of my old blogs. It's pretty interesting to see my thought patterns over the last 2 1/2 years trying to figure out what I am doing and where I'm going with my training and other things in general.

I can see the times when I was going strong or other times when I was less than enthusiastic about this or that and still other times when I really just phoned in my journal entry.

Taking a step back and looking at my training over the last couple weeks it seems to me that you can go for quite a while when your a colored belt stripe to stripe and stay pretty happy because you always seem to be earning something and moving forward - even if you don't enjoy what your doing tremendously there is a sense of accomplishment that accompanies you in your training and can take you a long way.

Enter sihing or black belt and things are a little different, there are no paydays and now your at the point where you go years between any real promotion. This is the point at which something real needs to keep you going, so what is it?

Competition can keep you going - always looking forward to a date and a match - getting better for a very specific and tangible reason - bringing home a ribbon here and there, no problems you can go for a while this way and the promotions may come along the way.

But if you don't compete, what then? Teaching others. I find that in order to plan a lesson I have to think about the material, understand it, practice it, play with it - relate form to application before I can present it to my students. You want to inspire you students by letting them see how good they can get (e.i by being good yourself) - that means practicing and staying on top.

But essentially and most importantly is to really like (enjoy) what you are doing. If you don't love what you are doing then sooner or later the bottom will drop out and you will be sitting there wondering what you are doing.

UBBT 7 has proven to allow me to work out how I feel and view certain aspect of martial arts (good or bad), how I think I fit in and how I want to approach my own training. I spend a lot of time training but there are a few other things that I like to do to as well. One of the biggest problems I face is scattered focus.

Multi-tasking is fine and dandy but the word gets abused like there's something wrong with you if you can't tweet, watch t.v, do push-ups, read and shower at the same time. We talk about being in the moment and having focus and concentration but then we try and do 20 things at once effectively not getting any of them done whatsoever.

Next year the theme for me is to reduce clutter (mental and task-related). I am going to narrow my focus. Instead of trying to do everything at once I will be focusing on a few big things throughout the whole year and then 1 or 2 items to perfect, learn or understand on a 1 or two month basis. Going to class on a regular basis will keep everything else in line.

I seem to have a found a decent balance in my training lately and as a result I am enjoying it more than I have in recent memory. I have figured out a lot of things this year about my training (needs, goals etc) and next year I believe that the mix and the formula will be fine tuned to serve me for the foreseeable future.

I got nothin'

2010-10-19T01:55:00.000-07:00

Sometime it seems so cut and dry, but other times it seems ridiculously complex.

What I am finding lately is that there is a lot of noise everywhere. The internet is just a mess, the radio is static, people talk and I just hear noise. Noise is random - no pattern - no purpose - no focus.

Clarity is fleeting and barely tangible - I can't see what I am supposed to see. I know what I am looking for but I don't find it and I can't say if it's because it's not there or because I don't have the judgement to see it.

The harder I look the more it eludes me.

Tai-chi master (of 1 move)

2010-10-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

Tai-chi is pretty awesome.

Just the fact that it is relaxing and invigorating at the same time which seems paradoxical.

I wonder if its the movements themselves that have been developed to trigger the best response or whether its just the focus and the fact that your s-l-o-w-i-n-g everything down that gives you the buzz that you get.

Since I decided to go to tai chi as often as I could I've only actually been able to make 1 class. In the one class I made - I learnt one move - (2 or 3 moves together I think). And since I have done this move about 1000 times - making me a TAI-CHI MASTER (of 1 move).

The Third Way

2010-10-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

Traditional vs Modern is the topic of some discussion. Do martial arts schools pander to what people want in the modern era or hold on hard to the tradition of their art.

The thought might be that you would lose some integrity if you were to change or adapt based on the wants and/or trends of today's society. But maybe the integrity of the system lies in the fact that it is able to adapt - that it does not remain the same - that it does not stagnate.

The thought might be that non-traditional schools may lack in discipline, core technique, community, and well, tradition. That they fall short of deep understanding in the art of combative movement - instead trading off for the technique of the day and having a mentality of fight fight fight - rather than fight for peace. I suppose that the validity, integrity, mentality, philosophy and level of skill in a non-traditional school would have to come from the chief instructor rather than be a component of the system itself - but in all honesty even in a traditional school all of these things need to come from the top no matter how solid the system being taught was traditionally.

I wonder if holding on too tight to the aspects of a traditional system and to the traditional school truly serves us moving forward. The fact is is that we do not live in feudal Japan where you would train to protect the land of your employer or in ancient China where you would live full time in a temple your whole life conditioning and meditating.

For the everyman of martial arts it has to make sense; for the people and the time and place where they live. It has to be relevant, not obscure.

Even when you talk about traditional you might as well pick any old word you'd like and it would carry as much weight. Traditional could mean anything from the shaolin temple 1000 years ago where you would learn to endure the vigors of intense physical and metal abuse (training) to 100 years ago as a japanese Jodu student training at Kodokan - which was set up more like a university of martial arts - where the practice was systemized and curriculumized (that's a word) from it's jiu-jitsu roots which was comprised of an arsenal of deadly techniques for the fully armored battlefield warrior.

So tradition is just a carrying on of someone else's way of doing things. It not inherently a good thing or a bad thing. It does not automatically give anything credibility or truth. Truth is something I have always looked for in everything - as much as I am able to understand it.

I have been part of (to some capacity) no less than 7 martial arts clubs throughout my life and observed a few more - I have seen everything from the outright unprofessional to the rigidly traditional and back. I have been able to see how the students reacted and interacted with their peers and their teachers - the levels of respect, discipline and skill.

The thing is is that a lot of the etiquette and expectations in martial arts are base on old school societal set ups that emphasized subservience and class structure. I think that we can get past that and realize that respect and subservience are two very different things. We need to see that some of the things we hold as tradition were not traditional at the time (they were the culture of the time) and are no longer culturally relevant. We need to appreciate as students and teachers what respect truly is, how it is gained, why it is deserved and how it is shown.

The problem remains that we look at this subject like things either have to be traditional or non-traditional and those who try and have some of both or ignore the definitions and do what makes sense are not paying proper homage to their roots or are somehow too chicken to let go of tradition completely.

Aren't the fathers of almost all modern systems the ones who broke from the traditional way of thinking to create their own path based on what made sense to them in their time and place?Kano Jigoro, Ed Parker, Bruce Lee, Helio Gracie, Morihei Ueshiba to name a few. I think that we pay homage to our predecessors not by doing it exactly their way but by evolving - our skills our philosophies.

There is a third way. In my opinion what needs to happen in the martial arts is a carrying on of the spirit of the tradition and a respect for the past but not a blind following of all of the idiosyncrasies of our forefathers. Not to abandon our traditions all together but to be smart enough to recognize what makes sense and what we're holding on to just for traditions sakes. I think that if we don't than we will continue to further and further isolate the general public.

We need to look at what we think our art should be with all factors considered- skill, respect, discipling, community, heritage - all of the tenants that are important to us - but as importantly we need to consider where we are going with it - why it serves us, how it can serve us better - how we can make it current without losing the integrity or the spirit of it. And stop worrying about offending our long gone ancestors - our appreciation and acknowledgement of their lives and their contributions is important but it is enough.

Think of what and how you would move forward if there were no expectations or obligations. Incorporating the spirit of past masters. Upholding the ideal of skill, discipline and respect. Making it relevant. Making it make sense. Making it better.

This is the evolution of marital arts.

It's just Kempo fighting!

2010-09-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

marital arts

2010-09-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

Some people will say that martial arts is "this" or "that" or say - "that's not martial arts" or "he's not a REAL martial artist" - or whatever.

To say that martial arts is one thing or another is the same as saying that music is one thing or another.

You can say that music is relaxing, invigorating, depressing, uplifting, motivational, hard, soft, quiet, loud, good, bad, yours, mine, annoying, catchy ....... Music is none of those things and all of those things.

You can say that martial arts is (or should be) hard, soft, motivational, stress-relieving, relaxing, practical, confidence building - that it creates longevity, encourages community, proves who's the best, weeds out the weak - that this is wrong and that is right...... martial arts is none of those things and all of those things.

I'm not sure I will ever try to tell anyone what martial arts "is", to try and convince somebody that "it's much more than that.." or "it's more like this.." when they have a certain perception of it, because for many different people it's many different things - and there will never be consensus. What I will do is tell them about my club and what our martial arts - what it is to me, and I will only seek out others with a common outlook and philosophy.

I will agree with anyone who says that instructors have a responsibility to be honest to themselves and their students when it comes to what they are teaching - it's application and practicality.

No matter what you are teaching the most important thing to impress on your students is to avoid a dangerous situation entirely if possible, then walk or talk your way out, then the flight or fight comes in (in that order) - only if absolutely absolutely necessary do you fight to protect yourself - not just because you've been taken to the point that you're incensed enough to fight - isn't that what we are trying to gain - discipline, calm, confidence - the ability to realize what is trivial (and also what is at stake?).

Past the agreement of the responsibility that an instructor assumes, to say that one martial art is not practical or that another is wrong or not as good is only true if that particular art came with some kind of a pretense, promise or guarantee of success (of one sort or another).

To practice tai chi and gain a deeper sense of yourself and bring your blood pressure down is very practical for some, to join judo or taekwondo because you love the competition of a more competitive art and it serves to keep you ever self-improving and engaged in something is very practical for others. For others who may be in law enforcement or similar type of work who would rely on martial skills on a daily basis there are other tactical based systems that are practical for that purpose.

To imply or state that other arts are not at all practical because they don't serve that same narrow purpose is just derision without understanding or empathy. Many martial artists (including myself) seek out their training specifically for the purpose of bringing balance, peace, and semblance to their lives through the conduit of hard work, discipline and the pursuit of mastery with no other pretense. Self defense skill is often seen as a feature or side-effect of this practice not the end all be all.

If all martial artists trained only because they thought they were getting the quickest, deadliest, most efficient way to 'knock a' sucka down' I would have nothing to do with martial arts - I would avoid it like a disease because that's what it would be. How poison the mentality and the outlook would be - how dismal and bland would our world (of martial arts) be if the only purpose, the only practicality of it was to streamline to the most brutal and effective practices and write off the rest as unnecessary and useless.

It would be like saying that death metal is the only music, no classical, no country, no rock, no folk, no blues, no reggae, no big-band, no celtic, no electronica, no jazz - that none of these other styles are music because they don't appeal to you or have the same effect for everyone. This is simply not true.

So as long as a martial artist isn't being fooled (by himself, his peers, or his teachers) about what he is getting out of his training - how and why it applies to him/her - martial arts will remain the practice of hard work through discipline and respect carried by a tradition of hand-to-hand combative techniques and practices (kata - forms etc). That's the truth.

More on chess

2010-09-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've been really into chess the last little while.

As long as I can remember I've known how to play the game. But knowing how the chessmen move and knowing how to play is the difference between knowing how to stick your fist out in front of you (or your foot) and knowing how to fight or spar, especially well.

So a couple months ago I got sick of losing because losing over and over motivates you to either get better at something or quit. Rather than quiting I chose to figure out how to get better. So instead of just playing the game and hoping I would get better through experience alone I started to study the game; books, puzzles, chessmaster tutorials etc. and what I found out is that I really didn't understand the game at all, I just knew how the pieces moved.

I am really not much better at this point but I am losing a little less and I have a much different perspective and outlook when I engage in the game - I actually have a few tactics and a tiny bit of strategy instead of just sticking and moving, sticking and moving and then dying.

This is a good experience because like many other things (but better than most) it draws a lot of parallels and analogies to life and martial arts. Just the idea of sitting back and examining something and trying to see it beyond the surface level, to 3-dimensionalize something that appears to only bring you 2..

Chess will definitely be a lifelong pursuit - I just hope I don't suck at it for too much longer.

Writers Block

2010-09-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.. I don't know what to write about. After I filter out all the stuff that I could write about but shouldn't I'm not left with a heck of a lot of material.

The journey this year has been one of having to dig deep and be honest about where I've been, why I'm here and what I want (still not 100% sure on any of it). I don't know if this is a result of 7 or just the point that I've come to and would have inevitably arrived at regardless of what else was going on.

cheers

Update

2010-09-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

I'm on my second weeks of nights - it's going fine - I was always more of a night person and it's less hectic at night so I can take more time to work on projects instead of just putting out fires, so that's good.

The new schedule gives me more time and a regular routine with my daughters so that is a very cool thing. I will be home everyday when they get off the bus and this gives me a chance to do some things with them on a daily basis that was so hard to be consistent with on my old schedule.

The unfortunate part of the schedule is that I make less 2nd degree brown belt and black belt classes, but I have made a commitment to teach in the mon/wed blue/brown class so my floor time will remain strong and the blue/browns are a great group to work with.

I bought a new guitar this week and it's amazing - I never fully appreciated what a higher end instrument could do for me, I feel that I am going to make some decent progress in the next couple years with my playing.

I've been thinking a lot lately about rank in the martial arts. I wonder if the pursuit of rank effects the path some of us may take, e.i. is ranking more important than true exploration and self development, do you find the goal is simply to rank whatever it takes rather than to truly learn yourself and forgo the need for the recognition.

hmm

Time may change me-ee, but I can't change time

2010-08-28T04:44:00.001-07:00

Over the last couple of days I discovered a few things about myself, about what drives me - what brought me to martial arts, what keeps me going.

The gory details aren't important, but it became evident that without recognition of the underlying factors that make me who I am right now I would have less control of who I want to become.

Once I clued in on my revelation I understood how profound it was and I realized the importance of really knowing your demons (so to speak) and seeing yourself from that outside perspective. I can be critical of myself not by sizing up my failures but by understanding the things that have made me.. me.

Gumption is something that I think I need more of.

You're better than this

2010-08-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

This is what I say to myself when I need to push harder. When I run on the treadmill I increase my speed after every song to the point where I don't think I can go for any longer, or push any more, but if the song is not over or I haven't hit my top speed or my target distance hasn't been reached that's just too bad.

So I say to myself "you're better than this" - and it keeps me going. A bit later I feel like hitting that big red button on that stupid torture machine so I say again "you're better than this" (not out loud because I'm not trying to freak other people out in the gym) - and it gets me a little further.

I used to say "I'm a black belt" - but now that I am a black belt it doesn't have the same effect. I will always be able to say "you're better than this" - it will always apply.

Chun tzu - the pursuit - the always knowing that you're better (in all aspects), just that it hasn't surfaced yet, egoless, determined, steadfast. This may not always be the reality but it is the ideal - the pursuit.

Always training

2010-08-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Back for a few days to regroup and then off to Jasper. Went to Drumheller for a few days, it rained and we were eaten alive my mosquitoes. One of the best parts of the trip was Horseshoe Canyon created by the Red Deer River after the glaciers receded form the last ice age (er something like that).

Anyways we spent a while ascending and descending and hopping over streams and sprinting up hills. The video is me sprinting up the last hill to the top where we started. Unfortunatley the video doesn't do justice to how steep it was but the point is that you are always looking for that chance to get a little training in!

Good Weekend

2010-08-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

It was a good long weekend. First off - I actually had the long weekend off which is hit and miss with shift work. On friday I wrote the final for my math course, so given that I passed, that's 3 courses in the books this year so far. I will take the next month and a half or so off from school and go at it again after that.

I made the decision to finally cough up the money for a good guitar so I'm looking forward to that, my current guitar has served me well for a long time and although it has a nice tone, it lacks the action and speed that I need and is starting to hold me back from getting better -- It will be a good campfire guitar.

The weekend ended on a good note, Chantal had her first windsurfing lesson and did very well, she fell a lot but kept a good attitude and actually got going for a bit a couple of times.

The members of UBBT 7 at Silent River are tracking what they eat for the whole month of August http://srkfubbtdiettrackingproject.blogspot.com/ <-- here. This is a good project for a couple of reasons, first it will force you to be much more mindful of what you are eating if you know that you have to confess.. I mean report it to everyone (not that that is going to divert me from my cookies tonight). Secondly I hope it will highlight to students that food and diet is a HUGE part of training and lifestyle and you can't expect to fuel yourself with junk and than demand high performance out of your body. Also I think that if you have to write down everything that you eat for everyone to see than I think that may force you to eat a little better than you currently do and develop some good habits that will long outlast the month of August.

The hardest part for everyone may be to provide full disclosure of what they are eating everyday. No matter what, this will be an interesting month if nothing else.

Commitment

2010-07-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

I don't have too much to report this week and don't feel a bunch like blogging. It has been a hectic couple of weeks at work. Not the 'hey I'm busy and the day flew by' type of hectic but the 'I'm seeing double a the end of the day'' kind of hectic. Plus on top of that I am trying to get some studying in at the end of my day for an exam on Friday.

But - no matter how busy I am, and even though I may have to play a little catch-up with some requirements later, I am still going strong and even though the journey seems long and gets tiring, I still have full intentions of finishing everything I set out to do - just like when I started.

I made a commitment to the UBBT, to my teacher and to my peers (and to myself) - So I blog to keep that commitment strong and on track - even if my blog isn't interesting or inspiring. At least it's short.

Physical and financial Debt

2010-07-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

It's easier when you owe money to allow yourself to owe more money with very little grief about it. Here's what I mean, say you owe 200,000 bucks to the bank (your house). It's really no big deal to go and buy a bigger house and when the dust settles owe 225,000 - 250,000 or more. Even when the house they live in is already big enough, in a nice enough area etc.. People do this everyday and are quite happy to do it. Boiled down to daily or monthly living the difference may not even seem significant.

But its a lot harder to spend that same money when its yours - say you have $30 000 saved up - it's yours you don't owe it to anyone. It's a lot harder to spend all that money on something even though it's free and clear than it is to increase debt by the same amount.

Obviously this only goes so far, if you have 3 million dollars then 30 G is no big deal, and if your 3 million in Debt you would likely feel like you were desperately behind with no hope of recovery. But there is a substantial middle ground were this idea applies.

The same attitude seems to be prevalent with physical goals. If I am way behind in push-ups (say 1000 or so) - it is really easy to skip a day or two or three - I'm already behind what's the difference how behind I am. But - if I am keeping up or a bit ahead - there's no way I'm letting that slip - my successes are much more tangible than my failings.

That's why I find it so important to stay relatively on track. Even though it may seem counter-intuitive the more I get behind the less it seems to influence me. I think you get motivated by the success but numbed more and more by the debt.

I don't know if this is a side effect of a greedy society or some kind of natural law, but we seem to set ourselves up to always start out behind, obligated, pledged, committed, or otherwise indebted.

I also believe that physical debt includes how healthy we live and very importantly what we eat. Does my body have to deal with a bad debt load of food that has little or no nutrient value, or do I give it a surplus of clean healthy food and water?

Emotional debt tends to rack up as well - but when we pay this kind of debt back it can be catastrophic.

One of my major focuses is to simplify my life, cut out the stuff that is trivial and focus on the important stuff that has substance; I try to coach my kids in what's important (real), how to live happily (successfully) and how to live like citizens of the earth (responsibly).

I try to do this through honesty and in living by example. Hopefully I can give them a start with no debt (emotional or physical).

Beep, Boop, Buzzz, Chirp, Ring, Clang - ahhhh

2010-07-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

I work in a traffic control center. My job (partly) is to monitor alarms and fix them or get someone else to fix them. As a result I see a lot of red and hear a lot of buzzers and alarms all day. When its quiet I write programs to help turn data (tons of crap) into information (maybe useful and easier to make sense of).

The point is - there is a constant inundation of noise and messages and everything else I have to filter through daily, very little peace and quiet. It occurs to me that although this is probably the best job I have ever had and provides adequately I would never choose to do this, it by no means is a passion or a pursuit - give me a million dollars (probably much less) and I would never look back.

I don't hate my job which is good - because I really did not like my last job - but - you get trapped by money, security - need of food - etc..

So as most spoiled westerners I find this circle of futility pretty boring - get up go to work go to bed get up go to work go to bed get up go to work go to bed..

And what do you get from it - you get to tread water. Make some ground financially and Boom your car blows up or you get sick or your house falls apart or your kids go to college and theres another 50G - if you can afford it.

If I sold everything and moved to the Yukon I would likely be able to piddle out my days with the extra cash I would have from moving form a big market to the middle of nowhere - but that seems equally as pointless. Not really setting your kids up for a lot of opportunity in life either.

So just enjoy your life than - have fun, live fancy free, do what you want (try not to get in anyones way). Well then your just part of the problem and you have to live with the guilt and the burden that your life of luxury comes at the expense of the destitution of millions of people who kill each other over the shiny prize around your neck and in your ears or kill themselves working 18 hr days making all the plastic that bores you after a month or firebomb each other for the black gold that gives your ridiculous Hummer its heartbeat.

How do we break this cycle?? Is it possible. You say that martial artists are above and beyond the pettiness - a breed all on their own. Go to any martial arts forum on the internet (there are many) and just browse the forums for a minute or two to dispel that myth. Certainly not a gentlemen (gentle-lady)/warrior class if we ever were. In fact there is so much testosterone, derision, and wizardry in martial arts, you shy away from admitting to people that you have anything to do with it all, rather than have all the ambassadors of the arts embarrass you like this guy [coconut guy] with his black belt and blue jeans.

I think that the problem is that we are so busy dealing with all the menial things or so hypnotized by mass media that we don't have the time or the perspective to consider our own feel of it all.

How easily we adopt someone else's viewpoint and philosophy as our own, to busy with the all the beeps and boops and buzzes and chirps and rings and clangs to hear the silence.

Breaking out the point form again:

2010-07-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

7: is going good - my numbers are slightly behind but not my goals - still on track - once August hits then I will be done my last course for a bit and the focus will shift.

Math: Sucks.. More especially when your 32

Disappointment: In my team - About half the team is MIA - Its true, if your not blogging - what are you doing? I really don't feel like we have a really strong team. It's not too late is it?

Naive: Why am I surprised. Although I expected much more from a group of Martial Artists.

Qigong: I can't wait for the next session - I think that this will become a big part of how I train.

Guitar: I need a better one - Nothing is more relaxing than a fast finger-pick in open D, but I have outgrown my 5&Dime 6 string and I needs me a Taylor.

WindSurfing: Canada day served up a little wind, and although it was not off the hook, it was enough to rocket me on a good reach a couple of times there was one woo-hoo which is always good because I don't woo-hoo for just any plane. The coolest part was that me and Andrea were sailing nearly side by side the whole time which is rare - usually we end up way across the water from each other.

T.V. - Cancel your cable or satellite - watch a movie now and again or slowly work through a series on DVD - your life will be better. I can't even be in the room with a background T.V. blaring out commercials and propaganda --- Break the Spell that the idiot box has on you. If you don't think it does try going without it for a week and see if you get twitchy you might have a problem - I haven't had cable for years and I will never go back.

My kids: are pretty awesome , they are both working on their crane badge, so earlier today we went for a 10 min run (no stopping) - Chantal had to dig deep for the last 2 mins but made it, Teagan has more energy than a supernova but no tolerance for uncomfort - She made it too, only complaining about her sore legs once near the start of the run - for her as long as there is a payday then she can justify a little work. I was proud of them both - only a couple dozen more items to scratch off and that badge is theirs. Is a good summer project.

Change: I will be taking the night shift at work - Andrea is going back to school in August and it really works perfectly schedule wise. Its funny that out of blind luck and no with seniority I managed to dodge night shift only to voluntarily take a shift now. This actually gives me more time with the kids but a sleeping schedule I'm not too stoked about and less kwoon-time :: I will have to figure something out.

Ego: I think prevents us from being honest about what different arts have to offer. I think that a lot of people feel the need to justify their style or what they know based on how it pits against all others, as if, it's useless if unable to annihilate any foe real or imaginary in mortal combat. Is that what it boils down to? Is that what the arts were founded on? I would like to think that the point is much more about personal growth and strength (not just the barbell lifting kind) - while including the added bonus of being able to proficiently verbally and physically (only if absolutely necessary) deter an aggressive opponent.

Boo-Ya

Be Cool

2010-06-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

So - when I see someone who is getting hot, frustrated, short-tempered or all together loses composure when they are sparring, I think 'where is the kung-fu here?' -- With full commitment to the art and everything that this implies a person should break through the #@$ (bull) - the outer layers and really learn about themselves. And in by doing so should have a real good grasp of their emotions - by pushing yourself to your absolute limit - like say in the black belt test - or at a boot camp, you should be brought to your knees (mentally, physically and emotionally) and humbled.

Chun-tzu then ensues. The chun tzu is one who lives by the ideal of Jen and is neither petty, arrogant, mean-spirited or vengeful. I am not even close to this but it is my goal - to me it is what the pursuit of kung-fu (great achievement) is about, and the reason I practice kung-fu (hard work) everyday.

But unless you recognize the road you travel down you can't have any idea of where your destination lies (you may even be on the wrong road altogether.)

Treading Water

2010-06-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

The act of moving around a lot but really not getting anywhere, however, if you stop you drown - so keep treading water.

This is how I have felt lately pretty much in all aspects, kung-fu - career and other. Even though I may be making progress nothing feels very significant.

Tonight I headed out to get something at Canadian Tire and the truck decided to make a loud noise and quit on me. Where does this leave me? Well I will waste a bunch of money on towing and a vehicle inspection to find out that it is probably too much money to put in a vehicle that has almost 300 000 kms on it.

I couldn't care less about vehicles, but I have to get around so I can keep treading water.

The Tao of Me

2010-06-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

Been doing a little reading on Tao.

There are certain things I like about it and certain things that don't make sense to me right off the bat. It has a interesting philosophy but not really a warm and fuzzy look at reality. Here is a system that tries to teach you how to deal with reality because it is harsh but has to be tolerated since, well - here we are.

Like anything else I think that there are valuable insights and tools that I can get from it - but like everything else I have doubt in the validity of something that has so much about it that I find kind of archaic, superstitious, counter-intuitive or illogical.

Every insight that I have made (in general) tends to seem so obvious once it is revealed or understood, so I distrust information that seems .. cloudy. At the same time I appreciate that we are probably not that much smarter than ants in the grand scheme of things so some of these ideas are trying to get you to look past the obvious to gain insight on what you might not understand, but then how do you know what's valuable and what's hooey.

Transcendence may take a while.

I re-think therefore I are

2010-06-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I made a change in my technique that opened a door for me. Partly due to critique, partly due to thinking about the 6 harmonies. Other than an improvement in technique it also affected my approach in trying to understand the movements and flow of the art.

Push-ups... check, Sit-ups... check, Running... check

Blog... check.

I honestly have too much and nothing to say - gotta think about it

we'll see where I am at next time.

Self prescribed sleep deprivation therapy not working

2010-05-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

I work a 4-on 4-off 12 hour shift. So this means that on the days I work I get up at 5:45 and get home at about 19:30.

To get 8 hours sleep I should hit the hay at 21:45 at the latest. This gives me just over 2 hours to live my life on a work day, so as a result I generally forget about the 8 hours and go to bed at around 11:00-11:30 or later allowing for only about 6 hours of sleep. I always felt robbed of my time if I went to bed earlier.

I must be getting old because I can't do this anymore. Usually what happens is on my 2nd day of work I am completely exhausted so I get home and crash hard to compensate, but then push for the hours I want the rest of the week.

Then my first day home is half written off because I have to play catch-up. This is a crazy way to schedule my week.

So this week I said forget it, I have to get the 8 hours sleep I need - even if it means giving up 1 1/2 to 2 hrs a night, I'm finding it harder and harder to function over a 48 hr work week going off 6 hrs of rest a night.

This week was so much better. I got my 8 hrs a night (which is 8 hrs more over the 4 days), and as a result I was in a better mood all week, I had more energy at lunch for my work-out, I felt more 'on the ball' during my day, and didn't feel as strung out when I got home after 12 hrs of work.

I'm hoping that as a result of a better sleep schedule, even though it takes a few hours away from me during my week - I will make better use of the time that I do have since I should be more alert and energetic - resulting in more mindful training and study.

Great Achievement

2010-05-22T20:55:00.001-07:00

I have a problem that I always tend to associate hard work with sweat. And it although has taken me this far, it becomes apparent that hard work must also include the discipline of striving for perfection, even if that means investing vast amounts of time towards training in a different paradigm.

Kung-fu means hard work but can also be translated as "time - effort" or "great achievement". No great achievement has ever been made with out hard work, time and effort.

No More Binging

2010-05-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

One of my requirements for 7 is 1000 forms by January. Thats only three forms a day which is about 21 forms a week - which at 120sec average on my forms is only about 45 min a week.

For the first couple of weeks it was pretty easy, I would stay after the morning classes and pump out 20 forms or so and then do the ol' wash my hands of it - DONE. Good for a week.

Hold on Pontius, you might be getting the numbers but that isn't the whole point is it?

Binging on requirements might be a good way to kill some numbers that are getting away from you but it defeats the purpose of the exercise if it is your approach to the whole program.

Take consistent action. That doesn't mean do 20 pushups one week than 2000 the next to make up for it, as a martial artist you want to condition so that your able to push yourself little by little and gain the whole time. When you binge a lot of time is spent in recovery forcing you to have to binge again when you feel a bit better. Doing 1000 kicks in a day is a pretty awesome way of catching up on a requirement but then your legs won't even give you a crane stance for another 4 days, so what have you gained. Plan to do 200 a day for seven days instead - this will put you further ahead and not require hard core recovery (wasted time). Yeah you have to live with a bit of a full-on whole body soreness most of the time but it becomes like an old friend that you start to miss when its gone.

Another problem with blitzing requirements is that you lose flow between sessions. If you go weeks between visiting a form because you did it 40 times one day, by the time you get back to it you have not made any ground. I have found this with my forms --- more than ever I realized this week that I have to do forms everyday - even if its just once, because if I don't I lose a vital connection to this element of my training. There is a golden thread that connects my form each time I do it but if I go to far the thread is too thin and breaks. But consistent action keeps the tie strong and allows me to retain progress and move ahead.

After all that I do want to buy it back a bit; I think that doing a 'marathon' of sorts - getting a whole bunch of something done in one day is good to do every now and then - total focus on one aspect of training all day and the satisfaction of really putting some big numbers away can be very motivational. However.. imho just not the way training should be approached as a whole.

OK so the hamster is the least offensive image I could find searching for 'binge'.

I gotta like, find myself, man

2010-05-05T07:09:00.001-07:00

Alternate titles: Kempotastic. Grumpy. Micheal Jackson is dead?? Potent Potables. Work Sucks. 2+2=5. Tangible Intangibles.

I have been grumpy lately, which is unusual for me after about an hour of being up. Something bugging me or maybe just too much on the go making me feel spread too thin - also work. I met with Sifu Brinker to discuss a few simple housekeeping items and left with a head full of (fill in a Bill Cosby descriptive sound here - something like Nnn-zip-zow-zibbidy-doo).

I'm still trying to figure out my path going forward, having goals is good, but part of the problem is that at this stage improvement is very slow going. When you are white-brown belt improvement is so palpable it practically stares back at you and grins. Now I feel like improvement is so intangible that I wouldn't see it if it spinning-back-kicked me in the head.

At a certain level Kung-fu is like religion. I don't think your going to get anywhere without having faith in it first, especially after the initial elation (infatuation) of it wears off. This is hard for me because its not how my brain works. Something needs to make sense and have a clear purpose for me to accept it 100%. What always keeps me going is the enjoyment of it and the results that I see from it (personally and in the martial arts). As results slow down enjoyment has to make up for it. Maybe I don't know how to gauge my progress at this point.

_____________________________

Between this line and the line above it I have gone to and returned from San Shou class. I didn't teach tonight I just put on the gloves and threw down with the guys - I really needed to do that and now I feel much better.

I wrote down and sent off some of my baggage today to a mentor. Partly it was a good exerscise because as I was writing this long winded message I ended up articulating some thoughts that were in my head but not really formed yet. But also, I ended up thinking a lot about what I wrote afterwards and realized a few things from it. I did a good workout soon after and focused purely on the basic techniques. This is when I realized (rather re-realized) that the pursuit of perfecting the things that you already know as important (maybe more so) than just always learning something new all the time. I often say that discipline is one of the virtues of a black belt I revere the most - perseverance and the strive for perfection - including the patience required - takes huge discipline.

The process I've gone through in the last couple of days hasn't concreted anything in for me but at least I know what it is now that I have to figure out rather than just knowing that theres something in my brain thats spinning around with a loose bearing and shredding things up.

Till next time.

Time...

2010-04-29T11:30:00.001-07:00

I don't have a lot of it. Right now I am taking a math course, I thought it would be fun - I am stupid. I need it for a certificate I want so I figured I'd get it out of the way right away - I should have done it last with the prize so close it would have been more motivating and I would have charged through it.

In my math book they show pictures of people jumping at the beginning of each chapter. This seemed ridiculous to me until I realized why the picture is cut of below the waist. It's to hide the fact that these people are jumping off a cliff.

It might be called 'free sparring' - but a lot of times you pay for it

2010-04-21T07:38:00.001-07:00

I have noticed a double standard lately that bothers me. When a guy gets a little banged up from sparring, rolling or practicing techniques it's - 'hah, crazy guys'. But when its a woman who commits herself to the martial arts and gets a little bruised or limpy it's 'poor dear, what are you doing to yourself, you need to be careful, maybe its too rough for you, - add lots of nauseum'.

Yes, be smart and take the time to heal and don't go out to try and hurt yourself, but I'm sorry it's martial arts and you should get sore, and its gonna hurt sometimes and your going to limp home once in a while, and your going to pull something every now and then and some times your going to hold your shin and say "shhshshshsh aaaaahhhhhh, shhshshshshshsh aaaaahhhhhh, shhshshshsh aaaaaaaaahhhhhh, shhshshshsh aaaaahhhhhh, shhshshshsh aaaaahhhhhh, shhshshshsh aaaaahhhhhh."

Less fuel, more mileage

2010-04-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

7 has done a few things for me so far. First and foremost it forces me to train when I might not otherwise want to, secondly it forces me to look closely at how I train due to time restraints and requirements.

For example one of my goals is to be able to do 20 chin-ups in a row. There are a couple insights that I have made:

1. Muscle is not the only thing that gets you through a set of 60-70 push-ups or 10-15 chin-ups. Energy is 50% of what brings you there. I can do 50 push-ups when I am absolutely tired and dragged out, my muscles allow me that. But when I am full of energy I leave 50 behind in the dust they are my warm up reps. My energy makes all the difference

2. Its a lot easier to lift 185 pounds over and over (chin-ups or push-ups wise) then 205. Not to mention easier on the joints when running, sparring or whatever. Not to mention extra energy that comes with less weight.

I'm not at 185 yet but I'm about half way there. I started the year at 205 which isn't really big for my frame but I carry 185 pounds around much better and its about the perfect athletic weight for me. Right now I'm low 190's.

There are many different philosophies when it comes to how to eat, when, what, how much etc. most of which are being preached to you by people who just happen to have the right product to sell you to support their philosophy.

For quite a while I subscribed to the 'grazer' philosophy of eating. Don't eat big meals 3 times a day just eat small meals 4, 5 times instead. I have recently changed the way I look at this. I read (in a couple completely different sources) that it is actually best to eat 4-4 1/2 hrs apart, with no snacking, larger meals (enough to make you full - not gorge yourself) and that there are certain foods that should be eaten together and certain foods that should NEVER be eaten at the same time -- Even if they are both really good for you separately.

This flew in the face of my current way of eating which was to just eat a healthy 'mix' of food all day. But I felt something wasn't quite right because I still didn't have the energy I thought that I should and I wasn't losing any weight despite the rigorous routine and the cutting out of junk food.

What I have figured out is that even though I was eating small meals over the day of healthy food, overall I still was eating more food in total in than I would be if I just ate 3 meals. The other thing that I discovered is that your body uses a lot of energy assimilating the food you eat.

When you eat something your stomach comes up with a chemical 'brew' to deal with whatever it is that you just stuffed in your face. Apparently its hard on your stomach to eat a meal with a mix of foods that don't agree chemically with each other (even if they are healthy foods) - your stomach can't make the right brew and digestion becomes hard - giving you indigestion and killing your energy.

Digestion takes a lot of energy (burns a lot of calories) so if your a grazer, like I was, you are constantly forcing your stomach into action rather than feeding yourself on a relatively empty stomach and allowing the full digestive process (assimilation) to happen.

So really, if you think like I did until recently that as a very active person you have to fuel up on lots of healthy food - you might find that less is more - I have more energy with less food and more reps with less weight.

Less fuel, more mileage

2010-04-08T16:58:00.001-07:00

I find it harder to blog when it's something I am required to do once a week. I journaled lots before 7 but I just did it when the mood struck - I had an idea I blogged - done. Maybe I have run out of things to say, maybe am just so much busier than before - but I find myself starring at a black page (screen) more often than before. Things I do think to write about would just come off as unloading or ranting and I don't want to do that, there are other topics that I would write about but I don't want to offend anyone or look pretentious.

Lately I've wondered if I pander too much to people due to lack of confidence, congeniality or just the fear that I will miss out on something if I am too controversial. This likely boils down to a caution of risk-taking, take a risk and lose, get stuck where I am or move backwards - especially if I think the opportunity may present itself anyways without the need to take the risk -- The risk may in fact be the component that causes the loss of the opportunity in the first place, should of just waited it out - know what I mean?

On another note I ran today at lunch and something that never ever ever ever happened to me before happened - I was enjoying running, I wanted to run faster and further - something was driving me and the running just felt good like I was catching up to something (this must be what it feels like to be a golden retriever) - I think it was due to the fact that I have been working on a project at work and my head has been in a different place so the run was a real unwind mentally for me.

I've always run and its always been like self inflicted torture - however, since 7 I've run more consistently than ever. Maybe this is the start of something really good in my training.

E. All or none, or maybe just one or a couple of the above

2010-03-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

Lets break out the point form this week.

1. Body is sore: crunched my finger, crunched a toe - its all good unless I hit it or use it or someone else hits it. My knee is way better than it was (I landed hard on it about 2 months ago). It no longer hurts when I grapple but it still slightly swollen making it hard to get a real good stretch in the quad.

2. Done like Dinner: Finished a course on Friday and 95% done a project that has been hanging over my head for the last couple months. After that I will only have a million things to do instead of a million and 2. I made ceaser salad last night without looking at the recipe and it didn't even taste funny - cooking requirement is, well, cooking along.

3. Night of the living cow: My requirement to reduce red meat has turned into just giving up beef and pork entirely. I'm still on the fence about pepperoni and salami - maybe just a tiny bit of red meat.

4. Respect vs. etiquette: Here are two different things entirely. Etiquette is learned and can be displayed with immaculate precision regardless of whether or not even an ounce of respect exists - some people are masters of etiquette and always know what to do and what to say and how to bow and where to sit etc etc.. but lack any humility and have no actual respect. Respect is internal and is shown through the integrity of your intentions becoming your actions (what you do over how you do it) and even though it generally creates a certain demeanor it does not intuitively give you any know-how for the situational etiquette (hmmm, of course the fork goes on the left - are you nothing better than an animal?). The most respect you can show an instructor is to take to heart their advise and practice (wasting your instructors time is an action of disrespect, or just complacency). It always bugs me when I practice something and maybe it's difficult or I don't get the feel for it just right and I'm not sure if it shows that I practiced at all. If I didn't have time to practice I try to lay low and not be noticed until I do. I'm not saying that etiquette isn't important (to an extent) - but - it certainly isn't the measure of ones respect.

5. Some of the requirements I thought would be harder or take more time are the ones that I have found to be easier and some of the requirements I thought would be easy are the ones that I'm falling behind on.

6. Tap a vein: First of all I know I live like a king so this is just a spoiled Westerner talking but lately I feel like no matter what you do or where you go - even if you try to hide because they will find you - everyone is demanding, robbing or asking (but not so nicely) for your money and your time or trying to upsell you. The problem is that it numbs you after a while and you want to push it all away, lock your door and but up a sign that says "#$"~#%#$" on your front door (not a swear word - just random ASCII characters on a sign so that they will think that you are crazy and leave you alone). I feel like I am trying to run up a waterfall if that makes any sense.

7. The never ending form: forms marathon this morning was good - got up at 4 - kwoon at 5 - 45 forms later - go to work 7-7 (blogging during morning tea break) - work out at lunch (another 5 clicks) - go home - crash - feel bad that I didn't do any homework - put the kids to bed - yes I work tomorrow - sorry - you like living indoors and eating right? - ok - goodnight crazy kids - repeat.

8: Physout - I overheard someone talking about how motivational the site was for a young Sihing who wanted to keep his numbers on the plus side - and the he ribbed his friend for falling behind a bit - this is awesome - this was the whole point.

9: Want to talk about circles? We had a group of grade 12 kids come into the kwoon for 3 gym classes, Sifu Specht, Myself and Mr. Tymchuk entertained them. At the end of the 3rd day we sat in a circle while we were cooling down doing some stretches and I explained to them that what they had seen in their 3 days of class was only a small glimpse of what a pure martial art encompasses. I think in the 3 days that we had them they came to appreciate what kind of a person it would have to take to last in the martial arts for any given amount of time - push-ups - sit ups - squat thrusts - kicks - punches - rolls - repetition - knowledge - sweat - a look at Mr. Tymchuk's black toe (freshly broken from the day before) -, whether or not any of them will ever go into martial arts as a result of this experience I'm not sure - but I do know that they will all have a better understanding and appreciation of what its about all then they did a couple weeks ago.

Ouch my distal phalanx

2010-03-18T15:25:00.001-07:00

Training is going well - I am doing more training than I have in recent memory - forms, fitness, and grappling are the big 3 right now. Unfortunately this training gets interrupted by work and online courses - Math of which is my arch nemesis currently, I would say 'what does math have to do with computers anyways' but I know better than that.

I do have to say that the 100 times rule isn't working for me here, I wished that my math would go away more than 100 times already and it's still staring at me with cold calculation, I am getting really good at wishing that it was gone however.

On a more positive note I think I broke my little finger grappling last night, I heard a distinct snapping sound followed by me saying 'ouch, I think I broke my finger'. Now when I bend it it feels really rubbery and hitting [shift] on the keyboard is more of a chore than usual.

Here is something funny for you:

Sifu Adrien Prince - Silent River Kung-Fu
Stony Plain, Canada

This post has nothing to do with anything really

2010-03-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

Today is Pi day, March 14, as in 3.14 - This is kinda funny because I've actually thought a little about Pi lately and now you are fortunate (probably not) to get some insight on my intellect (or lack thereof).

I don't believe in circles and I'll tell you why.

I know that there are (apparently) circles everywhere you go including the one you are standing on right now. But they are only illusions.

Computers have calculated Pi to over one trillion places past the decimal point which makes pi an irrational number meaning it doesn't make any sense and goes on forever with no real pattern or direction - just like people (also irrational).

Here is the problem - if I took a piece of material exactly 1 meter long and built a perfect circle around it the circumference (measurement of the perimeter) would be immeasurable since the calculation defines it as a never ending decimal. But how is this possible since you would have have to have used a finite amount of material to build the circle in the first place.

To me this means that either a) construction of a perfect circle is impossible. b) There cannot be a center point to a perfect circle since that would give you an immeasurable radius (dead center to perimeter measurement) based on the calculation of Pi given finite and measured circumference material, or c) Circles just plainly don't exist and we should stop trying to make them because we are kidding ourselves.

This cuts right to the heart of how we perceive things and how infinite even a small amount of space is - how things we see are only how are brain interprets them not necessarily all of whats really there. I truly believe that there are things right in front of us that we just can't see and if we did they would change the way we lived forever - then maybe we'd figure out circles.

Martial artist and filosofer*

*and xpert spellar

Every dad likes to wrestle with his kids, but when I wrestle with my girls we wrestle with technique.

2010-03-11T12:58:00.001-08:00

So Mexico was fun, we did a lot of relaxing and went on a few outings, snorkeling was our favorite thing that we did.

All inclusive is good because you don't have to worry about a food budget but I felt weird having people server me that much, I tried to make sure that the staff received my "gracias" as a sincere thank you and not just an automated response to being served.

You wonder if they resent all these people that demand their attention 24/7. Maybe they are just happy to be employed like the rest of us. Maybe a bit of both

On another note - I taught the girls side control to mount to armbar today (as a game) - its amazing how quick they pick up technique. Is it because they grew up in martial arts or because kids just pick up on things so quickly. Maybe a bit of both.

Man its cold in Canada.

Going to Mexico, all bets are off

2010-03-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last week pumping up on my requirements so that I am not behind (or at least not horribly behind) when I get back from my vacation, running 5kms a day plus 60 chin-ups, hundreds of kicks, 20 or 25 minutes of horse stance plus the regular requirements has put me in a state of needing a vacation as much as wanting it.

We've never been away and saved forever to do it - I can't believe that nothing has come up that we had to spend our savings on like every other year in history. Adiós until next week, we will be deliberately completely out of contact.

Living Hero - Eric Johnson, Teacher Extraordinaire

2010-02-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

I didn't know that I had a living hero until mine died tragically on Tuesday. Eric Johnson was the best teacher I, or anyone else lucky enough to have had him as a teacher ever had. Reading peoples comments about him you will see several people who said that he is the reason that they themselves became teachers - I know why.

OK so social studies has got to be the most boring thing that a 16 year old can possibly tolerate in life right, not when your teacher is skipping around the room singing some limerick like a drunk Irish sailor or when he comes up to you a says quietly that what he really meant to say was sh%! but he's not supposed to say sh%! in the classroom.

Like a good father he wasn't all fun and games, throughout high school I was reprimanded by Mr, Johnson on more than one occasion - he knew when it was time to goof off with the students and he knew when matters where to be taken seriously.

Let's be frank - high school sucks, people talk about surviving high school - in most cases if you thought high school was the best years of your life it was likely at the expense of the rest of us who were trying to get through unnoticed. Mr. Johnson was a light for a lot of students at the most awkward time life presents to you.

My mornings would start off by showing up late to class to fresh made coffee and a teacher that didn't make much of it if your feet were up on the desk. Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Industrial Revolution, Parliament (gag) - made fun and interesting by this man. With Mr. Johnson it was as much edu-tainment as it was education.

We talk about mastery a lot - he was a master at his trade. Teaching wasn't just his job and it was obvious. Teaching was his passion and his life.

Since the coffee was always provided by Mr.Johnson I told him that I would by him a coffee one day. About 14 years later I saw him come into second cup one day while Andrea and I were hanging out. I jumped up to pay for his coffee at the counter recalling to him that I owed him - he said thanks for the coffee, I said thanks for High School. I hope vainly that I made a difference for him that day.

Rumor has it - as it always does - that Mr. Johnson was having a rough go at life recently with a divorce that really knocked him down. It pains me to hear that his life ended in a dark time since he was such an inspiration to thousands of young men and women. I hope that everyone who became a teacher or will become a teacher who was a student of Mr. Johnson's at one point honors him by bringing even an ounce of his passion, vitality, humor, intelligence and sincerity to their class the way he did.

Sigh....

Chess

2010-02-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

I've been playing a little chess lately and it seems to me that sparring and rolling have a lot in common with chess.

i) A strait on attack is obvious and you opponent will see it a mile away

ii) Position before submission, be patient - just because you can initiate the attack doesn't mean your set up for it that well, yet.

iii) Pay attention to what your opponent is doing. You might have a great plan of attack but if you're not paying attention to your opponent is doing you'll get knocked on you butt out of nowhere

iv) Roll with the punches. A quick recovery from a hard hit is important - if you reel after a heavy hit you will find yourself cornered taking a flurry of hits.

v) Learn from each match

I'm Tired

2010-02-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the gym at lunch and as I was yawning and as my eyelids were twitching and I was sluggishly putting on my clothes for the gym it occured to me that there is now way I would be working out today if it wasn't for 7. That really demonstrates the point and the power of this program and the importance of making a habit out of a few core daily activities.

Likely I would have gone and got a coffee or tea and read one of the free magazines at the coffee shop if I wasn't logging numbers, instead I got a couple hundred push-ups & sit-ups out - 35 chin ups - etc., which is going to make tommorow that much easier that I did not sluff it off today.

Don't get me wrong, there are rest days and I am a strong believer in R&R (recovery and realignment), but it just so happens that today is not a day for rest and to use it as such would be to violate my training and take away from the satisfaction that training hard should give me on my designated day of rest.

A little advise to anyone who cares to take it: when you take a day off to escape the pain of your training (or job) realize and think about the fact that it is a day off and try to slow the day down and appreciate the break. If you don't, when you get back into the grind you won't have really had the benifit of the time off.

my thoughts

Like a tiger in the grass.

2010-02-02T11:18:00.001-08:00

I sometimes find it hard to be reverent in situations that require it. I think of something funny and then preoccupy myself with trying to be regain seriousness. I just find life to be very amusing most of the time. It floors me how people can take certain things so seriously that I find so ridiculous and then have no regard for other things that are important (like health and happiness). I find that there is a lot of time and importance invested on trivial things and very little or none put into matters of substance.

I also find it surprising to find out that people could find me intimidating. I certainly hope to command (through my actions and example) respect from my students and earn (through my hard work, discipline and demeanor) the respect of my peers and teachers but I don't want to be intimidating (outside of a sparring or grappling match). Fact is, is that I'm a kitty cat outside of the Kwoon and couldn't hurt a fly (unless that fly was a physical threat to me or my family).

To swing back to my first point about being serious - the one time that I am deadly serious is when I am training. Especially when we do defense related drills - I must have a vacant look in my eyes because everything else on earth does not exist, for all I know I've been warped to another dimension - I wouldn't notice and it doesn't matter - my 'Spidy' senses are tingling like mad.

Some students were asked to define intensity last night and I did not hear a satisfying answer. Intensity is NOT aggression or speed (with or without control), it lacks emotion and veneration. Intensity is a deadly serious focus on what you are doing RIGHT NOW - like a tiger stalking in the grass - that's it, to expand on it is to take away from it.

The best thing about being in martial arts is that your "I know a guy who can ..." stories are usually true.

2010-01-27T08:18:00.001-08:00

So far 7 is going good for me, I am a bit behind in running but I will catch up in spring when I can start pounding the pavement here in the frozen tundra of a landscape that I live in. I am also behind in my daily horse stance requirement but I plan on catching up in the next couple days.

I wrote a website for my club so that people could go and keep track of their numbers online, the program paces you and gives you a report of whether your on track or behind in your progress and everyone can see how everyone else is doing so there is no where to hide. It has proven to be a real powerful tool to keep tabs on your goals and numbers and make sure that you dont let anyone see you fall too far into the red.

I managed to get my push-ups and sit-ups ahead of schedual so now I am taking 2 days off from them to recover. On the 1st I had to do by 1000 sit-ups basically all at once and never really took that much time to recover so my abs have been perpetually sore for a month now, hopefully a couple days away will do them some good.

The problem is is that I become a bit of a 'numbers junkie' when I set goals like this. I find it hard to stop for a day or so because I am hooked on growing my numbers everyday. I have had a pain in my shoulder since the first week but I have been able to work through it and it seems to be getting better.

I joined Sensei Jason Gould in doing pushups for to raise funds and awareness for the earthquake relief effort and managed to get enough people going with me to raise a decent amount of money - my employer doubles my donation and so does the Canadian government so 1000 becomes 3000 - pretty cool.

For me, 7 (ubbt that is) - is what being a Martial Artist is all about. We tell our students that kung-fu means hard work but it teaches discipline and respect. Discipline and respect are like yin and yan, you can't have one without the other and they complement eachother perfectly. Discipline is hard - respect is soft, In the heart of discipline lies respect and in the heart of respect lies dicipline.

It is possible, apparent and present that martial artists everywhere have a heavy dose of one but not the other, lots of grit and discipline - no respect. Tons of reverence and respect - no discipline. Are you a MARTIAL artist, a martial ARTIST - or a Martial Artist. If there is an imbalance in these elements I think you are selling yourself, your students and your brethren short, you have not 'eaten the cake' as someone I respect once put it - you haven't taken the plunge and comitted yourself 100% to what the pure spirit (not to be mistaken with tradition or techique) - but spirit - essence - of martial arts, in fact, is.

My thoughts,

Sifu Adrien Prince - Silent River Kung-Fu
Stony Plain, Canada

2010-01-19T09:33:00.001-08:00

I have always blogged consistently but never had to do it once a week so I would wait until something happened or something came to me and go with it. Now I have to think of something and I draw a blank.

Sensei Jason Gould is doing push-ups to make a difference for the disaster in Haiti. I am going to join his efforts, I am sponsoring myself 10cents a push-up for 1000 push-ups and will be sending $100 to the redcross very soon. I don't like asking people for money so I just kinda put out there what I was doing and asked that if people were able and willing that they would join me in sponsoring themselves for as little as $10. This is win win, because you get some push-ups in and you help out.

Although I have had a couple people join me I was definitely hoping for more. I figure it doesn't matter how many push-ups you do or how much you give it's the overall involvement of everybody everywhere giving something to at least recognize the fact that something hugely tragic happened and we are supporting the effort to help in some capacity (even if its small) for no other reason then to unite in the fact that it matters to us that these people have been devastated!

Its impossible to cough up money for everything everyone asks for and it numbs you to the whole exercise "yes, yes my small donation will make a huge difference in the lives of the south-eastern endangered albino amoeba population". Somedays I literally ward off - or ignore - 4 or 5 calls to my house. To add to that, some charities hardly even seem legitimate, (re: albino amoeba), I discovered this when I sought out to find a worthy charity to contribute to for our yearly fund raiser at the kwoon.

And I do not think that throwing money at things is the fix-all - but money does buy food and clean water. Involvement, intelligence, compassion, cooperation, ingenuity, foresight and vision are crucial to making a difference (see the alabama project or Malawi Girls on the Move).

Where am I going with this? I guess that if we are so numb to giving that even the reports, deaths,images and realities that we see coming out of haiti are brushed off as "ya, crazy place this rock." I then I guess we are pretty hard up for being one nation one people.

By the way - this disaster was simply due to a shift in tectonic plates - been happening for a couple a billion years - nothing new - it's not divine payback. With good engeneering, planning, cooperation and reasoning the damage from events like this could be extremely minized.

My thoughts,

Health & Happiness

2010-01-11T16:34:00.001-08:00

I work in the transportation industry for one of the largest companies in Canada. Unfortunately they haven't yet come around to the new way of thinking when it comes to business philosophy. A lot of people figure the louder you yell the quicker something gets done. I have never worked anywhere where more people were grumpy and miserable with their jobs and with each other - (the people they work with) - then where I am now. Some days are hard to take, it simply does not compute for me how people can interact with each other the way that some people do where I work - like a bunch of children fighting over a toy in a sandbox! Completely absurd from my way of thinking.

There is a gym facility in my building and I noticed that the people who I see in the gym also happen to be, for the most part, the people who are the most pleasant to deal with day to day outside the gym.

Hmmm. I think there might be a link between a healthy lifestyle and a happy person.

MY UBBT requirments

2009-12-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

Physical Requirments:
50 000 pushups
50 000 sit-ups (or equivelant)
25 000 table top (back raises)
7 500 pull-ups – goal 20 reps per set
100 hrs ctt training
25 000 kicks
400 kms – running
50 hrs horse stance (10 min a day min.)
1000 forms (mixed – focus on Kempo Loa Gar and Spear)

Grappling:

Boot camp: Run “ground survival basics” seminar
Kwoon: help incorporate grappling into cirriculum, run seminar to cover cirruculum

Lifestyle:

Vegetarian Challenge
1000 acts of kindness
5 changes or initiatives in my life to make a positive inpact on the future of the environment, economy or community.
Write, maintain, manage and improve PysOut – The Martial Arts Fitness Community web site.
Learn to cook (something better than macaroni)

Education:

Enroll in UofAthabasca online courses –
Study Tao: history – philosophy – meditation

Discipline: Live Simple

in addition to the physical discipline:
no alcohol – cursing – store bought junk food – pop – study Tao – learn better focus and organizational skills – minimize red meat consumption -

Head and shoulders, ... knees&toes knees&toes

2009-12-15T06:37:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking a lot about the 6 harmonies in the last couple of weeks. In case you missed it:

<=External =>
hands -- feet
elbows -- knees
shoulders -- hips

<=Internal =>
spirit -- intent
intent -- chi
chi -- strength

In particular I have been focused on the relationship between the shoulders and the hips. We all know that our center is supposed to get dropped into our hips so we carry our weight low instead of in the chest (guys are worse for this). I've been told to relax the shoulders - and because I am not a stressed or tense person - and because I truly couldn't feel my shoulders being anything other than where or how they should be I never understood this critique. I knew what I was being told (I trusted what I was being told) - but I did not understand (The difference between knowledge and understanding is always profound).

I was told "don't lead with the shoulder, lead with the hips" So then I try to engage the hip without the shoulder and it feels crunchy.

But now, with the 6 harmonies and the knowledge (understanding is still materialising) of the relationship between shoulders and hips - everything has changed. For the first time ever I actually feel how my shoulders hold tension that is there for no reason outside of unconscious habit. Everyday now when I walk around I consciously make the effort to release all the tension and connect the shoulders and the hips. So now instead of just trying to drop my center and weight into the hips I also concentrate on connecting that "drop" to my shoulders - kind of like sinking and syncing at the same time.

A couple of weeks ago it was an effort to do this, now I find that I am doing it without thinking, I have to remind myself often but then I can get back into it quickly - soon I think it will be natural(like when you start to belly breathe instead of chest breathe, you have to think about it and make yourself do it at first but after a while its just how you breathe).

Only Kung-Fu can make you learn how to breath or walk all over again

2009-12-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

Video Promo for http://physout.esatori.ca/ - The site is ready to go and register and start setting goals for 2010

If you haven't heard about this site yet, here are the goods.

PhysOut is designed as a simple tracking system for the physical goals that we set for ourselves -Sihings , Sifus, UBBT members and students alike. With this site you can register and then set your goals based on their quantity and timeline involved. As you progress along with your goals you will update your numbers and the program will tell you how much you have done, how much you have left to do and the pace that you need (daily or weekly) to stay on track with your goals.
You can also view other members and see how they are doing, add comments and create or join group events.

7

2009-12-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

Because UBBT7 just does not roll off the tongue - I feel like porky pig every time I say it (ah ah ah U beba beba da - aahhh U beeba beba U beebada bebada T - ahh, 7 that is). I am now and from this moment forward referring to it simply as - 7. All involved will know what I am talking about.

This is an exciting year. I know already - in part - what this challenge is going to do for me. I know that it will get me into a habit of following a consistent regiment of working out and serve as an engine to improve my skills and expand my knowledge of the martial arts and how it applies to my lifestyle. And by lifestyle I don't mean what I drive or drink - I mean how I walk around and see the world.

We are going to be incorporating more grappling into our training at the kwoon and I am going to get an opportunity to run a seminar to get those interested a little head start on what our system is going to incorporate.

The system is simple but effective. You will work your way through a natural progression of moves, starting with learning how to defend against being in a very bad position (like under the full mount) by protecting then bettering your position - controlling - and then finally submitting when the opportunity is right. A credo often used in the grappling arts is 'position before submission' - look forward to hearing me say that a lot.

Emphasis will be on defense, this is a combative style of grappling and we are not going to be teaching counters to counters to counters. Meat and Potatoes people. I have taught several classes the first couple of moves and the results speak for themselves. Mr. Young had one lesson on controlling the mount position and then used it with great success in his next sanshou class.

I am also going to be studying Tao, which I am really stoked about - Among lots of other requirements I have chosen , I will keep you posted on what I am up to.

I think the team for 7 is going to be fantastic - there is a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of different ranks and levels of experience involved so its going to really bring the school together since it draws a thread all the way from the top with our Master instructor - Sifu Brinker - to (I think) green belt is the lowest.

I'm hoping that the website I am writing will also keep people going. Seeing other people progressing in their goals and knowing that people can see how your progressing spells double motivation in my books. Website is set to launch Dec 15 - Just in time for everybody - team 7 or not - to set their goals for the new year.

I know we are supposed to start blogging on the UBBT student site already but I think I will hold this one back - I don't want want Tom Callos's first impression of me to be me poking fun at his programs acronym.

later.

Busy

2009-11-11T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hi.

I have been really busy working on a website for the members of the kwoon and have not blogged for a bit.

The website is going to allow people to set any number of goals and a timeline for their goals to be completed in. For example, 50000 push-ups in one year. Then you will be able to go logon and log your progress - if you do 200 pushups in a day you can go online and add 200 towards your total, the website will update your goal and even tell you how many you have left and how long you have to do them etc..

The website will serve as a tool to track your progress with ease and also keep you accountable because it will be public, yes anyone will be able to see how you are doing and even give you a bit of encouragement or congradulations.

The website (should) be ready for people to start exploring and registering mid to late December so that they can get a good kickstart on 2010 (goodbye aughts).

I am hoping that everyone takes advantage of this service - not just UBBT members - no matter how many goals you may have or how big or small they may be I think that this site will be useful to you.

Thats it for today.

Judo Chop

2009-10-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

haha, that's funny. I was very happy with myself tonight when I took a guy down with flying scissors. I was only able to do it once though because apparently it's an illegal move. : <

The night ended with sprints: good times.

Black is definately not the new white!

2009-10-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun game. Go to a Judo club and come out of the change room wearing a black gi and see if anyone doesn't give you a strange look.

Yep - black is definitely not the new white. Once the initial shock was over I was welcomed very graciously at the Kamloops Judo club. (you see I am in Kamloops for a couple of weeks and since I am addicted to training I had to find a place where a group of people who out of their own free will come together twice a week to throw each other on the ground over and over again.)

There is lots that can be said about my experience so far, hmmm lets break out the point form:

Similarities: Bowing on and off the mat, bowing in and bowing out. bowing to opponents before and after matches. Also a very friendly environment. Good sportsmanship is taught. A lot of the things that are said are identical to what are said at Silent River by myself when instructing and by my instructors, back to basics, relax, be loose and tons of other stuff I can't think of right now but was very funny to me at the time.

Differences: The conduct is a little different their is chatter and language that would never fly in the kwoon. Little to no bowing after instruction. Judo is very sport-orientated, although I have heard a lot of why certain things wouldn't work, there (so far - and I've only gone a couple times so this may be an unfair assessment) is little talk of real-world application - I will have to think of a polite way to ask one of the black belts how they bridge the gap from a two guys/girls in gi's match, to an attacker in a muscle shirt type of situation.

Skill: That said, I have no doubt that these men and women would have little to no issue dealing with someone who wanted to push their weight around - they are quick and focus a lot on base, balance and the art of breaking the base and balance of others. My style is giving them a lot to work with. I like to side step soften and finish (as in triangle stepping pattern and other techniques of the like) they drive through - no softening - forward (or backward) motion with precise timing and generally go down with the opponent.

Lows: I pride myself on having good rolls and breakfalls and really like to teach them because I feel I have a good method to pass on. Well, they do some of their rolls a little (more than a little) different so I was told a few times what I was doing was wrong and why. It is humbling to put yourself in this position because you know that your skill for your art is adequate, but is does not match the technique so it is therefore critiqued. I want to say "I do know what I'm doing, I just do it different" but this would only serve to put a band-aid on my ego and no other purpose. So I say 'OK, thank you' a lot.

There are some finer points to their rolls and falls that I will take with me. After all, they are the kings of hitting the ground, no doot a boot it.

Highs: Grappling - I am happy to report that I did quite well in with this aspect of the class. I went against a couple brown belts and a black belt and established mount and back control on each one of them without too much trouble. I got critiqued quite a bit on the fact that I wasn't really 'progressing' from my positions. Another difference in philosophy, If I have mount or back control I'm where I want to be - no progress is necessary.

Judo is a lot of work and fun. It is impossible for me to really put my skill up to theirs because it is so different in approach, I can't do what I would do when fighting SanShou with Sifu Wetter or Sifu Davies - I am playing by their rules. I am trying to just absorb and learn and try to take what I can from the insight they offer on base, the clinch and takedowns. This is their expertise.

The Void: A couple times I was struck with a strange feeling when I was there. At one point it occurred to me that I was completely immersed in my environment. I wasn't in Kamloops, I wasn't a visitor, I didn't even have a sense of self. I was in a dojo training - The world outside didn't exist, the dojo could have been on the 3rd moon of the 7th planet revolving around a sun 7 trillion miles away the only thing that was of any consequence was what was in front of me. I have had this feeling at the Kwoon; it was interesting to experience it in another place.

I also had a strong feeling of kinship with the people in this club, like I knew them already. Is there something about the people who seek to train in the traditional arts that bonds them on a sub-conscious level?

It has so far been a positive experience for me, but I won't be trading black for white any time soon.

Phooey!

2009-10-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

I am going to be gone for a couple of weeks soon on a course in Kamloops. I will be taking this opportunity to draft a rough copy of the requirements I am going to propose for UBBT7 and also tie up a few loose ends with a project or two on the go.

On my list for the year ahead is an effort to swear less.

Swearing is an interesting subject. Lets just say that I tend to take advantage of the full scope of the English language from abhorrent to $#!@# and other words that can only be expressed here with ASCII characters.

On one hand I am a strong advocate of using curse words because in certain cases they are the only choice and in other cases they force you to practice great discipline and self-censorship.

On the other hand, if overused, this linguistic tool loses its power and effectiveness and tends to make you look more crude and less able to express yourself intelligently.

So since , for me, the theme of UBBT7 will be discipline this will be a good item to add to the list. Andrea will also have a lot of fun reminding me of this item when I'm say... fixing the dishwasher or paying bills, or, doing renos, or, trying to figure out some hard code, or, when I stub my toe, or, when I can't find the DVD remote, or, when something is really funny, or, when something is really dumb, or, when I'm reading poetry, or .......

Another thing about using the far left of the language too much is that it affects your mood and attitude. How you choose your words before getting into a situation that is maybe not so pleasant will greatly affect the way you tackle and approach things, as well as your overall mood. Also people will be quite a bit more receptive to you when you exclude, well - expletives in your language, makes you look less dumb.

I never curse in traffic however, I go totally zen behind the wheel - it's next to impossible to get me upset on the road despite the proliferation of bad drivers.

Stay tuned, next week I talk about monkey mind.

Brute force attack!

2009-09-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

I really want bread right now.

So I have 5 more days to my detox and you would think that I would be craving sugar or chocolate or coffee, but no - I want bread man. Everything that I could want from all that I put aside this month and what I am dreaming of is a freakin sub.

I could live without red meat (and do mostly anyway) for the rest of my life, no problem.

I have given up the morning cup o' joe for good, I think, but I think that a cup once in a while may still be OK.

Pop was something that I really didn't drink very much as it was - but I think that it will be reserved for when I go to a movie - pop and popcorn type of thing.

Twice last week for different reasons pizza was brought in at lunch at work. Both times I had no problems saying thanks but no thanks - mostly I just quietly ducked out. I lot of people just don't understand why in the world someone would not have the cake or the pizza or the pop; I mean, what's wrong with you!! - So the brute force attack method did not break me.

I think that what this detox does for you other than cleanse your body is bring you back in line. It tends to get easier and easier to find quick easy filling foods when they are around and you allow yourself to have them. Not a lot keeps you in check. But spend a month eating so strictly that even bread is off the menu and my toast and jam that I am going to have when this is over will seem like the ultimate indulgence.

Mmmm.. toast and jam. Actually I'm a jelly man but whatever.

I'll have your spam dear, I love it.

2009-09-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

Today was day 7 of a 3 week detox - see here for more . The point of this whole thing is to give try and get your body to a more alkaline state instead of the (generally) highly acidic state its usually in. 3 weeks of eating extremely simple and cutting out almost everything that makes your body work hard to filter out.

Caffeine, Sugar, Red Meat, any stuff like mustard - ketchup etc, wheat (gluten), alcohol, dairy, vinegars - prepared foods.

And no fruit - mostly to get your body to use your fat stores for its energy rather than going to the easy fructose provided by fruits. Not necessarily to lose weight but to get the toxins stored in your fat out of your body.

The idea is is that we eat so much junk that our liver, and to a lesser extent kidneys, are always dealing with a backlog of junk to filter through, and we don't even get as much out of the good food we eat because of this. This detox is designed to let your body deal with this backlog - flush out the toxins, cleanse the pallet, get you used to eating more simple - good - foods and less, well, crap.

I really needed this after the summer - although I still was training and working out - It was becoming easier and easier to accept less than adequate nourishment. I was feeling it - tired and more moody than usually - most especially in the morning.

It is much easier to do this detox this time around than the first time. The first time (years ago) was a shock to the system, but a good one, it drastically changed the way we eat and how we look at food. This time way less adjustment needed to be made since a lot of good habits were already formed. It was more about cutting things out than starting to eat other things that I had never really eaten a lot - eg. foods made with brown rice flour.

This also is a good start to my year of monkery which approaches soon. I am still working on the list and slowly implementing some things I already know will be part (or not part) of the discipline involved.

I am already feeling the good side effects of the detox - today at lunch I did over 200 hindu squats in a row, sometimes when doing an exercise like that you lose energy (motivation or umphh) before you actually fail the muscle or run out of breath. But today it was my legs that gave, not my will or energy. I also feel more level - less ups and downs during the day.

Going to hit the ground running with UBBT7.

Go Monk 'yo

2009-09-08T21:25:00.000-07:00

Summers over and I'm happy for the return of a normal schedule. I feel like I need to refocus and start a new regiment of training. I keep telling Andy that I'm going to 'go monk'. I feel that I need to go into a high discipline mode similar to where I was before I tested for black belt.

I was cleaning up my closet yesterday and found my schedule for September and October before grading. Everyday was planned - I knew what my daily calorie intake was - I knew what kicks I was practicing - I knew the details of every training aspect from dawn till way after dusk every day . I had 1 (ONE) chocolate bar that whole 2 months, which was a cheat, and felt guilty for it, this was my level of discipline at that time.

At the start of this year I wanted to cut out many things and simplify. I have done very well in this regard except when it comes to food - I need to cut out the junk in my diet. I eat very well at meals but I am guilty of in-taking more sugary stuff than I should or want to. This is going to change.

A return to simple eating is in order. I will start with a detox next week and keep myself on a stricter more holistic diet following the detox. The intensity and focus in my training will kick up as a result of the added energy this will give me.

Many good things are on the horizon. I have secured a spot on the UBBT 7 team and have a few other focuses and areas of responsibilities to attend to. My challenge over the next year and a half will be to set and live by a strict set of rules which I will come up with and publish. Partly I want to do this because I know that it will be beneficial to my health, fitness and training - but mentally I want to challenge my will and self-discipline. This is a test of a true warrior.

Soon it will be time to 'go monk'.

Strategy

2009-08-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

"All the skill in the world will not save you from a bad strategy" - Sifu Adrien Prince, Aug 2009.

It still amazes me to this day when I have a breakthrough in my training. Whether it's physical, mental or philosophical. What eluded you for so long seems so obvious after it hits you (sometimes literally) in the face.

Jack hammers in my Head

2009-08-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

I was on holidays for the 1st half of August and I have to say that holidays is better than real life. I was still able to train (not quite as much as normal). I did Kempo on a Mountain , no bear is going to approach someone doing that, sparred with a Bak Mei friend, did a little reading on Martial arts.

I read an article that I found pretty interesting, It was about Samurai and the misconceptions surrounding their legend. Samurai have a 1000 year history, so to say Samurai is this or that can't be done. Samurai was something you were born into, you belonged to a lord, and you likely had a peace time profession, you and your family weren't cheap to feed for you lord, you had to pul your weight, you may have been an accountant or engineer etc.. This really spoke to me, there are many heralded groups over the ages that had to juggle work, family, and training, we are not very different after all.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Best part of my vacation was going under a waterfall in Wells Gray Park - was a 45 min hike down to this waterfall. The water was cold and the wind force from the falls made it hard to breath. I had to back my way into the falls because I had to take the razor spray on my back to approach it. Once you got right there the water was bubbly and soft from the turbulence which made the whole thing even that much more fun, I didn't want to get my shoes wet so all this time I am stepping carefully over rock and boulder bare foot, somehow in my mind justifying this as a Kung-Fu moment in my life. Mother Nature is awesome, Peoples isnt always very smart.

Back to work this week and the shock if real life + working out hard all week + a bad cold = I feel like I have been hit by a truck.

-
-

Freedom vs Obligation

2009-08-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who is a high ranking Bak Mei (Pak Mei) practitioner. I say high ranking because he is from the old school. He was head instructor in his old school under his Master, but with the lack of a belt system etc.. I can only say high ranking to give the idea that he is very good and has been doing this for a long long time.

Bak Mei is also known as White eye brow and was made popular by the movie 'Kill Bill'. I sparred with and took a lesson from him and we exchanged techniques and ideas. What was cool was the fact that there are so many similarities between the two systems (Bak Mei and Chuan Fa). They are both southern systems and they are both 5 animal systems, they are both fairly brutal in execution and share very similar techniques.

This fact did not get me as excited about Bak Mei as it did about my own style Chaun Fa (Kempo). The fact that 2 different arts shared these commonalities spoke to the effectiveness of technique and the truth to the animal movements. I found myself very happy to showcase the Chuan Fa approach and philosophy and concreted the fact that I am dedicated to being a true practitioner and ambassador for my style, and how important having a style to speak of is.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Something became apparent to me when talking to my friend. He is a Wong, a descendant of Wong Fei Hung (see Once Upon a Time in China 1-6), and as a Wong he is obligated to learn and pass down Hung Gar style. But didn't I say he is a Bak Mei practitioner?

When my friend was young his father referred him to a family friend to continue to learn Hung Gar. This family friend was foremost a Bak Mei Master and ultimately took on his new student as a disciple in the Bak Mei style. This has been a very difficult thing for my friend since his father expected him to carry on the Hung Gar lineage, he lives with the guilt of this while he peruses an art that speaks to him more than the art of his lineage.

This made me realize how lucky we are to:

(A) Practice an eastern art in the first place. I am not sure if everyone always appreciates that historicaly there has been a lot of tradition, obligation and secrecy tied in with these arts. Most of the styles were kept and handed down within a family. Everytime you here the word Gar you are hearing the word family. Lao Gar, Hung Gar, Ho Gar, Ling Gar and on and on -- even Kempo was the style handed down by the Mitose family from the 15th century. And it has only been very recently that the western world has been able to benefit from these arts.

(B) Have the freedom and opportunity to choose our style. Back to the Gar's, do you think that when your father and his father before him for 400 years practiced the family style that you could go across the street and learn your neighbors style? Not only would your own family disown you but do think another would take you in unless you were a dedicated disciple without your own family tradition, certainly not a spy from another Gar system.

We can taste, test drive and sample to our hearts content. Ultimately it wont get us anywhere until we settle and focus, but we can choose our Kung-Fu (even if our Kung-Fu is Karate or Tae-kwon-do) and that is very profound.

(C) that we are practicing a pure art. This is important. So and So's self defense system lacks the substance that the pure styles ingrained with the tradition, discipline and philosophy have.

I'm not sure how to tie this all up. Basically I think that it is important to identify yourself with your style, not in a 'my style is better than yours' type of way, but in a 'yes I would love to show you what my style has to offer' type of way. To be aware of what it has taken to bring this all to us and to be aware of where you are going with it - Your style should evolve and adapt, but not get diluted.

-

Please don't vlog me again, I'll be good, I promise.

2009-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

Couldn't think of anything to say so you get the tour instead.

Forms

2009-07-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Forms form good form.

2009-07-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Gazing into the crystal ball...

Punch

2009-07-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble thinking of something to blog about so this may be random.

I'm having trouble with MMA lately, I think that there is a perception that MMA is the 'real thing' and traditional martial arts is, I don't know, for fun, or pretend or just not quite the 'real thing'. That may be true if you joined a traditional martial art because you wanted that MMA experience 'toned down' or to learn how to fight and there was no MMA gym around so this is the substitute.

I think that the problem lies partly in the fact that MMA and traditional martial arts are not always recognized as 2 COMPLETELY different things when it comes to approach, mentality and philosophy - that although they have many related aspects and one can often lead to the other (or blend with the other). The goal of one is in complete opposition to the reason for the other.

The intent here is not to slam MMA or defend TMA (traditional martial arts) - but to really call out that they truely need to be recognized as separate things before somebody can really dedicate themselves to the pursuit of one or the other. There is no question that it takes a huge amount of dedication, discipline, skill, time, and hard work to be good at MMA. These guys and gals are top rate athletes hands down.

The goal (intention, raison d'etre) of MMA is to be a better, quicker, more proficient, stronger, faster fighter. Your primary focus is to be able to beat anyone (at least in competition) at fighting.

I would like to think that Kung-fu has many reasons but no goal. Yes short term goals are utilized as a tool, do so many reps of [insert form here], practice [insert technique here] until your arms fall off, try to understand [insert abstract concept here] in vain, think you have [insert thing that you spent 2 months practicing wrong here] just right and get told that you need to [insert something difficult that you don't get here].

I tend feel like an impostor when I really think about, past masters and living masters alike, black belt is just getting let into the temple walls, what are you really worth.

For a while I could actually really feel my qi (chi, cheee) - it was cool but I lost that for a while - I feel like I wasted some time, why, because I thought that the measure of my kung-fu was quantified by were I would rank in a line up of fighters.

Self-defence ~ Self protection, is a side-effect?, aspect?, result!? of kung-fu. I love sparring - it's fun, its a great workout, it gives you an opportunity to play with your techniques, sharpens your reflexes, forces you to breath and relax in a heightened situation. Even so - I don't want to be a fighter.

I feel strongly that if you truly pursue what kung-fu is intended for - you simply would not have the time to be the best fighter around (although you would be a good fighter and very proficient at personal defense if needed).

Kung-fu is an encompassing method of living, its how you get around - its years and years and years of working on the smallest aspect, its exacting not brute, its considerate not forceful, its persuasive not invasive (that one even rhymed), its the discipline the calm the consideration the path the peace the sweat the sacrifice the understanding(or lack thereof) - make kung-fu not war

I drank the punch, so to speak, I hope its spiked a bit.

IMHO

2009-06-29T21:26:00.000-07:00

There are 62 days left to the black best (the bbt) and some of the Sihings are getting (understandably) pretty nervous.

My humble advise to the Sihings is this:

Plan everyday from now until the day of the test from dusk till dawn - know what you are eating, when you are sleeping when you are training - what it is you are training and why. Plan your time with your training and with your family and make it quality time for both.

This is what I did and I found that the strict schedule took over and I didn't have time to worry too much about anything else. I became completely absorbed in the structure of my training and there was no wasted time thinking about what to work on or what to do.

Mondays were techniques, every Tuesday night fitness test (shuttle run, 8 min of kicks, horsestance, lateral jump etc etc.) Wednesday forms and on and on. More specifically I would know what kicks/forms/techniques I was working on way ahead of time - I laid it all out so when it came time to train there was no messing around- I had calendars and score sheets created and printed out to mark my progress and keep me on track. I was reading about nutrition, mental and physical training, and adhered to a strict diet. Not to mention going to about 8 classes a week.

The best part of all of this is that there was no ( zero ) guilt associated with my training. Because it was so tightly regimented I found that I did have time to do some other things (not a lot of time, many things were sacrificed, I lost a lot of time on the water). And because I knew I was training as much as possible without over training (hold back just short of total burn-out) I felt confident that I was giving all I had into the process.

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So that is my advise, lose yourself in the process, stop thinking about how hard it is and just do it, very soon it will just become what you do - effortless effort (I got your back Sifu Brinker).

Where am I? In the summer before the black belt test.
What am I doing? Training like a mad Banshee

Sifu Prince

Students are awesome

2009-06-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

We ran today in the morning class and it made me realize how important it is for a black belt to have students. Not just drop in and make face-time once in a while, but have students that you consider 'your guys' ('guys' being a general term for all peoples). Not to say that they are exclusively your students but that you are considered as one of their teachers.

I held true to one of my promises today that when my students ran I would run with them, unless injured or otherwise needed.

Now I can't very well sluff off when I'm running with my guys so I lead by example, push myself and 'go for the gold' so to speak. So it came to me, mid-stride, that a Martial Artist with no students is not the martial artist they could be.

Students make you accountable, students are a mirror in your face, they act as your conscience when you are making decisions everyday - "ah-ah, no you just di-int stuff that 17th powder donut down your throat and chase it with red bull". So ya, students keep you honest in training and in practice.

Yeah for students.

And I will not forget that I myself am still and always will be a student - so I guess this is a responsibility that I bear as well.

Sifu out..

By the way, I have never drank a red-bull in my life, but I do however like the odd donut.