Sifu Jason King’s Blog - Chinese Martial Arts 2009

Strange week with no regularities and lots of one offs. Makes life interesting but you have to be flexible to just go with it.

My construction work came to a halt (whether momentary or long term is yet to be determined), and so again I find myself at home passing the time with a wide variety of activities. I’m spending lots of time on the computer and am trying to be productive - have organised a few upcoming gradings and events for the school which is good. I have an AGM and bunch of tasks to complete for that committee yet am not finding myself tremendously motivated since I lack much moral support in that department. I have used the free time to catch up with a variety of good friends, Michelle (and baby Sean) who I went to uni with, Webb who I sing with and even caught up with Ian who unfortunately is succumbing to his cancer. Great to see him but sad to be given a bunch of stuff as he doesn’t have need for anymore.

2 out of the blue teaching engagements this week. An acting class tonight specialising in clowning although I have given them a lot of my repertoire already. Hmm, will try to recap and expand on said material I suppose. Tomorrow I have an early start to get to Beaudesert to teach a primary class some Medieval swordplay. Wish I had that option as a kid! Usually goes quite well and since I’m down that way, I’ll drop in and visit Viv on the way back. Maybe I can drop off the bike and pick up the posters while I’m southside?

Enjoyed a singing lesson this morning - first since the concert. It was good to pul out and go over some older material. have to create a repertoire for my “Special” group concert on 12th September. Being the featured artist I’ll have to have songs from my two recent groups, Dimensions13 and Folk Ensemble, as well as about 4 solos. So choosing which songs I want to sing so I can specie them up. For solos I’m thinking “Easy like Sunday Morning” by Lionel Richie, “Forever Autumn” from “War of the Worlds”, “Ave Maria” (Beyonces recent version), and “Lady in Red” by Chris Burgh. Bit of variety there! I even watched the movie “Lady in Red” but it was entirely unrelated.

Finally managed to upoad my acro photos onto Facebook. Hopefully I can add some videos shortly too. Miss out tomorrow night but start again on Sat. I’ve been watching my Cirque du Soleil DVDS and getting some ideas!!

This weeks inspirations come from SimpleTruths.com

At 99 degrees, water is hot.

At 100 degrees, it boils.

And with boiling water, comes steam.

And steam can power a locomotive.

One extra degree makes all the difference

And, that one extra degree of effort, whether in business or in life

separates the good from the great.

Kop Kopmeyer authored many books on success and is often asked “Of all the one thousand success principles that you have discovered, which do you think is the most important?”

He replied without hesitating, “The most important success principle of all was stated by Thomas Huxley many years ago. He said, ‘Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.‘”
He went on to say, “There are 999 other success principles that I have found in my reading and experience, bu

t without self-discipline, none of them work.”
Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness. It is the magic quality that opens all doors for you, and makes everything else possible. With self-discipline, the average person can rise as far and as fast as his talents and intelligence can take him. But without self-discipline, a person with every blessing of background, education and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity.

The above two articles got me thinking and so……

So how can we develop or improve our self-discipline? One way is to prevent regular detrimental procrastination (acknowledging that sometimes procrastination is needed and useful!).  How often do we put off

unpleasant tasks even if they are more important than other simpler more enjoyable tasks. I know I do all the time! So here is the challenge - out of all the tasks you set yourself, choos

e the ‘worst’ one and do it first. You know which one. It’s the one that will take the longest or is the most complicated, or most unpleasant. But doing it first will often remove a burden from your shoulders and give you the impetus to then tackle all the remaining (easier) tasks. I’ve tried this myself and it works a treat. just have to do it enough enough so it becomes a habit!