Riding the Roller Coaster

A     The past couple of weeks for me have been quite the roller coaster. A couple of Monday's ago I was given some tickets to an Oiler's game. It was nice to be able to take Baker to the game, I mean who wants to actually purchase tickets when they are playing the way they have been this year. On Tuesday night I was not feeling so good and was really sick on Wednesday morning. As I started to feel better Thursday I broke out in super itchy bumps from head to toe. This past week I was in a class at U of A so sitting for 8 hrs a day in a chair trying not to scratch was not a lot of fun. By
Wednesday the bumps had mostly disappeared and I was faced with a new challenge.
     By the time I got home from school on Wednesday I could barely lift my right arm. This is the arm that I had shoulder surgery on a couple of years ago. With a few anti-inflammatory's I was able to move my arm but with very limited mobility. With my palm down I was not able to lift my arm to the height of my shoulder. For me this was a very scary thing. The surgery, or more accurately, the after effects of the surgery sucked. One of the first things that went through my mind was "I am not doing the surgery again I hope this goes away". Over the next couple of days I kept moving ti as much as possible. Saturday I was able to pick up a stick again and do movements that were close to the body.
  One of the good things that happened last week was graduating from the MEP program at U of A. They call it their mini MBA as it gives you a brief look at several of the classes that are included in getting your MBA. Handily enough it also gives you three credits towards your MBA if you decide to go down that road. Although I fear that I did not get all that I could have from the first couple of days as I seemed to be fairly focused on not scratching, the last couple of days had lots of lessons. Our last day of the course was a continuation of a class that started in the first set of classes back in November, Strategic Planning. Anyone who has had the "pleasure" of sitting through a strategic planning session would probably cringe at the thought of sitting through a class, or several classes as it was, on this subject. This instructor however made it probably one of the best classes of the course.
     One of the things that we discussed in class was intention vs mechanism. There are many things that impede our goals no matter what the goals are. Being at work on time - traffic was bad, there was a train, my alarm never went off. These are all mechanisms that affect the results that we are going for, our goals. Now imagine someone tells you that you would receive a million dollars if you showed up for work on time. You would then find a way to be there on time with no excuses. You would do this with intention. It is important for us to realize our connection to the mechanism that affects our results. If you do things with intention, you will find a way to deal with the barriers instead of allowing them to affect the results.

Hard to Manage Alone

     Last year I started off in the year of the Rooster really strong. I didn't manage to maintain the same intensity throughout the year however. In the never ending quest to be better I have searched for many reasons for why this happened. Last weekend a big one came to light. Not something that I would have attributed to this but now that it has come to light it is like a huge weight has been lifted.

    Before last year four of the five members of our family were practising Kung Fu. We had pulled Baker out because he never seemed to be able to make it to classes with hockey games and practices. That our two daughters and myself. This past spring they both decided that they no longer wanted to attend classes. I tried to convince them to stay but was afraid to push too hard. The last thing I ever would want to do is force the issue and cause them to resent Kung Fu. I knew that from past experiences that I had myself as a child that if this happened there would be no chance of them ever practising again. The conditions that were put in place for them were; You must write a letter to Sifu Brinker explaining that you no longer wanted to practice Kung Fu, and that you must find another physical activity to take its place. 

     Adrianna tried out for the girls basketball team but wasn't able to make it. Even though she didn't make the team it was awesome to see her step outside of  her comfort zone and at least try. Cassidy said that she wanted to try "casual" gymnastics but didn't manage to follow through in finding a class that she could regularly attend. This past weekend we finally made the leap and gave them an ultimatum. Either find a physical activity to take part in or we were putting them back in Kung Fu. 

  Cassidy asked me if instead of going to the classes, if she could practice with me at home. We discussed this for a bit and came up with an alternate plan. or slightly different than she initially anticipated at least. She agreed to do my I Ho Chuan physical requirements with me. It was amazing to me how everything became a little bit easier once this plan came to light. It is one thing to have the support and encouragement of the team behind you but we spend most of our time away from the Kwoon and the team. Not having the extra support at home seemed to make making "bad" choices way easier. This is my journey and I am the one responsible for my actions but it seems way easier when you have someone close that is coming along for the ride. The one thing that will take some adjustment is time of doing these things. When it is just me I am able to spread these out a little better so they don't take the same toll as trying to hammer through a couple of hundred push-ups and sit-ups in an hour. This was evident right away on Monday when we did these requirements between 7:00 and 8:00 and then went to class and we were doing the physical testing. Oh well live and learn. 

     One thing I did forget to mention to her though was my 1000 miles with purpose where my requirement is to run 2km three times a week. I guess she will get to do some living and learning tomorrow.