Ticking Away the Moments That Make Up a Dull Day

Typical 6 Month Mastery Plan = 2 hours practice/week = 52 hours total practice.

Therefore if you start practicing non-stop at 6am Monday morning, all the practice you will be applying to your plan will be finished by 10am Wednesday morning. If you apply the same plan for a year, your non-stop practice plan will be complete by Friday at 2pm.

Bottom line, your mastery plan should not be about deadlines. A good plan is about sustainable structure. After all the value is in the journey, not the destination, and mastery is a process, not a program.

“Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines” - Roger Waters (b. 1943)

Teaching

Over the past few months it has been a challenge for me to spend the amount of time that I would like teaching classes. Life, no matter how well planned, has a way of throwing challenges in my path that cannot be ignored. The great thing about that is that for every challenge I face, multiple opportunities are created.

Being unable to teach as much as I would like has allowed me to view my classes from another perspective. Rather than being immersed in the class and experiencing the “forest for the trees” perspective, I have been watching the classes passively and evaluating the efficacy of the curriculum and the way it is taught. What I noticed this week is that there is still a tendency for instructors to teach the curriculum and forget to teach the students. The difference in the two approaches is the difference between teaching and showing. Showing is easy, teaching is hard. Showing is perspective and empathy independent, teaching is completely dependent upon both.

As Silent River Kung Fu continues to develop and improve its curriculum, it is imperative that I properly train my black belts to become master teachers whose methods serve the students who represent the future of the organization and the future of the art.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ― William Arthur Ward (1921 - 1994)

Structure

The past couple of weeks have presented a challenge to the structure that has been my life for the past few years. Dedicating a couple of hours a day to my training while taking care of my career, school, and family is only possible because I have found a rhythm and consistent structure that allows me to accomplish everything I want to accomplish without sacrifice. Crisis come and crisis go but with them comes a disruption that derails everything until a new rhythm can be established.

Structure - the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex. While my life is quite simple, my ability to accomplish everything I want to accomplish requires significant effort, focus, and discipline. Consistent structure takes the complexity out of my day and gives me the time I need to nurture my relationships and achieve my goals.

“ The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” - Mike Murdock (b. 1946)

Logic and Compassion

I have seen a huge increase in the amount of hate and uninformed propaganda floating around the internet this week. I don’t know if it is because Donald Trump has successfully framed hate mongering as speaking your mind or if we have reached the end of an era where people still remember why so many ended up dying in the second world war. Nationalism was not good for the world in the 1930s and I don’t think it is good for the world today. We need more compassion, not less. Our world is smaller than ever. Without tolerance and empathy, there are going to be a lot of people going through their lives angry and unhappy.

“Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.” - Thorstein Veblen (1857 - 1929)