April 20th - Monday Staff Training

 

Morning Thoughts 📿

"To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness."

-Ecclesiastes 2:26

This morning my devotional had a relatable thought. It talked about doing what you want to do for happiness while not getting sucked into doing what everyone else is doing. This kind of thought went through my mind yesterday as I spent my evening watching Battle Royal with some other students but in my mind I thought, "I should be training". I was already there, the movie had started, and there were many of us so I stayed and watched a good movie. As I laid down to sleep the thought was still there and I realized that I made so much progress in two and a half months because of how much time I spent training on my own. My phone has even shown my usage has spiked last week. All of this showed that I've lost a bit of focus so hopefully, this week, I can regain that focus I had when I got here.

I just have to find my balance as previously I did hurt my knee which may have been from over training (still not sure how it happened). A positive with not training as much has been me writing more on this blog and studying more Chinese. What happens during the free time here is always different so its a bit hard to schedule what I will do.

The point of this rambling is finding that perfect balance or perfect schedule is hard but we shouldn't give up when we stray away from it. We should simply acknowledge that we've strayed away and try to fix it.

Evening Thoughts 🥋

I started learning the Staff, which seems cool but I don't feel like I deserve to be learning the staff just yet because during forms Master Yan, who finally came back from his wedding/honeymoon, looked at my broadsword form and told me so many things that needed to be fixed. My speed, connecting my moves together, I did some moves wrong and more. I'm no where near done learning this form but they gave me a staff and taught me some basic strikes and "flowers" with it so now it is what I'm learning.

Today's classes were all very good; basics, forms and Sanda class plus practicing on my own. Though, today also made me realize how much I have to still practice and learn before I'm really ready to move on to the next thing. Doing kick combinations in Basics Class made me realize my kicks need work and my stances need work. Sanda, my stance and attacks are all wrong as they have speed but no power. Forms... well just reread the previous paragraph above.

Some good did happen though, Josh and Matt discovered a place with really good popcorn chicken and my new shoes/shirts finally arrived... and they all fit! I'm super happy about this as one thing I'm mad about is me not having my Kung Fu gloves here as simple things like shoes that I like, gloves that I like, weapons that I like and more motivate me to keep going when training gets particularly difficult. Remembering that Master Yan gave me his training sword is what makes me push through to master the sword and now seeing my shoes during training always puts a smile on my face.

Its dumb but it helps.

How is your Monday going? Learn anything new?

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