3.37

 Mental training vs Physical training is something that I might've blogged about before, but I've been thinking about it a lot recently.

They're two sides of the same coin, but they can be very different from each other. Physical training can't happen at all times, such as the middle of an exam in school, but Mental training can. Mental training doesn't necessarily mean thinking about Kung Fu, but more thinking in a Kung Fu way. It's about the approach you take when thinking about something. Instead of just doing something, you could do something and ask yourself why am I doing this the way I am? Is there a better way? If there is, why am I not doing it? Looking for an improvement to something your doing is what I think Mental training is. Physical training is a bit more simple, it's forms, techniques, cardio, push-ups, sit-ups etc. They can be put together too, if you're practicing a technique and you find that it's working but it doesn't feel good, you can ask yourself why. Thinking about this topic can also be a way of Mental training, as it makes you dive deeper into your mind about what Kung Fu is to you.

3.36

 Today was our second round of preliminary grading for Black Belt. This was the round that determined if we are going to grade or not this year. We'll find out what the results are later tonight, but I'm not really sure what's actually going to happen. If I get to grade this year, I'll be happy and I'll continue on with my training, but if I don't get to grade, I'll be a little bit disappointed but I'll still continue on with my training. One thing that is making me think I'm more likely to pass is that I feel like my forms have improved lots since the first round. On the other hand, my fitness doesn't feel much better, so I really have no idea what the outcome will be.

3.35

 Ever since I started going to the kids classes again, my confidence in my training has improved greatly. Before I started, I was questioning if I "deserved my spot" in class. (Blog 3.27) Since then, I started to see what my Kung Fu was like six years ago as an Orange Belt in the Level two Black Dragons class, compared to where it is now as a second degree Brown Belt in the level two Teens & Adults class. The amount of growth and improvement that has happened in that amount of time is surreal to me, seeing as Kung Fu has been in my life since I was two, and the change between two and ten is nowhere close to the change between ten and sixteen. I can't wait to see what kind of changes the next six or so years bring to my Kung Fu!

3.34

 Today my family went around some parts of Stony Plain and put up door hangers for Mayor Choy's re-election, and it took most of the day. There was around 11 volunteers, so there wasn't a lot of people to help us cover all of Stony Plain, so it took most of the day. I walked over 16 kilometers, which is about double the amount of kilometers I average in a day. I got to see lots of parts of Stony that I haven't seen before, so now I know the town just a little bit better. Reading the maps for which houses we were going to took almost all the map reading skills in my whole family, which made us slow down a bit to make sure we were in the right neighborhood. We didn't get to all the subdivisions, so we'll have to find some time to do that during the week. In the end, I'd have to say that was a pretty good and relaxing way to spend my last day as a 15 year old, as I turn 16 on Monday.

3.33

Bootcamp really helped me see where I was, where I was going, and what I needed to improve on. It's been around a month since the first preliminary round of Black Belt Grading, so my numbers should have improved since then. Some did, but some also got worse. Some of it could've been due to the fact that we were on grass or that the rules for what counted weren't as enforced. Either way, I still have a lot to improve on. The meditation in the morning is something that I enjoyed, and something that I'm going to try and implement into my schedule. The joint locking seminar showed me that I still have ways to go in the "combat" portion, but I have enough skill and knowledge to get me out of any basic confrontations that I encounter. The Lion Dance Drumming seminar showed me that I definitely need to practice my drumming skills, as I thought I was better than what I actually was. Overall, it was a fun day with lots of learning!

3.31

Recently I've been getting lots of training time on the mats, but I haven't been spending a lot of time training off the mats. Since school started, I haven't had much time to practice Kung Fu at home. When I get home from school, I have about 30 minutes before I need to leave for classes. That quickly turns into 5 minutes after doing everything I need to. The only day that I'm not at the Kwoon is Friday, and that's usually the day we do things as a family. Every other day, I'm spending a decent amount of time at the kwoon, whether it's my classes or being involved with other classes. So while I still get lots of practicing in, almost none of it is on my own. While that can be helpful in some cases, it can also be the exact opposite in some others. If I get stuck in something, I can take a quick glance at some of the other students and get an idea of what I need to do. But if I come up with a question, I can get it answered immediately if I want to, but if I'm training by myself then I have to try and find the answer in my knowledge. Sometimes it can be nice to have a question answered right as you get it, but other times it helpful to work it out yourself, because it can prompt other questions and things to train on. Thankfully, I haven't had too much homework so far this year, so I haven't had much need to cram that into my schedule as well.

3.30

This past week was back to school week, and with that came Kwoon renovations and the Potato bake. I've been pretty excited for this week for awhile now, because there was lots of talk about the bulkhead and I was pretty excited to see how it would turn out. Now that back to school week is over, we're going back to classes and we're going back with Covid protocols. The actual implementation doesn't bother me that much, it's the fact that we have to implement the protocols again that annoys me. But oh well, it's not like this is anything new, so I'm pretty sure that most things will go fine, without too many hiccups. It sucks that we have to do this again, but it's just a part of life at this point. I'm just glad that we're still on the mats, but now with a fresh paint of coat surrounding us.