Just Do It.

I started this blog by trying to come up with a title and then just start writing from there. This is where it all fell apart as I had a myriad of ideas going through my head but emotion has got the best of me and now I cant focus on anything. To say the least, this has been a crazy few weeks for me and the uncertainty of what is to come is weighing on my mind. I am also concerned for September as she is alone at home, dealing with everything and I can only offer support via texts and one 15 minute phone call a day. Try getting in all your daily conversation with someone in 15 minutes. Think about how you would do it with everyone you know. I have not been able to figure out how yet.

I have missed most of the Covid crisis as I have been away for work for the last 4+ weeks with a total of 22 hours at home. Because of this, I dont know the struggles everyone is faced with on a daily basis. The one thing that I looked forward to was being able to go back to the Kwoon and just be in the moment there. This brought a sense of normalcy back to my life however this will not be happening for a while. The big question is what to do now. Even though I do spend a lot of time away, I always had the opportunity to reconnect but I am unsure how I personally am going to adapt to this situation.

It is easy to say, I can continue to work on things on my own but it is not something that I have actually ever done. I hope that I will be able to overcome this new challenge as many of us probably are. Like Mr. Repay stated in his blog, I know what I need to do I just need to do it. I think this will be my title.

I am currently on the mine site in Nunavut and there is a lot of uncertainty up here as well. Will the mine stay open? What will the schedule change to as they are going to start limiting flights in and out? How long will I be here? All questions that no one has the answer to and no idea when some answers will come.

In all this I am still grateful for what I have and for who I have in my life. No matter what happens with my work, I know that I will be okay. Who I am concerned about is the other people in my life as they are what is truly important. My family, my friends and the people of Silent River Kung Fu.

Selfishness vs Compassion.

I have to admit that this past week or so has been a little crazy for me. It has been crazy busy with work and I haven't been able to even think about what is happening in the world with COVID-19. I have been mostly sheltered from this being at remote works sites and have not seen the mass shortage of supplies that people are facing. There have once again been some really good blogs about this and I sometimes wish there were more people out there that had the compassion that people at Silent River Kung Fu have. I believe the world would be a much better place. I have worried for all the people I care about specifically the elderly ones in my life, but I know that worry will not help anything so I instead have been focusing on being grateful for what I have right now.

I will remain sheltered from this for the next while as I have to go back early to the mine and it looks like I will be gone for 21 days. So in this stretch of 6 weeks I will be spending a total of 23 hours at home. What will the world be like when I get home next time. Who can say but hopefully peoples compassion will take over instead of selfishness.

Value

I was going to write about how my blogs this year are going to be more about the mental aspects of my Kung Fu but I just read Mr. Bjorkquist's blog and I changed my mind (kind of).

I have been focused on reading everyone's blog this year and making sure I comment on it so they know I read it. I was reading Mr. Bjorkquist's blog when I suddenly realized something. People have a lot of similar experiences in life and they feel the same emotions and regrets. The other thing I have noticed is that there is a lot of great advice on how to handle these emotions or situations. They are also preparing me to better handle these things in the future.

What does this mean to me. It means that the thing I was lacking last year was the blogs. I am not saying this because we all have to blog as a requirement but because there is great value in reading them. So the question is why are you not sharing your knowledge with the team like I did last year.

Balance

I am trying to find a balance this year between work, home and training. Last year I struggled with this and my training and home life suffered due to my work life taking over. This year has been similar in that I am still spending more time away than at home but my mindset has changed. I am trying to not let the negative thoughts that plagued me last year creep back in and instead focus on what I can do and when.

As far as my training goes, I am working on visualizing forms when I can and doing micro versions in the limited space I have. I am able to train in the gym in the evenings to work on strength and endurance stuff along with push-ups and sit-ups. And when I am home I go to every class I can. This does not mean I go to every single class as I need to think about my home life as well. instead, I go to the classes where I teach, the black belt class and the I Ho Chuan class whether its mandatory or not. I am also going to as many open training days as I can as well.

The home life is where I find my biggest challenges. I feel this is where I am lacking the most and it should be where I be the most attentive. I feel like I am falling behind in my training so I start to focus my energies there and this is wrong. I need to focus on the stuff away from the Kwoon and work as my family is the most important thing to me and they should not be placed on the back burner.

With this said, I will be there on the mats as much as I can but it may not be as much as I have been there in the past.