(un)tangled thoughts

 I did it! I just posted some pictures of my solo adventure on my social media and now I'm trying to process my experience for my blog. One thing I notice is that it seems so deceiving to look at my story and pictures I just shared. It's not that my social media post is dishonest or meant to fool my audience, but it feels very much 2-dimensional. What is lacking are the struggles, the doubts, the stress and fear, what it's showing is a happy and confident me.  It's honest in the sense that I am so incredibly happy I did it and didn't give up, and I was very, very close to throwing in the towel. What is not part of my Instagram story is how I struggled to get there. So here is the rather raw and true prologue to my story. When I applied back in January to be a vendor at the Winnipeg folk festival, I knew that it was incredibly hard to get accepted. I applied together with a vendor friend that I do quite a few events with, and we had planned to do this road trip toget...

I look at our Canada Day demo of course critically when it comes to my mess-up in the fight choreography, and I'm also aware of a few things gone wrong, I was trying to fix in my weapon form, such as deeper stances, timing between my footwork and my strikes, and some shoulder engagement. But I also see some personal improvement, not from a skill perspective but in how my nervous system responded. I still don't like performing, and I don't think this will change, but I do really, really celebrate the fact that my reactions are becoming more manageable.  I don't like that I messed up of course but I feel more confident now that my brain doesn't just turn dark on me. I'm talking baby steps here, but I do notice the difference. On another note I want to let the team know that I'll be missing another week of classes. I'll be there for tomorrow's meeting, but on July 11th, I'll be in Winnipeg. I may be able to join online, though. Ill be back for regul...

 Well, I started a blog a few days ago about how I define a black belt, but it's now another one that got stuck in the draft pile. It's the 5 th draft I have to finish yet. But I'm behind blogging this week with no time to dig deeper into the topic. I have to spread myself pretty thin right now, and the Canada Day demo is big on my mind too. After a week of barely any reps, it felt good to get in some extra time at the kwoon this week.  Today I went, and I was completely scatterbrained coming in. I thought I would just hyper focus on my demo, but then Todai Ferris and I spent most of our time working on our fight choreography. The question of whether we would be ready to present our fight choreography at our demo next week caused more anxiety. But I have to say that working on it today was a lot of fun and made me actually forget the time and everything else going on for a little bit, (even though I wacked myself twice with my bokken)! Life is still very busy, too much for ...

The last thing I should have on my plate today is writing a blog. But here I go. I'm about to lose my head as always, especially before the first vendor event of the year. And of course, I did not write an earlier blog this week to prevent me from panicking. So let me fill you all in on my absences and schedule for the next bit. I won't be in class at all this week! Leon and I have a mandatory orientation meeting tonight for his German exchange, and on Wednesday morning, I'll be heading up north for North Country Fair. I'll be out of cell reception until Sunday and therefore can not attend our Saturday class either. As a side note, Leon will be in class on Wednesday but will also miss Saturday's class, as he will be joining me up north on Friday. The week after, we shall all be there for Monday's class, but will be missing again on Wednesday, as that is Jason's 50th birthday. Since we have him home for the big day, we will be out celebrating. In July, I will...

 I have been struggling for a few weeks, not so much with my Kung Fu, well, actually, now that I say that, I'm sure that is not true, my struggle has been touching all areas of my life lately. I guess what I am trying to say is that I'm not struggling with a specific Kung Fu-related requirement. My numbers are fine, I caught up to my push-ups and sit-ups, other than sparring, of course.  I struggle with motivation, drive, energy and joy. In other words, I'm going through a rough patch and feeling generally down and deflated. This is not a very common state for me, especially for an extended period. I tend to be quite excitable and always full of ideas. I do get annoyed, impatient or frustrated at times and I also get sad, and I cry a lot, but these are usually short-lived moments. My energy may not always be directed at the most pressing thing on the priority list but its ussually there and never makes it hard to get up in the morning.  The thing that bugs me is that I ha...

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