Nate's Blogs

  This weekend was the second grading and I’m happy to say that all the candidates passed. However all though we all passed, we all have stuff to work on. But that goes with everything. You should always have something to work on. If you don’t, there is a good probability that your ‘jumping through a hoop’. Something that Sifu said to me in grading that really stuck with me is that there is no such thing as a green belt form or a brown belt form. They are all black belt forms but     they are just done and a green belt standard or a brown belt standard. In order to improve upon your forms you have to find something to improve upon. Therefore if you can’t find something you can improve upon it’s either you have completely mastered the form, which is almost never the case, or you are not true to yourself about why you are doing kung fu. In the end, make sure that you are  mentally aware when you are training in kung fu and always keep improving. You are never done impr...

  With the second section of the grading coming up I am once again getting pretty nervous. However with this nervousness I am using it to my advantage, I’m using it to train more, focus more of my time on kung fu and help my fellow candidates. Let’s face it, everybody gets nervous, whether you like it or not. It’s how we deal with this nervousness that shows us what kind of person we are. Not only my fellow candidates but most of my fellow peers in kung fu will all use their nervousness to their advantage which is a pretty big part in achieving anything. If you let your nervousness eat you alive you won’t be able to achieve your goal. You have to face your nervousness head on and accept whatever outcome may happen. To my fellow candidates, use this time to embrace your nervousness and train, find your most minuscule errors and fix them. Most importantly don’t back down, we all got this!

 This weekend I did my first aid course. Let me just say, it was awesome. Not only did I learn a whole bunch of new things and have fun with some other people that were there, I learned how to help someone in pretty much any scenario. Throughout the course, our instructor kept telling us that if we are in a situation where we are providing first aid, remain calm. Also we are taught in kung fu to remain calm in a troubling situation. Then I started wondering what should you be calm for. The simple answer is everything. For example when your driving or doing a test, you want to remain calm but that isn’t always the situation. Many people get stressed or have anxiety for things like tests. I am grateful that I don't have any anxiety. But I strongly believe it’s because I was put into kung fu at such a young age. I wish everyone could see how much kung fu changes your life mentally. The longer you are committed to kung fu, the stronger mentally you become. That is shown throughout all ...