Little Oasis

 I had a really good week. In fact, as I was driving home to Lethbridge yesterday, I had one of the biggest feelings of "I really do not want to go back" that I have ever had, and I believe this can be credited towards Kung Fu.

As some of you may already know, I had the privilege of being able to attend nearly every single class in the last week, which is something I have not done for at least five years. In fact, I do not think I would be exaggerating if I said that I spent more time on the mats in the last week than I have in the last 12 months. Putting aside the progress I made on my forms, simply being present also did wonders for my motivation and mental state. 

Spending several hours on the mats throughout the week is something that, five years ago, was a norm for me. Now, it is akin to an oasis; few and far between and something of a blessing. This serves as another little reminder for me not to take things for granted. Now, as I have left my little oasis, I have my eyes set on the next one, as far away as it may be.

P.S.

With February coming to an end, the first Saturday of March will be here soon, which means the first Monthly Mini Challenge! I had originally intended to make a regular post, but with the new format on WhatsApp, I am not quite sure how to go about putting these out. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Thankful For Space

 I have been having a few issues with my forms this year. The first is visualization, a subject which I will be blogging about in much detail at a later date. The second, and the theme for this blog, is my spatial restrictions. Now, I am fortunate that my apartment has a pretty sizeable living room (and it helps that a singular loveseat and a small square table is basically the only furniture I own), but it's still a far cry from the Kwoon, and very much less than ideal. 

My hand form this year is Snake, and I am again fortunate enough to know the form well, as it was a hand form of mine in a previous year. That said, it has been quite some time since I have done the form, and I have had to relearn a few chunks and transitional pieces. Snake has a very different flow and "vibe" compared to the schools forms we learn, so another piece of fortune is that I already have learnt and developed this flow, and do not need to worry about it as much as I first did (although I am feeling pretty awkward with it again, so it may need a few sessions). The first couple days of the year, I was able to quickly piece the whole form back together, however, due to the size of my apartment, I have to adjust myself every few moves. As I am back home for reading week, I had the opportunity to get on the mats earlier in the week and get some reps done without having to worry about adjusting my distancing or any of that. And then, on my first rep, I start adjusting my spacing the same way I did in my apartment. Perhaps it was because my brain was vulnerable as I was piecing the form back together, but my muscle memory had incorporated those adjustments into my form, which cost me a few transitional moves that I ended up not remembering. Fortunately I have a video to go off of, but it was kind of a strange moment when I realized my muscle memory had already adapted to my apartment. I am hoping to get as many reps as possible this week with the space I have at the Kwoon and at my parents house, and as a combative measure I will be changing my starting location frequently when practicing in the apartment to keep my adjustments at different intervals, as to avoid it becoming muscle memory again.

My weapons form has been another mountain to climb, in all aspects of the expression. Creating weapons forms have never been too much of a struggle for me; I have always been able to feel out the weapon well enough to construct a form that matches my body and style and works with my flow, and able to do so in a pretty short period of time. Now this year, every time I begin to get my flow and momentum going while creating my form, I hit a literal wall which causes me to hit a metaphorical wall. And as much as I would love to be able to practice outside, snow in Lethbridge does not last for very long but it does fall somewhat frequently. This may seem like a great thing because there is almost never any snow on the ground, but it does mean that the ground is very consistently wet, mucky, and muddy. Until it begins to dry up a little bit, it does me very little service and as such, progress has been existent, but slow. 

I didn't realize quite how much space played a role in my lack of creative ability while working on my form until I had the opportunity to be on the mats. I was able to double what I had done in a month in less than an hour. Again, I hope to get as much done now so that when I return home, I at least have something I can work with. I have accepted that my ability to create and memorize a weapon form in only a handful of sessions is not something I will be able to do this year, and that the old adage about building Rome in a day is one I should actually acknowledge. 

I Jinxed It

 For those who may have missed my last post, I talked about how I found motivation to stay hydrated through my weekly plasma donations, as hydration leads to better bleeds times and obviously I want to be the best there ever was.

Well, I did it. Sort of? I jinxed it, actually.

The plasma donation process is done by taking approximately 250-300mls of blood at a time (give or take), separating the plasma from it, infusing that blood with saline, and giving it back to you before repeating this process four or five times till you reach your donation quantity. This is the reason why a) you are able to donate much more frequently than full blood and b) your bleed time takes so much longer. 

As I went in for my donation on Thursday (donation number 10! or it would have been, at least), I was done in approximately 90 seconds. A world record, I tell myself. As the machine had finished collecting my first batch of full blood and began separating it, a malfunction in the tubing caused air to get into the system as well as some of the blood to escape the separation chamber, as I like to call it. Because of this malfunction, my blood was classified as "unable to be confirmed sterile" and unable to be given back to me. I thought, not the end of the world, hook me up to another machine and we can keep going. What's another 275ml? Apparently, that is not how things work. I left the clinic having lost approximately 2/3 of a full donation (450ml), and unable to donate for another SIXTY DAYS while my body replenishes the full blood it lost. 

From this situation, I have observed two realizations that have occurred to me as a result. Well, one re-realization and the other, just another brick in a concept wall I have been building overtime.

My re-realization is that, blogging is really useful. Yeah, I know we hear it all the time, but I tend to forget just how important it can be. Since Thursday, I have found I have remained quite hydrated, despite not having a plasma donation to prepare for for at least two months. This is because I blogged about it. I feel astoundingly responsible for my hydration now, and my pride won't allow me to say "hey guys, I know I just said I have finally figured it out, but that had some problems and I decided to give up less than a week later". I am a stubborn person, and now that the world of the IHC knows, I shall not yield. I will become so hydrated that the machine that broke on me will become so full of regret it does not get to take part in my great, record-setting return, it shall come to me seeking forgiveness and redemption and I will, in turn, make it wait sixty days before I bless it with my presence. The perfect revenge, all because blogging has held me accountable.

To get a little more serious, my "another brick in the concept wall" realization was that I really, really, REALLY hate wasting resources. Part of this may come from my education, which is very hunting and resource-use heavy. We are taught over and over that every aspect of our conservation enforcement careers revolves around respect for the wildlife and the resource. Only ever hunt what you are guaranteed to consume 100% of, and always conduct yourself in a manner that shows humaninty and  respect to the wildlife. To this end, I despise wasting food, especially meat. There is very little respect to be found in waste, after all. 

My biggest frustration is how my blood has been wasted. It is not that I am upset MY blood was wasted, to clarify. Rather, I would be upset if this happened to anyone. That little, half-a-soda-can amount of blood I lost could have been used to help someone who really needed it. Rather, it was washed and disposed of and served no use to bettering the world. And on top of that, I cannot donate for sixty days, which is about 8.5 weeks, which is eight plasma donations I am missing out on. At each one being almost 900ml, that's more than 7L of plasma I could have donated. Do you know what could be done with all of that??? I mean, I do not know all the details myself, but I'm sure you can do a lot! There are people who could be helped, who won't be, because of a silly machine. Ugh, I'm getting annoyed again just thinking about it.

To wrap this up, these thoughts about wastefulness and trying to relate them to Kung Fu reminded me about one of Sifu Brinker's most important pieces of wisdom, in my opinion. Knowledge can only be taught to you while the person who has it can still pass it on to you. Once that individual is gone, so are those lessons. Gone, poof, into nothing. This mindset has really helped me with my intent when learning in class and retaining what I learnt, so of course I believe everyone should take it to heart.

For those who are able, I would like to challenge you to at least think about blood donations. Donating plasma every week is definitely not for everybody, and I am fortunate to have both resilient veins and to live five minutes away from the clinic. But donating plasma every month or donating full blood every several months is still all it takes to make a difference. While I am no professional, if anyone has any questions or inquiries I can at least speak from experience.

Happy trails :)

The Habit of Hydration

 I have mentioned it before, and I will mention it again. Something I very much struggle with is being hydrated. I can blame it on being a semi-responsible young adult with the attention span of a fruit fly, living in a hot apartment in a dry windy city who only remembers to drink water when my life is on the line, but the truth of the matter is that I simply haven't established it as a habit. You'd think that establishing habits is something I would have figured out pretty good by this point, but alas, I struggle.

Although I have made an effort to make it into a habit, the problem I run into is that, at the end of the day, my not-quite-yet-fully-developed brain cannot seem to grasp that consuming water, even when I am not thirsty, is good for me. Because of this, unlike IHC numbers and forms, I have found I lack the motivation to keep the habit in practice. Something I have been putting thought into lately is how I can build this motivation. After all, water is a pretty basic component to all aspects of life, and even I realize how critical it is in completing day to day activities. And just last week, the motivation fell right into my lap.

Something I have been doing for several months now is donating plasma. I originally planned to keep donating full blood, however, the clinic in Lethbridge is set to only accept plasma donations for several reasons I won't get into detail about today. For those who are not familiar with the donation process or may only be familiar with donating full blood, here are the major differences. The first is volume. The average full blood donation is around 400ml, while plasma ranges from approximately 500-900ml depending on body types (I donate 896, which is the max). The second is occurrence. It takes about three months before you are allowed to donate full blood again, however, plasma can be donated every week. The final bit, and the most important in this case, is bleed time. My full blood donations averaged about 8ish minutes, while my plasma donations average around 70 minutes. This isn't the norm for everybody, however. The record bleed time last month for my donation quantity was just over 29 minutes. 

Now, it's true that different bodies bleed at different rates, but one of the major influencing factors is hydration. To prepare for my donations, I would usually drink a little more water the day before and the day of. I had just accepted that I am not someone who will be able to be out of the building in under half an hour. And yet, during my donation on Thursday, one of the associates was telling a first time donor that drinking water the day of and the day before helps a little, but it really does not do a lot (why did no one tell me this??). He said that it can take several days of being PROPERLY hydrated before it can even start to affect your system.

Now I, an easily influenced young adult, overhearing that I do indeed have the ability to be the best of the best? That it is still within my power? That I can indeed hit that 30 minute mark? Who would have guessed that was all the motivation I needed? Since Thursday, I have found myself filling my water bottle more often throughout the day, and even though I recognize that I already feel substantially better, it has been easier to complete numbers, and overall I feel more healthy, that means very little to me at the moment. What I do care about? Beating the record. Even if it is just my personal record for the time being. 

It may be possible that this motivation is exactly what I needed to create a regular habit. As it turns out, a little competition is all some people need to spark a fire.