My Blog

What to write about?

Every time I go to blog, I ask myself this question. It is not like I have a shortage of ideas bouncing around in my head but being able to articulate them and express them is where the struggle comes in.

As I am sure all of us try to do with our blogs, we are trying to get our thoughts, our feelings or our emotions into them. Maybe we are hoping to convince someone to come around to our way of thinking. For me it is just trying to express my frustration, my excitement or what my plan and goals are.

This is something that I have struggled with since the beginning and I have let it control my blogging consistency. I guess it may also be due to the fact that I usually don't like to share what I am thinking or how I am feeling. Therefore trying to express them in a blog is even more of a struggle.

I usually feel like I have a great idea or a subject that I am passionate about but I also feel like I never get that into my blogs. Maybe I need to rethink of how I compose my blogs.

Hate to Love (or the Other Way Around)

I am starting to develop a love/hate relationship with my weapon this year.

First off, I do like the weapon that I have chosen as it feels good in my hands. My biggest issue is I have 4 sections of moves that flow together nicely but its connecting these pieces together that I am struggling with.

I want transitions between sections to make sense like it is one continuous movement and not 4 forms put together to make one form. I know that all I need to do is spend more time working on the transitions but i also need to work on the content at the same time.

So if you see me kneeling on the mats staring into space, you will now know why.

Improving my Kung Fu

I have a few different goals in mind this year and one of them is to improve my Kung Fu. I feel like I can/need to do more that I did this past year. It sounds like a vague statement, but I have some ideas in mind on what I can do and what needs to happen for them to be successful.

One of the easiest ways, is to be at open training on Saturday. So my goal is to spend as much time there as possible. I not only get to work on my own stuff (one of the few places that I have room to swing a bench unless its outside), but i may be able to help someone else out with a technique or a question which actually improves myself as well. Its about being in the right place at the right time.

Another thing I would like to work on is my sparring, grappling and Sanshou. This one is a little harder to work on unless you have a willing partner. How does this improve my involvement in Kung Fu? It will make improve my knowledge base and hence allow me to better help my students with this aspect of Kung Fu. However, the number one reason is it will help not only myself but my I Ho Chuan teammates get sparring minutes in. So if anyone wants to do some sparring on Saturdays during open training, lets plan to do it.

Bench II

I have to admit trying to come up with a new bench form has been challenging so far. I have found it difficult to not start going into my other bench form so it is challenging me mentally as it just feels natural to start repeating movements. I think that is part of the reason i went back to the bench was to see if I could come up with something completely different than the last form. I have got about 5 or 6 moves that I have linked together and a whole bunch more just floating around. So now I am starting to put one here and one there and hopefully from there it will become a functional form.

I am also trying to come up with my own hand form this year and have not even started on that as i am focussed on the bench for now. i hope to start on that within a couple of weeks once i have my bench version 1.0 finished.