Knight of Pentacles

 Sihing Bjorkquist brought up an interesting question last night in class: what to do when you mess up a move and it throws off your mojo for the rest of your form?  Sifu Brinker's answer was a good one, improvise if you can, and make it look like it was all part of your plan.   It made me think of 2 things. First, in teen/adult class a couple of weeks ago, I was working with Todai Vogt on Lao Gar, and Sihing Tymchuk (I'm guessing wildly at the spelling of his name, my apologies) gave me an excellent pointer.  There were a lot of groups practicing all around us and I had to keep scooting away from people to continue my form.  Sihing said, don't scoot, do a move, any move.  Thrust punch and a downblock, or a spinning back kick and an inside hooking block, whatever.  Get clear of the people/things encroaching on your space and then continue with your form, but do it all with style.  Great advice. And I thought back to high school, I was in the ...

 This past weekend was pretty stellar.  I got in lots of Kung Fu, lots of family time, AND I built my raised beds.  I've been wanting to put in raised beds for years and there has always been a mental block against doing it.  But in the end, the material wasn't that expensive, the actual assembly took less than an hour, and today I'm going to get a half yard of black dirt and some seeds/starter plants and then BOOM.  ONE UNFINISHED PROJECT DOWN.   It may seem trivial, but this is an important step for me.  I have a lot of grande ideas but my follow through has been lacking.  I've gotten a lot better, but there's still a long way to go.  But this year I really wanted to focus on making my grande ideas realities.   Look, there's already a cheeky worm in there! Aside from that, my sainted Hubz has spent an incredible amount of energy cleaning out our double garage, which gave me an indoor space to practice forms, away from the smo...

 It's been an interesting week.  I've been making a concerted effort to work on my push up/sit up counts, but also the counts on things that I had been neglecting this year so far.  I've seen small progress, but there has been progress. It's gratifying, and increasing my motivation to go further with it.   1. Sparring.  I was in Tae Kwon Do for about 3 or 4 months when I was around 20 years old, almost 20 years ago.  Sparring at that point was a real weak point for me, and so I DREADED it.  I couldn't stop blinking and cringing away from my opponent.  So I knew that it was something I should work on in Kung Fu.  Luckily, I had been carting around the sparring gear all this time and it still fit, so I stomped down my dread and put out the word looking for partners on Saturday.  Thank you so much to all the Sihings that faced off with me!  I was a lot more comfortable with it this time, although I recognize that I have a lot to w...

 Last IHC meeting Todai Vogt had brought up Acts of Kindness, and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my brother a few weeks ago.  He was lamenting the state of the world.  Wars, poverty, violence, homelessness, political strife, rising costs of everything, drug addiction, climate change-caused natural disaster.  Everything seems to be getting worse and my little brother was feeling rather hopeless in the face of it all.   I agreed.  All of those things have weighed heavily on me, too.  But I told him that one of the best ways to fight back against all the negativity in the world is to be positive.  And one of the most effective ways to be positive is to start small.  Holding doors open, smiling at people, saying please and thank you, acknowledging someone's efforts, picking up one piece of garbage.   In his book Faith, Hope and Mischief: Tiny Acts of Rebellion, Andrew Graystone writes: "Everyday Activism is about livin...

  I'm just about to crawl into bed so I'll be quick.  My numbers are not where I want them to be, they took a nosedive in April.  However, I have been working at them much more consistently lately.  I am trying out a couple of organizational tools that seem to be helping: -on the weekend I write out my weekly objectives.  I print it out, and read it daily to see if I'm accomplishing what I want to during the week. -I bought an app (because there are truly apps for everything!) that gamifies my goals and harasses me to get them done.   -I printed out a bunch of copies of Mastery and tacked them onto the fridge, above my desk at work, in the gym.  No excuses for not reading it now, Kat! -I have put events on my google calendar for things like "work on an unfinished project", "crafting", "Bat'leth practice", "meditation".   We'll see how this works out!