Trying to Relax

I hate how my anxiousness affects my kung fu.  My nerves kick into high gear during classes.  Kung fu is something I'm not naturally good at.  My body doesn't like cooperating with what my mind tells it to do.  I always feel bad for my instructors as I ask them to repeat the exact same thing 50 times and I still don't get it.  I always wish I could catch on faster, then I make myself even more anxious and then my brain shuts down further and I can't absorb anything.  I also struggle just being in the IHC class because there's so many people around and I always feel on edge.  I have a hard time with letting Sifu's see my forms even one on one, and it makes it difficult to get the proper correction I need to improve, when I can't even perform in front of anyone without feeling beyond awkward.  It looks like I'm not even trying or practicing, but I am.  I'm working on calming myself and receiving instruction from Sifu Brinker to learn Kempo 2 and to learn my sword form from Sifu Beckett.  It may take me a really long time to learn, but hopefully I improve myself even if it's a tiny bit each time.  Maybe one day I won't feel like a turtle on it's back.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not beating myself up, there's plenty of things I'm good at.  This is just something I know I have to work on.

Saturdays and Kindness

I had adjusted my work schedule while I was in school so I had been working Saturdays to have the weekday off I needed to get reading and assignments completed.  It worked really well as no one is in the office on the weekends other than occasionally our cleaning lady and I was able to get things done without being bothered by anything.  I had been calling into the meetings but honestly it was really hard to hear most people and as I was multitasking, I feel like I was missing a lot.  I'm going to be reversing my schedule back to weekends off while I'm not attending classes so I can attend meetings and maybe take in some of these seminars that are being offered.  It's so much better seeing everyone face to face.

After Saturdays meeting Josh called me on my way home to tell me our bearded dragon, Dexter, was acting weird and was really cold.  I knew he was on his last legs as his behaviour was the same as when his sister died the year before.  Sure enough, he passed away later that night.  We took him to a pet cremation place called Atim Creek Pet Crematory.  I know it may seem to people as being a little ridiculous to have a reptile cremated but I'm a huge pet lover regardless of species and felt better having him cremated and spread on the properties garden than having him disposed otherwise.  Anyway, Dave, the gentlemen that's the owner of the company was amazingly kind and I really liked him right away.  We chatted for about an hour.  He asked me if I knew what a RAK was and I smiled and said yes.  I proceeded to tell him about that part of our kung fu training and he told me that I am not to pay him, but to be kind to someone else when the time comes.  It was pretty cool to be on a receiving end of a random act of kindness and it made me want to continue doing more for other people.

See you at the kwoon!

LAZY

Right now I'm the laziest I've ever been.  I've been sleeping a lot and it takes me every ounce of willpower I have to do anything.  Maybe it's because I sat too much between work and school and got to used to it.  Maybe it's this never ending winter.  I've been drinking more water than I ever had and watching my diet so I know my lack of exercise is contributing to making me tired and my tiredness contributing to my lack of exercise.  I need to keep forcing myself to get off the darn couch and get back into a healthy lifestyle!  Right after this nap...