Everywhere you look you can see the signs that life is switching gears. The stores have pretty much hidden anything that resembles summer and all that can be found is back to school items. I've even seen the odd winter coat... Although that seems like it is rushing summer away, the reality is that the season is shifting.
I had this mental picture of what summer was going to look like. Camping, lots of time outside, more relaxed pace, time to recharge and collect myself...
That is not how life turned out this summer. Camping was cancelled for work (a little grateful because the weather that week was miserable). Time outside was hindered by our abnormally wet summer. The relaxed pace looked more like time to be a chauffeur driving people here and there and everywhere. I definitely do not feel recharged and collected. Last week I found myself at a place where what I needed most was to cancel everything that was not a must and spend our evenings at home.
I also had a dream that I was nailing my goals for this IHC year. The requirements for black belt grading would have been pretty much all checked off. The only one that I have successfully done is the First Aid Course. I would be well on my way as far as physically preparing for grading day. Well, I was not nearly as active as I planned. I do feel physically better than I did at the beginning of the summer but no great strides have been made forward in this area either. My house would be decluttered and clean. Now I really feel like I have been dreaming. It is nearly impossible to reorder life in your home when you are treating it as a launching pad all summer.
I am working at accepting where I am at right now. My dream and my reality have a serious gap between them. The past is done, all I can work on is the present. Life is about to get even busier with school starting but the introduction of more structure in our home will be helpful.
Monday, 26 August 2019
Tuesday, 13 August 2019
Failing Forward....
Correction is essential to power and mastery. You see, we are all ordinary. But a master, rather than condemning himself for his "ordinariness," will embrace his ordinariness and use it as a foundation for building the extraordinary. Instead of giving up, as many ordinary people do, he will use his ordinariness to correct his errors, which is essential in the process of attaining mastery. You must be able to correct yourself without invalidating or condemning yourself, to accept results and improve upon them.
Mastery - Stewart Emery
There has been a strong focus on the technique of our side heel thrust kicks over the past month. Sifu Brinker has made it a mission to eradicate improper foot position within our kicks. As the lead instructor in our school, he has the ability to work with us on this mission but he is unable to complete it on his own. Each and every one of us must also do our part in order for this mission to be successful.
The position of my foot in the blade has been a key focus the past couple weeks. I have developed the habit over the years of having my toes just slightly ahead of my heel when doing a side heel kick. Since on the most part my toes are lower than my heel and my foot is held tight, it has escaped correction. Just because is has escaped correction, does not mean that it was accepted or is correct. Now that it has been found, it must be corrected.
The process of correction is one of complete mindfulness whenever I throw a side heel kick. I have been making use of any mirror that is strategically placed to ensure that to the best of my ability every single kick that I throw going forward has a better foot position. When I go slow and practice mindfully, I am able to achieve the correct position. This is possible! That is encouraging!
What I have found less encouraging is that despite this work, it has not truly become mine yet. On Saturday we were working on speed and power on the bag. Things started to fall apart fairly quickly. If I went slowly, I could get the correct position. If I added speed and focused on the foot position, then I found that the trajectory of my kick was swinging upward and not thrusting. If I stopped focusing as much on the blade and instead focused on the power and trajectory, the toes would sneak back forward again. Then as the minute would move along, fatigue would set in to the point where technique was extremely poor.
How do I proceed forward? The process of mastery is to accept where you are today and to make steps positive steps forward to improve. Emery encourages us to accept our ordinariness and use that as a foundation for correction. There is no room for bad attitude or negative self talk only acceptance and a plan to improve. Using this model, I will continue to use every mirror that I find to ensure that foot position is correct each time I throw the kick. I will increase the number of kicks that I am doing each day to work towards building new muscle memory. I will increase my cardio workouts to help me get over that half way mark when I am working on the bags. I will document my work and constantly evaluate where I am and correct as needed.
Will every kick be perfect? Nope. The only way to absolutely ensure that I will never throw another bad kick as long as I live is to honestly never throw another kick. That is not an option so I will give my best in each moment and at times I will succeed and at times I will fail. I will keep trying and failing and correcting and learning and moving forward. This is the process of mastery.
Mastery - Stewart Emery
There has been a strong focus on the technique of our side heel thrust kicks over the past month. Sifu Brinker has made it a mission to eradicate improper foot position within our kicks. As the lead instructor in our school, he has the ability to work with us on this mission but he is unable to complete it on his own. Each and every one of us must also do our part in order for this mission to be successful.
The position of my foot in the blade has been a key focus the past couple weeks. I have developed the habit over the years of having my toes just slightly ahead of my heel when doing a side heel kick. Since on the most part my toes are lower than my heel and my foot is held tight, it has escaped correction. Just because is has escaped correction, does not mean that it was accepted or is correct. Now that it has been found, it must be corrected.
The process of correction is one of complete mindfulness whenever I throw a side heel kick. I have been making use of any mirror that is strategically placed to ensure that to the best of my ability every single kick that I throw going forward has a better foot position. When I go slow and practice mindfully, I am able to achieve the correct position. This is possible! That is encouraging!
What I have found less encouraging is that despite this work, it has not truly become mine yet. On Saturday we were working on speed and power on the bag. Things started to fall apart fairly quickly. If I went slowly, I could get the correct position. If I added speed and focused on the foot position, then I found that the trajectory of my kick was swinging upward and not thrusting. If I stopped focusing as much on the blade and instead focused on the power and trajectory, the toes would sneak back forward again. Then as the minute would move along, fatigue would set in to the point where technique was extremely poor.
How do I proceed forward? The process of mastery is to accept where you are today and to make steps positive steps forward to improve. Emery encourages us to accept our ordinariness and use that as a foundation for correction. There is no room for bad attitude or negative self talk only acceptance and a plan to improve. Using this model, I will continue to use every mirror that I find to ensure that foot position is correct each time I throw the kick. I will increase the number of kicks that I am doing each day to work towards building new muscle memory. I will increase my cardio workouts to help me get over that half way mark when I am working on the bags. I will document my work and constantly evaluate where I am and correct as needed.
Will every kick be perfect? Nope. The only way to absolutely ensure that I will never throw another bad kick as long as I live is to honestly never throw another kick. That is not an option so I will give my best in each moment and at times I will succeed and at times I will fail. I will keep trying and failing and correcting and learning and moving forward. This is the process of mastery.
Wednesday, 7 August 2019
Thoughts...
Where am I? What am I doing?
I have been trying to use these questions to refocus my thoughts the past week with little success. I have been moving between two differing sets of relatively unproductive thought processes.
The first set of thoughts are focused on regrets. Would have... Could have... Should have... Yes, I am shoulding all over myself. I have had fantastic personal goals the past few IHC years. I have failed to meet them. There is the potential for some major changes coming for our family. I am paying the consequences of that delay and feeling the weight of regret. Oh so many regrets...
The second set of thoughts look more like chaos. The best description that I can come up with is to imagine what 20 little bouncy balls would look like bouncing around inside my head at a million miles an hour. Thoughts are running amok everywhere. All the things that need to be done and they all feel like they need to be done immediately. It is all very overwhelming. It leaves me with days on end where I am furiously trying to get something, anything done but never seem to make any headway because I keep distracting myself and leaving a trail of half done aftermath in my path.
I need to find a way to stay in the present. I need to find a way to settle in and make some significant progress in every area of my life - now!
Where am I? What am I doing?
Tonight I found myself in class completely lost in learning a new application with the tiger tail and working with a partner that I am grateful to have on this journey. Now I am taking care of this week's blog. Next stop is bed so that I can tackle tomorrow one moment at a time.
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