Demo?

We are less than 10 days away from Canada Day. The time is passing so fast? Are we ready for the demo?

Last year we were doing a lion dance with a dragon dance and then forms demo and board breaking. I feel that we are a little behind in preparing for the demo. I'm hoping we can pull it off.

Who's day is it?

Busy weekend. Again. You would think that if there is nothing big planned for the weekend and it is also father's day, that I will be able to relax and enjoy some down time. Not in my house.

Rushing home from work Friday evening, going to Black Belt class, Sihing class, I Ho Chuan class, sparring class. Saturday morning taking the kids to the River Festival while Sharida is at TaiChi, then open training (opps I forgot my KF pants), I Ho Chuan meeting, back home framing a wall. Sunday I walk up and got my father's day present - waffle maker. Then back to work. Getting the garage cleared to get the trailer out, buying drywall, hauling it to the basement, mowing the lawn, drywalling, getting the kayaks ready, going kayaking (first time this year), going to walmart with one of the girls to buy a necklace, moving furnitures back into the semi-finished room. Writing a blog...

I'm very tired now but I feel I have done so much in the past few days. It feels good to accomplish so much.

Canada Day parade / demo

What can we do to make the Canada Day parade / demo successful? First of all, all the I Ho Chuan team should be there, which means we should be able to utilize the dragon. With the lions, the dragon has such a big affect on spectator.

We should also encourage ALL members of SRKF to join us at the parade and support us in the demo. Having a big group walking in the parade is also very impressive. Let's start a buzz in the school so everyone will want to come. Maybe even Po will show up...

Migration

This weekendm we spent time at the bird festival in Slave Lake. The first thing I could see in there is that there are not a lot of people. Although I enjoyed the quiet campground and the extra pancakes at the Pancake breakfast, I could not stop thinking about what people are missing and why there are not more people enjoying nature and learning about the migrating birds.

I am also guilty spending too much with electronics. This is my work, fun and communication with family. But this weekend was a great reminder of the balance we need to have in life. We all need to appreciate nature and to do whatever we can to preserve it to our children and their children.

24 hours of fun, sweat and joy

Pandamonium was great success for me. I stayed up for the full 24 hours and although my eyes were completely red by the end, it was all worth it.

My only regret was that I missed seeing Kung Fu Panda. Everytime he showed up, I was not around. :-(

Opportunities

Doing anything in a mastery level is not an easy task. Grading for your black belt is one of the hardest paths I had to go through. What made it easier for me is taking any opportunity I had along the way.

These opportunities present themeselfs and you can either take them or ignore them. Some of these opportunities for me were going to the fitness class, trying to make every sihing class I could attend (and changing other commitments to make it work), going to as many classes as I could and participate in the class, teaching the kids classes...

Going for you black belt this year on the next? take as many opportunities as you can!

Leadership

Last Friday I attended a leadership conference. It was very insperational but lacked something. I did not feel connected to all the speakers as they used a one sided story to illustrate their points.

I don't consider myself as natural leader. Being in front of people is hard for me. Talking in front of a gorup is even harder. Leading a group? 

While training for my black belt, we discuss the types of leaders - the one that leads by charisma and the one that leads by example. I always tend to be the one that leads by example. For some reason (read on to find out) I don't have the required charisma to lead a group of people. I think I'm afraid of failure. What if I tell a group of people to do one thing and it turns to be a bad idea? What if I say something and no one listens?

I see the say charasteristics of my self in my son and girls. I want them to be better than I was. I want to lead by example and show them that I can also lead with charisma. Something to work on and grow.