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Happy New Year everybody!!! I'm a little late for the new calendar year, but lunar new year is still coming up! As per the norm, I'm looking forward to 2015 being a year of increased practice. Last year had its issues, but it also had a lot of food for thought; there was plenty to reflect upon. Hopefully I've digested it well enough and will put it to good use this year. The family is well and I feel like I'm getting the hang of this parenting thing more and more. My two sons are growing like weeds and show a curiosity for the world around them that is both fun and frightening. Fun because of the childlike wonder, but frightening because my oldest is now old enough to start asking deeper questions and make more of his own connections. One of our favorite past-times these days is to watch The Joy of Painting, and my oldest son has had a running commentary for a while now whenever he paints his own happy little mountains, clouds and trees.
This year's goals are to get the garden and garage in shape and to work on my consistency of training on the mat. A friend from high school teaches Wing Chun and lost his training space so in the interest of helping someone continue their passion I've agreed to open up my garage to him. It's a symbiotic sharing of space because while it helps him, it also is helping me to clean out the clutter in there, and it also will provide a weekly bit of exercise. He's a cool guy who's got a lot of interesting experiences and it's been a lot of fun the couple times so far that we've shared tea and worked together to get things lined up. I'm looking forward to supplementing my ongoing study of self and am hopeful that it will add to my ability to organize myself with regard to getting up to the dojo more. His emphasis is on the healthful aspects of training and it feels like a good fit to me.
As a 15 year 5th kyu, I think it (still) might be time to work on taking the next step toward that "first step." That's been the plan for a while now, but perhaps this will be the year that I make real progress. Of course only time will tell. I've made a suburito that has been fun but difficult to practice with. It's a bit too heavy for me, but I really enjoy searching for relaxed movement with it, and switching to my normal bokuto takes on a whole new feeling afterward. I still do a little practice every day, whether it's just some ibuki undo, or kohotento, or whatever strikes my fancy, but as with times before, this year I would like to see myself create a concrete regimen. Going with the flow has never felt particularly difficult for me and, as I've said before, it's time I worked more on shaping that flow.
As always, again, time will tell.
Gambarimashyo!
Take care,
Matt
01-16-2015 10:32 AM 
