The Cure for Horse Stance

I was complaining about horse stance on January 4th. The first Kung Fu day of the new year. My Sifu said, "I hear you complaining about horse stance, but all that tells me is that you need to do more horse stance." How much of that is true in my life? I complain about what I'm going through. I'm never focused outside of me and where I am and what I'm doing (or NOT doing). I never am looking at the future. The future benefits or goals of where I am today and where I want to be going. This is true in my life. Both physically and spiritually. Yes. We must focus on what we are doing now. But if what I am doing now has no eternal benefit, why am I doing it? In sanskrit there is a word, Anarthas. It is from two words, "Artha" meaning "of value" and "An" meaning "not". So in my christian background "besetting sins" are a problem but in the Vedic tradition, "besetting sins" are of "no value". This sift in understanding makes leaving "besetting sins" behind easier because I am spending more time doing things of eternal value and future benefit and, gradually, less time and "taste" for those things, habits, etc, that are of no value to my lasting nature and future. Is "horse stance" of value? I guess it depends on the situation. To Sifu it is of value. If I'm in a physical fight it is of value. If I'm in a spiritual fight, the tenseness of the holding of a stance or a position. The pause. The breath before the next action when tempted. This "stance" can be just the thing to let the temptation pass and lead to that one small block, stop or hit or punch that can lead to one small step forward to the victory of leaving my old self and the old me behind and moving into my new future. Or not. This could all be crap that I'm dreaming up. But I like how this horse stance works. More Horse Stance. Less Complaining. Have a Happy New Year Everyone!

Off Day Stuff.

So I practiced, practiced, practiced yesterday. I practiced my punches. I got a one hour break for lunch yesterday and went to a tennis/soccer park in Newberry. I was going to go out and practice my stances but I didn't want to embarrass my Sifu. So I practiced my punches in the cab of my work truck. If I slide the seat back far enough, when I punch, my fist goes through the steering wheel without too much "aiming". The straight punch was fine but I did catch my thumb with the vertical punch a couple of times. I can block with my non punching hand and punch at the same time. It took a lot of concentration and focus. I have to do it "karate style" however. I haven't got the "flowing" thing down yet but with a steering wheel that "flowing" probably wouldn't have happened regardless. "Sigh". It's funny looking at the people doing sideways glances of me "punching" my steering wheel that were passing by in the park. I can't imagine what I looked like to them. The cops didn't show up so I couldn't have appeared too deranged. Working out in the cab of a truck isn't the best option. I did work on clenching and relaxing the "core" muscles but I certainly didn't work up a sweat at any point yesterday. My wife has surgury today. In a COVID world that means I will sit in my car waiting for the all clear to come and get her when she is all done. I've always been with her and this just makes me more anxious. I know it's for everyones safety. I just want to be with her in the hospital. It's a minor procedure that has happened before (this will be her 5th and final surgery) but I'm still nervous. I downloaded the movie The Grandmaster to keep me distracted. We do have a lot of streaming services we subscribe to but I wasn't able to find it so I paid $10 and bought it. Ip Man was a fascinating person. Maybe I will practice my stances later today. Have a good day everyone!

My third day but, in Kung Fu time, it was only day 2.

16 December 2020 I finally met Sifu today. He is very open and engaging. He was working 3 groups. 1 large intermediate to advanced group (about 8), 1 lady learning Qi-Gon and the newbie group of One! So we redid the stances. He checked my positions, my hips get in my way and my feet needed to be repositioned a little but the stances were much easier today and holding them was easier as well! Then I did 8 "up and back" with the stances. I watched him work with the intermediate students. Then I remembered the 1000 staff hits that I only did 100 of on my Day Zero back on the 9th. So I grabbed the heavily padded staff and threaded it through the angled hole behind your back that you get when your fists are at your waist and did the hip rotation, hit the punching bag with the ends of the staff 600 times. Sifu came and started me on two of the close punches. In Kung Fu you have many strike options, close punching is for 2 to 2 1/2 feet away. There are 6 different close punches. We worked on straight and vertical punches which refer to your hand position at the striking point. The really hard thing for me to learn is the whirling motion. At the time that one hand is striking, your non striking hand is in a blocking position by your chest. When someone who is trained is doing this, they move, water-like, the striking hand forward and the non striking hand blocking then both hands change position, like a waltz and the blocking hand now strikes and the striking hand now blocks. He made it look so simple and easy. I'm like rubbing my belly and patting my head at the same time trying to get the rhythm for 250 straight punches and 250 vertical punches in before the end of class. To Sifu and Simu's credit they are available until closing but I'm the one with the time constraint. I really am glad I went tonight. Christmas is coming so my dojo work is finished until January 2021 so I will practice, practice, practice and hope to become more fluid like and less three stooges like in the next few weeks. Everyone Have a Happy Holiday. May your Zoom gatherings be glitch free. May your food be real. May your family and friends continue to be so! See you on the other side!!

Kung Fu start up.

On December 9, 2020 I did my first Kung Fu class. The Simu (female instructor - say "See Moo") asked many questions that didn't make sense at the time. The first question was, "Do you want to start on Day 0 or did you want to start on Day 1?" I asked what the difference was and she said that Day 1 is the start of Kung Fu training. So I said, "Day 0 please." Today, December 15, 2020 was Day 1 of Kung Fu training. I'm certain that the monks that created this martial art are turning over in the graves and are truly dissapointed in the physical state this 53 year old body is in. With intense struggle and failure I did finish Day 1. This is the learning of the stances day. I know nothing of any martial art training. I told Simu on my first day that my mind is a blank slate and to write on it. She did today. I have run 3 marathons. Hiked mountains. Dealt with what I thought was pain before but this was very different. Holding low and high stances for 5 minutes each doesn't sound hard but until you try it, you have no idea. While holding each stance I am being given a run down of the how and whys of this stance. I kept breaking, falling, losing balance. Just making a mess of it. She kept me going. Gave pointers on holding, tilting pelvis, imagine your foot is a sandbag. She truly gave a lot of help to distract me from my pain and uncomfortableness. To try and help me hold each stance. My left knee injury was not helping. I over extended my knee joint a few months back. When we did the stances "backwards" and the weight was shifted to the right leg the positions became way easier to hold and maintain. We covered 7 stances: Horse, Front Cross, Crane, Arch, Cat, Rear Cross, and Horse again. Then we did the stances front and back seven times. Simu then taught the greeting and awaiting instruction motions and positions. Some "spin blocks" for inside and outside attacks with my arms in horse stance. I really need to strengthen up. I believe this will help my recovery in my legs. This balanced training and working out I hope will help me get better. Running in this body of mine is not the best thing. Here's hoping to a better 2021. Good night COVID!!

Hey! With all that has been going on I thought a quick update would be in order! I am NOT doing a half Iron distance Tri this year, 2013. I will be running the Savannah Rock and Roll Marathon with my brother, Eric Dunn! I AM volunteering at the Ironman Panama City, Florida triathlon in October this year so I can get a slot in the 2014 Ironman. I've registered for the marathon and have submitted the volunteer forms so this year is all set. I'm thinking of working on a diabetes and exercise booklet/class something or other to help others. I think it will be a good direction for me. We moved to Florida at the start of May so we are changing a lot of things in our lives, maybe this will be for the best!?! Only time will tell. Best Wishes to you all!!!

So it has been awhile since I've posted anything. I've been training for triathlons and that does seem to take quite a bit of time. I also have been mulling over alot of different things of late. I'm in the triathlon off season so I have more time now. I am building my base and preparing for another training season starting in May. In October of 2013 I will have completed one Half Ironman Triathlon and 14 days after that I will be running a Marathon with my brother to help him get that off his bucket list. In Novermber of 2013 I will try and register for Ironman Florida in 2014. This will be an expensive year for me! I also started a new page on Facebook which will be taking up the rest of my "free" time. ThingsMyDoctorDidntTellMeAboutMyDiabetes on Facebook is an advice, tips, motivation page that I am setting up. I'm hoping to help diabetics directly with what to do to get their lives back under control and live their lives again! I will be extremely direct and I will NOT pull punches so it may not work but this soft voiced non offensive crap does not work for me with my diabetes. I am not a doctor but I do have life experience so I think I can help others with the day to day stuff. My doctor told me he has had to let patients go because if they are not compliant with his treatment then he is open to lawsuits if the patient feels that their own lack of follow through on his treatment plan make their future complications his fault! I believe that coaching is what we all need at some point in our lives. Some one who has been on that same road before to help us get up and get going in a better direction, in some cases, any direction. It's the starting that is the hardest part. Breaking things down into little steps and then helping others begin....awesome. Anyways, it's past midnight on a work night so I will sign off for now! See you out on the course!

So I completed my first triathlon on the 14th of October. The swim was cancelled due to very bad surf conditions (over 7 feet) and rip currents. So it became a Duathlon instead. We stood in the rain for a half hour before the start of the race. The winds we over 20 mph coming into shore so that meant that the bike back to the transition area would be right into a vicious head wind (my bike was blown side to side by the wind!). Yup we started very wet and lots of sand and dirt covered us at the end of the bicycle portion. The weather started to improve shortly after we started and it turned out ok after all. I road my best bike ever and my run was just too slow by about a minute and a half but I went too fast on the bike! I finished 64th overall, 6th in my division, with a time of 1:20:52. If we had the swim I would have finished under my goal time of 2 hours! The winner finished in just under 58 minutes to put my performance in perspective. All in all it was a great event. You can’t control the weather but everything else was really good. I can’t wait till next year to do a full triathlon in the spring and next October to do a half ironman triathlon in Florida.