New Start

The Chinese New Year banquet was wonderful. From the preparations during the day, where everyone in the team (plus more) were helping out. The evening itself was a great fun. In between the Lion/Dragon dance, the kids demo, the IHC demo, the candidates speeches - everything was going great. I missed a move in my form, but I don't think anyone would have noticed. I just kept going. BTW - today I realized that my weapon is not "slashing staff" as I referred to it the whole year, but a "lashing staff". Oh well...

I want to congrats the 3 new black belts - sifu Chervenka, sifu Csillag and sifu Prince. All 3 of you had a great year and I'm happy for all of you.
I want to congrats all black belts who got promoted - sifu Dennis, sifu Lindstrom and sifu Langner. It is a privilege to train with you. We are truly blessed to now have 4 master level instructors in our school.
I want to congrats and thank the whole IHC team. We did great in both demos and we had a great year with lots of growth and successes.
I want to thank anyone who took part in any way with the banquet yesterday.
And I want to send a special thank you to sifu Brinker who without his leadership and support none of this would have happened.

Now after a day of rest, it is time for a new start. Well, a new continuation of last year. I would like to build on our success and not to start from ground zero. I think we have a strong team this year and it will be great working with each and one of you.

I have lots of personal plans for this year. More on that in future blogs.

Monkey Review

Today I posted my last blog as a monkey. My next blog will be as a rooster... So I thought I should review my year in blogs. It was fun reading them all.

February 2016:
Good Morning Sihing, Goodnight Sifu.
No room with the Monkeys

March:
Winter Warrior
Down (and up?)
Disconnect
If your lifer were a book and you were the author how would you want your story to go?

April:
Fitness Level
Reality Check
Power of our actions
Poe

May:
One step at a time
In-action
Where is Poe
Collect the Rain
Hotshot

June:
Parade
What we can do
Begin with the end in mind
Dragon (and Lion) Dance

July:
42
Dragon 2
Perfection
Eating and activity balance
Heights.
Inspiration

August:
Be prepared
Routine
Home
Best recovery wishes

September:
Plank Challenge
Not just another day
Leading (where?)
Catch-up

October:
Family Connection
Being in the moment, learning from the past and planning for the future
Random Act of Kindness
Tiger Challenge
Tiger Challenge v3

November:
Plank
Finally
it doesn't matter
Dragon Dance

December:
Noa
Focus
Time for myself
Which direction am I looking at?

January 2017:
Plank
Demo prep
Habits and NDEs
Now what?
Project Management 101

Project Management 101

Preparing an event, going to someones birthday, setting a goal, running a million dollar project. All should be approached the same way.

What is the target? Always start with the end in mind. What are you trying to achieve?

When is it due? what is the deadline?

What are the resources that are available to you? material, money, other people, time, etc. Everything need to be examined to make sure what you are doing is achievable. 

What are the risks that might temper what you are doing and how you are prepared to mitigate them.

What is the risk of not achieving what you are after. What will happen if you won't make it... And also is all the effort you are planning to put into it is worth it.

Every task in life is like a project being manged by you. PM 101...

Now what?

2 more weeks to the banquet and then what? The days after the banquet can be very devastating as there is a decrease in pressure but for me it is usually the time for reflection and figuring out how I'm going to make the next year even better.

There are lots of plans in my head - new exercise routines, new weapon form, new goals... but I'm trying to wait and focus on being ready for the demo. More repetitions of my weapon form, visualizing and practicing with the dragon, figuring out what need to be done for the banquet and on the day of.

Habits and NDEs

I love habits. This is what helps me to stay on track. Going to Kung Fu classes. Going to the gym in the mornings. Blogging every Saturday. Wait a minute... today is not Saturday - what is going on?

Well this is what happens when an NDE is colliding (literally) with my habits. On my way to the gym this morning I was hit by a truck. I can't really say the a saw my whole life flashing in front of me. It was so fast. Luckily I'm not dead :-). The car is damaged but I think I'm OK. Some bruises. I hope I did not get a concussion. 

This NDE (near death experience) is distracting my habits but it is reminding me to be thankful to what I have. I LOVE my family. I need to take care of myself and take care of them. I love Kung Fu and I love training with all of you.

Demo prep

It is nice to see how things are falling into place. We have been practicing different tricks with the dragon for few months so putting them together into a dance yesterday went pretty smoothly.

It is great seeing everyone pushing forward towards one goal. The dragon dancers, the lion dancers and everyone around who is helping with the dance.

The forms demo is also progressing. I know this one will be OK as we all practiced our forms lots. We just need to fix all the kinks in the transitions. Last Thursday, I crashed my finger with my slashing staff. Kept on going and then iced it. It is not broken so I'm good to go...

Less than 3 weeks. We have lots to do, but I  know we can do it. With this group of people - everything is possible!

Plank

About 4 months ago I was talking with Sifu Regier about my back pain and on different ways to get it better. We were talking about planks and Sifu Regier asked me "why won't you challenge yourself publicly to do planks?"  

That evening I posted I'm going to take on the plank challenge. 1,000 minutes of plank till the end of 2016. 

This challenge proved to be challenging on 3 fronts: first was the physical challenge. It is one thing to do one minute plank. It is a different thing to do one after you have done 9 already. Muscles hurt and shoulders are feeling it. This challenge got easier as my muscles got used to doing 5-15 planks a day. 

The second challenge was to fit it in my already busy schedule. This had some effect on other aspects of my training but without knowing about the "miracle morning" (wait for future blog on that), I was waking up earlier in order to be able to fit the planks into my schedule. 

The third challenge goes hand in hand with the second one. This one was the hardest and stayed challenging all the way to the end. Apparently one minute plank takes one minute... finding so many minutes to do planks was a big challenge. And I was not able to do other stuff while doing planks. I tried reading, watching my iPod. Nothing. This challenge had it benefits as I started focusing on my breathing, my thoughts. I used the time to plan my day. 

Now to the benefits. First of all my back is feeling better. Not perfect but I know for sure my core muscles are stronger. I also used the rest time between the planks to do other back exercises and hip mobility work. There is much improvement with my back but this is just the starting point of my journey to rehabilitate my back. 

The second was the effect of this challenge on others. I don't think many joined me on this challenge but I do know it had a big impact on at least one person. I want to thank everyone who joined the challenge even if it was just for a few, but I do want to acknowledge Sifu Lindstrom and Mr. Beeler for posting their numbers and keeping me going. 

So now the new year is here. Planks will continue to be part of my routine but I will be looking for new challenges and adventures with the IHC team. Happy New Year everyone.