Bad Things Happen

 Bad things happen and how we handle them builds our future. There is always a glimmer of hope even in the most horrible events; sometimes just a sliver, but sometimes that is all we need. 

My life has been turned upside down since my car accident. I lost my balance, my mobility, my job. I could barely walk out of my house before I needed help to get back, because I would have dizzy spells. I won't lie I did go down the more travelled road of the negative way of thinking. I was slowing giving up on myself. Then I heard the sliver of hope "gratitude". I started to realize the great people I have in my life that I can count on. I got to re-invigorate my love for understanding how my body works again. I started to see more opportunity's in life again. There is always opportunity's in life to become a better you and I am seeing them again. 

 I had found hope for me. I could let this car accident make my life worse mentally and physically, but I did not let it. I decide how good my future will be. I feel very confident in my next meeting with the brain doctor that I will be allowed to go back to work full time. Even if he does not clear me that is okay, because I have decided that I will continue to reach for the stars in my future. I know I will reach them someday, because I know I will never give up. 

More bad days are to come, but I am ready. I will look for the sliver of hope, and if I cannot find it then I reach out to someone to help me find it. 

Sifu Langner

Mind Muscle

 I have been working a lot of developing my mind muscle. I have been working out my mind to solve problems and thinking more positively. Now I am not talking about math problems, but everyday issues to big event issues. 

I remember as a apprentice electrician I was working with my journeyman and I was noticing a lot of problems we were facing. I brought up all these problems to him and he told me something that stuck. "It is not a bad skill to have to find the problems, but you are only focusing on the issues and not giving me any solutions" I found multiple problems and solved none. I was just pointing out problems instead of trying to shoot out ideas to fix the problems. I have been looking at everything in a new light. I have been more actively solving issues in my life.

 I want to lose weight: join a gym(which I did) really control what I put in my body. I want to be cleared to go back to work by my brain doctor: do physio exercise and take any working opportunity at home, push myself methodically. Thinking this way is a muscle that needs constant work and can be easily forgotten.

I have been practicing positive thinking as well. It is a muscle that is very weak right now. I have really pumped up my negative thinking. I could bench press 500lbs with the negative mind muscle. I have been recently put in a situation where I have had to really put in the mental effort to find the great thing that are happening for the sake of my father. Right now I need to be the beacon of hope in these dark times for him. It has really open my eyes in how easy it is to think negatively. Me and my father can spot negative things 100 kms away from us, but miss the happy miracles happening right in front of us. 

I have been practicing that change will happen bad or good. I have been learning even in the dark times there is always light. Without the bad things in life I would not know what was good. Yin Yang is my absolute favorite symbol, because it always reminds me of the existing of good and evil; one cannot exist without the other.  

Sifu Langner

Quantity and Quality

 Going to the gym has made me re-learn the values of quantity and quality. The fundamental balance you need to have between the two. 

If you do 100 push ups every day, but you barely bend your elbows at all, then you did 0 push ups. If you do proper form and technique for 5 push ups for the day; you have only done 5 push ups. Both forms lack moving forward and future growth. Neither become better at doing 100 proper push ups in a day. This way of practice is a very unbalance form of quantity and quality. 

We always tend to obsess over quantity or quality. The thought process of quantity is  I need to meet my numbers for today so I will sacrifice quality because it makes it easier to get the numbers. The other side quality we focus so much for high quality push up we are unable to achieve our numbers, but at least they were good push ups. 

Quantity and quality hold the same equal importance for me. You need quantity to build the muscle that was not there and you need the quality to make the form most efficient. If your doing push ups and your thighs are the ones in pain after push ups, then either there is a separate issue ,or weaken muscles never worked before, or really bad form.  

I learned that I was doing bad form in my exercise lifting weight. I was trying to go over what I could handle in bad form. I had to reduce the weight I was using, and focused on learning to achieve quality with quantity. I needed to do 15  repetitions rather then 5 repetitions. I used the 15 to develop the quality. I paid attention the higher amounts of doing the exercise to see the flaws and improve. 

So if one day I want to achieve doing 100 push ups in a day that are high quality, then I will need to put in the quantity and remain mindful while building my quality. Currently on the ground I can do 3 push ups. On the wall I can do 30 push ups. I have to maintain the best quality for when doing wall or floor. So I can build up the muscles. I do the walls for quantity and floor for quality. They both serve a great purpose for me and I hope to continue making progress while trying to maintain the balance.  It is not easy it is hard, but worth every sweat and tear. 

Sifu Langner

Gratitude 2

 In these current times a lot of negative events are going on, global, provincial, city, and my home. All of these negative events can easily put me in a very dark path mentally. I have been working hard on my mental state to try and resist the route of unhappiness. It is not the best yet, but I am growing positively.

I have been trying more often then not, to practice gratitude. Whenever I am in a very negative head space I start listing things that I am grateful for. I start with the obvious ones, then I move to the really small things I know I never really appreciate them; like being able to see. I never ever think about it, because I have never lost it. I do not want to wait to appreciate the things I have easily for me now. Why wait until something bad happens to be grateful for it. 

 Going over these small things started to bloom into going over small accomplishments. Like being able to say I have done 355 push ups now. My wrist still hurts a lot, but before I could not even walk 20 m out of my house without my dad helping me back to get back home. I am improving small amounts, but still forwards.

 I cannot control the inevitable bad events to come, but I can control how it effects me mentally. Thinking about all of these small gratitude's has really made me feel happy more often. 

Sifu Langner

Step 2 Recovery

 I have recently started to go to a gym. I am now in the process of slowly regaining the strength I have lost. I am not a big gym goer, if anything I am normally super bored in them. I have always been told that if you go enough times consistently for a long period of time I will start feeling a sense of loss on the days I don't go to the gym. A sense of euphoria will start to be felt every time I would go. That's the goal I am aiming for. 

My physio actually told me I am approaching this all wrong. If I approach it with the attitude it is going to be boring then it will be. Then a light bulb went off in my head before he finished what he was about to tell me. Going to the gym and repeating the same moves over and over again. Making sure I am using proper technique. Hard work and discipline, the very meaning of kung fu. I have to transport the teaching form kung fu to the gym. Everything I do at the gym is an opportunity to better myself.  Focus on what the muscle is doing instead of focusing on wanting to leave; change my intent.

This going to the gym for me will be a bigger challenge to me in more ways than one; mentally and physically. The biggest hurdle for me will be the attitude. I have drastically changed my attitude before, and it was for kung fu. I saw nothing but hoops to jump through at kung fu. Then 3 years later I saw them as a doorway to greatly improve myself mentally and physically. Now I must use that attitude from kung fu and install it to my gym workouts.

It will not be easy, but nothing worth having ever is.

Sifu Langner