currently hooked

The exercises get more complicated as the chapters go by but I am having tons of fun! This is certainly something to feel good about when other things in my life are needing a boost.

I have been having dreams of slaying dragons and I know my subconscious is telling me something very important. Maybe I will meditate on it by painting more.

snapshots of a day

I made myself clean up the mess that usually creeps in whenever I'm in the middle of a work.project. I really look forward to the days when the rest of my life will not have to take a pause every time there is work. Work should not be eating up my days like langoliers. In any case, I realize that I really love the colors of my home.

The sky was interesting again today, with great gray rainclouds threatening the sunny clouds. By late afternoon it had begun to rain.

My attempts at practicing watercolor. So that's an hour less from the 10,000 required for mastery.

a practice in battling myself

One unresolved aspect of my life is my kendo practice. I keep on telling others and myself that I do it for the whole "spirit" thing, that whole idea of conquering yourself and your fears and challenging yourself to do things you don't normally do. They are all true but they are not the whole truth. I'm not even sure yet if they are even half the truth.

I started kendo practice in July of 2007. That's four and a half years. That's one of the longest I have ever committed to anything that does not exactly make me feel like the best of myself. It takes a lot from me. As an introvert I am not a fan of too much social interaction. I never joined any clubs in college and I was an expert at minimizing my presence and participation in company events. For me to show up every Saturday and actually confront an opponent -- that is something. I surprise myself every time.

I have had my many issues about practicing kendo. But as I look back on all those years, those issues were mostly things that surrounded my practice. With my limited vision and my too-vulnerable emotions, I often mistook the distractions as the practice itself or thought them to be integral to the practice. I have yet to overcome biases, insecurities, and low self-confidence. The challenge is to let all these mental and emotional clutter disrupt my experience of kendo or I can just focus on the simple miraculous fact that I am doing it at all.

My sister is more into the practice than I am. Sometimes her happiness is triggered by the very act of practice. There is a part of me that still refuses to let kendo have that effect on me because I guess I am afraid of failing it and myself. I know my weaknesses, and there are a lot, and I am afraid that they will get the better of me. But all the inspirational pieces I have read tell me to look at my own strengths and to remember the moments when I did something well. Like maybe that one Saturday when I shocked myself and a sensei by getting a point against him when everyone else has had a hard time doing so. Or remember the times when I am praised for a very good execution of a basic kata.

Today is the year-end tournament and sometimes I fantasize about winning a few times through the elimination rounds, enough to be noticed. Sometimes.

Then I get there and all I could pray for is to not make a fool of myself.

"let your vision of success evolve"

The above is what I opened into in Joseph Cardillo's book, Bow To Life: 365 Secrets From The Martial Arts For Daily Life. My sister and I both have the book and read a passage a day. We are hoping it will help us in both our kendo practice and also how what we learn from kendo can translate in our day-to-day.

My sister reads the passages in chronological order. I am more of the random page opener.

Here are some key thoughts that struck me: that discovering the self and living to our full potential is a never-ending journey. We flow through stages and levels, but as this happens, our desires also shift to bigger goals. For example, from just wanting to set up a business, to making that business flourish, to being considered an expert in that business.

Our measures or ideas of success change through time. Our job is to keep on creating, to always be aware of where we are at any point and be conscious of taking ourselves to the next level. Of course this is not meant in an ambitious, obsessive kind of way but in a way that develops us as whole people, not just as career persons, or as artists, or as parents for instance. In every stage we see where we can grow and we expand that way, most often following where our heart leads us. This is not just about the rational mainstream leveling up that we see often portrayed in movies or even in the values inculcated in us since childhood - getting promoted, progressing from singlehood to marriage, having kids in a year or two after the wedding, etc. Practicality is part of it but also is spirituality. How we grow inside not just outside is an integral part of our own success.

I think about where I am now and how some people may view my career situation as a step back. That is their definition. That is probably their measure of success. But from my own perspective, I have achieved something important - breaking out of my comfort zones and paying attention to the other aspects of me that have been neglected through the years and listening to the calling of previously dormant passions.

In my kendo practice I realize that how other people measure success in the dojo does not have to be the same as mine. I will define my practice and if it teaches me patience and perseverance and discipline then I will think myself a success even if I don't get praised or singled out or given special care and attention. Even if I am told in so many subtle and un-subtle ways that I am not "catching up" or "doing as well as". This is not an easy thing to do because we have been brought up in a context of competition and measuring ourselves against what people say and think. But slowly I am managing to just see what is essential to me in my practice and everything else will just be a backdrop to what is important for me to achieve.