Watermelon Trapezoids

Our wives had given us a very simple task that sunny afternoon.  Cut the watermelon up and bring it out to us on the deck to enjoy in good company.  So in the kitchen, my good friend of many years grabbed a sharp knife and began massacring the fruit.  I mean he cut it into spheres, prisms, even tesseracts.  Looking over at him his answer came quick to the curios look on my face.  He said to me, “Vince…if you do a job poorly enough the first time you will never be asked again.” 

What does it exactly mean to be mediocre? Does this mean a poor snow shovelling job on a neighbors walk, an unmaintained vehicle, or spelling errors in a blog post for that matter are signs of mediocrity?  Going back over the definition of mastery offered by Stewart Emery I am bouncing this around a bit and not sure where I will land.

vincekrebs.blogspot.com

What happened to the good neighbor?

Too much snow, too little drainage, too much City inaction, too little community involvement.  That has been the story for the last three days as a frozen city drain has caused some substantial flooding outside the homes in our crescent.  The city has done nothing, the people affected have done nothing.

While the kids are enjoying floating their water tubes on lake Edmonton, I have been working at pumping the water to another functional drain.  It has certainly been a time waster.  The biggest disappointment however, has been the community involvement.  At least 10 houses have been affected by the problem.  Over the past three days only one person has come to help out with the situation. 

I think this really is a sign of the times.  There is a real attitude of ‘someone else will solve my problems’.  I am pretty certain if my neighbors were SRKF members the situation would be different.  More than ever I wish the world could follow our lead.

 vincekrebs.blogspot.com

Put down those Muncho Chips

Persistent, compulsive dependence on a behaviour or substance.

This thought came to me as I watched a track hoe operator take a deep drag on a cigarette while standing over the fuel nozzle pumping diesel into his equipment. Hmmm, should I make haste over to captain obvious and let him know why this might not be a good idea, or let events unfold and tally 7 billion acts of kindness as I rid the world of another rubby?

Drugs, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Pringle chip crumbs sprinkled over ice cream.  Sometimes after 4 bowls I wish I was addicted to Cigarettes, at least that I might be able to quit.

Thinking on this there are many things that I do in a week that are habitual and by the looks of the line-up for their double double in Drayton Valley this morning, I am not the only one. This week I have recognized that many of my little addictions can be handled by a concept that I read in an Oilfield safety orientation.  The concept of STOP and THINK.  This is process where the company encourages people to briefly stop actions, and reflect on the potential hazards of what they are doing.  Adjust their activity to make things as safe as possible.

This works for these little obnoxious habits during a week.  As I reach for a bottle of vitamin water as I have for the past 10 mornings I STOP and THINK.  Instead of mindlessly going about my habit, I think of the opportunity cost of this action.  Implications of the bottle and waste, the implications of a substance that isn’t the greatest for my body, and the lost opportunity of drinking a real glass of water.

This week I challenge the I Ho Chuan group to identify those nagging little habits you may have during a week (facebook, coffee, T.V.) STOP and THINK for a moment, consider what you are foregoing in that decision before you continue.

While watching a bear juggle a stick on You Tube is amusing, by taking that quick reflective moment, I have just found that opportunity to finish my blog for this week.

Mindful Steps

Tonight my wife and I returned from a holiday skiing to Sunshine Village.  While we were in Banff we drove to Johnson’s Canyon.  In short, it is a trail that sees over 1 million tourists every year, and as such the snow pack that falls on the catwalk’s that stretch along the edges of the canyon are more ice than snow.  Most people travelling it do so with crampons or snow cleats at the very minimum.  We didn’t have this luxury so we took our time to get to the waterfall. 

On one of the sections we were walking, Stephanie asked why I wasn’t slipping as often, and my automatic response was, because I walk with intent.  (In reality it had everything to do with footwear but I didn’t tell her that!)

In Kung Fu training, we often hear Sifu mention about training with intent.  Mindful practice of Kung Fu, to me means something more than getting in my repetitions.  I think sometimes when we are faced with the goals of the I Ho Chuan we get number focused and forget the reason for the numbers. Slapping in several repetitions of a form in a day without being mindful of what we are doing can be slow and painful.

Time is very precious, and this week, I am going to focus on quality, not quantity in my training.  At the end of this I Ho Chuan year, I do not want to pat myself on the back for time I wasted in mindless practice.

Vincekrebs.blogspot.com

A Case for Class

I am a Jedi, with the power to influence the minds of those around me. OK, Ok, I can’t use THE FORCE to choke you out in a grappling match Darth Vader style, or distract you by planting a Village People song in your head while sparring.

The kind of influence I believe we all have is much more subtle, and it comes in the form of attendance.  I am not going to win a student attendance record anytime soon, and feel a little hypocritical for writing about this.  I float from place to place in the province, mostly last minute, travelling like a gypsy on the account of my career.  One thing that always concerns me, is the optics of this.  As a Sihing, and a member of the I Ho Chuan team I feel it important to lay out a good example to my fellow training partners, and showing regular attendance is important. Coming to San Shou class this past week was a bit disheartening, as the attendance was really low. 

I take partial blame for the poor attendance this past week in the San Shou class as I have not been there for a couple weeks while working in Medicine Hat. I think every student should notice that there decisions to miss class will ALWAYS have an effect on their training partners.  Maybe it is as simple as a missed opportunity to try a technique on a particular partner, or maybe as influential as your attendance is driving the motivation of another student. In any case, every student has influence and contributes synergy to that class!

I want to help motivate the San Shou group through a couple points on why I think the San Shou class is critical to my training.

 

1.       I am 0.001% of the population that has the opportunity to spar with black belts in a controlled learning environment.  I say take advantage of this rare opportunity whenever possible!

2.       I am learning very functional self-defence techniques by taking things progressively.

3.       I enjoy how the class can push my comfort to the next level without going beyond my ability.  This is teaching me to deal with fear and adrenaline and learn to overcome with calm and control.

4.       I have never come out of a San Shou class without a sense of accomplishment.  (Quite often that accomplishment comes in the form of a stiff dose of humility!)

5.       I admire that I can learn so much from every student at any belt level.

Now in Medicine Hat

This past week I have been in Medicine Hat for work, and won’t be back until the middle of next week.  Up for 19 hours consistently through the week I am being forced to multi-task.  I have:

-Brushed my teeth while completing situps (Not recommended and neither is shaving)

-Performed portions of Lau Gar in the shower

-Held a horse stance while pumping gas

-Completed pushups in a hard hat and cover-alls

-Taped a print out of Mastery on my clip board.

-Taken out several pillow targets with my bokken.

 

What this lacks is mindful practice of Kung Fu, but for this week, it is better than nothing.

vincekrebs.blogspot.com

Leader or Lemming

I have green hair, a purple jumpsuit, and seem to be 2 dimensional.  I am following a large group of individuals that look exactly like me.  We walk, and continue to walk in unison.  The guy behind nor in front knows why we are walking.  Up ahead is a cliff, and at the bottom is a wavy lake of doomish liquid.  The first of the group steps off the cliff and falls.  Nope;  can’t swim and soon disappears into the bubbling mass.  The next in the group follows the previous and steps off the ledge.  Nope; Also not a swimmer. 

LEMMINGS. 

Here I am trapped in a computer game popular in the early nineties.  I continue to walk to the edge of the cliff.  One lemming after another falls from the cliff, my turn is coming, but wait! The mastermind sits in front of the screen, takes a big sip from a slurpy and moves the mouse so the arrow hovers over the lemming in front of me.  With a swift click of a button the lemming in front is converted to a ‘builder’ and begins laying out a path of bricks in front of us.  Hooray, me and my fellow lemmings are saved!

The black belt ceremony and Chinese New Year banquet was bitter sweet.  For much of the year I was out of town and unable to be a part of the various demo’s that went on through the year.  The lack of public performance exposure, teamed with jumping into a big demonstration with individuals I was connected with only through blog posts was frightening.  But just when my fate seemed destined for a large fall into a bubbling mass of ooze, out came the unexpected leadership within the group.  This is what you can’t recognize in a team when you are mostly absent. It was awesome to see how the development of the I Ho Chuan team through the year caused leadership to manifest in people you would expect, and others you would not.  I am really anxious to see the Snake team this year grow from the experience and can’t wait to see leaders rise from lemmings