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Had good classes on Friday. Saw an increase in my numbers for the bag work. I've been working on keeping control of my breathing and quieting my mind. My numbers are still low and I have a lot of work ahead of me to get them up. 

My second class I added onto my stick form I am creating so it is coming along slowly. It is challenging working on stick in my apartment without breaking to much stuff or scaring my cat. If it wasn't for the extra time in the kwoon I would probably have to practice in the snow.

it's been a long week

A bit late on this post but it has been a really long week. Starting on Tuesday Night I waited in the hospital with Chelsey as her grandma passed away. The Funeral was on Saturday so there was lots of stuff that needed to be done, Me and Chels spent the week scanning hundreds of photos and putting together a slideshow which was really cool seeing how appreciated it was by the family. It's inspiring to see how much a family pulls together in times of need and how many little acts of kindness they do for each other without thinking about it. Even being aware of what I was doing for people I still probably missed a whole bunch of that I could count. Anyways now that it is Sunday the cold I had been fighting off all week has hit me like a ton of bricks so it is time to rest.

not to good of a week for numbers

Not much to report this week. It's been a not so good week for my numbers with Chelsey being down and me not going to the extra classes. I've really come to depend on the Monday/Wednesday classes for that burst of extra training and as a place to do my forms. I finally got a starting point with my stick form that I am working on in Friday's class, so now I have something to build off of.

Craig Janzen
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Silent River Kung Fu

Working hard

This past month has been the hardest I have worked on Kung Fu probably ever. Aside from being sick or the odd commitment I have been at the kwoon 4-5 times a week as well as training at home. Last sihing class I learned that I am going to not only have to train harder but also destroy the limits that I arbitrarily set up for what I am able to push my body into doing. Also on friday I really started playing with the weapon I plan on working with this year, the stick. I know have a bruise the size of my palm on my right arm.  So far for the first month I am into a pretty good routine where I am doing alright with my numbers and logging some serious training hours.

Craig Janzen
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Silent River Kung Fu

pushing further

Had a great day today snowboarding. It was good weather, I was with good people, and I achieved a personal goal while riding today. It took all day and my legs are burning still but I successfully landed a 360 off a kicker and it was a clean landing too. All day I practiced getting the mechanics of the spin down by popping 3's off of the banked walls, which for me is a whole lot easier to do because of the momentum. As well I ran through the trick in my mind picturing exactly how to set up and spin. After several failed attempts and many trips sliding down the mountain in a cloud of powder I finally just did it.

Landing this is no different then what is needed to achieve any of my other goals. Determination, perseverance, and the drive to go further and be better then I was the day before. is an attitude that I have carried throughout my life.

Craig Janzen
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Silent River Kung Fu

Back to the lab again

I've been spending a lot of time back in the white/yellow belt class as of late. I car pool with a friend of mine who recently started kung fu and I help out in class while I am there often teaching small groups of students. I've come to realize something from this and that is that I have forgotten a lot of stuff since that class. Not going to the beginner classes has been an opportunity to keep up on my basics that I had been missing out on for a long time. As well attending I had been missing out on opportunities to work on teaching and leadership skills.

Side note the Chinese New Years celebration is coming up with weekend and I have taken on filming it this year which I am pretty excited for.

Living in cars

Since the start of the new year I have put on a total of 2341.6 km on my car. Needless to say I feel like I have been living in my car lately. Aside from work everything I need to get to is a minimum round trip of about 100km. Fortunately even though I am car bound I still can achieve a lot while commuting by being creative. I can go over forms in my mind as well as work on learning mandarin. Though I wish I didn't have to spend so much of time in the car I have been forced to make it work for my life.