Decision Time

I have been waffling back and forth about committing to the I Ho Chuan year of the sheep.  I don't achieve so many things that I set as goals for the year and yet I get way more done than I thought possible.  I put myself thru all kinds of anxiety and stress trying to achieve all those goals and failing.

But on the other hand I get to Lion Dance, I am encouraged and supported in my creation of forms,  I participate in so many events and activities that Silent River hosts and/or promotes, I hang out with awesome and motivating martial artists.

Its great being part of the team and its horrible when I fail in my commitment to the team.

I have rewritten my goals so many times this month ... trying to balance what I believe I can achieve, with what the point of the goal setting parameters are --- to make my self try harder and achieve more.  To push past my fears of performing,  of looking foolish,  of looking not worthy of the belt I wear.

I decided to submit my list of goals,  part of the motivation is the 2nd paragraph which is very positive, the other motivating factor is negative, it just ?????? me off that I am afraid.  And when I am afraid I get angry and stubborn, maybe not the most inspiring motivation for others but it pushes me to do more.

Back in the Saddle

Written Sept 23, 2014.    

Its great to be home, had a great vacation but I am tired and have missed the awesome country and culture that is Canada.  The girls came back to Canada with us and will be staying close to their mother where they belong!!!  Looking forward to living and training with my daughters they are after all the original reason I started to study Kung Fu and I missed training with them.

Written  Oct 6, 2014  Tommorrow

Enjoyed the I Ho Chuan meeting and it was really great to see and talk to my I Ho Chuan team mates, missed you guys and the training!  Sihing Tymchuk talked about the word tommorrow and I got right on that list of things to do and back into my training routine.  The shelving is installed and the rumpus room is cleared
pushups, situps and kicks are happening.   Did NOT get all my form reps in and my double stick form has a lame ending.

I also attempted to upload a picture of me (rather than a really cute panda) to my blog site as requested.  Failed ... not sure what went wrong.Will try again.  Terry post this with the new picture!!!

Written Oct 22, 2014  Lion Dancing

Hurt my neck pretty bad being the head of the lion,  agony for a week.!  I talked to Sifu Playter and he gave me some tips on how to do this without putting so much strain on my neck and using my arms more without setting the lion on the top of my head.  Very tired arms, still some discomfort in the neck but not agony thank god.   I am really enjoying the lion dancing and I am glad that I will be the tail for awhile it will give me some time to build up more strength in my arms and shoulders.  Missing the dragon dancing!

I think the picture worked.

Google Plus

So I did as requested and set up my google plus profile and started using the new system.  Seemed pretty straightforward and then I started getting invitations to add people to my circle.  Huh?  What circle? Where is it?  How do you get into this circle thing?  How do you add people?  Why do you need to add people? So finally I think I have it figured out.  Created a Kungfu circle, everyone who asked me to add them to my circle are now added.  Its all looking good from this end I am seeing posts and comments, not sure if its working from the other end. Hope so!  If I am incorrect in my belief that I have successfully added you to my circle please let me know.

Dean & I will be leaving for China on August 26th, going to visit my brother in Dalian for a few days and then meeting the girls in Bangkok on Sept 2nd, will be back in Edmonton on Sept 20th with my girls.  I am taking my Ipad and hope to keep in touch that way.   Going to the tiger temple, spending a day with the elephants, We will all be tanned and de-stressed when we get back.  Can hardly wait

Lost a great friend

Last Monday July 28th my friend Jackie passed away (Sifu Rybak not the Jackie that works for me)!   She was younger than me and has been battling cancer for the last few months.  I met her 6 years ago at the dance studio and her and I just clicked.   Like two puzzle pieces everything lined up.  I loved her totally wicked ability to see the ridiculous in human behaviour and still love us all and give to her family, friends and the community.   She was not judgemental yet would with deadly precision anihalate excuses making you aware of how stupid you just sounded and then laugh with you, not at you.  We always sat together at dance events, did barbeques on the weekends, ignored stupid rules, and talked, and talked.  I will miss her so much!  The memorial service was yesterday, I cried there and all the way home, broke my diet and ate an entire large bag of chips with dip but nothing is really making me feel better.  Gotta go, crying again

Aunts

So for the past 10 days I have been hosting my mom's two sisters (she has four) from Ontario, it is lovely to see them and have them spend time with my Mom.  She is the oldest of the five and her heatlth is not great so its a good idea to fly out here to visit when she can still go out and although she does get confused you can still talk and remember old times together.  Its been fun listening to them talk and driving them around ALOT and having them stay at my house (thank god for the cleaning lady).  However I still have to work, and do sit ups and kicks and form reps and so on.  I am behind AGAIN on everything including work.  The aunts don't know whether to admire or be appalled by my activities and it switches from moment to moment and aunt to aunt.  They go home on Sunday the 27th.  So of course there will be a dinner, and sitting around the fire pit at my place tommorrow.  Progress on kungfu related requirements has been minimal and I hate missing the I Ho Chuan and lion dancing.  I thought about bringing the whole works to watch but all the talking and comments would be distracting and they would probably be asked to leave :)  I come by the gab factor from my mothers side!!!

Pain Relief

For the past year I have been having a difficulty with pain in the backs of my legs all the way down to my heels and although it hasn't stopped me from doing alot of activities is has been a challenge to get a good nights sleep.  The baffling thing is that it would move from side to side so I was never sure if it was something in my lower back or a strain to the legs.  The 150 kicks per day (in small bunches) actually made it feel better so it didn't seem to be a muscle injury but no matter how much stretching I did it never seemed to really go away.  So after multiple doctor visits I decided to try acupuncture.   The lady I am seeing asked if I would like to try a method of treatment called cupping and oh my god, two treatments and what a difference.  Last week I actually slept without pain.  Her explanation is that the cupping (suction cups applied to the backs of the legs and lower back) takes the pressure off the nerves in my back and legs and helps release the fascia (? not sure of the spelling).  Less irritating to the nerves than using my roller (which I also tried).  If you are interested she works out of the Callingwood Chiropractic Clinic and her name is Katherine Frey.

I am a much nicer person with enough rest!

Escrima Stick Frustration

I am really struggling with these sticks ... yes I have watched alot of utube videos and learned some patterns and a few flashy moves but I am not really feeling it, if you know what I mean.  The footwork seems awkward and I am having a hard time getting the movement of the sticks to come from my core/centre/balance and not just the arm movements.  Not sure if that explains it but it does not feel good and flowing like my Kung Fu forms at all.  This is really an issue for me so I have been bending my brain to try and figure out how to get it resolved.  I am going to try incorporating the foot, body orientation of some of my Kung Fu forms with patterns for the double stick that I have learned.  Not sure how this will go but I've actually had dreams about this and Da Mu Sing, Se Chen and Kempo 1 are going to the first ones I try.  I will let you know how it goes.

Tech Booboo & the Elderly

So apparently while I was setting up all my I Ho Chuan stuff on my Ipad I misplaced or modifed some important links to my blog pages,  I could see previous blogs at my blog site but could not log in and get anything to display on my dashboard.  Fortunately they have help topics on google, apparently others have done this as well, so I got it all worked out.

I am sorry to have missed so much with the I Ho Chuan this last couple of months it has not been a lack of interest or engagement.  It has all been personal stuff that I put off last winter and had piled up into a marathon of packing, donating, hauling away to the dump, painting, repairs, cleaning and yard work that had to be done so we can sell my Mom's house for her. She is not in the best of health and cannot do this for herself any more.  It is truly amazing how much stuff a 75 year old woman can accumulate and  how run down a property can get in 5 years.  On Saturday night / Sunday morning we got back from Sylvan Lake at 1:30 am and it is done!  The house is listed and they start showing it on June 9th (Monday).   This is a huge responsibility off my shoulders and I am very thankful it is done.  

Cookie Marathon

So the cookie baking marathon is on, we are at 96 and we still have about 60 more to go!  Dean & I are bringing a roaster full of his famous ( in the Beckett family) monster cookies for the bake sale.  I am pretty excited about the pandemonium, got about $400 raised for the charities so far and trying for more.  Bringing my escrima sticks so I can get caught up on form reps!  Let's hope the weather stays nice.

Thanks to a fellow team member!

So I have had some help in my stick form from Sifu R Langner, he has been helping me learn this totally cool move from his hook sword form that works awesome for escrima sticks as well.  Two weeks ago we started with a basic which I practiced and now we have added the turns and a cool finish.   I will keep practicing to get it all smooth and flowy.  This has been a real challenge learning a totally new weapon and I have a new appreciation of the difficulty of learning from utube videos and books.  A huge thanks to a team member who took the time to help me out.  This is one of the totally great aspects of the I Ho Chuan team and why I love being part of it.   Thank you Sifu Langer!   Who says and old dog can't learn new tricks :)

Nerd in training

So I am in Calgary doing a third test run on blogging when away from work or home. Tried doing this on my cell phone with no success.  However the iPad works great,  this was easy to do however the copy & paste to the other site might be challenging.  Really the technology is nice but the learning curve can be brutal.  Got the tracking sheet from Sifu Weibe and got it working, its pretty slick!

Fascinating

So it's been scary trying to put together a form for a weapon I know nothing about. I have felt like a fake doing a performance and it eats at my confidence.  So I have been seriously studying the philosophy behind the movements. Did you know that the reason the form is so linear and has such limited foot movements is because originally it was practiced in rice fields.  So in the rows between the rice plants, where it is muddy and slippery, where big foot movements could have you quickly sitting in the mud.  That's fascinating!  And it helps me in designing the form, now I am in a rice field, it makes me aware in a totally different way.  I am really enjoying studying the style and learning the patterns and they have cool names as well.  It's still pretty slow in comparison to what I see on utube but it is coming toghether mentally as well as physically.

Catching up

It has been an insane two weeks with work, my computer crashed (lost all my email stuff) and had to be restored to factory defaults and all the programs downloaded and installed. Then just to keep things fun ... a two day trade show and a three day business course last weekend. I haven't been in the office and I still have all the regular stuff. So the result is I am behind on everything, teaching, form reps, situps, kicks, acts of kindness, blogs ... all of it needs to be caught up on. So I will start catching up with the most important one blogging.

This week I bought an ipad, easiest piece of technology I have setup in a long time. Never used an apple product before and I must admit I am impressed. Linked my email account, so I can stay in the loop with the school and can blog from home easily. Got my evernote which I use for organizing things downloaded and the whole thing works beautifully with my wireless booster from home and its fast. Still got lots to learn but so far awesome, I think I am in love!

Worked on my escrima stick form today and have actually gone backwards and not forwards because I have not been focused on developing it. Yikes! However March is almost over and the rest of the year is not so heavily booked up things will go back to the regular schedule. Now I am focused on catching up, will probably be sore but hey so what. Looking forward to attending classes on Friday & Saturday, have really missed the training and people.

Learning Technique from YouTube

I have been watching escrima, kali and arnis stick forms until my eyes cross trying to decipher strikes, blocks and stances.  Most of the stuff on YouTube is so fast you can hardly see what is going on.   It has been very challenging although Sifu Dennis (who always see the positive side) did point out that it will help me develop my eye for detail.  Well the 'eye' is getting a real workout. So it may not reflect in my stick work yet but my brain is stuffed.  

Here it is, late again

So its been challenging trying to get my blog done.  Computers at work broke so the laptop from home is at the office being used by Page.  And my plans for blogging on Sunday have gone out the window.  Its tough to get this done during work hours as I need time to think and write and that does not happen at work.   This AM I came in early and took care of a whole bunch of things to make time for the thinking and writing.  So here it is.

I was bummed that I had to miss the meeting, the last one was great and I really enjoyed it.  So I have a thought ... who can do the video recordings in March for the rough draft of our forms.   I could bring Dean's camera and stand but then how do we get the videos too everybody so they can review it?  Not versed in video stuff and not sure how complicated this might get.  Will put it out on kwoon talk for feed back.  I got caught up (form reps, kicks) on Sunday, at minus 30 something I did not want to go out thats for sure.  So there is a positive side to really crappy weather.  Still have not started my Spanish class or my reading project and acts of kindness is still hit & miss.   Have been using my fancy new phone with all its options to keep better track of stuff and set up reminders and to do lists.  I can even read peoples blogs which is really cool if somewhat awkward because of the screen size.

Tecnology struggles

So I have had computers crash at work so in addition to my regular stuff I have been tech support and doing all kinds of troubleshooting and as a result my laptop from home is being used at the office ... so that means I have to do all my kungfu computer stuff from the office.  And painfully all the new phones came in and i had had to setup nine blackberry z10's.  It has taken all day!!!!   So what does this really mean ... it means that this week I have not gotten my form reps for the escrima sticks done.   (i am mentally yelling right now)!  It has been very frustrating and very little progress made on my form.

Chinese New Year & Promotion

So it went awesome ... despite a new venue that no one was familiar with, and Sihing Dunning getting really sick.   The whole thing flowed beautifully.  

Its challenging with everything going on ... sound systems, performances, demos, promotions, silent auction and a buffet dinner for 300 people to get everything taken care of.  We could give an event planning company a run for their money!

Thanks to all who helped with the dishes/tables,  the kids were great at clearing the tables,  Mr. Hamilton kept things running on the floor and Ms. Kohut was great in the kitchen.  For all the muscle required for the dishes thank you it made the transport go very smoothly.   Kudos to everyone involved.

Supporting joints

So Dragon Dancing is alot of fun, unfortunately it appears to be hard on knees, ankles and feet.  So although the sprained left toes are now fine (wearing shoes to play safe).  I find the sudden stops and sharp turns are tough on my knees.  Should I mention my age?  Nah other people younger than me have strains as well.  So I have been investigating support products for knees ... don't really like the brace as it really restricts the actual movement of the joint,  tensor bandages don't stay in place but ah hah! I found something called KT Tape.   Its a tape, so it stays in place, but with elasticity and wow what a difference.  Two strips on the outside of my knee provides support and you don't feel any restriction of movement.  Just be careful when removing it,  it will remove hair if not done correctly.

Video Recordings

I really enjoyed the snake/horse team meeting on saturday.  A lot of very good insights and suggestions.  Ms Csillags idea of video recording on a monthly basis so everyone could see their progress was a great one. This is a valuable tool that the hubby and I use when preparing for dance performances, sometimes what you feel you are expressing is not translating visually.  It helps with developing an eye for detail I think because you get comfortable with bad technique / habits and don't necessarily realize that your foot position is not correct or the movements are not 'big' enough when doing a performance.  Once you have identified it visually you can make yourself concious of it physically, if that makes any kind of sense.  I am looking forward to using this in my kung fu.

Dragon Dance & Other Stuff

So the practice on Saturday at the school gym (thanks to sifu bryant) was awesome.  We worked on the stack (very high ceilings at the school gym) and after a number of attempts got the bugs worked out and it looks awesome.  What a relief!

Worked on a Tai Chi demo that we are putting together and it is starting to look pretty good and the timing of the performance is coming together.  Hope it gets put into the chinese new year celebration!

I must admit I am excited and anxious about the chinese new year performances ... got butterflies in my stomach and as a result I am scattered.   Left half my stuff at the studio on Saturday and have not been able to focus on things very well this weekend.   I keep reminding myself to breath deeply to see if that will help but not so far.  This is always the scariest thing,  for weeks I am anxious, I loose my focus, rush my performances.  And then after I get through it I am ... well that wasn't so bad, no one died or got injured, I didn't humiliate myself too badly, no one laughed, and I tell myself next time I will be less scared it will be easier.  But it dosen't, I do it anyway and go thru the whole cycle everytime.  Sigh!