Psychological hurdles

I am discovering that a lot of what makes anything hard, is thinking that it is hard. A lot of the obstacles that get in our way are the ones we make for ourselves. If we can eliminate the imaginary obstacles our paths will be much easier. I will be thinking on this and will probably use it as a full blog on the franklinkungfu blog

Re-learning

Well you know what they say about how its just like riding a bicycle and you really never forget, well i figure that you never really forget anything just somethings you store in the deeper darker spaces of your mind. Like relearning hung jay kwan, it was down the deepest hole behind a dumpster behind the backest back alley of them all, but still when you find it (behind that dumpster thats behind the backest back alley of them all) you find it.
Eli

I was just trying to be funny

Forgive me, team members, for I have slacked. It's been almost a week since my last confession. (all this, and I was never Catholic -- funny how this stuff gets into one's psyche)

I'm experiencing some down time because of a flu-like fever for the last couple of days, so I'm going to be a bit behind. Since I plan on looking over and enjoying these blog entries after the program finishes, I thought I'd record this illness as an alibi for the zeros in my spreadsheet Monday and Tuesday. And maybe Wednesday ... Yuck.

My mother-in-law once told me that if you lose your sense of humor, you've lost the war. Now, I know she is of the WWII era, but I think the wisdom still applies, whether in sickness or in health. I think also that the heavy duty medicines I'm taking have affected my humor quite a bit tonight.

Challenge Met!

Two days before the deadline ... I was afraid that I was going to be the only tiger to fail. I woke up this morning at half past eight (apologies to all of you who have much stricter morning schedules). By half past nine I had finished. My RAoK was to walk Mongo (the imprisoned dog), and to combine that act with the distance required. On a distant, slanting dock, I completed my pushups (using the arms by the side tricep version) and situps (pulling up to reach my knees each time). Stances. Then Fu Hok for a form (which still counts, I think. It's getting long, and it needs practicing -- I'll still do Gung Gee before bedtime, though).

At the end of Fu Hok, I looked up to see a fishing boat trolling by silently. The fisherman (he was definitely male) was carefully not looking at me. I imagine I was an odd sight, on an angled, dry dock, dogs all around, performing strange movements. While in some city parks across this state one might see Tai Chi or some other physical art being performed, Nolin Lake is not very metropolitan in that way. It's not even common to see another ethnicity around here. I tried to enjoy the sensation -- to see it as another kind of performance -- but I'd rather have been alone, given my druthers.

The rest of the day will feel odd, without scrambling to complete requirements.

One of those days for me too.

Had a rough day today.

However, yesterday (Sunday) after having completed my requirements early in the morning, my day was so light.  I went through the day without having to think about how many more pushups, how much more time in stance. . .  Quite nice.  

I had not intended to take a day off from Ten Tigers work.  As the day went on, and got harder and harder, I decided to take Dean's challenge and take care of myself by giving myself the day off. 

It started with an insomniac night, followed up with some plans falling through, then having to defend myself (emotionally, not physically) and now, it appears a second imsoniac night.  Since I'm up and my clock is just not at 11:55.  I will make a small symbolic gesture and go beyond zero for the day.

Also, I met with Dale Kirby of Kirby's Karate today.  Nice guy.

One of those days ...

Clearly, from reading the most recent two posts, it's been one of those days around this house. There are some days when every single thing that has been neglected comes home to roost. I should have gotten up early and put the big dog back in his pen ... now someone else has stitches in his leg. I should have organized my desk to make sure I found all the monthly bills ... instead the cell phones (all five of them) were cut off abruptly (they're back on already, but still).

Sometimes there are those days where things that go wrong aren't within a reasonable person's control. Then there are things that go wrong that were entirely under our own control. It's the things we do to ourselves that are the most ... aggravating.

Nuff said. Procrastination bites. Literally.

random post

i did my ten tigers stuff whithin two hours of geting up i got up at 12:57. yes i know to late i'v already been chewed out by my mom. and i got done at 2:12 i even biked a mile and then our dog bit some body well um he's still at the hospital but never mind am sure they won't HAVE to amputate his leg, but i'm sure that happen to body of corse. well that's my stuff today ta ta

dogs.

i completed my ten tigers stuff before 1:20 when i woke up at 11:20. hooray.
i am a little depressed today because our neighbor got bitten by Mongo again, in his own yard. Mongo just hates that guy so much that he will run up to him and bite him.
we live a half mile away from him so its quite a ways for Mongo to run, now our neighbor says we
have to put him down. i hope you enjoy this depressing piece of news.

Culminating the Challenge

It is getting on towards the end of my day off. If there is one thing that this act of kindness has shown me, it is that in order to be kind to others, you must first be kind to yourself. There is a certain amount of stress that is common to me from day to day. This stress is generally linked to the pace at which my day, my week, my life runs. It is good to slow down, to take some time to think about the things I appreciate and value most. The peace that can be found in enjoying the present, the moment, is amazing. Even the flat tire 5 minutes before my lesson couldn't intrude much into my peaceful day. My only regret was that necessity dictated that it be fixed before work tomorrow and couldn't accept Steven's offer to do bag rounds. I did get to enjoy letting my birds fly through the house, reading, and watching a little tv. I even found more enjoyment in a hot cup of tea than I have in a long time. The time for reflecting was refreshing. I hope that all my teammates can find some time to take for themselves. Take a little time for you during your busy day. I took care of Dean today. Now I will issue a challenge. I challenge each of you to take care of yourselves tomorrow.

Inspirational team

Into my second cup of coffee, and through half a roll of thin mints, I had been up an hour and a half before I read the recent blog postings. I sat there a few minutes, thinking. Coffee and cookies are no good physical foundation, and I tried to talk myself out of doing anything. Yet, I had to admit, that my morning habits are not conducive to anything but procrastination, and I also had to admit that my daily tasks are not onerous -- at all. Faced with such examples as my teammates set, I left my chair.

Pushups and situps first -- thirty just doesn't take long, although the coffee/cookie combination surely roiled my stomach. Then stances, beginning with a heartfelt low horse. Gung Gee -- always a pleasure, slow and thoughtful this time (not rushed as it was at 1 a.m.). RAoK -- hmm. While doing my stances, I had seen that one of the out-of-favor tom cats had sprayed a chair, and I cleaned that up. Was that an act of kindness? It seemed more like self defense. So I looked around some more. Vacuuming the couches and shaking out the blankets. There, that would do. Except I found the remnants of one of my favorite Smartwool socks, stuffed down in the couch cushions, chewed to bits. I think I still have to complete an RAoK for today because the spirit of the thing means one shouldn't finish the act in a rage, chasing dogs, shouting, throwing pillows ...

And, I just remembered, I didn't even come close to getting a half a mile in (though I covered some ground chasing dogs). So I have not yet met the challenge, but have learned something about how difficult it is, even when cut into thirds. Another day, perhaps?

Challenge Done!

This morning, I rolled out of bed, got dressed, put on my watch (7:47) and while doing so came up with seven really good reasons to put off my morning ten tigers challenge until another day. I went in the living room, did my Ch’i Kung, did five minutes of stances and a first set of pushups and situps. My shoulders were very tired from my last few days of working out, but I pushed through anyway. Finished my stances, more pushups, more situps. My wife brought me water, then coffee and shouted occasional encouragements. Before my last form, I brought her one of my dark chocolates, then finished my forms work and my pushups and typed this finishing my blog at 8:46. Done in under an hour. I’m not feeling overjoyed at the moment, but I know I will as the day goes on.

Now to try to log on to the internet and get this posted.

I met the challenge!

I woke up this morning at the crack of 7:30 and remembered Steven's challenge to complete our daily workout within 2 hours of waking. I knew if I gave myself enough time to think about it I would likely put the challenge off until tomorrow, considering how many things I need to get done today. I went downstairs and did my push-ups and sit-ups first. I tend to alternate between each as I do them so I did 20 and 20 until I was finished. Next was the rowing machine. After 30 minutes of this my blood was pumping pretty good. I drank a glass of orange juice and took 5. I shadow boxed for 2 minutes on, 1 minute off, then 2 minutes again. Next came gung gee. I finished with stances. While I was doing the stances it occurred to me that I was not going to be at the grocery in time to perform a RAoK. I pondered this until I came up with a solution. My RAoK was officially scheduling all day Sunday with the exception of my lesson time for myself. No homework, no studying, no paying bills or cleaning. Anything I do not complete today will have to wait until Monday. I will take the entire day off! I am giving myself an act of kindness. I am following advice given to me by my friends to take care of Dean, something I rarely do these days. I hope this counts officially because it sure counts in my book.

This Tiger has met the challenge! Hear me roar!

And. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&eurl=http://timrosanelli.blogspot.com/

When the moment passes. . .

Once I push through those moments, once the sunshine comes back from behind the clouds, once I've got my feet back under me, all the frustration seems silly.  All the fears seem unfounded.  All the dark corners seem well illuminated.  It's so easy to see the way through after you get through.  The hard part is while you are in the middle of it all.  

So the key is to remember, in those dark frustrating moments, remember that once you push through, once you get to the other side, the path seems so very clear.

sunshine!

well steven'o'nan you are just a Little ray of sunshine aren't cha have you ever thought of positive things like emma. how did you know that i didn't like him and why hasn't eli gotten one yet or have you just not thought of who he doesn't like?

hey guys.

iv not been posting lately and so i intend to post today.
iv been catching up on stances like lickedy split so next meet that comes around we wont have
to do a whole lot of stances. a suggestion steven, change Thursday sparring to Tuesday sparring
and in doing so we can rope josh into sparring with us. just make sure we know the date your switching it.

Moments

I have moments, sometimes long moments that last for days, in which I question myself.  Moments in which my faith in me is shaken.  In these moments I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing.  In these moments I want to quit it all.  Quit the pushups and situps, quit the stance work and the forms practice.  Quit the kung fu business and get a "real job".  Moments in which I want to forget about St. Jude's and Relay For Life and Hopefull Tomorrow.  Moments in which I want to do something a little more sane and focus on putting food on my table.  Moments in which, to make it simple, I want to give up.  

I hear about people not wanting to be seen in the parking lot of my kung fu school for fear of being thought of as associating with those weird voodoo cult people in their doing all of that eastern mumbo jumbo.  I hear about bullying going on right under my nose among my martial arts students.  I realize that over half of my ten tigers members are falling further and further behind on the online journaling of the program.  I hear about people who just won't take care of their health and I want to say why bother, why fight it anymore.  Why keep talking when noone seems to be listening.

I'm having one of those moments/weeks.  

So while typing all that, I was in horse stance.

When I'm done, I'll do more pushups and situps.

Then I'll work my forms.

Tomorrow I'll try to sign up some new students.

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

Be the Seagull...

In an English Literature discussion on Jonathan Livingston Seagull, I found the following lines:

"Limiting ourselves is the worst thing in the world we can do. But the one who challenges limits is the one whom the society rejects and yet it turns out that the one is one whom others follow."

How can we better encourage ourselves (and those around us) to challenge limits, though the price be seeming rejection, and then to move through the rejection into a new perception? Perhaps, in order to lead, some time traveling alone is required.

its odd

its odd that i almost always leave my ten tigers stuff for last in the day... well not exactly grand but there it is

Deflecting the non-physical punch

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”

I listened to this Beatles’ song, yet again, and heard an additional resonance caused by Steven’s earlier post on valuing people. The love generation’s oft-misunderstood refrain about making love doesn’t mean having frequent casual relationships so much as it asks us to love more people more fully. But some people are harder to love than others. While it’s hard to both open and guard a heart at the same time, perhaps with practice it gets easier. For instance, what if, when a hurtful comment is heard, we dodge it? I was thinking of the “Matrix” moves we practiced in class Tuesday. A punch can take many forms – some of the ones that hurt the most are not physical. What if we improved our ability to deflect harmful potential, to let it flow by, much as the right kind of block turns a punch just enough to miss? With practice, the deflections would be instinctive and require less energy. A well-protected heart has less to fear and more to love.

Regarding: Forgetting the Moves

I trained with a martial artist once who was going to a tournament to compete with the form Lau Gar Kwun.  He got in the ring, bowed in, announced his form, and began.  Somewhere in the middle he forgot the moves, so he started doing the kid's staff form we had been teaching at East West.  Somewhere in the midst of that form, he forgot the moves, so he started doing Master Tom's monkey staff form.  In the middle of that one, he forgot the moves, so he did the ending of Lau Gar Kwun.

He got first place.

Forgetting the moves

I had a Gung Gee nightmare. There were other martial artists around me, I was performing, people were watching ... and I couldn't remember any of the moves. All I could do was mimic the person in front of me, and that person kept shifting to other open hand forms. I couldn't find a way to connect one move to the next ... It was awful.

When people are learning a new language, a milestone is reached when they begin to dream in that language. I wonder if, in such a dream, they speak fluently or struggle through a few at first?