My I Ho Chuan

Hey folks, this is kind of a really long one, so I’m sorry. But I think it’s pretty good, so I’m hoping it is still manageable.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have been on the IHC team for many years. In fact, I have been on the team for approximately 1/3 of my lifetime. During those years, I definitely had some requirements I believe I was strong at, but there are some that I have always struggled with. Numbers, for one.

The six years (outside of this year) that I was on the team for were done consecutively through the ages of roughly 13-19. In that time, I had a lot of opportunity to grow and mature, but some things didn’t really become easier. It wasn’t so much the numbers I struggled with, but the recording of them that was my Achilles heel.

I was (and truthfully, maybe still am) someone who is extremely insecure about progress. In fact, I am just someone who is very insecure in general. I have come a long ways since and there are many things about myself that I have grown to be comfortable with, but there are still many things I am afraid of. 

When I speak of being afraid of progress, I am afraid I cannot do it. I have a very, VERY easy time losing track of the “where am I, what am I doing” mindset and focusing on the big picture and how much bigger than me it is. As much as I like to flaunt and talk about how great I am, I do not see myself that way. I see a small, frightened human, who is insignificant in the face of time and progress. So when I missed a day of recording or my numbers fell behind and it showed on paper, it was able to flawlessly destroy my motivation. Not just to record, but to do numbers altogether.

This is something that caused me to take a break from the IHC for two years, as I was dealing with the overwhelming guilt that I was unable to keep up to the Mastery I had signed up for. That I was unable to keep myself accountable. 

Over those two years, I believe I matured a lot. I went through a lot of maturing opportunities, after all. I felt refreshed and prepared to join the IHC again. However, I knew if I just came into the year and hoped a little bit of maturity would fix my problems, I would end up in the same slump in no time. So I made some plans.

The first was my intent. All of my IHC years have “themes”, if you would. This years theme is Intent, in all forms. While I have blogged about and discussed some of the manifestations of my personal intent, my intent for the entire year has been one thing; to reach a point where, during the start of next years IHC, I will be ready to grade for my second degree, at any point throughout the year. I decided that striving for my second degree this year would not be beneficial to me. Instead, I would aim for the level of a second degree and use what I built to create a foundation for next year, a foundation in which I was consistently ready. 

Once I established this intent, I created a plan to help me get around one my most deadly poisons; my numbers. The issue in the past has been this; seeing my numbers had taken a drastic toll on my mental well-being and overall broke my weak willpower, which affected my ability to do numbers at all. At the beginning of  this year, I made a decision.

I will not be recording a single number down.

But do not get me wrong; I AM STILL DOING MY NUMBERS.

My plan is to develop my numbers routine first, without the pressure of recording them. And I am proud to say that my numbers are better than they have ever been. There are days I missed and days I have done extra, so I do not know where I am at, but I know I am comfortable with it. To keep myself accountable, I made the following system.

For push up’s and sit up’s, I would aim for roughly 170-200 a day. I missed them on some days, for sure. On those days I missed, it would have ruined my routine had I been physically recording (historically proven, after all). But I kept doing them. 

For Acts of Kindess, before I go to bed every night, I think of what I have done throughout the day. I have not written any of them down, but I am conscious of them. I am still doing them.

For my kilometres, I used the fitness app on my phone and eventually a Fitbit to keep track of my movement, aiming for approximately 5-7km a day. If I was low by the end of the day, I would take a walk or do other cardio excercises. With some of my respiratory struggles, there are days where it sucks, and days I do not do a lot. But it gets done.

My numbers are here. They exist. They have become a core part of my day. My plan is working. So what is the next step?

I have begun to setup an online system so that when I begin recording my numbers again, I will be able to do it easy and quickly. More importantly, I will only be checking the spreadsheet when I need to share my numbers. My aim is to continue developing a mindset in which the numbers do not matter to me, and I believe I am already well on my way.

This is not a method I encourage people to view and believe that they can do it themselves just because it is working for me. I have spoken with Sifu Brinker and explained all of this to him (which is why I am writing this blog), 

and clarified that I will be recording again come the new IHC year. But for the time being, I am playing the long game and believe this personal plan is one that will help me grow.

Ultimately, maturity is another topic I am insecure about. I like to believe I have matured a lot over the last several years (and I genuinely believe I have), but I still struggle to think I have genuinely been growing up. Do I wish I was more quiet, more modest, more serious, more sincere, less goofy, less obnoxious, less arrogant, less prideful? Yeah, sometimes I do. But I do not think Mastery is something I can gain by changing who I fundamentally am. So why fight it? After all, I think the world could use a little bit more silly.

With all of this said (and with my own discussion with Sifu Brinker), I will not be posting my numbers at the ends of my blogs during this IHC year, as I will be sticking to my plan. The plan is working, after all. Next year, though? Oh man. Next year is going to be even more awesome. Because you know what? I am having SO much fun. 

Power and Control

 I am sure many of us, if not all of us, are familiar with the significance behind the bow that coloured belts use and the bow that black belts use (to be specific, I am talking about the bow we use when entering/leaving the mats, addressing someone, etc. Not the opening bow). With the hand placement in the black belt bow representing the balance and coexistence of both power and control, this was a concept I understood but did not fully comprehend for quite some time. Or atleast, I thought I completely comprehended it, but it turns out it was only at a surface level.

 When conducting my sparring reps this summer, I would often use a tree (as I was in the middle of the woods and had nothing better available) as a target to work on my centering and movement around a focal point. When doing this, I eventually realized that despite using most of my strength and speed in my strikes, I would consistently stop roughly an inch or so from the tree. Obviously I was not striking the tree for a reason; I am not Tigress from Kung Fu Panda. I would break my hand. But something I did not realize is that I was not thinking about not hitting the tree. I was simply striking and automatically stopping at the last second. Yet when working with soft targets, I make solid contact.

On this same note, something I realized after sparring with everyone present during class a month ago in the Level 2 Adult Class is that I do not actively adjust my power levels when I am sparring people of various experience and abilities. Again, it happens somewhat subconsciously. When adjusting my levels to my opponents, it is something that just happens. I do not consciously assess the level at which my opponent is sparring; I subconsciously do both the assessment and my own readjustment. 

I believe now that this is a better representation of what the "control and power" balance signifies. They work in harmony and exist in tandem and as you practice and experience them, you get better and more accustomed to using the two together (does that make sense?). At some point, you stop thinking about it. When discussing mastery, I believe this balance is one that you are always in pursuit of, even when it feels like you have a proper handle on it. As I continue my personal journey into intent, I believe I will continue to develop this balance and strive even further along the path to this fascinating balance.

Monthly Mini Challenge - October

Hey team,

For this months Mini Challenge, I decided to change things up just a little bit. Instead of focusing on a physical requirement, Octobers challenge will be related to acts of kindness!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I challenge everyone to identify three things they are thankful for and over the course of the weekend, try to conduct an act of kindness around each of those three things. 

For example, if you are thankful for your family, do something to help your family out. This is something that will take a little bit of thinking, so I encourage people to put some thought into it. You can also think of it as a sort of “paying it back”, if that makes it easier to understand.

Additionally, while these AoK should still be recorded, this is something that will relate to you personally and as such, I understand if you do not feel comfortable sharing. If you are comfortable, however, I encourage everyone to share their thankfulness and corresponding AoK when complete.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Where Is My Oxygen?

Something I have found over the last month or so is that, the more intent and intensity I apply to a form, the more out of breath I am at the end. What I find weird is that I have been working on stamina and endurance a lot this year and these major oxygen troubles only seemed to just start. So why am I struggling when I should be at the best point I have been in a long time? As it turns out, the two are pretty unrelated.

Another thing I have been working on a lot this year is intent and using my personal intent to channel and maximize my intensity. I have made great leaps and bounds on this over the summer, and been working on applying my “research” to my forms now that I am back on the mats. This is where the problem arises.

It’s simple. It is actually so simple I was hesitant to blog about it at first because it is a little embarrassing. I have been so focused on channeling my intent that I have simply been forgetting to breath. It occurred to me during open training, when I was reflecting on a repetition of Lao Gar I had just done. Frustrated I was out of breath and trying to figure out why, I thought to myself “how many times did I actually breathe during that rep?”. With reflection, I am pretty sure I could have counted on one hand. 

Now, I’ve been trying to focus on my breathing without getting rid of my intent. To be honest, I don’t know how it is working out quite yet. With the reps we did in IHC tonight, I felt as though I was doing better, although I was breathing in very short lengths. Putting aside the energy that is required to do a form at high intensity, I still think I am not where I should be. Considering how happy I was with my breath control earlier this year, it is a humbling revelation. 

Unplugged

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go about 10 days without my cellphone. And by “opportunity”, I mean it spontaneously stopped working on me and as I was in the last week of my contract at my job in Saskatchewan, I did not really have much opportunity to get it fixed right away. Here are some of my findings from the experience.

First, while I’ve always recognized how much time I wasted on social media, but I was always hesitant to delete it. Ultimately, I suppose you could consider it a form of FOMO. While I always ended up getting sucked down a rabbit hole of nothingness, I feared that I would miss out on life updates of friends and family who I do not talk to on a regular basis, but would still like to be in the know when things happens. Losing my phone made me realize how much free time I actually had, and how trivial some of these things are.

Something I noticed was that I always reached for my phone when I had the ability to do so. In the morning before getting out of bed, at night before getting in bed, while eating meals, waiting for my coworkers to run into the office to grab something, etc. If I wasn’t doing something, I wanted to look at my phone. Losing this ability gave me a lot of “where am I, what am I doing” opportunities.

Another thing I realized was how ultimately unnecessary my personal phone actually was. As I had my workphone on me (which I could essentially use to make calls and that was about it. So really, it basically served as a portable landline) I was able to contact my parents and let them know about what happened, and I was able to use my computer for everything else. While I did not have the convenience of being able to see emails or school updates as they came in, I could still monitor them several times a day with my computer. I still had the tools to survive my day-to-day professional and educational careers, and all I lost was a bit of convenience. Although, after I handed in my workphone, the drive home was probably one of the scariest drives I’ve ever done. I guess I’m lucky to be living in the age where I’ve always had a cellphone at the same time I’ve had a drivers licence.

Ultimately, I believe it was good for me. Once I got my phone replaced, I did not redownload my social medias. Life without it has been remarkably peaceful, I dare say. It has brought me much more down to earth, and has given me dozens of little opportunities to work on Kung Fu or school or other mandatory tasks that I previously had not even recognized.

Dark Places

    On my way home from class last night, I had a deer run in front of me out of nowhere. However, with the amount of moose and deer I have had to slam on the brakes for this summer, it did not phase me all too much. As I was catching my breath after hitting the brakes with enough force to send my possessions flying off the seat, I noticed a silhouette of a person just off the road, slightly illuminated by the headlights, only slightly in sight.

    While I am sure most would be caught off guard seeing a person right there, this triggered a mental health "episode" for me that I have not experienced, to this extreme, in several years. The moment I processed the shadow, I lost control of my breathing, my ears starting ringing, I began to sweat, and I ultimately lost total control of myself within only a few seconds. To be honest, I am not sure how long I sat there, unable to move and unable to look up. It was not until I began to catch my breath that it occurred to me that the shadow that sent me into such a tizzy was actually just a Halloween decoration placed on the edge of a driveway. 

    Between this realization and conducting the recovery methods I have come up with, I was able to tough out the short remainder of the drive home with no difficulty. Upon reflection after returning home, it occurred to me that I did not think something like this could even happen. I thought I had it totally conquered. I thought I was unbeatable. Delusion got the best of me once again. 

    While shaken that such an event could still happen, I am happy with my recovery time in comparison to what it once was. Maybe the fact that my trigger was simply a scarecrow had something to do with it, but I still believe it is a right proper road to mastery that I have made quite some headway on. And I definitely think I am going to keep to travelling with my brights on. No more surprises for me.

That's The Summer

    Well. Tomorrow is my last shift with this job and it will be pretty limited to cleaning and wrap-up, so its not like its a REAL shift, yknow? Anyways, my house is packed and in my car, and within 36 hours I'll be back on the road home. This summer has had a lot of takeaways for me (many I have already blogged about), and I am very content with how it turned out.

    On a side note, I am looking forward to what comes next. The next several months will be busy, to say the least. I am starting my next job, which is a federal enforcement position with Environment Canada out of Edmonton, at the start of October. My family will also happen to be moving from my childhood home into town at the start of October. I have mixed emotions regarding that, although I suppose that is to be expected with saying goodbye to the house I grew up in. 

    School is also really busy. Like, really busy. I write and I submit and I write and I submit and it feels like this huge wall I have not even began to come close to breaching. The hardest part is motivation; while this is a lot of school, it would be significantly easier if I was not working and using up all my energy elsewhere (obviously, right?).

    With these big things happening as my life turns a chapter, it is easy to get lost in all of the commotion. Yesterday, the stars were very bright. I spent quite some time watching them before bed, and I had a little realization as I gazed up into the vast emptiness of space. As overwhelming as everything may be, in the grand scheme of things, it will be okay. It will all work out.

    It reminded me of a quote my English teacher had in her classroom; "If everything does not seem okay, then you have not reached the end." That was something I really needed to hear, and my anxiety has slowly shifted into excitement.