Missing Class

At I Ho Chuan class on Thursday we had 10 people there only which is just over 1/3 of the members. Sifu Brinker talked about 0 unexcused absences yet a lot of people did not have a legitimate reason for not being there.

What does legitimate mean? It simply means that you have a family issue to take care of, you are away because of work or something along those lines. It doesn't mean you want to watch your favorite show on TV or you want to check out a movie unless you are doing it because its your anniversary or your child's birthday.

I am by no means criticizing or judging people that were not there because you may probably had a legitimate reason. What I am doing is talking about my own experience with this. For the last 2 years in the I Ho Chuan, I struggled to take part in class and I never put the effort into my training that I should have. It was obvious because I didn't take part n demos but mostly, I quit coming to class and meetings.

It became much easier to come up with a "legitimate" reason to not go to class every time I missed one. This had such a negative impact on my training, my physical conditioning and my outlook on Kung Fu in general. Things got so bad, I was tempted to give up instructing the intermediate teen/adult class.

What changed my attitude was with two months to go in the year I started attending the class's and the meetings again. Once I started participating again, it got me reengaged in my training and my passion for kung Fu was renewed once again.

I have been able to carry the momentum into this year and I have not missed a meeting or a mandatory class yet. I have taken vacation and have done some travelling with work but have been able to schedule this to ensure I am still there for classes and meetings.

Remember that your journey is your own and struggling will be a part of it but I figured it might help those of you who are struggling to know that everyone on the team has struggled but just know you can still salvage your year. All you need to do this, is show up for class. Even if you cant or don't want to participate, just being there is a huge step.