Gratitude

This post is in response to Sifu Brinker's post from last week. I want to thank him for the kind words and to say I agree with him 100%. Not for what I did as I think everyone that helped with the renos deserves the same credit as I do because it was a team effort. I agree that the renos and lion dancing have improved my Kung Fu and they continue to improve my Kung Fu to this day. I would also like to thank Sifu Rybak as without some not so gentle prodding from her, who knows how long I would have missed out on the benefits of lion dancing. Thank you both and thank you to the entire SRKF family.

Bob the Builder

So after 20 years of working for someone, I had to make a decision that was not an easy one to make. The company I was working for was great, but it was a tough go to get customers to sign on as they are relatively new and this industry is based on past service. I have had some success, but not quite enough and a decision had to be made. I made the decision to become a consultant and now work for myself. I still have a relationship with them and I receive a portion of the profits for all business I bring them.

The nice thing about this, is I am free to do other things and one of those things that I love to do is build things. So what I am going to do is start building small structures and sell them in my spare time. This will include doghouses, bus shelters, playhouses, sheds and gazebos. I find working with wood very relaxing and calming so why not do it. There are a lot of companies and people out there who do this already but I am not looking at this as my main source of income but as a hobby that I can maybe turn into some extra money.

Getting back to working for yourself. It is a scary but exciting time as there is no one to report into but yourself and your family. I need to motivate myself because there is no one to tell me what I need to do. My wife is very nervous right now and I cant blame her as this is a situation neither one of us have ever been in before.

Anyway, that's what's been going on with me this last little while, wish me luck.

In Control.

I find it funny how I talk to myself a lot more these days. There is a lot more self doubt and the negativity that creeps in. This is then followed up by me calming myself down by saying all I can do is put my best effort into what I do and there is nothing else I can do. I cant control what other people think or do but I can hopefully influence them. My actions can influence them either positively or negatively but that is on me and me alone.

It seems to be a constant theme with me these past few months, but the uncertainty of your work situation tends to have that affect on you as anyone who has gone through this will know. There are not many things guaranteed in life and I am learning to recognize that. I am not able to completely block them out and I don't think I want to as it tends to keep me grounded but I am getting better and calming myself down and being able to focus on things that I can control.

Old Friend

Today was a good day. Most days for me have been good this last while as I have changed my mindset and am now trying to not worry as much about life and what it has thrown at me this last while. I still have my health, I still have my family and I still have Kung Fu.

Recently, I have been spending more time trying to go to some of the other classes as I have really enjoyed the new grappling aspect of our training that has been introduced and I get excited when we are able to pass on this knowledge to the students. this has also made things much better for me.

The reason today was exceptional, is I got the chance to meet up with Ian repay today after morning Kung Fu. Ian was a student of mine but has been gone for almost three years now. It was nice to be able to sit down and just see how he was doing and what the future for him holds. Through Kung Fu, we built a friendship and even though I have not seen him for over a year, it was like we talked every week.

This has made today a great and I hope we can get together more than once a year in the future.

Blog and Away.

I have been slightly out of touch these past few weeks as it has been a busy time with house problems and with work pressures so I am once again behind on not only blogging but on reading blogs. I may be behind, but I am still planning on reading everyone's blog to see what they have been going through and where they are at. I hope to become more consistent with this now so I can keep up to date.

I feel like I need to explain missing the last mandatory class. My wife's aunt passed away on the Wednesday unexpectedly. They live in Montreal/Australia so do not see them a lot but it was still shocking. The sad part about that is she had lost her uncle (Arizona)to cancer not even three weeks before that. It has been a tough time for her and I felt I needed to be at home hence my absence.

Panic, Not Quite but Close

I have been feeling some pressure at home and at work this last month and a bit.

As many of you are aware, I started working for a new company on February 1st. This company is a hazardous waste recycling and disposal company on a 6 month trial basis. We deal with everything from used oil, glycol, rags to paint, acids and toxics. The biggest problem is trying to get in the door with a company. You don't have a contact name, or they like the people who are servicing them already, or if you do find the person to contact, they often wont return your call. It is quite different moving from a large well established national company of over 1,500 employees to one that has 20. I just need to keep at it is all and hope some things start to work out.

At home we woke up to a flooding basement on Monday morning. So with no idea of what to do and many hours of sucking up water with shop-vacs, we dug up the corner of our house to see if we could locate our weeping tile and hopefully where it drained to. We located it and found it broken where it connects to the drain and also discovered the drain was frozen. So after a couple of thousand dollars, we have the drain cleared but still have to fix the pipe connection.

Anyway, this has kept me quite busy and distracted and I have had to miss a couple of classes this past week. I hope things settle down over the next couple weeks and things start rolling along

Sparring Lesson

I have been going to the Tuesday free sparring session since it started and have used this to work on specific things with my sparring. The first couple sessions were specifically on a couple of techniques and the last three have been on staying in a right lead and working on in close fighting.

What I learned is that in right lead I tend to keep my left guard low and I turn away slightly. What that means is I am more exposed and I limit my striking. This past Tuesday I tried to focus on staying square and keeping both guards up. It felt a little awkward at first but by the end it was feeling more comfortable.

With the guards up, I was able to work on in close fighting more.

I definitely got hit a lot but it was all controlled and is how I learned about my guard being slightly to low. Hopefully we can come up with a way to ensure that more people can get in on this awesome opportunity that we had.