Friday, January 30, 2009

Forgive?

So this may not be the best time to blog, seeing as I'm ticked off at a friend. Yet emotion can breed truth and expression of said truth. Not that I'm capable of hiding my feelings. I'm an "in your grill" kinda person.

What am I ticked off about? Well that's really not anyone's business save mine and the person facing my tantrum. I do bring it up for a reason besides behaving childishly and publicly announcing my ire.

For those who have not met me, I have a wicked bad temper. For those who have met me, you are probably thinking "Holy Understatement Batman!"

The point, and yes there is one, is that one has to understand their weaknesses, short comings, or dare I say faults, before one can fix them. Self improvement is the name of the game here people, and the only way to do that is look in the mirror, scrape off the protective rhetoric, and say "Mornin' Sunshine, you dysfunctional mess!"

There are two sides to every conflict. That is two participants, be they armies battle bound by oath and duty, or children squabbling over a toy. Both people are responsible for their actions. Both need to look inside themselves and realize that conflict can be resolved, and that with cooler heads, can be avoided.

So this brings me back to my rather charming personality resembling an irritated Siamese Cat coupled with the tact of a D8 bulldozer (and those are my good qualities). I could have helped to avoid conflict with my friend by not allowing my temper get raised. I have plenty of self control, all of the tools for conflict resolution, and enough experience to know that allowing myself to get upset is really not helping anything.

But the conflict hurt my feelings (yes I do have them) and I reacted emotionally. I didn't use the tools I have for dealing with conflict. I actually feel quite sheepish that I allowed myself to handle things in a less positive way.

So learn from my mistakes and try not to make them again. Dragons are known for being quick to anger, but we are even quicker to forgive. Maybe it makes up for something. Maybe it just gives me something else to work on.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Skydiving in Arizona


My friend Wendy brought her nephew Brian (centre) down to the drop zone on Monday 19/1/09. He is about 5 years old. He told us that he wanted to be a skydiver when he grows up, that he will jump every day, and he wanted to have his picture taken with a skydiver in all their gear (too cute).

I called my friend Blair (left) over and we took the shot. He got 2 divers for the price of one, lol. Then Blair and I got on the plane and did an 8 way jump with Lyal, Mark, Stan, Mark, Kevin, and Sandi. It was a lot of fun. Wendy and Brian spent the day watching us jump and had a great time seeing us come in to land.

Blue sky's guys!
Lisa

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Muse

It would seem that San Shou class is my muse. We worked on knife drills tonight, and those who know me understand what that means... Sifu is in a great mood now! We did fastest disarm, 2 man 1 knife game, and the major artery/tendon attack techniques. Boo-Yah!

I find myself wanting to journal after this class, which is very unusual as I would prefer to smash my head into a solid brick wall repeatedly than journal. Maybe I should play with knives more often. Could work.

A couple of the boys stayed after class to spar with one of our female students who is having some confidence issues in that area. You just know I had to play too. So the students worked together for a while and then I gloved up and had a go.

It was fun. I enjoy sparring and am glad that I am healthy enough to start doing it again. I'm rusty as an old spring, and my hip problem doesn't help, but it was still good. I worked up a sweat and had a chuckle. Apparently I have a perma-grin that was described as the "your gona pay" smile.

After the gloves came off, we chatted for a bit. One of the guys said that no matter who he talks to, everyone says the same thing. Martial arts changes lives. It's true, and it does so much so subtly that all of a sudden you wake up and wonder who was that jerk you used to be. At least I do.

So to the people who continue to change my life for the better, every last student, training mate, and member of my kung fu family..... Thanks. Now go practice or I'll kick you butt!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Talking to Myself Again

I helped out with the San Shou class tonight. Peter was running it, and I was doing my daily 150's in the back of the room, followed by some light sparring with Randy. Then when the actual matches started, Randy and I corner judged. Up to that point my only contribution to the class was sucking up oxygen. What was I contributing to my students by doing my own thing?

Is it motivating for my guys to see me turning red and sweating. Counting my pushups 20 at a time, only to try to make it 25 per set for next week.... then 30, and so on.

Maybe, maybe not. I remember as a student not even noticing anyone else working out. It was just me and my goal. My will alone against my objective. I realize this sounds narsarsistic , but that is how I approached it. That was my world. Look out for yourself, cover your own back, because if you don't there will be knives in it. It was just me, and a whole lot of darkness.

What I did find profound and amazing is the talks after class. I hung on every word Master Brinker said. In my tangled and very rough history of life, there was sense, calm, and order to be found. An eye in the storm as it were. Those talks saved my life, not the kicking and punching, not the pushups and sit ups, not the achieving of belts with single minded determination.

The idea that there was light in the world. That there were choices and that control of one's destiny was attainable. For all the terrible things I survived, I had not lived. Kung fu's principles, and the belief my instructor had in me, taught me to trust other human beings. Taught me to be more than an angry, jaded, vengeful teenager. It got me an education, got me to quit smoking, reinforced my resolve not to get involved with drugs. But most of all, it kept me from attempting suicide again. Yes again.

I remember telling Travis Panasiuk that changing your life is like climbing a ladder. I had gone through many of the struggles he was facing. I told him that he was on the ladder, below him, trying to pull him down was his past. The people he cared about but were not always good for him. Many of them would try to pull him down off the ladder. To keep him from rising above what they have accepted as their life. I told him to remember to look up. Above him on that ladder were the people who wanted him to succeed. For every person below trying to stop him, there were many more, trying to pull him up. Trying to help him achieve his dreams. I had a long talk with him the night before he died, and the last thing I said was that he was going to be alright. That we believed in him. Less than 12 hours later he was killed in a car accident.

It's not the pushups, but the compassion. I told our guys tonight that they have to remember the balance. Power with control, assertiveness with empathy, but always compassion.

What are we but cold angry beings, if not for our ability to feel the warmth of others? To participate in their success, to mourn their sorrow. I've lived on the other side of empathy. Feeling only the anger and receiving only the abuse of others. It made me very hard, unforgiving, and above all angry. If not for the intent behind the lesson, I would not be who I am today. With out the talks at the end of class, I doubt very much I would be alive.

So no, I don't think my sweating and pushing myself physically has helped my students. I feel my contribution tonight was the reminder that we are all fragile in one way or another, and that we have the ability to empathize. An ability we need to use and encourage others to develop. It is about balance.

Hope you guys enjoy this blog, because when I come to my senses it's getting deleted. I'm not so much of a sharing, fuzzy feelings type, and there is a lot of very personal information here that I'm sure I'll regret posting. But in the mean time, find your passion, live your beliefs, and take some friends along for the ride.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Sooo, what... Are you nuts or something?

Friends are very wonderful things. I rarely get asked the above question. However, one of my sky buddies asked me that New Years Day when I told him about Master McNeil's idea.

1000 pushups in one day. Gota tell you, my family raised some eyebrows, but they are used to me doing nutty things. I never expected it from my sky junky friends.

Why? Are you nuts? Theses are the questions I got. Followed by " there's no way in H@#$ you'ld get me to do that" So I answered him... Same reason we jump out of planes for fun. Because we can.

So I did my pushups and kept him posted because I wanted someone to share my misery. At 21:00 I sent the all done text. His response was simple.

WOW! Congrats!

It's all good, though I must admit that I'm feeling really sorry for myself that I missed out on the crunchies portion of the task and am now making them up today. but hey, we do it because we can.