(un)tangled thoughts

As I'm counting my blogs for my selfreporting I realized this one is missing.  So here are my numbers! sit-ups: 14.4k push ups: 14.1K km: 292 AOK: 285 Da Mu Hsing: 330 Bokken: 326 sparring: 104

Really non of it did. But I'm still standing for anybody that is wondering! The biggest disaster was of course my sparring.  It was my first experience outside of our trainings sessions. And the first time I think I hurt somebody. So yes, that was shocking, but what happened after has more to do with my own demons than with sparring itself.  I will be writing about it, as it absolutely belongs in my strengths and weaknesses write up, but I am not sure yet if it will be a public blog. As for the rest of the tiger challenge, I felt overall pretty disappointed about almost all my catagories other than my board break and my pool noodle fight, ironically!😂 I didn't break all the boards, but it felt like I could have. And I'm excited to try again soon! My forms felt terrible, completely out of control, and shaky. Things I have been working on and felt like I'm getting the hang of it didn't flow or snap into place. And my nervousness felt just as much through th...

This long weekend has been flying by, and the tiger challenge is big on my mind. I have been practicing a lot, but because I'm signed up for more categories this Year than ever before, it doesn't feel like enough.  I really like my weapon form and enjoy working with my bokken but there are so many sections that need polishing yet. Same for our fight coreography, it's fun but oh so many things I can see in the video that need to be worked on but I just have to be ok with the fact that these things just won't be at the same quality level this week as at the banquet at the end of the year. In my handform, I have identified a few techniques that didn't feel right, and I'm playing around with them, which I'm actually quite excited about. That too has been fun, and it helped me a lot to be more motivated to do my repetitions of DMH5, but at the same time, I hope these recent changes won't throw me off on Saturday when my nervous system wants to just revert to ...

At our kao shi class the other day, Sifu said something that stuck with me and is a good reminder. I keep complaining about my confidence or the lack of. But when she said that in order to be confident you don't actually have to think or believe you will nail whatever it is you are doing, it could just mean you are confident that you are able to take or deal with whatever happens after, my mind was blown. In that specific instance, she was referring to sparring. Given that I was the only non-black belt on Saturday in that group, and for the very first time, I was sparring against black belts in their own class, meaning they were not there to help me learn; they were sparring for their own improvement. I get that they were not going full speed or full force but it was highly intimidating and definitly out of my comfort zone. I did ok, but I could feel getting overwhelmed and at one of our breathing breaks the confidence issue came up. For whatever reason, it was the right talk at th...

Ok, I hummed and hawed this week over whether to email Sifu or use our homework as a blog topic. The main reason I didn't want to put this out publicly is that it might come across as a bit rebellious or counterproductive, and it doesn't paint me as a"control freak" that I should strive to be. But I decided to share my point of view on sleep hygiene and circadian cycle with you after all because this is also me. Here is the thing: I go through phases when I don't sleep well. While I don't struggle falling asleep at all (like I lie down and I'm out almost instantly), but if I get woken up anytime after 2-3 am, it often means that's it. No chance of getting any more quality sleep, it's tossing and turning until it's feasible to get up. Thankfully, I have an easy time getting up in the mornings, though. This is my struggle and has been for many years, and it all started when I became a mom.   My habits and sleeping hygiene, or lack thereof is as s...

Last week we worked on the triangle stepping pattern with take down. This has always been one I struggled with, and I never felt that I could get to a successful take-down. I was always scrambling, repositioning my stance, and then awkwardly muscling my partner down, but knowing that would not work out in real life. On Wednesday, it was the same spiel to start with, but I eventually decided to forget about my arms and hands and just focus on my footwork, and as I was working with Sihing Burk, I also got some input that really helped. I finally got to a point where I could effectively take her off her feet even without the use of my hands. This felt like such a leap forward, but I knew it wasn't muscle memory or skills I own yet, and it will go away quickly if I don't try to keep this fresh in my head. The very next day I had a chance to practice with Leon on the mats and to my surprise and disapointment I could not get him off his feet at all! Now I don't know if I already ...