Summer Lovin'

I can hardly believe it's already the end of July.  In the chaos of June, I look forward to having things be a little more relaxed for a couple months.  Then I flip the calendar page and it usually does not feel much more relaxed - still great but definitely not relaxed.

July has found us...
* making trips to the lake
* running back and forth from horse camp
* driving through crazy weather to drive to Hunter's Ed camp
* camping
* picking saskatoons by the bucket load
* eating lunch in the pea patch (sh....  don't tell my kids.  That's where I hide...)

In many ways, this month has been therapy for my soul.  I love picking berries and we will not talk about the peas that never seem to make it into my house...  Brings back incredible memories from my childhood.  Being unplugged and away camping was so good - reading by the campfire, walking my sweet Guiness, watching the kids try to catch fish from shore.

As good as this has all been for my soul, it has definitely not been the best for my kung fu or most of my IHC commitments.  The past couple days have been focused on resetting and trying to slide back into some sort of a routine.  I want to look back on the summer with my soul full and not have regrets about where and how I spent my time.

Back to Basics - Learning to Walk

As we progress in our journey in life, we get excited about learning new things.  I have the opportunity to watch a lot of kung fu classes and you see it all the time.  A new concept is introduced and you instantly have the students attention.  It is easy to be engaged when things are all shiny and new.

This morning in class, the old was new.  We started the class off doing Da Mu Hsing which lead to a class on keeping our centres down.  A large portion of the class was spent slide stepping back and forth across the kwoon.  As I type this, I fully realize that this does not sound very exciting.  A whole class on slide stepping...  But it was awesome!!!  

The big light bulb moment today for the entire class was right near the end of class.  When we slide step, we are taught to slide our foot along the earth, to maintain contact.  The issue was we were all doing that with our toes and then that was our first contact when stepping forward.  That is not how you walk!  Or maybe it is, but you shouldn't be.  The first point of contact when stepping forward is the heel.  So why on earth would slide stepping be any different.  Same with stepping backwards - the heel is the last to leave the mats, not the toe.  Once this little (but huge) correction was made, it changed everything about our weight transfer.  So basic but there were light bulbs and fireworks going off all over the place for all of us in the class.

Thank you Sifu Hayes for an incredible class.  So basic yet so important!  Today I relearned how to walk and now I need to go work on putting this new gem into some forms.  I have a feeling that things may feel a little broken for awhile but isn't that how it always is with the best lessons.