6.5

 This year a few requirements have gotten technically “harder” for me. They are all requirements about mandatory attendance at events. They have gotten "harder" because I currently work every Saturday until 12 at the earliest, typically later. This directly conflicts with most of our events, such as the Tiger Challenge or the Farmers Day Parade, which both take place during Saturday mornings. This is the first year that this has become a conflict for me, as I only started my job in August of last year. I’m going to be in school until the end of August, so my work schedule will got back to normal after that for a bit, but of course that’s after most of our team events for the year.

6.4

 I would typically reserve the Tiger Challenge blog for after it happens, like most people do. However this year I felt like getting a head start so I'm writing it now. Jokes aside, I won't be writing a reflection blog on the Tiger Challenge this year as I won't be participating. I would really like to, but I will be working instead. This is the first year that I can remember where I won't be in the Tiger Challenge, which does make me somewhat sad. If I was still working full time then I would've attempted to get the 25th off, but since Saturdays are currently the only day that I work, I'm not really able to do that. I know that this may not be the most "insightful" blog after last nights meeting, but it is by far the one that I needed to write the most.

7020 push ups

10250 sit ups

205 M'long Koon

205 Hockey Stick Form

425 Kilometers

6.3

 Going into this year I was undecided what I was going to do for a weapon form. I had just done cane, with stick the year before, sword and nunchucks in the few years before that. I decided I wanted to do something different, but I wasn't sure what exactly that would be. I knew that I wanted it to be something that isn't usually seen as a weapon. This led me to pick a hockey stick. I figured that since I haven't ever played a game of hockey, and that I haven't been in a pair of skates since grade 5 that a hockey stick would be the perfect choice for me. I knew it would be a challenge getting used to the length and shape, since I was used to a regular staff. I also knew that if I wanted, chunks of my previous forms would still work since the general shape is still similar to a cane and a staff. So that's what I did for my beta form. I didn't have an ending figured out yet, so I took the ending from the demo version of my cane form as a placeholder for the beta version. I'm going to ditch the last few moves that I showed on Thursday, and make the form longer and make a new ending that doesn't share almost every move with my ending from last year.

3900 push ups

6240 sit ups

110 M'long Koon

110 Hockey Stick Form

246 Kilometers

6.2

 Dragon dancing is something that I've enjoyed doing since I started doing it around 4 years ago. I've done the Dragon dance at the banquet three times now, and it's been fun and rewarding every time. However, over the last few months my shoulders have started to give me more and more trouble, to the point where my arm will lose all strength and go numb if I turn my shoulder too much. Obviously this isn't good, especially since I'm only 18. I'm just starting to get into the field that I want, and my body is already disagreeing with it. This came super clear to me on Thursday, as I was doing an oil change at school. The vehicles we work on at NAIT stay in the shop their whole lives, never seeing the road once. This means that 99% of the parts on them aren't seized or rusted and are very easy to get off. Even with this perfect world scenario, my shoulder gave out trying to take off the oil filter. Not good, as I was essentially useless to my group for around 10 minutes after that. So how does this relate to Dragon dancing? I find that the morning after every practice/demo my shoulders feel like garbage. It hurts to move them for awhile after getting up and I have very limited strength as well. What I'm trying to say is that I will taking a break from Dragon dancing this year, and focusing on getting my body back into a good condition, where it can handle what I'm giving it. If I was older, I would just try to change what I can about my Dragon dancing to accommodate for my shoulders. But I'm still young enough that whatever damage I may have done might not be permanent, so I can take steps to undo it and come back stronger and better. I want to say thanks to my fellow Dragon dancers for all the fun during the practices and dances, and I hope to be back on the team in the future!

2800 push ups

4480 sit ups

80 M'long Koon

80 Hockey Stick Form

168 Kilometers

86 AOK

6.1

With this new year, I am starting my sixth year in the I Ho Chuan, which means that this year marks half of a lunar cycle. when I realized this, it showed me that I haven't been as mindful about the I Ho Chuan as I thought I had been. I've been in it since I was twelve, which means that I've spent a third of my life in the I Ho Chuan. I bring this up, because I don't remember most of it, which made me realize how little attention I've actually been paying to my journey in the I Ho Chuan. I wouldn't be able to tell you a single personal requirement from any of the past years without looking back through my documents, which makes them a "retrospective failure" in my eyes. This year I hope to change that by making my I Ho Chuan experience this year as memorable and successful as possible. Now I won't be able to tell if this year is another retrospective failure until a few years from now, which is why I'm going to be doing my best to make this year stick in my mind for awhile.

5.12 (April 9)

 Change is a large part of life, especially the part of life that I'm going through right now. Within the last 7 months, I have graduated high school, got my first full time job, and in a few short weeks I will start at NAIT. That's a lot. Every little bit of change helps define me as a person, with one of the biggest changes being Kung Fu. Since I started my job, I haven't been as active as I used to be. Part of that is due to timing difficulties (Shift ends at 5 with kids classes also starting at 5), but there is also the physical and mental aspect of it. It's not like I have super difficult job or anything, but after a full day of fighting with tires, getting covered in dirt from the road, and dealing with people who think they know how to everything better than the ones doing it, I'm exhausted. For the first month or so, I would come home and immediately fall asleep because of how much more tiring my day was compared to before. That's happening less now, but it still happens. Now it is more along the lines of " I have been soaked the whole day from washing and repairing tires, I am grumpy and not good to be around others currently." Again, that's not every day, but it is still quite frequent. The change from High School / Kung Fu to Tirecraft has been the biggest change of my life so far, although going to NAIT in January might top it. I would have to say that I have mishandled the direction that this change led me, with my nights now being spent at home not doing much instead of at the Kwoon, something I will be doing my best to change once school starts (given classes/homework are reasonable.) Right now, I only attend the Black Belt class, and the I Ho Chuan class. Come January, I want that to increase to at least all the 5:30 classes and later, and thr 5:00 classes if possible. The only way to accomplish this is to do it, but the only way to do it is to find out when the time comes. 

5.11 (April 2)

 A little over two months ago, I started at Tirecraft. Ever since then, I have noticed the small ways that Kung Fu has impacted me more than I have ever noticed before. I knew that Kung Fu had mental benefits along with the physical benefits, but now that I'm in a new environment with new challenges, it is actually being put to the test. The most prominent example is surprisingly the palm heel strike. Being in this part of the country, vehicles rust fairly easily, and that is amplified a ton in the wheels, as they constantly get pelted with everything from the road. This causes most of the vehicles that come in to have wheels that are nearly rusted to the vehicle. Most of the guys in the shop will automatically for a rubber sledge hammer to knock it loose, which is overkill 90% of the time. One of my favourite techniques to break boards is the palm heel strike, so I knew that I had proper alignment to not injure myself, but also enough power behind it to skip the hammer as much as I can. I also find myself using a modified horse stance a lot. When I get ready to put a wheel back on a vehicle, I get it onto the hoist by rolling it up my leg and then boosting it up to the hoist. Once it's on the hoist, I'll get into a taller horse stance so I can then lift it from the hoist onto the axle of the vehicle. It helps lower my center which ends up getting my power zone to the level of the hoist, which helps a lot with lifting wheels from there. I find the mental part is mostly in work ethic, and how I will do what I need to do to get a good result. This is absolutely something that I got from Kung Fu, and it is a trait that has helped me progress far beyond what others have expected of me at work, and I've even surprised myself with the progress I've made in my position in the amount of time I've been there.