Knight of Pentacles

 August was not a great month for me, Kung Fu-wise.  My focus was on other things, so I'm hoping that with the coming of Autumn I can re-focus.  Here are my numbers: Pushups: 18400 Situps: 18400 Lao Gar: 158 Bat'leth: 136 Sparring: 58  1609 kms: 1825 DONE Relationship mending: progressing Blogs: 35 (a couple behind) Online presence: there was a bit of a blip but I'm getting back to it 3 performances: DONE (looking forward to more) Lion Dancing: DONE (also looking forward to more) Tiger Challenge: DONE No Missed IHC Meetings: I think I have missed 1 non-mandatory one Core Curriculum: Doing ok.  Want to do better. SRKF Projects: BTSW DONE!  What's next? Mastery: doing good, can pretty much get through most of it with a little prompting. Unfinished projects: 2 done, 1 getting started this week. Meditation: 436, could be WAAAAAAAY better Books: 3.5, need to get back on it. Craft Projects: 1.5 Work Performance: 8 out of 8 months good. Leg Exercises: 6050 You kno...

This week has been a heavy one for me.  My Dad is still in the hospital.  Work has been insane.  Frankie is had her birthday party on Saturday and then starts kindergarten this week.  I was really looking forward to throwing myself into work at the Kwoon, but my preparations were slightly thwarted.  My phone died.  My truck died. Everything's going to be ok, but I am running on very few spoons.  And when I made that comment at the potato bake earlier nobody knew what I was talking about, so here I present to you:  Spoon Theory!   Spoon theory was originally coined by blogger Christine Miserandino, to describe what it's like living with lupus.  (you can view a pdf of her original post here:  https://cdn.totalcomputersusa.com/butyoudontlooksick.com/uploads/2010/02/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf).  It has since been adopted by the chronically ill and neurodivergent communities, and I think it's great because pretty much everyone ca...

 My life has been chaos lately.  My Dad has been in the hospital since July 31st. He's 81 (soon to turn 82!) and his health has been on a steady downward decline for a while, but this last little while has been a big hit to him and to his immediate family.  We know that he has multiple health problems, and this has been an opportunity to find out exactly what most of them are.  But at this point we just want to make him comfortable and take him home.  It's an uphill battle. So, I have been taking my Mum to the hospital almost every day on my way to work, and picking her up on my way home (most days).  And dealing with work stuff, and normal home stuff.  It hasn't left a lot of time for Kung Fu. But Kung Fu is never far from my mind. I'll admit, my numbers and class attendance have suffered, but I've been trying to keep up with things where I can.  And I have a plan that will start up in September for doing some catch up.  In the meantime, I'm...

This is a bit late, my apologies. It's been a busy summer, so my progress has not been what I wanted, but it has been at least consistent on the main requirements.  I did just find out what my next work assignment is, and there will be a lot of downtime, so I plan on using it to my full advantage. I'm excited for back to school week. Song of the Day: The Sound of Music by Laibach https://open.spotify.com/track/58EsIYlSfnFmyExAmALDFQ?si=517785a878fb4d82

 The last 3 weeks have been....dramatic.  There's been a long string of unexpected things happen that have knocked me off kilter and forced me to adapt.  For a bit there, I was wondering if there was something I had done karmically to deserve what was happening, but I remembered that even in random patterns, there are clusters.  And with every hurdle there are opportunities. And there were a few things I noted: 1. I rose to every challenge, I kept my perspective, followed the proper procedures, didn't panic. 2. EVERY situation could have been worse.  Nobody died, nothing blew up, I can always make more money, everyone could move on with their day.  I was practicing my gratitude frequently. 3. The meditation practice has been really helping me a lot!   I found it interesting to see how much Kung Fu has helped me so far in my life.  A couple of years ago I would have been a wreck, but I'm still here standing.   Song of the day: You Sp...

  Lately I've been trying to be more conscious of glimmers.  If you don't know the term, glimmers are the opposite of triggers.  Whereas triggers are danger cues that make us feel threatened, leading us to fight, run away, freeze or fawn, glimmers are internal or external cues that help us to feel joy, safety or connection. Since reading about them, I've been noticing those little moments where I see something and feel a spark of joy.  I try to take a picture of it, but at the very least a take a second to appreciate it.  I guess you could call it part of gratitude practice. "Aha" moments in Kung Fu are turning into pretty big glimmers for me.  When one of the instructors explains something and it suddenly clicks, or points out something I'm doing that just needs a little tweak.  Or I'm listening to Sifu Brinker tell me stories about the history of our school.  Those moments are really special to me. And then sometimes it's just seeing a flower gr...

 I'm currently reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson.  For a book with such a provocative title, it's truly one of the best philosophical books I've ever read.  There was a section I just finished called "The Responsibility/Fault Fallacy, and it was so very pertinent to my previous blog post that it prompts an addendum: <begin quote> "With great power comes great responsibility." It is true.  But there's a better version of this quote, a version that actually is profound, and all you have to do is switch the nouns around: "With great responsibility comes great power." The more we choose to accept responsibility in our lives, the more power we will exercise over our lives.  Accepting responsibility for our problems is thus the first step to solving them. ... A lot of people hesitate to take responsibility for their problems because they believe that to be responsible  for your problems is to also be at fault for your p...