Demo & Dancers

The demo on Saturday at the Festival of the Trees turned out awesome!!!
Always freaked out before the event but I really enjoyed myself.
The snow globe pics were fun.

Now we just have to get the dragon dances fancier more complicated moves smoothed out for the Chinese New Year.  Its always a challenge with the Dragon Dance to get 9 plus people trained, keep them un-injured and in town for practices.   This year so far we have managed to pull it off although the number of people on the un-injured status is getting smaller.   I must say the hardcore dragon dancers are very consistent and reliable and its great to be on the team with them (that includes you Ms. Kohut).

Terry's blog

Should I or shouldn't I do the I Ho Chuan next year?

My husband has always been very supportive of my interest and time spent doing Kung Fu.  He dosen't whine about never going out on Friday nights or the weekend practices and/or performances, he mostly just adjusted his schedule around my commitments.  But I must admit that when I told him that next year there will not be Friday classes and it will be moved to Thursday night he was pretty excited.   We can take motorcycle trips next summer over the weekend now! was his response. This comment stopped me in my tracks.  I guess I just got used to his support and stopped appreciating the fact that its not just me that makes sacrifices for Kung Fu and the I Ho Chuan program.   I felt pretty bad ... I mean really he has always worked hard and made sure that the girls and I have everything we needed.   His/our ballroom dancing is a one day a week thing with occasional weekend events and we have rearranged this many times to accommodate my kung fu.  Kind of unfair if you balance the scales on this.  So am I being selfish?  should I take a break from the I Ho Chuan? ... it is a big commitment!  We talked ... he is optimistic about the new schedule, we will be taking more motorcycling trips, and he is on board with me continuing with the I Ho Chuan for 2016.  (This is because he is awesome!!!)

Dragon Dance is a go!!!

I am very happy that the I Ho Chuan team committed to the Dragon Dance.   It may seem like alot of extra practices however the rush that you get being such a critical part of the Chinese New Year Banquet is like nothing else (well maybe lion dancing too! I really enjoyed that last year).   A demo piece is awesome and you can really showchase individual hard work but the Dragon Dance is totally a team effort and the I Ho Chuan team is really the glue for the whole school.  I am excited that the team decided to step up with the required number of participants and looking forward to the running, stumbling, bumping into other dancers and general chaos of working out a routine and perfecting it!

The elimination of plastic (some how missed posting this in April)

This has been a complicated part of my life since 2013 when I had it as one of my requirements.  The kitchen is the hardest and I had gotten things down pretty well except for yogurt containers ... could not find it sold in anything but plastic containers.   Made me kind of crazy ... I looked into yogurt makers but it seemed excessive and environmentally unfriendly to buy yet another appliance ... I have been trying to reduce that way as well. It was slow at work and I was cruising the net and I discovered a recipe for homemade yogurt, you can make in the crockpot (glass and metal and I own one already) and its so easy.
I pick up organic milk, in a glass container which you can return to the store,
heat it in the crockpot for a couple of hours,
let it cool for a couple hours,
add some organic yogurt with live bacterial culture
wrap the crockpot and mixture in a bath towel to keep warm
go to sleep
next day YOGURT which I can then store in GLASS jars!

Probably seems silly but its a tough battle ... every shopping trip is an adventure in packaging, which choice is more environmentally friendly can I recycle, reuse this container, and the final question did I remember to bring in the reusable grocery bags

GBS Sucker Punch

This Guillian Barre Syndrome (if you think in fighting terms) was a sucker punch to Melanie and our family (that includes alot of people at SRKF) ... it just came out of no where, and shocked us all pretty badly.

At this point I can only say thank god she is getting better.  Life lessons will need a little more time and distance for me to recognize ... I am still kind of catching my emotional breath (if that makes any sense).

I have been practicing my sword form and trying to catch up on my numbers which did a number (ha ha) on my back which is now on the mend.  I am planning on doing my sword form and mu long khun (maybe I should learn how to spell it first) at the tiger challenge so I need to get back to it.  Really enjoyed returning to classes and being part of the I Ho Chuan team again.

I would like to thank everyone again for all the support, emotional and financial it was very much appreciated.

Status of Melanie

Unfortunately for my daughter Melanie, she has developed something called Guillian Barre Syndrome (GBS).   A full recovery from this is over 85% likely and she is a tough kid so I expect it will happen.  If you want to know what she is going thru right now and is likely to go through in the near future you can watch a U Tube video put together by Holly Gerlach who also had a severe form of GBS.  (Watching the video I think Ms. Gerlach was in the same ICU ward and bed)  I passed on all your good wishes and prayers however she is in alot of pain right now and not up to visiting.  Currently we are waiting to see if the IVIG treatment has been effective ... they say it will take about 7 days from the last day of treatment.   The rest of us are tired and stressed however Dean has a huge family and we have lots of help.

Should have chosen the Tai Chi form for this year.  I am practicing it lots in the Healing Garden at the U of A.

Recovering from the back injury

Unfortunately for my numbers I have been very limited in what I could actually accomplish thanks to a back injury.  Finally I am on the road back.  Usually for me the 5k and the situps are a given ... for the first time since I started the I Ho Chuan I am  behind on my walking or dancing or whatever you want to call it and my sit ups.  No dance classes to keep my numbers up, my walking was more like hobbling and very slow and dancing is something I have been watching not doing.  The sit ups were impossible but a plank was do able.  However my stretching and my sword form did not take a big hit ... I could still do everything just really slooooowly,  Mu Long Kuen is behind ... I could only do certain parts of it and I worked on my hand and arm moves. This week I started to put it back together and discovered that working on only the upper body stuff without the low stances and footwork has kind of messed up my timing and flow so now I will be attempting to get it all lined up again so it flows.  I have to admit I was a bit scared ... the last time my back got like this it took almost a year to heal but that was a long time ago thank god!

Can't get the video loaded to this page

Sorry guys I tried to upload the video from Deans camera phone of the lion dance but after many attempts I gave up.  If anyone has advice it would be much appreciated.  Apparently there is a limit on the size to upload to my blog and I tried youtube but it said it will take an hour.  I will try yet again when I have more time.  

The nice weather is odd but much appreciated as I can practice my forms outside either on the deck or in the front yard.  So I am catching up on my numbers ... what a relief.  I really enjoy practicing outside everything seems to be more fun outside and I don't have to worry about running into anything or hitting anything with the sword.  Have a problem with my right shoulder coming up when I am using the sword that the other sifu becketts keep pointing out ... not that I mind ... the shoulder coming up not only ruins the look of the form but it messes with the rest of the positioning of my body as well.  I will continue to focus on it while practicing the form.

Sorry I missed the Friday class ... I heard it was awesome.  

Mar 6, 2015

So I am writing this blog from my ipad.  I used to think of myself as reasonably tech savy but I am not keeping up very well with the functions of the iPad or Google plus.  Just figured out the auto correct feature ... Just hit the space bar to accept the correction.   Still struggling with the share function for the blog it didn't  work last posting, not sure where I went wrong.  

Really enjoyed last week, got lots of reps in and had fun with the sword form that I am learning so I am feeling pretty good.  Great time at the open I Ho Chuan class (look at that it capitalized a Chinese name) the dragon dance practice went really well, hope everyone had fun!  Looking forward to the lion dance practice on the 19th.  

Had to do tech support on quickbooks at the office and we all know what that's like sitting on hold till someone answers, then following instructions waiting for things to download and install had plenty of time to catchup on reading blogs.  They were very inspiring with a lot of different perspectives and some cool insights.   Even the people that we're struggling with injuries and other issues, I always learn a lot and those insights clear up a lot of things for me.  Thank you for being the deep thinkers that you all are.  

Awesome Banquet

The Chinese New Year Banquet was awesome! Despite some minor hiccups in the setup it all smoothed out and came together flawlessly.   I would like to thank the dish clean up people, it was very well done.  This year I really wanted to focus on my daughter Melanie and her promotion and I got to do that thanks to you guys.  Much appreciated.  

I really had a great time doing the lion dance and the demo performance.  I can honestly say the nerves were minor which for me is a huge step and other than catching one of my sticks in the sleeve of my uniform (for just a second) my performance went well.  Congratulations to everyone that received an award or promotion they were all well deserved.  

I am looking forward to the year of the Sheep and learning a sword form, hopefully getting some dragon dancing in as well.

End of the Year of the Horse

So I have been in the I Ho Chuan for a few years now and you would think that I would have a 100% success rate on all my goals.   Not the case, this last year was a downturn in some things and better in others.   Due to the month long vacation in Thailand, and the preparations for said vacation (when you have a business this can get complicated) there was a two month period of little kung fu.  This put me pretty far behind on alot of things except for situps I was way ahead on those.  It took me forever to get my escrima stick form up and running, really sometimes I am my own worst enemy with this stuff, changing my mind repeatedly, unable to settle on anything, it was painful.  I have enjoyed this year, despite the gapping hole from August to the end September.  I love preparing for the performances,  just not actually doing them.  The push for perfection, the practices, the playing around with music and arrangements, being part of the team is just awesome.  Unfortunately I have not completely overcome the nerves ... its better ... just not gone.  Lion Dancing has been alot of fun and I will be incorporating some exercises to strenghten my neck (a weak spot for me due to car accidents) so that I can learn the head of the lion part without hurting my neck and triggering migraines in the future.

Lion Dance Practice on Jan 17th

Its somewhat crazy having 5 lions with 10 dancers and senior blackbelts with multiple opinions and hordes of questions and everyone trying to fine tune the lion dance performance.  Despite the chaos I think the last practice put alot of really cool things in place.  It was noisy but productive.  Although my legs were pretty tired and it looked like everybody else was in the same boat, swimming in sweat and exhausted we ironed out a bunch of kinks in the performance.  The stack and roll happened successfully a number of times.  The wave has had a change in orientation I think it looks better.  The polka step feels ridiculous but looks neat, and with the tail action of the lions adds some serious cute factor to the performance.  We are so going to WOW everyone with this performance.

January 10th, 2015

Really excited about the lion dance performance coming up ... my fear of performing is much less with this one as I am not up there alone and I am somewhat hidden so I can actually enjoy myself.  I think its coming together well although at practice last night we all felt the lack of practice over the christmas break set us back a bit.  Still ran into another lion on the cross over part so our orientation is not perfect yet but now we can start working on the fine tuning of stepping and head movements and although its tough it sure makes a difference in the look of the performance.  As the backend of the lion I have less to worry about with the head movements, however trying to anticipate what your front end is going to do and moving along with that can be pretty challenging.  Listening to the drum can help with that but only if your partner is listening and following that as well.  I believe this is going to be an outstanding lion dance performance at the chinese new year celebration, looking forward to it.