Not playing with the Monkey

I have been quite lucky.  Since I began training at SRKF. My body has been quite healthy. A few years ago I had a small tear in my hamstring that took a bit to heal but relatively healthy. That is until the last two months. Something is wrong in my shoulder and in my knee, both on my right side.

Way back when I played hockey and skied daily I was always healthy. Because of the I never had to modify anything in my training. What I am happy about is even though I am compensating for the soreness my training has never been at this level. I feel that because I have to compensate I am thinking more about training and areas that I need work on(by the way it is a lot).

I have to equate this level of training to being fortunate enough to be in I Ho  Chuan. What I have received out of I Ho Chuan cannot be underestimated.

Having said the above, I have made the choice this year not to join the monkey team.  One reason is I will be tied up in a project this summer that will take a great deal of my time.  But the more important reason is;  I want to know that what I have learned in I Ho Chuan, I will continue on in my day to day life. Have I picked up and permanently changed my behaviours so that I am continually working towards mastery? This year will be my test. I am eagerly looking forward too it but know I will miss being on the monkey team

Rest assured I will be back for the Rooster team.

Playing with the pencils

As we were working on the dragon dance on Saturday I personally had  number of moments of confusion  I believe it was due to a few changes that were made to the dance in the past week.  As I was not there for those practices I felt a little lost. 

But I was enjoying what was going on as everyone around me was enjoying themselves as we worked through the dance.  I almost burst out laughing as a line from Alro Guthries song Alice's Restaurant came into my head:

But we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there.

Perspective

I have been contemplating. We all have goals in life.  I have discovered in the past year that my main goal is to be happy.  Sounds simple but is is.  Maybe for some it is, but not for me.  It does not take long sometimes to forget my goal and begin worrying about lesser things that don't get me to my goal.

As a team we have been talking about this all year.  How do we stay engaged.  Being happy in my life means I have to be engaged at all times and focused on what i want.  Happiness.


I helped out one of my employees today.  She is a very good natured person who is always a pleasure to be around.  She had some problems with a customer who was treating her quite bad.  She was upset and after she explained to me the situation, I asked her, "If you get upset with what happened are you not the one who looses?"  She immediately got a smile on her face and said "yes".  I was able to put someone else's poor behavior in perspective for her.  (I won't lie,  seeing her smile made my day)