The importance of blogging

I have been going over the importance of blogging and what I have heard, learned and now need to embrace about blogging. Blogging is a tool that can be just a hoop for some to jump through, or it can become an amazing tool that really helps you become engaged in what and how you are doing things in your life. It can impact not just your kung fu but also your everyday life if you let it. When you're blogging consistently as a member of the I Ho Chuan, you are connecting with your teammates. By reading and hopefully commenting on each others blogs we are getting insights into our teammates. We see their successes, their hopes, their trials and even their failures. I for one find I can learn from all of that. Being alone struggling through something more often then not sucks. But having a positive minded and supportive team behind you can inspire and motivate in ways you can't do alone. You never know the impact you can have on another by just sharing your journey towards mastery. I have yet to hear of or read of someone who has had an easy road to mastery. Mediocrity is easy to achieve, we see it all around us everyday. But mastery is something worth working towards. It won't happen over nite or even in a month or two. It's a life long journey with many twists turns and sometimes detours along the way. By blogging about what we are going through on our journey we may help another avoid a pit fall or two. We may inspire someone to try something they didn't think they could do before. We can even get a word or two in return that helps us through a difficult time or aspect of our training that we just can't quite figure out. I am finally starting to see what Sifu Brinker means about how much more someone can learn about themselves by overcoming their failures as opposed to just coasting along and not truly stretching our limits and expanding our thoughts. I am not a great writer. Math is my strong suit, or give me something mechanical to fix and I am in there like crazy. When it comes to writing my ideas down I sometimes get to many things going on in my head at once. Blogging has helped me try to put my thoughts and ideas down in such a way that I can make them understood. This helps me focus better. I don't think mastery can be achieved without focus, discipline and definately hard work. If you stay in kung fu for any length of time, you can't be afraid of a little hard work. But achieving the focus and discipline is by no means a piece of cake. Becoming mindful of everything we do and how we impact others. Thats very powerful. How we impact another can have a huge ripple effect, that we often aren't even aware of or can see. But it is there nontheless. I know I have a long ways to go in my journey. But I have alot of teammates and friends at Silent River Kung Fu that are going to make that journey memorable, fun, exciting and very enjoyable. I would rather be in a tiny room full of friends then in a enormous room full of indifferent people anyday.

Sept 30 th blog

When my internet started acting up I started hand writing my blog. Here is the first one I did. My daughter wows me. I often blog about my kids. But I noticed that I do so more about my son then my daughter. We both do alot of the same things together so its easy to focus on his achievements. I started spending some more time with my daughter so we could connect more. She is truly amazing me this year. She loves to sing, dance and act. This fall she has taken on 2 major productions. She is in Horizon stages Aladdin and she got a lead role as Red riding hood in her schools major production of Into The Woods. So now she is rehearsing 4 or 5 days a week. On top of that she wants to do basketball again this year. Tryouts aren't for a month yet and I personally don't think she can do all 3 at once, but my wife and I have left it as her decision. We trust that she can make the right choice. To see the smile on Shelby's(my daughter) face when she got the news that she was in these productions was awesome. She is becoming so much more self confident and believes in herself. Everyone in my family sings well with the exception of myself. I can make it through a toon, but a few cats and dogs may run for their lifes on some notes. Shelbys singing has always been good, this year she is becoming even better. I am so proud of her and happy that she is challenging herself and loving the choices she is making. As a Dad I can't be any happier.

Absent and in limbo

I first want to apologize to the snake team. By not blogging every week like I should be, I have been a wonderful example of what not to do. But also a terrible teammate and I have definately lost alot of my focus and engagement the last few weeks. I Have no honestly good excuses. It started easy enough with problems with my internet service and computer. But looking back, I had a number of other ways to still get my blog out each week. So I took the easy way and let myself down. Then after a few weeks went by it became less urgent to get back blogging. I fooled myself thinking that just because I was maintaining my pushups, situps etc that I was still fully engaged in my kung fu. I know now that that wasn't the case at all. A large number of distractions have been cropping up in my life lately. The jobsite I'm on is winding down and there is uncertainty about where I go and even when I go to the next site. All the work my company has gotten in the last few weeks is out of town work, meaning that I would be away at least 4 days a week or more. This would severly interfere with everything I am doing in kung fu. It would also put a huge strain on my marriage and I would not be able to spend time with my kids as much as I like to. I know now after a long nite of soul searching and thought. That dealing with all the obstacles that are popping up in my life would have been much easier to deal with if I was blogging like I was before and staying fully engaged in my kung fu and ultimately, myself. I have never been one to share my short comings well. But I am only human and have to admitt that it doesn't show weakness to share your failures or the areas I am needing work in. I have grown so much from the first day I started kung fu. But I have only taken a few steps on a long journey towards mastery and what I believe to be an amazing future in kung fu. It has taken 2 years to finally realize that change can be good. Scary, nerve wracking and unknown sometimes. But change with a goal and focus towards that goal can be empowering and inspiring. It is better by far to be part of a like minded team and not an individual. An individual can get easily moved off their path. But a team can pull you back on track and help you maintain your path. I have realized my failure, now I have to prove I have learned and get back on track.