One cannot fight for peace.

stuff

not even 10'0'clock and I've written 5 lines whilst playing the Beatles which, as you know cuts your writing speed in half

As long as I can

When I find myself by a calm lake, I sit by it as long as I can. Sometimes I can draw its coolness into my soul.

When I look at a clear night sky, I look as long as I can. The complexities and mysteries are endless and peaceful.

When I find a good teacher, I stay as long as I can. Learning never grows old.

Another's inspiration

I was rolling around some different thoughts on what to write tonight for my team posting ... then I ran across one of Tom Callos' pieces on how to behave as part of the staff of a martial arts school, and I thought it was inspirational enough to reprint here. It seems to reflect that Tigers have no off switch ... and I thought it was very fine (if lofty) advice for just plain living. Certainly it would be a wonderful thing to exude these qualities to others.

"You WILL develop the most wonderful, powerful, and exceptional attitude about your work, your team, yourself, and life –on the planet Earth. You will eat conflict for breakfast. You’ll laugh in the face of failure. “Impossible” will not be a part of your vocabulary. You will never, never, ever, –and I mean NEVER –blame other people for the way you feel and/or behave. You are a black belt –and that means you are the most confident, clear-thinking, compassionate, proactive, get-it-done, never-complain kind of person anyone would ever or could ever meet. You are a super-hero –and you will carry yourself in a way that makes people want what you’re practicing."

i like sharp and pointy things.

i just made a sharp and pointy thing!!! its a spear 3 feet long with a 6 inch blade thats very sharp, it gives me a sense of security in that i can handle more situations than without it. like, bashing down a burning door (its quite stout), defending myself, and (maybe) hunting with it as a throwing spear. all in all, i like it.

Why Compete? Part One

Recently having participated in a martial arts tournament, I've been thinking about the variety of reasons that people compete in them. I'll be posting my thoughts on some of the reasons that lead people into tournaments.

Reason number one for competition: To Win.


Some see this as the main, number one, most obvious reason to compete. Some believe that if you are not playing to win, there is no reason to play.

To some, winning is so important that all other considerations are secondary. If you have to bend the rules to win, you learn how far you can bend them before they break, and you learn to break them without getting caught. Learning how to break the rules becomes part of the competition. I have seen people at martial arts tournaments wear their sparring gear loosely on their hands so they can slide it nearly off their hands, giving themselves 6 to 8 inches more reach. I have seen people using a tactic called "taking your warning", in which at the start of a sparring match you kick someone as hard as you can in the stomach to wind them, you take the warning for excessive contact, and the advantage of a winded opponent.

These and other tactics are the result of a desire to win no matter what. Another result is feelings of disappointment, frustration, and anger when one doesn't win.

You can probably guess, that to me, winning is not a very good motivation for competition.

Next I will be discussing reason number two, which could be a subset of "Competing to Win". It is "Winning With Honor"

i have started to do quadruple stances so i can catch up, it feels good to catch up.

motivated

i am feeling more like i can do it, more like i can get it done, that is all


motivated

hi!

i haven't bogged in sooooooooo long its scary, i am sorry for letting it get to this state
and i will do it more often. no crossed fingers.

1st

1st degree black sash... oh yeah

Lesson learned

Train accurately for what you are going to do.

At the tournament, I did Lau Gar Kwun with my waxwood staff. Due to low ceilings, I had been practicing with my rattan staff.

I hit the floor with my longer staff at the tournament.

Twice.

Battle Ready - Updated

I'm about as battle ready as I know how to be. I've checked and repaired my gear, packed my bag, folded my clothes, practiced, exercised and stretched. Now there's another twelve hours before I even get there ...

I feel like a warrior of old, the night before the army marches ...

---------

After the battle is a different thing entirely. Now that my blade (staff) has been blooded, I know more than I did. I know I'm not so brave on the field as I might wish ... and I'm glad my tiger tattoo is only paint, after all. It takes time for warriors, or tigers, to get the feel of the field.

I hear adrenaline can be addictive ...

I very much enjoyed our introduction to kettlebells. I was sore in new places. Eventually I will buy some of those things.

Am doing good

I am doing good. There are times when you think that you have the worst life in the world, but you don't.

One thing I'm afraid of

I'm pretty tough and not afraid of much. Dark pathways in the woods, swimming alone in the lake at midnight, snakes, spiders, wild beasts, human predators ... I don't spend time being afraid of these things. One thing I'm afraid of is losing my confidence. I'm fairly capable most times, but sometimes ....

When I completed a recent 5K race, I couldn't find my car. I thought I knew where I parked, and walked confidently that direction ... no car. No car anywhere nearby. I felt silly at first, then panicky. Why couldn't I remember where I parked? The panic made me less logical as I searched. When I found it, I had been mistaken by one city block. How could that happen?

Another time, in sparring, I was with a partner who hit too hard. I asked my partner to lighten up, and tightened my guard. No good -- hit again, too hard. I asked again, tried harder ... same thing. I walked away, which was the right thing to do, but my confidence was damaged. Why couldn't I defend myself, keep from getting hit, when I knew a hard punch was coming? What was I training for, if not that? This was weeks ago, and I'm still mentally shaky in a sparring match with quick jabs.

When my confidence is lost, I convince myself that I can't meet the demands of the situation, and therefore I don't. I hear my own voice in my head telling me that it's not going to work, and I believe it.

A friend suggested that I try shrugging my shoulders and saying, "so what?" So what if I can't find my car this moment -- it's here somewhere. So what if I got hit a few times -- that's part of learning. So what? I think that's a key to letting go, something I've been working on for a while now. If I can defuse the fear that accompanies a loss of confidence, then I can keep my mind active and manage the situation better.

Making time to post

This seems to be one of the hardest things for me about the ten tigers program. The good news is that I only have a week and a half until graduation. I also have a new goal. I want to get an online store up, running, and profitable by April 2010 or find another job. We have all discussed acceptance. Acceptance makes things easier to deal with. It allows us to move past barriers. It can even help us to effect change in our surroundings. But what about the unacceptable?

I can no longer accept the selfish ineptitude of supposedly intelligent and educated people who adamantly refuse to see the borderline incompetence and overt finger pointing that permeates the working environment in which I must present myself. Judge for yourself. The plan from the mystic world of dementia; Company notifies workers Sunday evening that they will be working Monday until 3 pm and then pouring a bridge deck starting at 3 am on Tuesday. Motel room will be provided. Sounds clear cut and well planned, right?

Ok, now reality: workers wake at 3:45 as usual and drive 1.5 hrs to work. Workers notified at 10 am that we must be on the job ready to pour at 8:30 pm. Office wants to finish the cap we are working on so we work 8 hours to finish. Get to the motel at 3 pm, shower, eat and try to sleep. No luck with the sleep. Workers leave the job site at 4 am Tuesday morning and drive 1.5 hours home. No breaks during pour with inadequate lighting, 2 boxes of doughnuts made available just prior to leaving.

Now the really good part! The reason for the big change was a chance of rain during Tuesday. I'm not sure what kind of access to weather forecasting a million dollar company has but my simple perusal of the weather forecast on Sunday told me what they didn't know until half way through our Monday work day.

The only acceptance I can find in this more and more frequently occurring example is the fact that I can no longer tolerate this. While I have no problem with hard work, being flexible, or even going without sleep when needed, I would rather not do these things just to cover someones poor judgement, greed, and inability to properly plan an event we do on a regular basis.

So here is a challenge to the ten tigers team. Can each team member think of one positive way to mentally deal with a situation that has become unacceptable but requires time to separate one's self from that environment? Imagine yourselves in any scenario you can think of where you might experience things that are unacceptable to you. How would you handle it? How would you prepare yourself? How would you deal with others who are involved?

While writing this post I am aware that it is a bit on the negative side of life. I still wrote it though, with the knowledge that life in general is not always positive and we must occasionally find ways to deal with negativity, sometimes in the extreme. I will have to think a bit in order to answer this challenge, sometime after I have cooled off!

I like work!!!

well i discovered that i LIKE work!!! I discovered it when i moved 1500 pounds of wood for my dad, the reason i liked the work was because it was for some one else. if your doing work for someone else it becomes fun.








only some one you like, so no i dont think your job is fun Dean.

Enjoying yard work?

Today, my wife heard the lawnmower start, then the weedeater start. She thought to herself, "I think Steven is starting to enjoy yard work."

Enjoy yard work? I told her that I wasn't really enjoying it, but much like pushups, I didn't really mind the work anymore, and that I knew that the results I wanted were on the other side of the work.

So a simple thing like pushups has changed my attitude and approach to something totally unrelated like yard work. As I think about it, it has changed my attitude about a lot of things. Pushups have taught me that If I commit to something, and accept what I have to do to fulfill that commitment, I can go about a task that I absolutely do not enjoy, and go about it joyfully.