Year of theTiger

Lately, I've been having alot of flashbacks to the beginning of the the Silent River Kung Fu Chinese New Year Banquet. Sifu Freitag, in a seemingly ominous tone, foretold what we could expect to come in the Year of the Tiger. I don't remember the exact words, but the message I got was that we could expect lots of struggle, dissappointment, failure, turbulence. So far, the prediction has been accurate. I hang on to the positive part of the prediction that we will come out stronger, and our accomplishments have the potential to be quite significant. Or something like that.


Take the UBBT7, for example. I remember being in a a place last December, where the goals I set out seemed very acheivable, and very much a part of my lifestyle, discipline, goals and abilities. That rapidly changed. Now, here I am in month 7, and some of the goals that I had assumed would be easy to accomplish given my daily routines, are suffering immensely. On the other hand, the goals that I had considered 'a bit of a risk', are now soaring to the forefront, taking on a momentum of their own. Very exciting.

I feel guilty that it's the non-kung-fu elements of UBBT7 that are successful at the moment. Every day that I cycle the 30km to work, and then do the return trip at the end of the day, I say to myself, "When I get home, I will do the pushups, I will do the situups, I will do the kicks and the horsestance, and the tai chi sword'. So far it hasn't happened. Today, I cycled home through torrential rain, wind and giant mud puddles. Took an extra half hour to get home, fighting that wind. I was so wet when I got home, that my pants were falling down from the weight of the water they had absorbed. I took a shower, then lay down.

Then I wrote this blog. Then I'll go to bed.