Baseline Numbers

I thought I would do a separate post for my baseline numbers for the black belt fitness test, to keep myself accountable, and to see my progress. The below numbers are the first days of the baseline. 

Timed kicks and thrust punches on Day 1, February 14, 2021 - we did the numbers needed to be achieved to see what time we would be at -

Front Thrust kick  (48) - 1.32 R 1.26 L

Side Heel kick (46) - 1.33 R 1.29 L

Round House kick (50) 1.52 R 2.02 L

Spinning Back kick (28) 1.45 R 1.52 L

Thrust Punch (225) 1.04

Timed kicks and thrust punches on Day 2, February 21, 2021 - we did the 1 minute time, with 1 minute break in between the first 2 kicks (and one minute in between for each side), a five minute break and then 1 minute break in between the 2nd 2 kicks (and one minute in between for each side)

Front Thrust kick -  46 R 50 L

Side Heel kick - 38 R 37 L 

Round House kick - 35 R 33 L

Spinning Back kick - 24 R 21 L

Thrust Punch 210

So....lots of work to be done, and there is a lot of improvement needed on the technique, but this is a start! I also realize these are not the only timed tests, and we will baseline the others as well in the coming weeks.

I will update monthly!

 

Chinese New Year Covid Style

 Another banquet, another year has passed us by. This year done Covid style with a virtual banquet. In many ways this one, I believe will be one of the most memorable. It really shows the tenacity of this school, its leaders, and students.A Cherry on the proverbial cake. 

If you actually add up all the time the I Ho Chuan Rat team actually got to spend together physically, it was only about a quarter of our year! And yet, we still communicated, stayed strong as a team, improved, and made the year a successful one. Maybe the most successful one to date. We endured constant change, we pushed past our struggles, and came out the other side on top! 

The word that comes to mind for me when I think of the year of the Rat, is Proud. I am Proud of our team for not letting anything stop us. I am Proud of our school for the leadership it continues to show in the community, and to its students. I am Proud of the leaders in our school for stepping up in ways that are superhuman, and not letting anyone slip through the cracks. And I am Proud of myself, and my family for enduring, pursuing, and persistently adjusting, and finding ways to progress. Covid has brought us closer, as a school, a team and a family. We had each other's backs, and never wavered when someone needed a hand. 

The banquet brought all of that together, and once again proved that nothing will stop us. We will only become stronger, and a tighter knit family of SRKF. 

My heartfelt thank you to all that made it possible, your behind the scenes work and dedication are so very appreciated, you really are amazing people that make this school what it is. Thank you Sifu Ward for the Fantastic video you put together for us, and all of your hard work, and dedication.

Congratulations to our new SRKF Black Belts,  you are an inspiring group of young men, forging a path to be proud of, for the rest of us to learn from, and be inspired by, Sifu Estey, Sifu Thomson, Sehing Kohut, and Sehing Whitehouse-Strong. Congratulations to our Black Belts that have gotten a promotion, your wisdom, and leadership are second to none, and we are so very fortunate for your dedication to the school, and us as students, Master Rybak, Sifu Lindstrom, Sifu Csillag, Sifu Vantuil.  Congratulations to Sifu Ward for Black Belt of the year, so very well deserved, your continued, and consistent dedication to all of us, is very appreciated, way to 'break the mold', and raise the bar! Congratulations to Student of the Year Melinda Ferris, having you as a fellow student is the true meaning of Mastery, you never cease to amaze me with your constant leadership, your dedication, inspiration, imagination and ingenuity. You inspire us all!  Congratulations to all of the award winners, truly well deserved for your year of hard work and dedication. 

An extraordinary year, with an extraordinary grand finale! Farewell Year of the Rat, you have taught us many life lessons! Welcome Year of the Ox, I very much look forward to the year ahead, and what I will learn on my continued journey on the path to Mastery.

Blogging and Self Doubt

 I am in my 3rd year of the IHC, and in my 3rd year of blogging, although my first year was not great, my second year better, and this 3rd year to be the best yet! I have never blogged before this, I am not a journaler, and didn't have a diary as a child. 

Along with this newly found way of tracking my journey, comes a lot of self doubt for me. Is what I am writing relevant to my journey, is it coming across as I intend, or is it sounding like white noise to just get a blog out? I struggle with this with every blog I write, including this one. I read others blogs, and am amazed at what I read. Some have an amazing way of getting their thoughts across to the reader, and have a beautiful style of writing, I am in awe. I often feel that I know exactly where they are at, and why can't I write, and come across like that? Then I have further self doubt, Am I letting mediocrity creep in? Or is this part of my path to Mastery? I do not wish they could write any differently, quite the opposite, I wish I could be more like them. 

Last year one of my goals was to be active with not only my blogging, (as is my requirement) but also with every blog/post to come out. Self doubt rears its ugly head again. Is what I am responding to taken in the right context, is it warranted, or helping, or again is it white noise? I am not a malicious person, and I would never write anything to cause harm, but have I? As far as I know, there has only been once that something I commented on was taken the wrong way. I felt horrible, and responded right away to what I was actually meaning, but nonetheless, I felt and still do feel awful that the person I wrote it to, took it the wrong way. Or did they? Sometimes it is hard to decipher a meaning when it is only in writing, but for a good part of the year last year, this was the only way to keep in touch with our team mates. 

I am baring a little bit of me with this blog, and something I struggle greatly with. I am not doing it as a pity party, but I am looking for any insight, suggestions, or thoughts. Does anyone else feel this way? Am I alone in this? One thing I am proud of, is I did not let this hold me back, and I continue to blog, continue to comment, and hope for the best outcome. And here I am writing my 3rd blog in 2 days, another first for me! 

Thanks for reading, and sharing your journey's with me!

Challenges

 We have officially said farewell to the Rat, and have welcomed the year of the Ox with open arms. The year of the Rat brought its own unique challenges, like no other. And it was a Great year. Many changes, and opportunities, and so very much learned. 

This year seems to be full of challenges, and the ones of speak of are not challenges to overcome something. I am talking about the personal and team challenges set forth by students of SRKF. The calendar year of 2020 ended with an amazing kung fu advent calendar challenge, and I think that kick started a lot of what is to come. 

For myself I have decided to do a full year challenge for the year of the Ox, and have a new weekly challenge, based on a monthly specific area of my kung fu training.  I started this challenge January 1st, as I wanted to finish the year of the Rat strong, and have a strong base to start the year of the Ox. The calendar year started with 1000 push ups and sits ups, 5.5L of water, and 1000 calories on the day, as it always does, and the same for the Chinese New Year on Feb 13, 2021. I am proud of these 2 challenges this year, as I partook in both, and succeeded in both for the first time. It was very busy this past weekend with the Chinese New Year, the Valentine challenge, my daily routine, my weekly challenge, and a couple of new challenges added on. I am now partaking in a 21 day hip challenge, which has been amazing, and something I will add to my daily routine even after the challenge is completed. We are also doing a Sunday morning Black Belt benchmark challenge, which also started this weekend. 

Maybe challenge isn't the right word. Goals, teamwork, upping our game, any one of these is fitting. I'm feeling great, and proud of where I am at, and am excited to where this will take me in my training. I've also lost 4.8 pounds since Jan 1, 2021. My happy would be 20 pounds, my optimal would be 30 pounds for this year, and to sustain that. 

Year of the Rat was an amazing year for the teamwork, the camaradrie with fellow students, the amazing challenges that were taken on and overcome. I also believe this brought a solid foundation for years to come. The Year of the Ox will provide its own challenges to overcome, I am sure. Bring it on, I am ready, willing, and excited for them! 

My baseline numbers for timed kicks and thrust punches on Day 1, February 15, 2021

Front thrust kick  (48) - 1.32 R 1.26 L

Side Heel kick (46) - 1.33 R 1.29 L

Round House kick (50) 1.52 R 2.02 L

Spinning Back kick (28) 1.45 R 1.52 L

Thrust Punch (225) 1.04

Lots of work to be done on both speed and technique!

 

An Intro to Me

At our brown belt meeting this morning, the discussion came up about the current candidates receiving their black belts, and about all SRKF current black belts having a say in them receiving this honor. One of the points mentioned was that some of those black belts may never have actually met you, and will only know you through your blogging. Both my husband Don and I realized we are in that same situation, and came up with the idea to write a personal bio for a bit of background on who we our. This of course is written from our eyes, so this bio will have some bias. 

As of today, February 12, 2021 (and day 2 of the year of the OX), I am 48 years old, and going into my 7th year of Kung Fu, as I started in March of 2014. I will do my best to keep this bio as short as possible and factual, as there is a lot of years of age there! To date I have written 48 blogs - 11 in my 1st I Ho Chuan year (bad), and 37 in my second year of IHC (better), and this will be my 3rd consecutive year in IHC. 

I am passionate about several things, but my top 3 besides Kung Fu are my family, my career, and my commitment to volunteering, so I will keep this blog to those 3 areas of my life. I consider myself a person that is Driven (my word of the year last year), honest, hard working, and emotional. 

My family - my husband Don and I have been together for almost 20 years, and married for almost 16 of those. I have 3 wonderful children, and a much loved dog. 

My eldest son Kyle is 28 next week, a Red Seal ticketed pipe fitter at 21 years old, and an honest, hard working young man. He is also apprenticing to be a heavy duty mechanic, and owns 40 acres of land in the Warburg area, which is currently up for sale. He loves being a redneck. My daughter Kaitlyn is 25, and is the mother of my beautiful 18 month old granddaughter Maisy. She and my son in law Josh have been married for almost 3 years. She was a University student at 17, and has a teaching and drama degree, as is now a full time teacher for at home learning students. She represented Canada at the World Championship of Performing Arts in California 2 years in a row at age 14 and 15, and won a Scholarship to the New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, and attended for 6 weeks at the age of 16. She loves to be a Drama Queen. My youngest son Kody is 15, and also a SRKF student in his 13th year, as he started a month before his 3rd birthday. He is a wonderful, caring young man, in his first year of high school in grade 10. He excels at Science and Math, and is currently learning to drive to get his license this year! He is the one all of the grandparents can count on, as his family is so very important to him, especially his grandparents. I consider him to be my gentle giant at 6'1 and 200 pounds. He is my big teddy bear, and will love that I am saying this! 

My career - I spent 25 years as a server mostly, working in 3 different restaurants, and am currently a Personal Relationship Manager and 360 Advisor with ATB Financial. I enjoyed being a server, and this enabled me to be an at home (single) mom, before Don and I met. I was approached by an ATB team member to join their team, and at just turning 40 years old, I was looking for a change. I had some college accounting courses, and bookkeeping background, so I took the plunge, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I love what I do, and the guidance and assistance I can provide for my customers to help make their lives a better, healthier, happier life. I have won 7 quarterly awards (chosen by my peers), an Iron Roster award (highest sales), and 2 President League awards (chosen by top management, and ATB's highest award honor), I was also named employee of the year by the Spruce Grove Chamber of Commerce in my 1st year of banking. I continuously look for ways to learn new things, adjust to constant change in the banking world, and to better myself for my team, and my customers. 

My commitment to volunteering - I love to volunteer, and think it is a very important part of life to give back, and to help to make our communities richer. I spent 21 years as a Chairperson for the Festival of Trees for the University Hospital Foundation, and in those years helped to raise millions of dollars for the UHF, and the Stollery Children's Hospital. I spent many years on the board, and the volunteer mom at the kids playschools, and was an avid volunteer at my kids schools in any capacity I could be, until I started at the bank. I spent 7 years as a committee member of Blueberry baseball, helping to run 7 adult and 2 kids baseball teams, and then several years as a Treasurer, and kids coach with Spruce Grove Baseball, with over 700 kids in the program. Every year I am involved with several fundraisers through ATB, including the Stollery Children's hospital, the Parkland Foodbank, and many community initiatives. As much as possible, I am involved with all the fundraisers, and community initiatives with SRKF as well. 

I have purposely left out my Kung Fu in this, as I write about my journey in all of my blogs. This bio is the 'Shiny' stuff, and of course there is the not so shiny, but I will leave that blog for another day. I would like to think I am perfect, but of course that would be silly. I do my best to be the best person I can be, but there is always room and need for improvement, which I also strive for. 

My apologies for the long blog, but wanted to give a bit of my personal life to you all.

Chasing the Make Up Game

I struggled this past week with the challenges I set out for myself. I am now chasing the Make up Game. 

For the most part the week went really well, but I fell behind the last 2 days of the week. Long days, and little energy and time at the end of the day. I am making progression, but I have also challenged myself for a reason. 

As I have reflected on the last couple of days  on ways to make sure this doesn't happen, I can play the blame game all I want, but at the end of the day, I am the only one to change it up, to make it work. 

I have come to the conclusion that I need to change up my mornings. I worked many years working nights, and have always needed some wake up time before moving time. I've always been this way, even through the years I did not work nights. I have been completing my requirements and daily challenges throughout the day when time permits at work, and then after work. That is no longer good enough. 

I believe if I can get myself up a half hour earlier, I will be able to get a good portion of my daily requirements completed after my wake up period, and before my day gets going. I am still an early riser (I believe) and am up at 5:45 everyday except non work day weekends. This allows just enough time to get us out the door by 8. Saturdays still up by 7, and Sundays 7:30 if I am lucky. 

I just have to now convince myself and my body that it needs to be a half hour earlier. A new goal, and hopefully habit in the next while. Wish my luck! 

See you on the screen!

Ramping up in 2021

I made a list. When I looked at the list as a whole, I felt overwhelmed. 

Monday meeting, Tuesday 2 classes, Thursday 2 classes, Friday Live stream, Saturday meeting. That left Wednesday and Sunday. Nope, I have my daily challenges. This on top of life - family, work, and everything else thrown at our lives. Not to mention my daily work out routine. 

I chose to break it down, instead of letting it overwhelm me. I decided to start my Year of the Ox Challenge Jan 1st instead of mid February to get myself into a routine. This has served me well. I am proud of how January went, and the progress I made on my forms. I plan to incorporate 2 forms a day into my regular routine. I had worked on my forms periodically, but not consistently. I loved what that did for me, doing it everyday in January. 

Another reason I wanted to have a routine in place at the beginning of January, is because my life gets very busy at work, starting today. The extra added RSP season. I have a routine, and I stop at 10 hours. It will wait until tomorrow. 

I have looked for ways to make better use of my time. When the second wave of shut down came, and new restrictions were put in place, we are no longer allowed more than 1 person in our lunch room. So before the New Year, I would sit in my office and eat my lunch. Guess what I did while eating - worked of course. We have a Zen room at work, and I have chosen to now sit in there. It is quiet, out of the way (mostly), and comfortable. I now catch up on reading blogs, plan my next day, or simply have some quiet time. Most importantly, I am not in front of my computer, and giving myself a small break. I have even practiced my forms in there (or what the space allows). Even this small change has added so much to my day. What a little rest will do for the brain.

I take my days one at a time, they are well planned, and I am actually getting everything done. It is all in perspective - time. How we make the best of it.

February Challenge coming up next. See you on the screen for a while longer. Thanks for reading, stay well.