I Ho Chaun -again

WOW! What a great job at the Rotary Run for Life. You guys did an awesome job representing the school.

Keep that momentum going, the lion and dragon dance is not the finish line, it was just another tool for you to use as you travel down your path to Mastery. Too many times individuals stop short of thier dreams because they set the finish line before the real goal.

Compare this to the hurdles, if you watched any of the hurdles during the Olympics, the runners didn't stop after they made it over the first hurdle, they cleared hurdle after hurdle until they reached the finsh line.  Everything you are doing for I Ho Chaun are just hurdles before you reach you finish line.

Don't be fooled, by completing I Ho Chaun, you have not reached the finish line. I Ho Chaun, itself is just another hurdle in your journey to Mastery of your life.  Master Brinker has always said that the I Ho Chaun is your journey, how you tackle it will have a ripple effect to all facets of your life.  Your approach has to be sustainable after you finish participation in I Ho Chaun. For a member to drop everything and solely focus on I Ho Chaun for a year, complete everything with flying colors, is absolutely useless because it is not sustainable. Everyone is busy and we all know that so you will have to adjust your life to fit in I Ho Chaun.

Take the dragon dance as an example, at the beginning we barely had enough members to practice.  As we progressed more members came and we where able to have a rest or miss a practice (or two) and know that there was enough members there to step in and support the team. We had more then enough members at the run. This is how we should view I Ho Chaun. Life is busy and you won't be able to be there all the time but there is enough team members to step in, carry your load and fill you in when your able to comeback.  All I Ho Chaun members are tools for you to use as you strive towards Mastery. No judgement, NO questions, just TEAM.

You can not change the past but you can choose how your future turns out.

More power

I need full power Mr. Scott.............Captain, I can't give anymore...she's going to blow.
A little flashback to my younger days of watching Star Trek.  

Last week in sihing class we practiced our forms.  When we got to Lao Gar, sifu M. Playter mentioned that this form is different then the others as the majority of power was generated by rotational power instead of more linear power from the other forms. 

That Sunday was Kurtis's 13th birthday and I took him to be driving range to hit some balls. A little time passed and something clicked. If I can take my driver and hit a little white ball 250 yads straight down the range, I should be able to generate that same force with my techniques. 

With my golf swing, I take the club back in arc about 70 degrees from vertical and twist about 40 degrees into my backswing. Once at the top of my swing, my hip and shoulders start the down swing following a similar arc as my backswing generating speed and power as I fire my hips, shoulders, arms, hands, and legs at certain points of the downswing. All of that momentum and force is concentrated at the bottom of my arc as the club head makes contact with the ball. The contact fires the balls along its merry way. If any part of my swing is off, and we are talking about a millimeter or a millisecond, the ball doesn't go straight.  I will still hit the ball but it won't be at full power or as accurate as I would like it to be. 

This translate to our Kung fu training, since day one, the Sifu's have always harped on the fact that we have to rotate our punches and blocks to generate effortless power. Stepping forward and punching is an excellent example of this. As you slide step forward, your hand fires off your hip towards your target. As you plant you feet, you rotate your hands to the proper contact position. Everything coming together to generate a large amount of power. More then if we just used our shoulders and arms to push out the punch. Yes, you still generate power but it's not as powerful as it can be. 

Both my golf and Kung fu rely on the the precise timing of my movements to generate power and complete the technique. The six harmonies, your feet and hands, knees and elbows, and hips and shoulders. They all have to work in harmony of each to maximize  efficiency and power.  I will have to keep this at the forefront as I try to master myself and excel at Kung fu and golf. 

I Ho Chaun

When I agreed to participate in the I Ho Chaun, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. I knew I had to do it if I wanted to grade this year but that was about it. After Sifu Hayes sent out a reminder to all members to reacquaint themselves to what we committed to, I realized that I will not reach all my goals for I Ho Chaun.  With my late start, injuries, family, work, (blah..blah..blah..insert excuse here), I know there is no way I will complete everything but does this mean I have failed? 

After re-reading the I Ho Chaun letter, I see that it is a year long mentorship program and it's your own journey/process for you to get to Mastery. I Ho Chaun is and will always be different to everyone involved, there will never be two identical journeys. I have been approaching this class with the wrong intent, yes, I need to participate if I want to grade but it's a year long mentorship program. Mentorship from not only Master Brinker and Sifu Playter but from the rest of the members of I Ho Chaun. I can learn and better myself with the experiences of my fellow classmates and share with them as they progress in their own journey. Doing pushups, situps, weapons, etc is only a tool for you to use in this class to help you along in your journey. 

A journey to mastery in Kung fu? In nun chucks? In forms? NO. None of the above. I having been working on my judgement the last week. I have approached Kung fu with lots of vigor and intensity (I'm sure my morning class would agree) but that's also one of my weakness. I haven't applied good judgement to my classmates and where they are at in thier training and journey.  Reflecting back on my life, there are many occasions that I have exercised poor or a lack of judgement. I will work on using better judgement while maintaining the intensity in what I do. This is part of my journey to mastery, not towards Kung fu but to me. 

I Ho Chaun is a journey to the mastery of ourselves not Kung fu, golf, running, etc.  For members of I Ho Chaun, Kung fu is only a tool for us to use in our journey into ourselves.  Mastery of ourselves will take us off the road of mediocrity and onto the path of the extraordinary.

Commitment

I volunteered to serve as a witness for the longest basketball game ever, 113 hours to obtain the record. They started Sunday at 8pm and will be finished on Friday at 1pm. There are 24 individuals that have volunteered there time to play, many having to take time of work to be part of this event. The 24 players, many of them are in there earlier 20's, are divided into 2 teams and into 2 lines. Each line plays for 2 hours then they switch off.  They are allowed a 2hr sleep break and a 5min rest break every hour, they don't use the rest break but bank it so they can use it once a day to get an extra long sleep break.  The players are not permitted to leave the premises as per the rules. I was there as a witness for the game after 12 hrs, by that time the pace of the game had slowed a bit and many of them had  blisters on their feet, injuries, sore joints and muscles. The shift that just finished tended to their injures and needs, showered, ate and tried to rest/sleep for a little bit. In 2 hrs they would be back in the courts for another shift.  Besides the players there as host of other individuals that had committed thier time to make sure this record can be achieved.  This commitment! The physical and mental exhaustion these participants will have after 113 hrs will be secondary once they accomplish the world's longest basketball game.

Our Pandamonium is only 24hrs and many times we have had problems filling in all the time slots or there is only one person that signed upped.  This is 24hrs not 113 and we don't we don't need to be there for the entire 24hrs. Can we get this kind of commitment for our next Pandamonium?  Time to give ourselves a little slap in the face, where are you? There are many schools that teach self defence but this is the only school that challenges you to be more then just a martial artist.
I have been involved in the school for many years, but now as Sihing I am getting a sense of commitment. A sense of responsability to the school and my fellow students. We all have different skill sets that we bring to the Kwoon which could and will benefit every other individual here. 

I Ho Chaun members and Sihings, let's step it up a notch. 

Btw, they are playing the game at Living Waters School if you want to stop in and say "hi" and give them a little support.  If you want to volunteer as a witness for the game let me know and I will get you the contact info. 

Numbers

Here are my numbers that I have written down.

Sifu Stoddart, Thank you for putting this out there. I'm not really good at putting everything on paper and I took a couple of months off to heal my eye, so I wasn't looking forward to calculating all my numbers. After seeing the totals, I surprised myself at how these little sets add up.

Swimming. 140 min
Jogging. 59min
Stationary bike. 4026min
Sit ups. 9530
Pushups. 11415
Tricep pushups. 600
Crunches. 8455
Bicep curls. 3350
Pull ups. 226
Chin ups. 516
Leg raises. 3580
Tricep extension. 435
Jumping jacks. 6600
Bicycle crunches. 8800
Leg raise Crossess. 700

Where to?

My first 100 days of office is fast approaching (one more week), everything on my list of things that I wanted to get done or address will been accomplished or started. With that being said, many of my others commitments and responsibilities have fallen to the back burner. Where do I start; family, restaurant, kung fu, Rotary, there always seem to be more things to do then I have time to do them in.
I don't know how some people get it all done and under control.  I'm going to have to step back and take breather before I tackle them.

Family and the Restaurant will be the first things I focus my attention to. Without those two, I wouldn't be able to do the things I do.  Then I have the Rotary Run for Life breakfast and the auction that needs to be organized.  Throw in training for Kung fu and trying the meet all the commitments there as well.

I wonder if there is a place I can get cloned. Like in the movies, the real me will enjoy all the fun things in life and my clone can do all the work. Wishful thinking I know but one can always dream.

Can one attempt mastery in so many facets?

Diet tracking month

Diet tracking month is over, that was an intersting way to put focus on what we are eating.
Looking back over the posts, I'm not a bad eater but definelty lots of room to improve.  I seem to eat at all hours though out the day and I'm opportunistic when it comes to food. I would eating anything that is avaible or what is convient as I go about my day.

After I was elected Mayor, I had a meeting political guru to go through my new role as a Mayor vs my new role  as a Councillor.  He told me to weigh myself now and then again after I finish my term, he guarantees that I will gain weight during my tenure. Looking at my posts, it looks like that is a very good possibility.

I'm need to start planning my eating though out the day to match my commitments.
Guess that's another thing I have to work on but it's going to be hard.

 I love food!