Crunch!

This week is crazy busy. I really need to stay focused right now in order to get everything done. I need to resist the temptation to close the books and relax. I need to focus on prioritizing. I need to use my time wisely, get push ups and sit ups and forms reps in during breaks. I need to remember to take some deep breaths and center myself. I need to remember that getting sleep is important. I need to remind myself that this hectic pace will not continue forever. I need to realize the road to mastery is a harder journey than the path to mediocrity. This is my mantra this week.

Wishing for spring

It's kind of the same old same old this week. Open training and fitness class on Saturdays has become something I really look forward too. The fitness class has been a great stress reliever...it's good to get really sweaty and disgusting sometimes. Open training has been an opportunity to work through the curriculum with the other Sihings. I feel lucky to be part of such a good group going for black belt this year, everyone is really supportive and most of us are part of the UBBT group as well which adds to the camaraderie.

This week in practice I realized that I'd been doing a move wrong in 2 different forms- one in the opening bow-ouch! and the same for a few techniques, just small things I've slowly changed over time that have officially gone awry at this point. This just proves to me that practice is always important- even when I think I know something in and out there is always room for improvement. That being said, I'm going to get some reps and practice in. My goal this week is to concentrate hard enough that all the snow melts!

bits

It's been an all or nothing week in regards to training. Saturday was an awesome training day with the other Sihings going over curriculum and sorting out techniques, learned a few more moves of lau gar and learned about a muscle I didn't know I had. The rest of the week has been mediocre, the one night I got to more than 10 minutes in was great, but it doesn't feel like enough. There are 5 weeks of school left and I can feel the pressure. The hours of homework are whats keeping me from kung fu. I know this is a terrible cliche, but I feel like a jack of all trades, master of none.

There are valuable lessons to be learned from being spread thin though. I enjoy my free time immensely, having time to clean the house feels like a treat. I have become a much more organized person, I have learned to prioritize, which has always been a problem for me. I still need to learn how to stay in the moment and keep my focus narrowed to what I'm working on instead of thinking about what I'm not working on. I guess it's a work in progress. So for now training is a 10 minutes at a time style, but I can't wait for Saturday!

one step forward...

Not much to say this week, I just caught up on most of my numbers just in time to be laid flat by a virus. I guess when I kick this I'll be playing catch up again. The UBBT group from Silent River is journalling our food for a month. I like this challenge not only because it keeps us mindful of what we're eating, but it also brings the team closer together. I feel like this group is really engaged, and it's great to be a part of it. See you all next week.

I'm getting buried out here.

I think winter is here forever, just get used to the inevitable everyone! Although the unwanted snow keeps coming, it does give me an opportunity to do acts of kindness for the seniors in Stony Plain. The two driveways our our group keeps up belong to some really sweet seniors. Sometimes when your out there shoveling and it's snowing and blowing up the back of your jacket it's hard to feel warm and fuzzy about doing good, but when a senior citizen opens the door and hands you some home made treats and says thank you so much, it puts a face to who your helping, and I realize all over again why we do this every year.

This week I feel like I fully realized the vast scope of what I need to be working on in order to be ready to test for black belt in October. Sometimes I think other people have more faith in me than they should. I don't know if I will be ready. There are days that I drive home and I think of all the homework in my backpack and the grade point average I want to maintain, the dinner to make, the kung fu class to teach, the kids to put to bed, my dwindling numbers on physout and all the training I should be doing every night and all the time I want to spend hiding my head under a pillow and it seems insurmountable. I know that all the others who are part of the UBBT or Sihings preparing for black belt are in the same boat, but I guess I felt sorry for myself this week. I suppose I just pull up my socks and keep on keeping on. The snow will have to melt sooner or later, and thats probably all thats got me feeling like I need a vacation right now.

Showing up

It's reading week, which means I have no school for a week, yahoo! My biggest goal is to catch up on my requirements that I fell behind on while studying for my midterms. Today I did a whole bunch of nothing, it was pretty great. My workout kept getting postponed throughout the day for other, less important, but easier things. Why is it so hard to get going? Once I got down to the basement and turned on some music, I had a great workout and an hour flew by. I think the key to success in my training is going to be showing up. You can't help but get better when you show up. Just making yourself drop for pushups isn't that hard after you've made yourself get down there. How many times have I been dead tired and didn't want to go to class but I went and had the best class I've had in weeks, or had a light bulb turn on in my head about something. It's not hard to workout for an hour or practice techniques for an hour, it's getting there that's the hard part, and really thats the easiest part when you think about it.

fuel

I have been doing a detox since last thursday, not the kind where you don't eat or you take a supplement, just a super clean eating kind of detox. I have given up coffee, it was really hard, especially during exams right now but it's done. I have noticed that I don't have the up and down tired times of day that I am used to. I have been feeling not so great the last few weeks so I wanted to give myself a jump start. Its funny how long it takes for it to occur to me that I don't feel well because of what I'm putting into my body. We're fueling a machine after all, and if you feed it junk then it's going to perform like junk. Every cell in our body is constantly working to do the job it's meant to perform and we persist in making it as hard for them as possible, it sounds crazy but we still do it, especially me. I will be working harder to make better choices for myself so I can train at my maximum potential