Summer is here and so is nice weather, this is the first week I’ve been out and about on my bicycle. I bought it late last year as per one of my self chosen UBBT requirements and to follow up on the second part of the requirement I’ve been riding it around a lot. I rode around for an hour and a half on both Sunday and Tuesday. Today I rode my bike to the University, about 7 km, played squash for two hours straight then rode back home. My legs feel like jelly, no forms reps tonight, I hurt everywhere. So that’s about 24 kilometers today, about 48 so far this week and its only Thursday. I bought an odometer for the bike so I can keep track of km’s
It feels good to ride around on a sunny day in the river valley. I think I’ll try to even out my farmers tan and start riding around without a shirt on when it’s particularly nice out, with luck I might be able to go the entire summer without running into a pole or wiping out while distracted by a cute jogger.
It seems like more and more people I know are traveling abroad or moving away these days. Kung seems to be, or will be, especially hard hit with people leaving to other countries. It feels like a bunch of people I’ve always drawn motivation and inspiration from are gone now or about to go. I tend to gravitate more towards people my age, as most people do, and my age group tends to be restless. I was debating whether or not to name some of the people I miss/going to miss but I don’t think I need to, you guys know who you are, and if you don’t here’s a hint: Anyone not here or about leave classifies.
I know it’s not permanent for a lot of you, I’m sure that something special we’ve achieved at Silent River will draw you back eventually, but it’s still sad to imagine our Kung Fu family missing some of its key members for an extended period of time. It might get just a little bit lonely without you all. China keeps stealing our black belts; I might have a hard time forgiving her.
On top of Kung Fu people, I also have a few friends that are moving, or already have, moved. They stack; I feel a small sense of loss. I feel like someone in a sappy movie, sitting in a pub alone having a pint, thinking about the people they’ve lost, while a sad song plays on the jukebox. We’ll I’m raising my glass, this one’s for you guys, I wish I knew some of you better but I know I’ll get the chance sometime in the future.
I’m journaling out of order again; let’s step back a couple weeks, to the same weekend of the tournament and the fire. May 2nd was overall a good day, the tournament was great, the fire was a downer, but not enough to keep me down for long. The two events had put me in a restless mood and I felt like breaking routine so I called up a fellow black belt (Sifu LaRocque) to go to her birthday party. I was going to go alone, which I normally wouldn’t do, I can be a bit quiet sometimes and it’s nice to have backup, but I called Sifu Edge to get Khona’s number and she decided to come along with Sifu Webb. I had a fantastic time at the party, I’m glad I decided to go. If you’re reading this Khona, thanks for a fun time and thanks again for the Blue Label.
Sunday morning, the day after a ridiculously busy and late day, I get woken up with a phone call at 10:30. It was a friend calling me to ask if I wanted to bag trees with some Junior Forest Wardens at the Muttart Conservatory. As my mind struggled to wake up and contemplate what bagging trees meant (I think I just assumed he had meant to say plant trees) I groggily agreed to meet him there, hung up, rolled over and went back to sleep for an hour before getting up again. Bagging trees entails separating individual trees from tree farm bundles, putting each tree in an Arbor Day bag and then filling a cardboard box with 50 trees. The trees get shipped to schools all over Alberta and handed out to the grade one students so that they can take a tree home to plant on Arbor Day. In two hours, myself and about 25 other people managed to bag around 11, 500 trees, enough for the entire parkland region.
It was a pretty cool event and a fantastic way to use a couple hours on a Sunday. I thought it was really neat how much a handful of volunteers can accomplish with very little effort. I thought it would have been a perfect project for Silent River Kung Fu and told my friend’s mom, Terry Garrett, the chief warden of Alberta and organizer of everything, that if she was ever looking for extra helping hands for the many projects she does I could roundup some people. She said she would keep us in mind so maybe we will create a Kung Fu/Forest Warden alliance…together we could be unstoppable Mwahaha.
Going home after this really made some things sink in. Since starting the UBBT I have changed. I seem to find myself being more and more productive, helping out, and volunteering for things I rarely used to do. Since I started the UBBT I have been living a more vibrant, full and productive life. I know that’s the whole idea of the UBBT but its kind of funny how it can sneak up on you. I am now much more involved with living well. When I started the test I was worried about not having free time for fun and relaxation. I still do, it just means I’m doing more productive, fulfilling things in my spare time and giving less time to sitting on my but doing nothing. If I can keep up this intensity I should have a pretty sweet life ahead of me.
Something else I’ve noticed since starting the UBBT, much to my amazement, is the effect it has had on friends of mine that aren’t even doing it. I’ve noticed a subtle but definite shift in attitude in the people I’m around a lot. It seems that across the board, people I am close to seem to be doing more these days. Maybe it’s just a coincidence of timing but I doubt it. Just talking about the things we’ve been doing in the UBBT, and my actions, has inspired some people to try and be more involved. I honestly do think I’ve inspired some positive change in people and it feels pretty cool.
So when we talk about trying to change the world through Kung Fu, we have proof its possible! Leading by example works and can spread like wildfire. I believe to create great change we have to start very small, with ourselves, gradually our actions are noticed and adapted by others who in turn pass it on to others. Then when enough time has passed, a revolution has occurred without anyone really being aware of it happening. Society’s ideals follow the ideals of its citizens, change can’t be expected to happen suddenly or through force. It has to come naturally, through the free will of the people it concerns. Once everyone is on the same page change comes easily.
Writing this remind me of a couple lines from a song that I like. They seem relevant to the topic so here:
“We are a part of the loud minority and as such we are a part of those concerned with change! We are a part of the loud minority and as such we are a part of those concerned with freedom!”
I’ve been thinking about whether it’s better to be really good at one thing, and alright at a few other things, or better to be pretty good at a lot of things. What is considered to have more value? If you have the best roundhouse in the world but you can’t punch worth beans is it as good as having strong punches AND kicks? People who are really good at one thing tend to get more praise for their skill than those that are well rounded. Do we only have so much we can focus on at one time without everything suffering? Is it impossible to be really good at everything? I’m beginning to think so. I think there is a threshold, when your skills reach a high level, that you can maintain across the board, but to go further, to really work on a certain skill and push it to amazing levels; you have to sacrifice other skills.
People can only handle so much at once. If you take on too much at once and try to do too many things at the same time, the quality of everything you do will decrease. I’m beginning to think there’s a fine line between living to the best of your ability, going full tilt and excelling, and doing too much, spreading yourself thin and going nowhere. For the first time in my life, doing the UBBT, I feel like I’ve actually reached that threshold a few times. I’ve been trying to go hard every day of the week but it’s hard to maintain, I’ve only pulled it off a few times in fact. We do need a certain amount of rest and time to heal so that we can perform to the best of our abilities. Sometimes after going hard for 3-4 days in a row I find I simply don’t have the energy to continue going at the same pace. Obviously this threshold can be increased and we can strengthen our endurance. It just takes time and lots of work, its unfortunate how much easier it is to lose endurance than gain it; even minor injuries can be devastating.
I think I value well roundness more than specialization. It seems to be much more practical in the long run. I believe it has a stronger, subtler, influence over the entirety of our lives. Specialization is certainly a worthy approach, and can probably earn you more fame and recognition, but it means you’re always doing the same thing and you’ll probably end up taking the same approach to every challenge. That’s my opinion anyway, maybe this is why I never do that well at Diablo 2.
Alright entry number 1: Kung Fu and Fire (I working on shooting fireballs)
We had our annual Kung Fu tournament last Saturday. It was a lot of fun and I did fairly we’ll, I really like the team spirit that goes into running and judging a tournament. I managed to get earn a gold in weapons forms, point sparring, san shou and a silver in hand forms. I was really happy about the silver in hand forms, it’s usually my weakest area, and I performed Kempo, a less advanced form for black belts. So it must mean the 1000 reps of Kempo I’ve been working on paid off. I wasn’t very happy about my Kwan Dao performance, I ended up facing the wrong way again, which screwed up the ending of the form and I ended up missing five or six moves, some of the best ones too. I managed to make it look like I hadn’t totally blown it though and it was still good enough to get gold so I am happy about that. I have yet to do the whole form in public without screwing up though, so I’ll be looking for chances to do it in demos this summer. I want to do it perfect at least once!
I think it’s kind of funny that I got a silver in the category I thought I wasn’t going to place in and that I didn’t get a medal in what I thought was going to be my best category (continuous sparring). I tied Sifu Becket for black belt grand champion and it was decided we’d break the tie with a pool noodle fight. A pool noodle fight involves taking a short foam pool noodle and a shield and wailing on each other. It was hilarious and a good, light hearted way to end the tournament. I wonder how it looked to the spectators, seeing two black belts unload on each other with pool noodles (formerly only a kid’s competition). Alas my pool noodle duel skills weren’t up to snuff and I ended up dropping it once and losing the match. Congrats to the new champion Brandi Becket!
We went out for supper afterwards and had a good time; it was a fantastic day so far. After supper I got in my car, checked my phone and saw that I had five voicemails from my mom. I assumed it was about my sister moving, because I was supposed to help her after I was finished with the tournament, and I was running later than I said I would be. To my surprise the move was off, and the voicemails were my mom in hysterics because our idiot neighbor burned down half the trees on our acreage.
It turns out he was burning the grass on his lawn, lost control of the fire (I’m guessing it was just him and a garden hose) and the fire spread into the woods that separate our lots. This resulted in a wild fire and six fire engines coming out to fight the fire. They managed to stop the fire from spreading to the rest of our neighbors so almost all of the damage was done to our lot, and a bit on the lot of the guy who started the fire. In the end a strip of bush about 60x25 meters ended up burning down. This isn’t the first time we’ve had problems with this neighbor, he almost did the same thing a few years ago, while burning his grass again, the same woods caught fire but he managed to get it under control. Apparently he didn’t learn his lesson the first time.
So where there once was a thick, beautiful patch of trees in our back yard, there’s now a scorched disaster zone and a black lawn. My parents have looked into getting compensation for the damages and to my surprise they are completely screwed. The neighbor had a burn permit which I’ve now learned gives you the right to do whatever you want, almost as powerful as James Bond’s license to kill. For some reason the fire marshal didn’t give him a fine, she said the conditions of the permit were met. Apparently deciding to do the burning on a very windy day and not keeping it under control doesn’t matter so long as you have some paper work.
My parents called their insurance company to see if they had any options there, to see if their insurance company could go after the neighbor’s insurance company. They were told that home insurance doesn’t cover landscaping, they’d have to make a claim and pay a deductible, the neighbors insurance wouldn’t cover it, and then the insurance company thanked them for notifying them and told my parents that their insurance rates would now be going up. I’ve told my dad to look into getting a lawyer but he’s convinced it will just end up costing him more money and that we probably wouldn’t have a case since the neighbor wasn’t even fined. Sadly he’s probably right. My parents consulted an old friend who used to be the mayor of Parkland County and she recommended writing a letter to the local councilman. My parents got a couple people in the neighborhood to sign the letter and sent it in, no developments so far.
It looks like there’s not going to be any help for my parents. My dad could spend a couple hours every day for the next ten years trying to clean up the mess. He had to buy a new power saw to knock down some of the dangerous trees and try to clean up a bit. So it’s already cost my dad $300 for a chainsaw, higher insurance rates, a decrease in property value and countless hours of manual labor.
What really bugs me about the whole situation is that the neighbor doesn’t have to account for his irresponsibility. The systems we have in place to protect people from other peoples actions have failed. I see traffic marshals and photo radar everywhere, it seems there’s no shortage of people ready to hand out fines for damages you “could” cause but when somebody actually does destroy something, and victimize someone, it’s ok. I’m slowly becoming more and more disgruntled with our justice system. From personal experience, whenever myself or friends needed help from authorities it never came, but they never hesitate to hand out fines for minor issues.
I went to court for the first time to fight a traffic ticket I got. It was an altogether negative experience. I got a ticket for running a stop sign when I didn’t run a stop sign. It wasn’t even debatable as a rolling stop. The intersection is a scary intersection, it’s a stop sign to cross three lanes of busy traffic and there’s limited visibility due to cars parked by a bus lane. You would have to be suicidal to run this stop sign. I stopped for twice as long as I usually would because I was nervous about going through the intersection. I got through safely; well clear of any incoming cars, the only incoming car was a police cruiser just turning onto the street. I was completely surprised when he followed me for awhile and pulled me over. I wasn’t worried, I was confident I hadn’t done anything wrong but to my amazement I still got a ticket.
I took pictures of the intersection; I thought the officer had simply mistaken the position of the stop sign because you can’t physically see the stop sign from where he was. I represented myself in court and had great pictures to show that the stop sign isn’t even visible from where the officer was and therefore there’s no way he could have seen me at the stop sign, he only would have been able to see me once I’d already entered the intersection. I lost the case anyway and now it’s going to cost me a fortune in insurance. I left the courtroom, after having to wait 2.5 hours for my turn, to find the meter I parked at expired 10 minutes earlier and I now had a parking ticket. Damn you irony! Sometimes it’s therapeutic to rant.
