(un)tangled thoughts

Last week's kao shi class introduced a whole new concept. Thinking about the different emotions or attitudes at play when doing a snake vs. dragon form was really eye-opening, and I felt I could relate or understand. While picturing the animals movements didn't magically make my techniques perfect, it helped me understand the concepts intellectually, even though I still struggle to articulate them. Up until now, I have always just thought of very one-dimensional, broad emotions, like "be angry" when attacked, but Saturday's exercise blew my mind a bit. I find it really intriguing to think about my patterns when confronted with certain conflicts and how my reactions really depend on a variety of factors. It's simple to say I got angry in a certain situation but at a closer look there are so many nuances in my attitude that can be very different from one "angry" interaction to the next. I have moments when I put my foot down and stubbornness is the ove...

 Kungfu (Tennis) elbow For the last two-ish months, I have been struggling with pain in my left arm (just outside my elbow). The good news is that I can still do a lot of things without losing built muscle or even my rep counts. In fact, it's easier to do most of my kung fu than it is to lift my cup in the morning for a sip of coffee. I can do push-ups no problem, and I can even do my bokken form without pain. When I do my handforms, though, I have to be careful when striking with my left arm because the intensity of a punch, or the snap at the tail end, causes pain. When striking an actual target, it often feels fine. In our fight choreography, I have to change only one sequence and adjust it so I strike with my right arm rather than the left, as leveraging the bokken downward is too much force for my arm. I think I have found a way to adjust this part and it feels good. For my board breaks, I'm still contemplating if I should change the technique. In my previous attempt, I br...

Strengths and weaknesses. I have been collecting my thoughts on this topic, and interestingly, several of my strengths also ended up as weaknesses, and vice versa. But I'll start with one of the easiest strengths for me to list: creativity. I consider myself very creative, which I think is fairly evident in my life and shows in many of my activities and hobbies. While this is the first one and the easiest that comes to mind, I will say that my creativity and my confidence in it get very shaky when I am expected to produce a creative outcome under time pressure and in a publicly observed setting. To tap into my creative potential, I need time and space to think; people-watching and waiting for a result will kill it quickly. Next, I will talk about my empathy and compassion. These are among the first things that come to mind when I think about my strengths, and for a long time I considered them one of the ultimate characteristics of being a good human. I still think that's true; ...

I've been back for over a week already, and it feels like our holidays happened months ago.  I felt refreshed and a sense of a new beginning when I stood on our porch the day after we returned. I was going to write a blog about this feeling and how I didn't even realize how much I needed a reset until I was back from our trip. But now I can barely remember the feeling anymore I just know I was standing there and enjoying the moment.  Life is sooooo busy again, and that's because we chose it. Saturday was a big day for our family, as we welcomed a new family member into our house and our lives, at least for a while. This has been a long process, and we all have been excitedly prepping and renovating for quite some time. Antonia is a German exchange student who will be staying with us for the next 3 months. We are still in the settling-in phase, and over the next two weeks we will hopefully find a bit of a new routine. In the meantime, I want to let you all know that Leon and...

Todai Ward recently commented on one of my blogs about how the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" has helped her throughout her grading year. While I currently can't say this yet (granted, I haven't finished it!), it did make me think of something that has carried me, my motivation, and self-talk quite a ways this year.   Ocean rowing.    And by that I mean crossing an ocean only by rowing with your own (wo)man power. In January, I came across a video of a girl in her 20s solo crossing the Atlantic Ocean in her rowboat as part of the "World's Toughest Row" which is a race, and I started following her daily video journal. I had never heard of this before, and I can't really explain what got me so obsessed with this idea, but as I started my black belt year, I felt extremely inspired by these mostly ordinary people and their experiences.   When they cross the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to Antigua, they need to row roughly 4800...

So I have been struggling with pivoting when not throwing a kick. There are a few techniques in our forms that require us to turn and change directions and as we land in the new direction we strike or block and need to do so effectively and with control. I struggle either with keeping my balance (control) or with the fact that the strike that follows feels powerless (effectiveness), and sometimes both. I asked several instructors for their take on how they do it, and trying these things hasn't really helped me solve the issue. But I'm starting to wonder if my issues aren't due to specific positioning or even the timing of my moves, but rather to some fundamental flaws in what I thought I understood. Centering vs contracting vs grounding?! I think I have been in complete oblivion about the difference between all these.  I mean intellectually, I can name and identify the difference, but when Sifu told me the other day that the issue is potentially that I'm "too"...