It's all about the feeling!

So it's my 50th today ... and I threw my challenge out there on kwoon talk like I said I would. It's all about how you feel when you practice a favorite form or technique, the goal is to appreciate that feeling and to do that you have to be paying attention so that you can recognize the experience. So to make that happen I challenged everyone to write a poem about it and then post it. Some of us are so focused on the moves and technique we forget to appreciate how good it FEELS.

In addition I think it will be a great experience for everyone reading the poems and offer alot of inspiration and if we manage a bunch of limiricks pretty funny too.

I provided a link to a poetry site so that if you have never written a poem before you have a place to begin. And I am sure that some people will go there and pick a very challenging style to write their poem in, which will be cool, but I also hope that some of the black dragons take this challenge, it is not super hard to write a poem and I would like to read the results I bet they will be awesome.

I am pretty rusty in the creative writing department as for the last few years its all been safety and technical stuff so this will be different and fun.

Talk to you all next week.

Just a Number

Apparently there are a number of us sifu's turning fifty years old in the month of March, which is comforting as I was feeling somewhat alone in this experience. So Sifu Shipalesky threw out the challenge of 1000 pushups and situps to be done on March 7th. I rose to the challenge, and for the first time (this was my third attempt), managed to do 1000 situps and 1000 pushups. The situps were easy, I wasn't even sore. The pushups were another story entirely. I got 600 done during the course of the day but I still had 400 to go when Kill Bill Vol 1 started. Doing 10 or 20 at a time through all the commercial breaks I worked through Kill Bill Vol 1 and Vol 2 and finally at 11:27 finished my thousand. Hurrah! As with Master Brinker at this point I could not lift my arms. Amazingly I was not nearly as sore as I thought I would be the following day(s), and time was more the factor in making this difficult to complete not just strength.

So as a soon to be member of the 50's club I am contemplating a challenge to toss into the ring, something fun but not too easy to accomplish. The wheels are turning, I will throw it out on Kwoon Talk on my Bday.

The whole concept of age is totally subjective. I can remember being 21 and thinking I was so smart and people that were 50 were ancient and not with it. Yet here I am hitting the big 50 and I don't really feel any older physically, just a heck of a lot smarter than I was at 21. Despite numerous gray hairs which I can color over and some wrinkles (laugh and worry lines that I earned) I would not change my life, or go back in time to when I was 21 for anything.

I have grown into someone totally different than I expected and I turned out better than I expected (probably better than alot of other people expected as well). In fact I am amazed!!

As I watch a lot of the younger students at the studio and see how mature and capable they are I am blown away when I think of the things that they will accomplish by the time they reach the big 50. Both my daughters at the age of 21 were hugely more mature and well adjusted and capable than I ever was at that age. Just think of the growth that they will have achieved by the time they are 50. The mind boggles.

So it is all just numbers, alot of the young students in our school are more mature and capable than many of my middle aged contemporaries. And as well those of us that have, or will soon, cross some of the higher numbers in years live busy, exciting, adventurous lives, we are people that keep open minds and positive attitudes. We are people that throw out and take on insane challenges (many people think that 1000 pushups and situps is an insane thing to do). We don't let a number hold us back.

So to anyone that for a moment worried about getting old, or if you get depressed on your birthday because its 30 plus, or 40 plus, or 50 plus, its just a number, its what you DO that counts.

Thanks to Sifu Wilson whose comments in the change room really made me THINK about this.