My Inner Demons are Screaming

     I'm a mixed bag of emotions right now. We just went through our monthly meeting in the I Ho Chuan and I'm still processing most of it as I'm typing. Coming out of the kwoon with Sifu Brinker going on for almost 40 minutes straight about his experiences of having done kung fu over the years, how he has learned so much over the years and that if he knew this when he was a teen he'd be unstoppable, only to think that same thought 10 years later with the same motivation as back then. He talks about having tried to channel what he's learned into his students, into me, so that I would have that same knowledge he knows now going forward but instead we get to this point and he says one thing; "You're an Idiot!"

    ...AND HE'S FLIPPING RIGHT!

    GOD, I think back to the last few years of my life and it can go two ways, I've learned a lot /  I could have done more. Most often it's the latter that comes to mind but they are both correct in their own way. When covid hit there came a point with zoom that suddenly had me going to class consistently nearly every time, there was no more sick days, no more "I'm not feeling it" days, at the bare minimum I would be at my desk with my camera off still engaged with the class when I felt that I couldn't perform. Still learning, still improving, sometimes slowly but still putting one foot in front of the other in some way and my engagement was at the highest it had ever been, and at the time I was contempt with it because that really WAS the most engaged I had EVER BEEN, AND COMPARED TO WHAT I AM DOING NOW THAT WAS NOTHING!

    The other side of the coin shows that 90% of the things I've been told had probably just bounced off my thick skull over the past 12 years and I'm sitting here at 2nd degree brown belt! Had I payed more attention and actually done something, ANYTHING with the majority of those lessons over the years I might have been a second degree BLACK (Wishful thinking probably, I know, but you get the picture). It's me going back and realizing that my instructors have been teaching me these lessons for years, and I walk away remembering the last 5 sentences they said that day blissfully unaware that they just threw a brick at my face! That brick is their years of knowledge and expertise that they are trying to convey, and instead of catching it and analyzing it, it hit me in the face, I tell my instructor "Yes Sifu" leave the brick on the floor and walk away with the rubble still lodged in my teeth.

    I feel the best way to put into perspective how my motivation surges is as follows: I have 2 Demons inside of me, the Motivation Demon, and the Procrastination Demon. The Motivation Demon is loud, he screams a lot, and he's the guy on my shoulder telling me I can improve, I can do better, I should be doing something more productive! He's the cool dude that makes me feel good about myself, and drives me to be a better me. Then, at one point or another, the Procrastination Demon comes along, takes this cool dude to the back and tells him to sit down, then proceeds to tie him down and duct tape his mouth shut so I can't hear him anymore. He comes up and tells me "Later...", "Tomorrow...", "Maybe next week...". Man I hate that guy, But it's nights like this that I can get rid of him, at least for a while. I can kick the Procrastination Demon out of the way, untie the Motivation Demon, and light his chair on fire. That's what nights like this does to me, it lights that fire, now I need to keep the coals burning. I need to keep pushing myself, find that arbitrary limit I've set for myself and shatter it, keep going till I can't move one night, and then do 5 more pushups just cuz! But I need that fire to keep going, and I never know when they'll go out.

    Moral of the story is I shouldn't be where I am right now ever again, because I need to push myself to be better than that. I'm the stupidest I'll ever be in this very moment, but the only way to go is forward. PSA to anyone reading this; If I haven't blogged in over a week you have my full permission to backhand me across the face and tell me to get my life together, because if I'm not blogging im not training, and if I'm not training then the Procrastination Demon is back. Also I promise to not use as many caps in the future (...probably).