Arrggg!!

I have been feeling extremely frustrated this last week and a bit because of the situation I find myself in. I did enter the Tiger Challenge in both hand and weapon forms and had been putting a lot of time in to preparing for this. And then I hurt my shoulder and had to withdraw from competing as I cannot even do the opening bow without causing some pain and the bench is a complete no go.

There are other parts that are frustrating as well as I had to modify my push-ups and am now only able to do them against a wall mostly one handed. This is not ideal as I was getting a lot of benefits from doing full push-ups. I know that I am going to lose strength and some core stability but I also need to be smart about this hence the modifications I need to make. My push-up numbers now have an asterisk’s beside them however.

I am still practicing my hand form, but the hand motions have to be slow and controlled and stay closer to my body to prevent aggravating my shoulder. I am able to do the footwork with my weapon form but there is no weapon involved. All my other requirements are still being done with maybe some minor modifications here and there.

I have a doctors appointment on Thursday and we will see where I go after that.

Shoulder?

I have done something to my shoulder and I am not sure what this will lead to. I have been having issues for a while now but something finally seemed to give on Monday. I wasn’t doing anything dramatic or strenuous at the time but it was painful and I could not use my arm without a lot of pain. Since then I have been taking ibuprofen and icing it and that has helped a lot.

The scary thing to me is it feels better most of the time now but it also feels wrong at the same time if you know what I mean. It still has the underlying pain that comes back not as bad but still there. I have to do something now so I have booked an appointment for next week when I am home and we will see where it goes from there.

I keep getting caught in doing things I know I probably shouldn.t because it seems fine to me. So now I have to figure out what I can do safely, what I can do but aren’t because I am being over protective and what I should absolutely avoid. This is my struggle right now. Bright spot is I get to work on one arm (mostly) pushups.

In the Lion

I had the opportunity to do a Lion Dance at the Onoway Elementary School on Thursday of last week and it was awesome. I tend to forget how much I enjoy them as I don’t do them as often as I would like to or in fact as often as I should anymore.

There are some things that I became aware of during the practice and the performance.

1) My cardio and stamina are not where I would like them to be at to perform a good lion dance.

2) We had taped the string for the eyes, and I found it a lot easier to use them.

3) The drumming speed was easier to follow I found although I did go off a few times during the dance.

4) I would like to work more on my crispness and movements especially as the dance went on as they started to lack, I feel.

Overall it was a great experience and I am hoping to do some more this year. The dance itself felt much better than the practice the night before did so I feel improvements will happen quickly as long as I keep at this. Also it was a unique pairing as it was myself who is one of the longest serving lion dancers with one of our newest ones, Todai Emma Ferris.p/>

Sleep, Who Needs It?

I have been doing a lot of research on sleeping lately because I know I don’t get enough sleep. I spend a lot of time away from home in unfamiliar beds and I know I need to change some things.

Here is what I am going to try:

1) Bring my own pillow which will provide comfort and some familiarity.

2) Try blocking out light especially in the North where days are extremely long.

3) Try using White Noise to block out unfamiliar sounds.

4) Try setting the temperature lower to keep the room slightly cool.

5) Turn of devices and spend a few minutes reading to relax the mind.

6) Get regular exercise.

7) Limit caffeine especially in the evenings.

Some of these things I am doing already but I need to do more as my sleep away from home is horrible. I will also try some of these things at home because I can use improvement her as well.

Worse Before Better

So, while I was away, I was only able to practice my form in a small space so it was very broken up and there were a lot of adjustments that had to be made in order to keep going. My main focus was on position, stances and the technique itself. Flow was harder to work on but certain sections allowed for it. I was back at the Kwoon last night and was able to do full form reps again. To be honest, I felt terrible doing the first couple. Things felt off and the flow was lacking.

On my last couple of reps I decided to look at myself in the mirror to see what it looked like and it was better than it felt. A couple of moves felt horrible but when I glanced in the mirror, they looked better than I had hoped or even expected.

This has got me thinking about my forms this year. I feel like they have gotten worse instead of better because I am really focusing on the moves and body alignment. This has led to some second guessing and some off-balance parts in the form. I know that it has to get worse before it can get better as I used to just go through the motions in the form. Now I am analyzing all my forms with the same eye for detail I am using with Lao Gar and it is helping but also making things worse in them as well. I will continue to see how this feeling progresses through the year and I can look back at videos from the start to now as well.

Source of Inspiration

All I can report this week is that I am still carrying on. Being away has always been the hardest for me. The hardest to keep practicing, the hardest to find motivation and the hardest to stay inspired.

This has been more of an issue in the past but I am doing better this year. I think part of this (or most likely, a lot of this) has to do with my one-on-ones. They have kept me practicing so I have questions I can ask during them instead of saying I don’t really have much this week. In fact, I usually run out of time before I can ask them all.

With that being said, I continue to practice while away and I continue to make notes so I can ask questions when I get the opportunity. So far so good and I am planning to continue as the year goes on. I will post a blog about this next time I am away so I can keep my focus on it.

Wasted Opportunity

I have been thinking about the assignment Sifu Rybak has asked us to complete at class on Saturday. What I have been thinking about is how much thought I put into this assignment last year because I did not make a note anywhere to remind myself what it was I wrote down. This means I did not utilize this tool and it was an opportunity lost.

We were tasked with writing down what we wrote last year again and to write down something new this year. I have an answer already in my mind but this year I will be writing it in my notebook so I can keep it on front of me and use it as a constant reminder going forward.

On another note, I will not be in class in person on the 18th so I will be posting my Beta forms in the Kao Shi group. I have them already but was just waiting until closer to the date to post them.