Situation, student, over the years a person has been asked to fix a punch or a kick, because it is just not as good, as you know that they could perform it, they are missing that little tweak. But they do perform good enough to get to the next level. Then the day comes I am asked, could you critique my punch, or kick, I tell them it is still not right, they are shocked, I say you are missing this little tweak. So they come back in a week with this great new found tweak that they have been missing. I say that is it you have found the secret.
The part of sadness is, I have been telling you this for a long time, why did it take so long to fix.
The part of happiness is, I grin from ear to ear, that you have finally found the secret to doing a good execution of the punch or kick.
The problem is we get carried away with all of the frilly, look at me fun stuff, and do not perfect our very basic punches and kicks we learned in the first year of beginning the martial arts. If you fix the basic the frilly dilly stuff will look and feel much better. (you still don’t look like a tiger come back when you look like a tiger)
Sifu Hayes
Silent River Kung Fu, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Diving
Jasper, Alberta, Canada. Water temp 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Finished the Advanced diving course. The course consisted of five dives.
Navigation dive – only using a compass under water, navigating squares and triangles. Lake Edith.
Peak performance dive - manipulating through a series of hula-hoops set at different levels in the water. Lake Edith.
Night dive - a flashlight and glow stick on our backs, on the lake bottom in the dark, looking for golf balls beside the Jasper golf course. Lake Beauvert
Deep-dive - equivalent to an ocean dive of 92 feet. Lake Beauvert.
Search and Recovery dive - searching for articles at the bottom of the lake and lifting heavy items using an air bag. Lake Edith.
Three of us started the Advanced Diver course the other two quit; ended up good for me I got a private lesson.
Sifu Hayes
Silent River Kung Fu, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
Navigation dive – only using a compass under water, navigating squares and triangles. Lake Edith.
Peak performance dive - manipulating through a series of hula-hoops set at different levels in the water. Lake Edith.
Night dive - a flashlight and glow stick on our backs, on the lake bottom in the dark, looking for golf balls beside the Jasper golf course. Lake Beauvert
Deep-dive - equivalent to an ocean dive of 92 feet. Lake Beauvert.
Search and Recovery dive - searching for articles at the bottom of the lake and lifting heavy items using an air bag. Lake Edith.
Three of us started the Advanced Diver course the other two quit; ended up good for me I got a private lesson.
Sifu Hayes
Silent River Kung Fu, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Cows
We can learn something by observing the behavior of cows. They are habitual animals, arriving, departing, gathering, and eating because they did so yesterday. They take shelter in the barn at the same time every day. One day the barn roof begins to leak. It leaks more and more until it offers little or no shelter. The cows continue to gather in the barn.
Our social structure has many leaks, and fails to shelter adequately many of its members. The leaks have grown, but we continue to try to collect under the same structure. Why do we do this? Because is exists? Is it easier than building a new system? What we must begin to question is the design of society (the barn). Is there only one way, the way with which we are familiar to build a social structure? Why is it leaking? From poor maintenance? Partially. Primarily it stems originally from poor design.
We are aware of the imbalances and injustices in the racial, class, economic, and gender structures. We spend hours and hours and billions of dollars studying and commenting on the breakdowns, the shortcomings, the hierarchies of society, but what has changed in the last several hundred years? Nothing. Oppression still exists. War still exists. Decadent wealth and poverty live side by side in the same cities. Inequality under the law prevails. Why?
Because quite simply there is a struggle for power. We have come to believe that if we don’t win we will lose, that we have only two groups to choose from: the oppressed and the oppressors. No one likes to admit that as “wealth” increases for one group, poverty increases for the other. We are either controlled or controllers in every aspect of our lives. It is a system of competition and survival of the fittest.
We have also forgotten the idea of the collective. We are entities in society, the individual and the collective mutually dependent. As one develops so does the other. As one backslides or stagnates, so does the other. To oppress another individual oppresses us all. And energy spent oppressing and controlling is energy tied up and not being used to make our own connection.
Consequently, what seriously needs to be addressed and questioned is the issue of our quest for power. This is the barn that won’t keep out the rain and won’t support the cows fighting to find a place – the best place – inside.
{Gathered thoughts}
Sifu Hayes
Silent River Kung Fu, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada www.silentriverkungfu.com
Our social structure has many leaks, and fails to shelter adequately many of its members. The leaks have grown, but we continue to try to collect under the same structure. Why do we do this? Because is exists? Is it easier than building a new system? What we must begin to question is the design of society (the barn). Is there only one way, the way with which we are familiar to build a social structure? Why is it leaking? From poor maintenance? Partially. Primarily it stems originally from poor design.
We are aware of the imbalances and injustices in the racial, class, economic, and gender structures. We spend hours and hours and billions of dollars studying and commenting on the breakdowns, the shortcomings, the hierarchies of society, but what has changed in the last several hundred years? Nothing. Oppression still exists. War still exists. Decadent wealth and poverty live side by side in the same cities. Inequality under the law prevails. Why?
Because quite simply there is a struggle for power. We have come to believe that if we don’t win we will lose, that we have only two groups to choose from: the oppressed and the oppressors. No one likes to admit that as “wealth” increases for one group, poverty increases for the other. We are either controlled or controllers in every aspect of our lives. It is a system of competition and survival of the fittest.
We have also forgotten the idea of the collective. We are entities in society, the individual and the collective mutually dependent. As one develops so does the other. As one backslides or stagnates, so does the other. To oppress another individual oppresses us all. And energy spent oppressing and controlling is energy tied up and not being used to make our own connection.
Consequently, what seriously needs to be addressed and questioned is the issue of our quest for power. This is the barn that won’t keep out the rain and won’t support the cows fighting to find a place – the best place – inside.
{Gathered thoughts}
Sifu Hayes
Silent River Kung Fu, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada www.silentriverkungfu.com
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