What makes a sifu?

Besides the humorous lists we've discussed about the attributes of a sifu, what is it that makes some black sashes sifus and others not? While a black sash is clearly a qualifying requirement, what else is involved?

empathy training

I considered following the example of Tim Rosanelli for my empathy training and doing the "food stamps challenge". Spend a week eating only what I could afford if I were reliant on food stamps. It turned out, if I applied for food stamps, I'd have more money to go towards groceries than what I have now.

status

pushups/situps 27,712 of 35,000
forms 486 of 750
sparring 1275 of 1500 minutes
cardio rounds 406 of 750
stances 2896 of 3650
Acts of Kindness DONE
miles keeping in mind I didn't log any for the first 6 months due to hip/ankle/knee issues. 223.87 of 350
book of wisdom 3 of 1
empathy training yet to do
enviro project, I was going to have a 10 tigers cleanup of Lost River Cave, but the water level never settled down. How do you guys feel about an Invasive species removal there?

update.

my update says I am even on every thing except stances and miles: 17.5 miles to go & 80 minutes of stances. don't worry i will have that fixed by No Tiger Left Behind.

behind

That is what I am, I am 35 min. behind on stances. And way way ahead on push up's and sit up's. but i am still behind on forms. That is all

Anne's TT status

Private lessons: 9/12 – right on target (whew)
Group trainings: 9/12? yes? If we count the upcoming 10/24 session with Doc? Not sure on this.
Single form repetitions: 290/350 (Gung Gee and Fu Hok – blurred the “single” idea, but kept it to these two major ones. This gets harder as I understand the value of consistently working a form, then try to keep other forms to that same level ... But "time" is the only way to approach this discipline.)
Push/Situps: 8586/10000 – right on target, thought I'd have no trouble with this, but it's harder to be consistent than I thought!
Miles: 126/150 – right on target again, amazingly (before Mongo bit a neighbor, I didn't have the discipline to do this one consistently)
Stances: 1595/1825 minutes – right on target, even a little ahead
Acts of Kindness: 343/365 – ahead on this one!
New endeavor/env cleanup/comm action: Need work here, like Dean. I could say that the variety of community action events that kwoon hosts fit this category, and they do, but I had intended to do some environmental cleanup, or something else significant, and failed thus far to make time ...
Book of wisdom: 2/1 -- The Alchemist; The Art of Peace
Empathy: A day without electricity – this is sort of cheating because it was not voluntary. But there were 16 total days wherein I changed my lifestyle significantly to manage life without readily available electricity.
Weekly blog: 59/52 entries before this one – that comes as no surprise to my fellow tigers!

I agree with Dean that some brainstorming on some kind of community project would be beneficial. Perhaps these tigers can organize some further impact on our community – something lasting.

Perhaps also we could plan some kind of exit-blog that contains our thoughts on this year's experience.

Art

I ran across this quote today in a student's paper, and it made me think of performance in kung fu:

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." ~ Edgar Degas