September 17th - Discipline

"So do not lose the courage that you had in the past. It has a great reward. You must hold on, so you can do what God wants and receive what he has promised." -Hebrews 10:35

Wake up.

Make a protein shake.

Adorn myself in the clothes of a Shaolin Monk.

Eat Breakfast.

That is how my day begins. Routine is what helps me pass the time while the clothes motivate me. Even when I'm feeling down or unmotivated I still have more than four hours of my day planned. I don't feel any closer to "zen mastery" but I know my discipline is still here.

I had a buddy contact me and asked if I ever felt demotivated or down. The conversation didn't go anywhere, it just made me realize the difference between him and I. What I told him was I use a combination of discipline and motivation to get me through obstacles. To that he replied, "Why not just take it easy?".

Because taking it easy sucks. There is a time for relaxing and recovering, a time for "smelling the roses" but if you always take it easy then you never learn. You never struggle. You never adapt. A previous classmate put it this way,  

"When you don't get what expected, that's called experience" 

These thoughts among others rolled like the clouds through my head during Meditation today. A test of my zealous spirit, that's all that my last months here are. How long can I continue this grind? As long as there are skills to improve. I say that now but not two days ago I was feeling dispirited and low.

Just going with the flow.

The remaining plans for my time here are to finish learning Da Hong Quan Er Lu and then start learning the Monk Spade. My four times a week power training is showing good results as I'm about 69-70 kg now. It's probably more so a combination of water weight, fat, and the winter weight coming in than actual muscle. Those are the main goals, my smaller "side goals" are to keep working basics, flexibility, and trying to do an aerial. 

Other than that, there isn't much going on at the quiet Kung Fu School.

Hope you're having a good week.