Hello Again

First I'd like to say congrats to all the newly promoted black belts! It was awesome sharing the past year with you even though I was not able to be around as much as I liked. I always find the banquet so motivational and am always so happy to see everyone progress.

This will be my fourth year on the I Ho Chaun team. I'm not sure I'll ever not be on the team. My journey has come with some very unexpected results. Following the program I was faced with many of my weaknesses and with that came self realization. I had no idea how many things in my life both physical and mental were related very directly with anxiety disorders. How many opportunities I've missed, how sick I would get, my anger issues, among others. I had tried last year to help myself naturally without the greatest of results, so after many doctor's visits I am now on anti-anxiety medication to help the neurotransmitters in my brain to function correctly. I'm not one who easily takes medication but in my case it's necessary. The fight or flight response in my brain reacted to small situations as if I were under attack by an army of polar bears. I've been on the medication about a month and a half and feel much better. I had really bad insomnia at first but that seems to be levelling off. I'm definitely not yet ready to perform or do a demo in front of anybody yet but the possibility of doing it feels a bit more attainable. I don't expect to find the magical cure overnight.

This year I will be challenged to reach an achievable balance between university courses, work and being on the team. I'm going to try to do my best to be more open with what I'm doing as I will be away for some time but yet want to still stay engaged with my training. I'm going to try to stay consistent. I will be away Thursday nights until April due to some courses but after that I should be able to arrange my schedule to different days of the week. Getting back into some regular classes will help too. It's been over a year since I've been able to do that, I'm going to be really rusty come Monday morning. Eep!

Thanks to everyone who has come to talk to me over the past year as I've spend my time as a bench warmer. It's been appreciated more than you know.

See you at the kwoon!