way too many commas

Why am I here? Why am I in kung fu? These are questions we asked the Young Dragons class as a homework assignment, which was later assigned to us as a team, and I realized that I have yet to answer these questions. I hesitated to write this blog because I knew it would require a deeper level of thought than my recent "a recap on my training for the week"-type blogs I have been writing. But I recognize the value in trying to find the answers to these questions, and I think it'll be good for me to write a blog like this. At first the answer is tricky because kung fu has done so much for me, and permeated every point of my life now for so long that no answers immediately come to mind because I can't think of a single reason NOT to do kung fu comes first instead. I am also slow to type the next lines in the blog because as I sit to think on it more, the answers I gave in my blackbelt speech are coming to the surface, but this blog is not about what kung fu has done for me...

These past two weeks have been very tumultuous for my numbers, my schedule, and my kung fu as a whole.  I recently was trained on the night shift at work which means that the "free" hours in my day have completely switched. I thought I would have ample time in the mornings to work on my requirements and find opportunities to practice, but what I didn't expect was how firmly entrenched I was to the rhythm of the day. I thought because I was going to do all my pu/su before work (i.e. before I became physically tired) they would be much easier, but because I have been doing the majority of them in the late evening for over a year now, I have to generate a whole new momentum/motivation. Because I get home so close to midnight I often forget to track my steps before my watch resets for the day. Since I am so tired after work and the hour is so late I forget to review my AOK for the day before I fall asleep.  Typing this out I am realizing now that the pattern in my routine and...

The Year of the Dragon has had a bit of a shaky start for me so far. Things are moving along well enough and a lot of my routine is still intact from last year, but I was so focused on the wrap up of the Year of the Rabbit that I think I forgot to set things in place so that I could continue that success and momentum into this year. That said, some things are starting to come together, my new weapon finally came in today so now I can make some real progress on my beta form, and I started setting up my 1-on-1's in advance which means I can spend less time trying to schedule them, and more time thinking about what I want to discuss during them which is way more beneficial for my training.  On the topic of 1-on-1's, I had this weird shift in my training that happened somewhere in the middle of last year, I found I wasn't filling my journal as rapidly as I used to, I starting asking less questions in class, and I stopped asking questions about my kung fu ( why I'm moving th...