7th post

So most things are going okay except for my form repetitions ... I was doing these at work but this past couple weeks it just hasn't been happening. Which is weird because the forms are the favorite part of my training. Its like we added the diet tracking and as my plate is pretty full forms slid right off the other side. Diet tracking is somewhat embarrassing as I read other peoples and realize I will have to step up my game in regards to the quality ... I eat organic but not necessarily the right proportions of vegetables, grains and meat/fish. Trying to whittle down the consumption of coffee and increase water I seem to have hit a wall ... 4 cups of java a day is as good as I have gotten so far. I will keep working to increase water intake and I have also added some supplements to my diet ... consistency is the key so I will keep trying.

Its birthday season in our family, starting in Feb to the middle of April so its been dinners and/or parties every week and shopping for cards, special ingredients for dinners, gifts etc. as I don't actually enjoy shopping and get frustrated fighting thru crowds and standing in lines well it makes me a little crabby. Alot of my acts of kindness involve being courteous and patient during these moments when normally I would just turn around and leave ... I'm not sure its an act of kindness as there is this frustrated person vibrating in a long line, barring her teeth in a pained smile, it might be kinder to leave. But its a good exercise in patience for me.

Have a great week.

6th Post

I must admit I lost track of time, so since my last random post which was 10 days ago here is the update.

I took a day off on the 6th (Sunday) BIG MISTAKE! So here is what I discovered about myself. I cannot take a day off! ... I need to work on my requirements everyday ... maybe not get everything done but I have to do something kungfu related or I slide right back into the previous rut which is obviously very deep and has a very slippery slope because it took three days to get back on track.

I have always been a rut person ... in fact the whole routine thing can be very comforting ... so that means my good habits are consistently good but also that my bad habits are hard to overcome. The light at the end of the tunnel is that when this new rut that I am working on gets very comfortable and deep chances are I will be able to maintain. The down side is that being comfortable has always been my preference. I have found life to be plenty challenging without having to create the changes in my life and I am always reluctant to commit to things that require the evolution of myself as a person yet, I argue with myself that the same personal evolution is necessary to be the person that I envision being. Its tough being a Pices with two fish swimming in opposite directions.

5th post

So I missed last weeks post so this is a two week update. Went to Vancouver over the weekend to visit my sister and her baby. Nova (the baby) is now 5 months old and smiling and interacting its so cool. She helped with the intensity of my situps, put a 15 lb baby on your chest and do situps now that creates a burn. We walked ALOT, her afternoon nap happens in the stroller with me and my sister walking. Vancouver is a beautiful city and its a joy to walk someplace where its still green so I racked up mega miles in the four days I was there. Kicks were a bit more challenging as homes in Vancouver are pretty small unless you are a millionaire, so no combinations just singles. No forms happened unfortunately, my chosen form Mlong Kuen is a space hog and we just couldn't make it fit in the house or the postage stamp front yard, although the baby thought my attempts were pretty funny. Got back to Edmonton the evening of Feb 28th, it was minus 37 at our house, holy hannah!

Started with the food tracking on Mar 1st and have made a few discoveries, I drink too much coffee! I don't drink enough water. Not being home on the weekend meant I didn't get stuff prepared to eat healthy the following week so that means I have been doing a lot of late night cooking. Its not really recommended that you sit down for supper at 9:30 pm, but hey you gotta eat. My lenghts swimming are taking a hard hit in performance ... its been really busy and I just haven't gotten to the pool so zero for the last two weeks, however this sunday is still open and next week looks a little more sane so I should be able to swing both tuesday and thursday.

Got a head, nose, throat type cold going on this week ... just so you know if you have a really sore throat the fix is as follows; Go to the health food store and buy some oil of oregano (its pricy but you only need a few drops) before you go to bed and after you brush your teeth, fill the dropper half full and very carefully squirt the oregano oil onto the BACK of your tongue. Do not attempt to wash this stuff down with liquids it needs to stay in your throat. Its not quite as bad as buckleys but its close. Go to sleep, you will dream of pizza and wake up with your throat feeling pretty fine.

Talk to you next week.

4th post

So today at 5:45 AM I was at the airport dropping off my brother as he is also heading back to china but for him its to teach english in Hefei. My life will go back to being busy and I will get some relief from insanely busy. I am planning to catch up on my kicks and get some serious practice in for the tiger challenge competition now that I am not running to calgary for visa's, taking my brother for his medicals, helping with last minute things that always come up when you are travelling etc...although now that I don't have all these people to take care of my acts of kindness is going to be harder to achieve. As of yet I have not had time to figure out how to get this blog posted on the ubbt site ... I will work on it this week. It has turned out that I am really enjoying this training ... sure I'm behind on some things but even what I have gotten done has been alot more fun than I expected. My kicks are looking much better ... my form is getting much better! It feels really good right now!

3rd post

This past week has been pretty good except for the migraine I had on the weekend. I bought some chocolates on thursday night when I went grocery shopping and it appears that the "may contain peanuts" statement in this case meant they did. I ate a couple on friday night (junk food night) and by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around wow a killer headache and a rash. So stupidity did me in! I'm not much of a pill taker but there are times ... and this was one of them. Did not get my situps or pushups done (the change in elevation for these make the headache excrutiating) on Sunday but managed a tai chi rep, a couple very slowly done forms and my two hundred kicks done at tai chi speed with my fingers braced on the wall for balance. Other wise things are going okay and I am somewhat amazed that I am actually getting alot of this stuff done. My kicks have improved alot already and I really enjoy doing them ... even 200 at a time. My husband has been helping huge with my goal to eat healthy ... HE makes us smoothies every morning with some sort of healthy greens mixture, fruit & juice & yogurt, all organic and it tastes great. In addition he drags me past the chip aisle at the grocery store without stopping, chips are a real problem for me. So for now things are still mostly on track. The hardest part of this is keeping track, so now I will head off to physout and update my numbers.

2nd week

Wow some of this is complicated but now I have it all ironed out I think ... Sifu Brinker and I have worked out the goals and I figured out how to use the phys out site and posted my stuff there. I am already behind on some. Yikes! The only thing I have left is to get this blog stuff on the UBBT site which I will try to accomplish today ... it depends on work though. I am having trouble with the acts of kindness, so far my daughters have been pointing out nice things I have done for various people and in various situations but its hard actually acknowledging that it is an act of kindness. I keep thinking well thats just what you do! Nothing special, merely polite or considerate and its weird how difficult it is to actually record it. I feel somewhat embarrassed that I would dare to write it down. I actually hide the page in case someone opened my planner and read it. There is probably some strange issue associated with this that I do not have a name for. So physically ... my neck hurts, my shoulders hurt, my hips hurt, and my knees hurt. So far its just sore muscles and a few aching joints, hopefully it will all hang together till the end of 2011.

Goals are as follows:
20,000 pushups with 80,000 kicks to supplement
50,000 situps
4160 lengths swimming
1000 mile walk'
150 reps of the tai chi long form
1000 reps of mu long kung (spelling defeats me)
compete in tiger challenge and achieve a medal in musical and hand forms
perform and record 1500 acts of kindness
journal weekly
healthy meals 6 days per week
complete the master gardner workbook
go to china to see the girls in the fall
achieve silver 2 in ballroom dancing in 9 dances
3 spotlight dance performances

talk at you next week.

The first week!

So Sifu Brinker and I have gone round and round about my very careful goal setting. I like to plan things, make lists, suceed at the goals that I set, you know weird stuff like that. I have been setting goals for the past couple of years and playing along with the UBBT game plan. Truly even though I wasn't part of the UBBT Team I still got alot more accomplished than I thought I might have. So this year I decided to join the UBBT Team and with Sifu Brinker giving me several pushes have set what to me are completely unrealistic set of goals to accomplish for this year. The careful planner in me is totally freaked out! So to date because I spent so much time carefully planning my orgininal submission it was just under the wire. Good thing I did so much extra for situps and pushups on Jan 1st or I would be really far behind ... right now I am hanging on by my fingernails for most everything. Still working on a photo of the real me ... the picture is just an example of how I feel right now.

Terry Beckett