4.17 (May 29)

Being active on Kwoon Talk is something that I’ve always struggled with. Sometimes it turns into just another app on my phone sending me notifications whenever I’m about to fall asleep. Other times I actually use it for it’s intended purpose, and communicate with other members of SRKF. The amount of notifications used to somewhat bother me, leading me to turn them off for school hours. This didn’t help, as I just ended up missing important announcements and opening Kwoon Talk less often. This also greatly affected my engagement on Kwoon Talk. As you can see by the title of this blog, I'm about 4 months behind. This is my 17th blog of the year, and my blog for this week should've been my 33rd. I'm fairly sure the last blog I put out was also about not blogging, something which clearly hasn't improved. With school now back, I will be on a more consistent schedule, which should help me put blogs out more frequently. 

4.16 (May 22)

 Today I decided to go through all my blogs for this year and label them with the date they should've been released on. All my blogs are already labelled with the year of I Ho Chuan followed by the week number/blog number. In years past I used to go by week number, so I would always end on however many weeks were in that I Ho Chuan year. This year I changed it up, and I now go by the blog number. I do my best to keep the blog number in line with the week number, but it quite obviously hasn't been working. The farthest back this goes is blog 4.4. That blog was released on April 6th, while the 4th week of the I Ho Chuan year was February 27th. That blog was a week late. This has only gotten worse as the year progressed on, as this blog is being released on July 23rd, when it should have been on May 22nd. Over 2 months late. I tried to lessen this at the beginning of the Summer when I intended to release a blog a day for a week, and I ended up only doing 4 blogs. Not a great start to getting back on track, but it was still a start. Now that my Summer course is over, I will be able to spend more time thinking about and doing my Kung Fu. This will hopefully lead to more blogs.

4.15 (May 15)

This last week I said I was going to do a blog every day, and I failed pretty poorly. My goal was to post one every day from June 26 until today, July 3. That would've been 8 blogs in total. I did 3, with this one being the fourth. So I did half of my original goal. Not good, but still better than before. I would like to make lots of excuses for why I didn't do what I said I would like "I was busier than I thought I would be" or "nothing came to me that I felt like I could blog about that easily" but like I said, they're excuses. Blogging is something that I've struggled to do consistently for a very long time, and I had hoped that this past week was going to be the event that changed that for me. It wasn't, which sucks. But that just means that I still have more work to do so that I can find a way to make the process of writing a blog easier and more manageable for myself. After all that said, I started off being 10 blogs behind last week, now leaving me 7 blogs behind when counting this week. Still a long way to go, but progress is being made.

4.14 (May 8)

On Wednesday night in the Level 1 Teen/Adults class I was helping one of the students with Lao Gar 1. They were having a very difficult time remembering the sequence of the form, and they could only do parts of the form when following other people. When I looked around, I saw that all the other instructors were focusing on all the little details, but I knew that wasn't going to work in my situation. I knew that I had to focus on the sequence of the techniques, and not the techniques themselves. I found it difficult to not correct all the little mistakes, like what kind of punch or where the hands are supposed to be, but I knew I would get farther if I just let them go for the time being. At the beginning of the class, they couldn't remember how to start the form. By the end, they had all the way up to the second pose right before the Front Thrust Kick. I hope that they will still have at least some of the form remembered by Monday's class, but if not I at least now have a way to work with them on it.

4.13 (May 1)

I’ve noticed a big difference in quality between the forms I’ve done for I Ho Chuan and the forms that I haven’t. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise but it is surprising how long it’s taken me notice this. The forms that I have done (18 Temple Motions, Lao Gar, and Hung) are of much higher quality than the others. There’s an exception to this however, with that being Da Mu Hsing. Da Mu Hsing makes sense to be an exception because it is one of the most practiced forms in class and is one of the forms that I’ve known for the longest. I now know first hand that even though focusing on my I Ho Chuan form is important, I can’t forget to do all my other forms to keep them at an almost comparable level. This gives me some insight on how I need to change my practicing habits to improve on my quality of Kung Fu. I will explore this for the rest of the year, and most likely put it into my requirements for next year.

4.12 (April 24)

 This will be a blog about blogging. 

As some may have noticed, my blogging hasn’t been consistent this year. I’ve had troubles with weekly blogs every year, but this year has been the worst so far. Every week that I don’t post a blog, I put a draft up as a reminder. As of writing this, I have 10 drafts. That is 10 weeks worth of blogging that I haven’t done. This is something that I want to change. Every single day for the next week, I will be putting out a blog. I will do this until I start Summer School on July 4th. This will be 8 blogs (including this one), getting me a lot closer to being on track with the I Ho Chuan requirements. I will still be 2 blogs behind, but 2 is a lot easier to manage than 10 is. If I don’t put out a blog during the day, then I want to be held accountable when at Kung Fu. If you see me and I haven’t put out a blog yet that day, please approach me and ask about it. If I can’t tell you about my general outline of that day’s blog, then we will both know that I failed for that day. 

4.11 (April 17)

 I Am Meditative

I find my self in a form of a meditative state that's a fair bit different than the ones we are taught at bootcamp in September. For me, that state comes when I am mowing the lawn, but only the lawn at the Kwoon. The main reason is the size of the lawn. It's a lot bigger and has a lot less interruptions (trees, sidewalks, plants, etc.) than the lawn at home, so I have less to mow around and think about. I've mowed that lawn enough times where I know where to turn, when to disengage the blade, and all the small little inconveniences that happen throughout without thinking about it at all. This gives me time to do something similar to the walking meditation from bootcamp. The vibrations from the lawn mower handle while I'm pushing the mower and the music from my headphones helps with the relaxation part, by giving constant feedback for my senses of touch and hearing. While doing it I do my best to stay in the moment, and to concentrate on what I'm thinking. Afterwards, I feel more centered and ready for the upcoming week. During the week, I find that Tai Chi classes have the same affect sometimes, especially before we learn a new move.