Endurance

07 Jul 2016 5 Comments

by TheRestlessRaven in day to day, doubts, energy, focus, intention, life, listening, Mindfullness, moving forward, practice, small victories, tai chi, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

Distraction comes in many forms.

For me today, it was in the form of chickens, hunger and sheep.

The last week I have been spending some time away for the city and traveling up north to some of the beautiful country that Washington and Oregon has to offer. I find myself today, at my parents farm.

A lovely get away surrounded by nature and nestled nicely in the bottom of a valley which blocks out all noise except for the wind in the trees, the birds chirping, 250 chickens clucking, three roosters crowing and the sheep calling frantically for their morning meal.

It is in the middle of all this, that I find myself practicing.

At first, I did 2 of the 24 form to wake myself up. The first one slightly mentally cloudy, directing the movement mostly from my head but near the end beginning to feel my body wake up.

The second one, considerably slower and more mindful. More focused on where my eye placement was and consciously sinking deeper while moving with more synchronization of the upper and lower half.

Then on to the 83, starting out strong with mental intention and eyes focusing properly until, three things happened… My stomach growled, the chickens kicked up their activity 5 fold and the sheep suddenly sounded as if they had not been fed in weeks.

2 or three of them had broken out of the fence and were behind me getting startled and clucking incessantly.

My concentration broken, I started to get sloppy, but caught myself and started over. Forcing myself to slow down and sink in to the movement each time I restart.

Starting, stopping and going backwards I was able to finally make it to the end. My mind constantly searching for some excuse not to continue by latching on to the sounds and distractions teaming around me, hunger, chickens and sheep…Oh My.

This is day three since I decided to switch things up in practice by doing three full forms a day and my lesson is that I need more practice.

My mental focus needs to build its endurance back up to what it was in order to get my clarity during the form each day. Still trying to figure out if I should eat before or after practice and how much that affects my mental focus as well.

Maybe tomorrow I will eat a larger snack, or grill up a chicken….

Chickens

 

Dreaming Of Chen Village

23 Jun 2016 1 Comment

by TheRestlessRaven in focus, healing, hold your space, meditation, Mindfullness, moving forward, practice, tai chi, vacation Tags: , , , , , ,

I just watched a documentary on Chen Village the other day. The village in China that is largely thought to be the birthplace of Tai Chi.

The video went through some of their training techniques and the amount of time they spend practicing, it made me super jealous.

They train in three sessions a day up to 3 or 4 hours each, morning, afternoon and night. How great would that be! I am lucky if I get to practice twice a day for half an hour let alone 4 hours.

I lack the discipline and focus to get myself to practice that much. Often, I just lead myself to complete and utter distraction after an hour and end up trailing off into thoughts of work, life, or what I want to eat.

It got me thinking though, what if I went over there to study for a couple months? Could I pull that off?

I think in the back of my mind I have always wanted to go over there and study hardcore for a while. It almost seems necessary in my career if I want to teach this to people.

In fact I will pull it off! That IS going to happen… Its just a matter of when and how much I need to save!

How cool would that be!?!? To study with some of the lineage holders of the art itself for a while and get the time to breath and eat it every day for…what, how long? 3 months? A year?

Maybe it would help get me closer to this woman who won 1st place at a competition recently for Chen style. (Another catalyst that has me all stoked to practice)

The way she sinks and moves in to her hips is crazy! I have only just begun to even understand how my legs move underneath me, let alone move how she does!

This coming from a guy who spent 4 years doing 10 – 20 obstacle course races a year!

Exciting stuff, I love being reminded of how little I know. There is so much to discover!

Even in the documentary, Grand Masters are explaining how much their Tai Chi has improved each year through their practice.

Truly amazing and humbling stuff. Just goes to show that it doesn’t matter what stage you are at, there is always something new to learn, so learn to love the process!

No end in sight, and loving every moment of it!!

 

6SDAOqM

Practice Update

16 Jun 2016 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in day to day, energy, focus, intention, Mindfullness, moving forward, practice, routine, small victories, Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

Short on time this morning, so I figured I would just pop on for a brief Tai Chi Practice update.

I am sore :).

Pretty much my whole body, but mainly my Kua (Inner Hips) and my all the way up my lower spine.

It’s a good soreness, like the one that comes after a good workout, and it confirms my suspicions that my movement has indeed changed.

The ongoing focus on incorporating my upper and lower body has start to pay off and I have started to be able to keep my mind in my lower body for longer periods of time. Before, I was moving my upper arms with all my intention in my upper body, treating the lower half as just kind of a tertiary unconscious movement. Unable to “feel” my legs moving, let alone which parts were moving when.

Encouraging progress for sure, but I still have a long way to go in order to integrate it in to my movement without having to thing about it.

There is a two week break coming up in classes for the fourth of July, I plan on using that time to put together a couple more videos I have floating around in my head. I have come to the conclusion that shooting, is the easy part. The editing and graphics are going to take a bit.

So, I am going to shoot three or four videos and spend the next three months editing and releasing one at a time. Not really sure the increments yet, but I imagine it will sort itself out :). But at least I will have content to mess with and hopefully start to release in a more timely schedule.

If you havent already, checkout my YouTube Channel and subscribe so that you get updates on new videos, they wont always have a blogpost associated with them :).

 

CHAKRAS

Friendship

04 May 2016 1 Comment

by TheRestlessRaven in day to day, doubts, fear, Friends, intention, Mindfullness, moving forward, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

I realized I am really out of practice with friendship.

I have mentioned before how I pulled myself through a lot of my addictions by separating myself from some of the extremely close friends I had back in the day.

There are a lot of positives that came from that, but I always feel a deep sorrow when looking back because often I feel that was the last time I was able to be carefree and allow myself to be completely open with those around me without the assistance of an intoxicant.

An unfortunate side effect to that experience is the nagging distrust I have for myself and others when it comes to dropping down my guard.

That dread of falling back in to old habits, or somehow slipping back in to my self abusive tendencies that in my head, feel like only a moment away from bursting free.

I have built up a behavior of mistrust and unease to remind myself that if let go, I will stop moving forward and go right back to where I started.

This has kept me from many deep friendships.

I recognize this as a new thing I need to heal from, but it is not easy.

Even this post has been extremely difficult to write, I have distracted myself several times to avoid some of the emotions that are stirring up.

It is something I am working on, actively reaching out more. Touching on those fringe areas of conversation that border on all out panic inside me. The fears, the vulnerabilities that I keep only to myself so that no one will see me as weak and I can “keep my advantage”.

Advantage over what? I have no idea.

Perhaps its the advantage of being so closed off that no one can get to me, no one will have anything over me to control me or manipulate me…. Manipulate me like I have manipulated myself?

There is a thought…

The idea that someone could know me well enough to invoke the same change I have created in myself kind of horrifies me.

Knowing all the things I have done in order to change my behavior, the knowledge of how easy it actually is to be influenced or steered in a direction. What if someone else sees that?

Perhaps its my sensitivity to any form of influence or manipulation that provokes that fear. Like a kid who was bullied when they were little, they will recognize all forms of it with much greater sensitivity and a stronger reaction than those without that experience.

Maybe, I have allowed myself to grow hyper sensitive and reactive to it, preventing me from even allowing myself to participate in the positive aspects of them. The aspects that are often present when a group of friends are having an open, raucous and fun discussion at the dinner table.

The kind of conversation that has no point, has no intention other than to enjoy each others company and to poke at each others personalities.

It is a frustrating struggle. To want to open up and join in but to not be able to find the words, or the connecting points to join the conversation, but it is still a pleasure to be around it.

*Sigh*

One day, I will finish repairing the damage I inflicted to rehabilitate myself.

In the mean time, thank you to all those I call my friends.

I enjoy your company and there will be opening, at some point, to a dinner table near you.

 

Friendship-Whatsapp-Status

 

 

Soothing the Soul

06 Apr 2016 3 Comments

by TheRestlessRaven in chakras, day to day, energy, fear, focus, healing, intention, Mindfullness, motivation, moving forward Tags: , , , ,

The single most pivotal\profound experience in my life happened in a dream.

It left me feeling like there was something within me that I needed to share with the world. A feeling so strong that it drove me to separate from everyone and everything in my life and change directions.

At the time I was working construction and generally just being a bum. I was partying constantly, was usually on some sort of drug and spent my hours writing or dancing.

The morning after this dream, everything inside me changed. The lack of motivation I had always felt was gone. The need to communicate something was so strong, so fierce that it was the only thing that mattered any more. I HAD to find a way to let whatever that was out.

So I started going to school, community college to get my head back in the mode of studying and I started to separate myself from the crowd I was hanging around. That was the hardest thing, as I think about it now I have a pain in my heart, I still feel like I abandoned them.

These weren’t just my friends, they were my family. I spent every second with them, but it was the only way I knew how to get away from what I saw as a black hole. A life path that held nothing for me, I could see where it was going and it was no where good.

From there, I tried to just follow my passions. I had no idea what I needed to do and for the most part I had no idea what I was doing. I had no plan, just what was immediately in front of me.

Get the pre-reqs done at community college, go to another college… get degree… then what? A job? Then what? Family?

I ended up going to and art school, fitting now that I think about it, but at the time I was paralyzed with the decision between that and an engineering school.

Paralyzed because I knew I would do fine on either path, but I had no idea which one was the right one, which one was the one that would get this out of me.

Animation and game design ended up being my focus. I have always had a strong inclination toward movement. I could always FEEL movement, I could experience it through dancing and felt I could tap in to something beyond myself when I did.

My specialty ended up becoming, hilariously, optimizing and enhancing artists workflows.

12 years later, I have had three jobs in the gaming industry. One could say I have found success, but to me it still feels like just a beginning.

Like those twelve years were just to prepare me for what lies deep within me, the need, the drive, the command to help.

To communicate something, to help people succeed, to help people find themselves.

I feel I am closer now to this than ever.

Like whatever it is, is on the tip of my brain.

Whatever it is, a part of it is my my journal from 10 years ago which I randomly open up last night.

A writing that I pleaded myself to get out in to the world, but have yet to do.

It is perhaps the closest thing I have to the writing I used to do.

There was a journal I had in my early twenties that I would write in all hours of the night, stories about finding true meaning, about exploring the soul, about tapping in to the eternal knowledge within us and getting out of our own ways to live through it.

I lost that journal in Paris France. I left it on a train that I had rushed off trying to make my stop.

Years of writing and self exploration lost.

To this day, that is the single most profound loss I have ever had. But when I search deep for an answer to why I let that happen, the answer is always:

“You weren’t ready.”

Am I now? I have no idea.

But, for some reason or another I opened my replacement journal directly up to that page last night and I read it.

It floored me. The entry was so clear to me despite remembering writing it and feeling like it was completely unintelligible.

It touched me to the core, validated my journey and gave me a jolt of passion to help try to push me through this next wall of fear and self doubt.

As I search for a reason I happened to open my journal to the ONE spot, the only answer I get is, “It’s Time”.

So, whatever that means, I guess it’s my answer.

HolyFirepanel1

The Edge of a Knife

21 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in doubts, fear, moving forward Tags: , , , ,

I think I fear having a normal life. It just seems so mundane to me.

I have spent most my life trying to figure out what\who I am. Why I react the way I do to situations, how different things affect my mood/drive and trying to find what needs these intense addictions I sometimes have are striving to fill. Learning the hard way, bouncing through extremes to find the middle ground on which my feet stay firmly planted.

The end result being… That I am not normal, far from it indeed. I end up following the need for self improvement, attempting to fix some imbalance or weakness I sense in myself.  Some inadequacy I feel driven to hunt down and snuff out.
This tends to lead me to spend a lot of time alone. Not feeling understand, or I guess even not really wanting to be understood. Feeling often that I must do it myself without the aid of anyone else. Thinking that reliance on someone else is some form of weakness.

I’m not sure what that means. There is a deep fear of vulnerability hidden deep in all my actions I suppose. Yet, I often find myself grasping for it in the wrong places due to a lack of fulfilling a need for it nonetheless.

I’m just not sure. There are moments I feel I belong though.  Especially more recently. I have been making choices lately that have been allowing my true self and feelings to come out more and more. The more I do, the more my environment changes to fit those new forms of expression. Shifting almost daily to allow me to be more fully me. I feel less and less like I am holding back, a feeling I have always have, sensing more and more like there are people out there who understand me without explanation.
Yet it terrifies me. It has been so automatic to go along the normal life path like I have been, so comforting to know “how” I should be progressing. Not sticking out, just painting inside the lines.  There are set rules, set paths for what the standard is. The end goal is clear and there are no surprises. Work hard, become a manager, invest, save money, retire, have kids, grow old. Its what we are told by society we are supposed to do.

But I can’t in good conscious do that anymore. It makes me sad to even think about doing that. It just isn’t me,  I have tried that life…  I am still currently living it. It has become a means to an end, yet it still takes up so much of my time and energy.

What do I do now?

I feel I am on the cusp of some decision.

A fork in the road and there is still a fear remaining trying to smother the choice I hear calling to me.

How valid is that fear?

Last Couple Days Practice:

Work got pretty nuts this week and sucked out a lot of my energy. Probably why I am feeling a bit self reflective today :). I missed class Wednesday and Thursday, but I still got up and meditated and practiced in the mornings.

Wednesday

  • 30 minutes standing mediation
  • 24 form x1

Thursday

  • 30 minutes standing mediation
  • 15 min silk reeling

Friday

Met at the park this morning

  • 30 minutes silk reeling
  • 15 min standing mediation
  • 83 form x1
  • 24 form x1
  • 10 minutes pushhands

Saturday

  • 1.5 hours silk reeling
  • 1.5 hours 24 form
    • Taught the opening moves to the new students today

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