I AM Breathing

 This past week has allowed a slow down, and time to breathe. Time to reflect, relax, recharge. I took the time to take deep breath’s, and see the world around me. To breathe deep and realize the inner me. To sit, and just take in. To release and let go. 

Life gets so involved with so many things. I forget to breathe. Obviously I am breathing as an act to stay alive, but I am only doing it subconsciously because I need to. The importance of reflecting on that breath is often swallowed up by the hustle and bustle of everything happening in life. 

To better me, to better life, I need to Breathe more often, and pay attention. 

Recharge

 The biggest difference for me this past week was time. Time to do as I wanted, no schedule, no timeline, no absolutes. It was a great week.

I was on vacation from work. I chose to not have a list of 100 things to get completed, and yet completed more than I feel like I usually would with time off. The week was spent spending time with family. Kody and I had a lot of fun, a couple of outings, and spent time doing stuff around the house together. Time spent with my daughter and granddaughters. Always precious, they grow so fast! Don and I spent time together with no schedule, or direct plans, and it was nice to do as we chose. I spent more time with my mom.

I chose to concentrate on certain aspects of my forms this week as well. Places I felt I was struggling to put together smoothly. Practice was done with intent, and not rushed. I feel like I made some headway, and am feeling more grounded and connected. I also chose to not do any push ups (sorry Master Brinker) to give my elbow a much needed break. I did however do other exercises in place of push ups, and worked on my side heel kicks (thank you for the challenge Mrs Ferris). I concentrated on the technique of my kicks, did some very slowly, and some as fast as I could. I enjoyed the difference of seeing what speed adds to the kicks, the strength, and seeing how my technique remained even with speed. There is and always will be further work to do, but it was fun to play around with it. 

Our lives are so busy, and there always seems to be something that needs to be done, somewhere to be, always feeling behind. This week was a fantastic reset and recharge for me. Back to the jungle tomorrow….

Perspective Today

 There was a lot of ideas rolling around in my brain for a blog today. It was an impromptu one on one today that really churned around. I decided to look back on my very first blog - March 3, 2019. A little more than 3 years ago. How time flies. And how it doesn’t. That very first blog resonates largely with today, but with one big difference. Growth. 

In a nutshell I wrote about struggling to fit everything in, and what changes I needed to make in myself to better deal with the unexpected. Funnily (not really funny) enough since then, we have endured a pandemic, which has caused an avalanche of change in almost every perspective of life. My mom’s health has diminished greatly, and her disease has progressed immensely. My career has taken on many changes. I am now a proud grandma to two beautiful girls. The list goes on in 3 short years. 

My biggest sense of pride is the growth I see from then until now. I still struggle, but instead of looking at it in a negative way, I use it as an affective tool to learn and grow. We have all endured many changes and challenges in the last few years, and I am extremely grateful that SRKF has been in my life. A large part, not just as a place that I go to classes to a few days a week; but the home away from home. My safe place, the place where I can get out of my head. The place that is about me, my growth, my training, and my journey. So it is not just a training hall, but a part of my life that filters into a every aspect of my life. The good, the not so good, the happy and sad. The triumph, and tribulations. The ‘place’ I speak of is not a bricks and mortar building, but rather my life, and all the goings on that happen from day to day. 

Yes, I practice a martial art, yes I enjoy the workouts and physical aspect of what we do. But I am most grateful for the tools I have been given to help improve all that I am, inside and out. 

February Numbers

 I’ve decided this year to post my numbers publicly as well. My plan is to post my IHC numbers monthly, and my personal requirements quarterly. The reason for the quarterly personal goals, as they are a bit more fluid than my IHC numbers. I’ve seen the success in others by doing this, and I want to hold myself more publicly accountable to my team. So here is month 1 of Year of the Tiger - February 2022. 

Push ups and Sit ups - 3765/50000

Sparring - 60 minutes/1000

1609 Kilometers- 100.4 kms/1609

Acts of Kindness - 136/1000

IHC Forms Reps - Weapon (nunchucks) - 59/1000

Hand Form - Lou Gar - 102/1000

I AM Project - 3/57

My blogging has been regular, and I have a strong online presence. 

No public performances yet. I have made some progress in lion dancing, and looking forward to the Tiger Challenge in May! Mending a relationship is a work in progress. 

Routine

 We all have different routines, and plans in place to be successful in our goals. We all have different goals, with exception of IHC requirements, and we have different ideas of how to meet those goals. What defines success?

We talked about struggles with routines in our IHC meeting the other day. This is my 4th year in IHC, and I have learned many things, but the most important is probably defining success, for me. I’ve learned the hard way to be proud of the success I’m having, as it is not always based on the numbers. I’ve learned to be proud of progression, even if it’s small; even if I am not meeting my numbers goal. Of course the goal is to get to the desired number, but the journey is what is important. 

As for my routine, I started out in my first year with a rigid plan, everything set out day by day, week by week, and the times set in the day when I would complete everything.  I failed. Life happens, situations arise that we don’t ‘plan’ on. I made some adjustments in year 2, had a bit more success, but still not where I wanted to be.  Last year I switched up my routine to be a ‘fluid’ routine. Meaning I still have my daily and weekly goals, but instead of having a time set to do these requirements, I am now taking advantage of opportunities of time. This can be 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or more if it’s a really good day! I do set aside a few hours on the weekends to work specifically on my forms, and to make up numbers from the week if needed. Of course there is going to be weekends when this can’t happen, and that is okay. My biggest challenge to overcome was to not get down on myself. I would get frustrated that I wasn’t meeting my goals, and that would cause resentment, and then I would fall farther down the rabbit hole. I’m finding this new routine quite successful, and when I’m more positive, more opportunities present themselves. Funny how that works. Success can also be different for everyone, but I think we can all agree that as long as we are seeing progression, we are seeing some success.