Happy 71st Birthday Chuck Norris!
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Take Care of Yourself
I was in an airport waiting with a colleague a little while back. We started talking about exercise.
He could not believe how much I worked out and trained.
He said to me, “been there, done that”. He was a police officer for ten years and he kept himself in shape back then. He said he seen no point in putting that kind of pressure on himself now.
“For what”, he said, “why?“
He turned to me and said “you and I are both going to die. It doesn’t matter how much you exercise.”
“sure,” I said back. “but who said I wanted to live forever? Its not about living longer, its about living better.”
It so happened we had a couple of hours to wait for the airplane, thanks to the Winnipeg weather, so we had a good chat about quality of life.
I wont go into the long version but essentially, for me it works like this…
Exercising is the foundation. You keep your heart and lungs in shape with cardio work and you keep your muscles in shape with strength training. This doesn’t mean you need a gym membership, how you choose to accomplish cardio and strength is a personal choice with lots of ways to achieve this.
Next my martial arts training sit on top of my basic physical fitness. Practicing, analyzing and looking for ways to improve. From there I expand out to the mental and spiritual challenges that are part of a well-rounded martial arts student. This flows or should flow into your everyday way of living.
The basics of exercising and training give me the discipline mechanism to make other things in my life happen. Keeping yourself in shape and in training keeps the stress levels balanced and the self-confidence and self esteem in tact.
My thoughts, you cannot separate the body from the mind and heart. They all need to be nourished and maintained.
If you take care of yourself you can look forward and expand outside of yourself, this affords you the capacity to take care of others.
Anyways, that was my lecture to my colleague and its also the lecture I give to myself on a regular basis when I ask
“why am I doing this?”
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
He could not believe how much I worked out and trained.
He said to me, “been there, done that”. He was a police officer for ten years and he kept himself in shape back then. He said he seen no point in putting that kind of pressure on himself now.
“For what”, he said, “why?“
He turned to me and said “you and I are both going to die. It doesn’t matter how much you exercise.”
“sure,” I said back. “but who said I wanted to live forever? Its not about living longer, its about living better.”
It so happened we had a couple of hours to wait for the airplane, thanks to the Winnipeg weather, so we had a good chat about quality of life.
I wont go into the long version but essentially, for me it works like this…
Exercising is the foundation. You keep your heart and lungs in shape with cardio work and you keep your muscles in shape with strength training. This doesn’t mean you need a gym membership, how you choose to accomplish cardio and strength is a personal choice with lots of ways to achieve this.
Next my martial arts training sit on top of my basic physical fitness. Practicing, analyzing and looking for ways to improve. From there I expand out to the mental and spiritual challenges that are part of a well-rounded martial arts student. This flows or should flow into your everyday way of living.
The basics of exercising and training give me the discipline mechanism to make other things in my life happen. Keeping yourself in shape and in training keeps the stress levels balanced and the self-confidence and self esteem in tact.
My thoughts, you cannot separate the body from the mind and heart. They all need to be nourished and maintained.
If you take care of yourself you can look forward and expand outside of yourself, this affords you the capacity to take care of others.
Anyways, that was my lecture to my colleague and its also the lecture I give to myself on a regular basis when I ask
“why am I doing this?”
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Kill the Ego
We discussed etiquette in class and I think it became apparent to everyone there is an underlying theme.
Humility is a trait that is not very apparent in our daily lives. Sometimes you have to look really hard for it , sometimes you forget your own need for humility.
Through basic traditional etiquette the concept of humility is reinforced during our time in class, but why?
If you kill the Ego and truly feel the humility you become a true student. One who is open minded, patient and willing to learn. You become a canvas, those around you want to teach and guide you and those around you want to work and train with you.
Then you realize how you have increased your possibilities tenfold.
Humility makes you strong.
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
Humility is a trait that is not very apparent in our daily lives. Sometimes you have to look really hard for it , sometimes you forget your own need for humility.
Through basic traditional etiquette the concept of humility is reinforced during our time in class, but why?
If you kill the Ego and truly feel the humility you become a true student. One who is open minded, patient and willing to learn. You become a canvas, those around you want to teach and guide you and those around you want to work and train with you.
Then you realize how you have increased your possibilities tenfold.
Humility makes you strong.
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
Monday, February 7, 2011
Dont forget the Feet
I know, for myself, I am usually paying attention to sore muscles in my arms, legs and back and try and make massages a regular practice for preventative maintenance. Feet seem to always get forgotten.
We should approach healthy muscles from the ground up. All our weight is supported by our feet and we rely on them for power and stability in our applications and further, if you run on a regular basis they take an additional pounding.
Here's a tip that’s easy to do and feels good.
Find yourself a tennis ball or something of the same size and firmness. While your sitting in a chair roll it underneath your foot to loosen up and relieve the tension in all areas including the toes. Pretty simple but if you don’t keep the tennis ball handy you never remember to do it until your feet start to feel sore.
Once again, keeping proactive about your health is far better than reactive. It takes time and planning but worth it when tired muscles are your only problem not major injuries.
We should approach healthy muscles from the ground up. All our weight is supported by our feet and we rely on them for power and stability in our applications and further, if you run on a regular basis they take an additional pounding.
Here's a tip that’s easy to do and feels good.
Find yourself a tennis ball or something of the same size and firmness. While your sitting in a chair roll it underneath your foot to loosen up and relieve the tension in all areas including the toes. Pretty simple but if you don’t keep the tennis ball handy you never remember to do it until your feet start to feel sore.
Once again, keeping proactive about your health is far better than reactive. It takes time and planning but worth it when tired muscles are your only problem not major injuries.
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Canada
Friday, January 28, 2011
Focus
Whats the opposite of focus? unfocus? the anti-focus, focuslessness?
For me, its distraction.
Distraction appears to be something around you that manipulates your attention, even if its only a fraction of your attention, its enough that I have not put 100% of my thoughts into what I am doing.
I used to think distraction was in the form of outside influences, noise, people, unfamiliar settings, etc. Truth is, its what goes on inside our heads…this is the pure distraction.
If I have the ability to tune out external activity this is one level of focus. The next level is to turn off other thoughts within my mind and give full attention to what it is I am dealing with.
Sounds simple, but this is probably the most difficult skill I have ever tried to master.
We as a society push for, and admire, the gift of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is a great skill so long as each task is still accomplished with the quality it deserves. When our minds become accustomed to trying to accomplish more than one thing at a time it becomes difficult to turn other thoughts off and only deal with one thought.
Even as I write this blog, I have had to delete some sentences because I start running off into another topic that leads from one thought to the next and ends up having nothing to do with my point.
So, for me, my challenge is keeping my mind on the task at hand. I cannot control the external distractions but I have the ability to control or at least work on the skill of controlling the internal distractions.
For me, its distraction.
Distraction appears to be something around you that manipulates your attention, even if its only a fraction of your attention, its enough that I have not put 100% of my thoughts into what I am doing.
I used to think distraction was in the form of outside influences, noise, people, unfamiliar settings, etc. Truth is, its what goes on inside our heads…this is the pure distraction.
If I have the ability to tune out external activity this is one level of focus. The next level is to turn off other thoughts within my mind and give full attention to what it is I am dealing with.
Sounds simple, but this is probably the most difficult skill I have ever tried to master.
We as a society push for, and admire, the gift of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is a great skill so long as each task is still accomplished with the quality it deserves. When our minds become accustomed to trying to accomplish more than one thing at a time it becomes difficult to turn other thoughts off and only deal with one thought.
Even as I write this blog, I have had to delete some sentences because I start running off into another topic that leads from one thought to the next and ends up having nothing to do with my point.
So, for me, my challenge is keeping my mind on the task at hand. I cannot control the external distractions but I have the ability to control or at least work on the skill of controlling the internal distractions.
Internal distrations, better known as a busy and wandering mind.
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canad
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Training Smart
Structure is great but be careful of becoming too caught up in the structure that your workouts and practices either become identical or have no room for change to address something you would like to improve on or discovered you need improvement on.
It is easy to get into the “going through the motions “ to satisfy a structured plan.
For example I need to complete 100 push ups, run 2 km, 50 round house kicks and 4 forms.
If the focus is to complete your structured training(get through the hour) you can easily get lost in the numbers.
Ask yourself why you want to complete your training.
Is there something in the form that I am not sure about or doesn’t feel right? Should I slow down a feel what is happening when I train. Why run 2 km? Should I time myself when I run to see if I am progressing with my cardio? What muscles make the push up happen?
Was my first roundhouse as strong as my last one, what about the other leg?
Etc, etc.
Put purpose in your training so its not just about accumulating.
I only say this because for years, long before kung fu, I would go to the gym and workout and not really know what I did. I put hours on treadmills and barbells but cant really tell you what happened while I was there. I was a master of mindless training.
Even a simple exercise in the gym should be something you are engaged with., if I would have engaged myself with a goal and a purpose I could have trained with more efficient results back then.
The point is, don’t turn off the brain just because you went down for pushups or start hitting the bag. This is when you need full focus and listen to what your body is telling you so you can look for ways to improve, especially over a shorter period of time.
Focus, measuring improvement and challenging yourself will bring you to another level with the most efficiency.
So train hard but train smart…and don’t forget about the recovery time!
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
It is easy to get into the “going through the motions “ to satisfy a structured plan.
For example I need to complete 100 push ups, run 2 km, 50 round house kicks and 4 forms.
If the focus is to complete your structured training(get through the hour) you can easily get lost in the numbers.
Ask yourself why you want to complete your training.
Is there something in the form that I am not sure about or doesn’t feel right? Should I slow down a feel what is happening when I train. Why run 2 km? Should I time myself when I run to see if I am progressing with my cardio? What muscles make the push up happen?
Was my first roundhouse as strong as my last one, what about the other leg?
Etc, etc.
Put purpose in your training so its not just about accumulating.
I only say this because for years, long before kung fu, I would go to the gym and workout and not really know what I did. I put hours on treadmills and barbells but cant really tell you what happened while I was there. I was a master of mindless training.
Even a simple exercise in the gym should be something you are engaged with., if I would have engaged myself with a goal and a purpose I could have trained with more efficient results back then.
The point is, don’t turn off the brain just because you went down for pushups or start hitting the bag. This is when you need full focus and listen to what your body is telling you so you can look for ways to improve, especially over a shorter period of time.
Focus, measuring improvement and challenging yourself will bring you to another level with the most efficiency.
So train hard but train smart…and don’t forget about the recovery time!
JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
the goal of Quality
It seems the measure of success has shifted or maybe we have added another criteria to the definition of success.
Success in our society (North America) is measured by money and power, from what I see, we also measure our success by how busy we are.
It starts by trying to accomplish as much as you can, keeping yourself moving from one task to the next. We even start our children down this busy schedule plan by bringing them from one activity to the next.( Soccer, swimming music lessons,hockey ).I think we have been duped into believing more must be better.
If I am really busy, my family is busy every night, we have commitments every weekend then we must be accomplishing something , I must be doing the right thing??
Maybe, but I feel at some point we start losing the battle,our ability to put quality into everything we do starts to diminish. It is very easy for my life to become a numbers game. A giant “to do” list. Full of deadlines and tasks and too many goals. Even if my goals are with the right intent to better my world, my family, my community, I feel too much can have the opposite effect.
I start to compromise the quality that goes into each goal, task, word and thought. Time is not flexible, I cannot change time. I can only change what is a priority in my life and if I want the most out of my priorities I need to assess the amount of time each priority requires to be absolute in my efforts. If being a person of substance and depth is a priority for myself everything I do must have quality to it. No more ridiculous lists. I have to change them into realistic, obtainable priorities, some of which will take a lifetime to see through but I think I am OK with that.
I was reading an article, the author( Leo Babauta) put forward a thought which made me stop and think. He wrote something to this effect “…what if we truly believed our lives were perfect, no need to lose weight, no need for bigger muscles, no need to run faster, look prettier, no need for a bigger house, car, no need for more stuff and merchandise…life was perfect. If we could for a moment enjoy what we were and what we had the stress of trying to do more would disappear, we could just enjoy the “right now” and peace would at last be ours. We could spend more time helping others instead of trying to make ourselves better. If we decided to accomplish something more it would only be a bonus to our already perfect lives…we were good enough right now…”
Interesting, the author was trying to put forward the concept of quality in your life and the ability to enjoy the present as opposed to always focusing on what you have to do next. I think a person needs to stop living to serve the goals but have the goals serve the person.
JC Msterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
Success in our society (North America) is measured by money and power, from what I see, we also measure our success by how busy we are.
It starts by trying to accomplish as much as you can, keeping yourself moving from one task to the next. We even start our children down this busy schedule plan by bringing them from one activity to the next.( Soccer, swimming music lessons,hockey ).I think we have been duped into believing more must be better.
If I am really busy, my family is busy every night, we have commitments every weekend then we must be accomplishing something , I must be doing the right thing??
Maybe, but I feel at some point we start losing the battle,our ability to put quality into everything we do starts to diminish. It is very easy for my life to become a numbers game. A giant “to do” list. Full of deadlines and tasks and too many goals. Even if my goals are with the right intent to better my world, my family, my community, I feel too much can have the opposite effect.
I start to compromise the quality that goes into each goal, task, word and thought. Time is not flexible, I cannot change time. I can only change what is a priority in my life and if I want the most out of my priorities I need to assess the amount of time each priority requires to be absolute in my efforts. If being a person of substance and depth is a priority for myself everything I do must have quality to it. No more ridiculous lists. I have to change them into realistic, obtainable priorities, some of which will take a lifetime to see through but I think I am OK with that.
I was reading an article, the author( Leo Babauta) put forward a thought which made me stop and think. He wrote something to this effect “…what if we truly believed our lives were perfect, no need to lose weight, no need for bigger muscles, no need to run faster, look prettier, no need for a bigger house, car, no need for more stuff and merchandise…life was perfect. If we could for a moment enjoy what we were and what we had the stress of trying to do more would disappear, we could just enjoy the “right now” and peace would at last be ours. We could spend more time helping others instead of trying to make ourselves better. If we decided to accomplish something more it would only be a bonus to our already perfect lives…we were good enough right now…”
Interesting, the author was trying to put forward the concept of quality in your life and the ability to enjoy the present as opposed to always focusing on what you have to do next. I think a person needs to stop living to serve the goals but have the goals serve the person.
JC Msterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada
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