EVERYONE LOVES WEAPONS….

… But how does it translate into your everyday training?

One of the many things that I write about in the blog is the adaptability and completeness of the Fang Shen Do martial art system.  As previously reported, one of the FSF mantras is

Whatever your needs, whatever your goals – we can help. 

It must be noted in the above statement, that you will note we said “we can help”; the real responsibility, and therefore the pride in accomplishment, belongs to the individual student.  They are the ones who exhibit the discipline and dedication to train, they are the ones that push themselves in each training session – the real victory belongs to the person who emerges from each training session a little better than they were when they walked in….

As I noted before, our goal as an instructor is to help the student achieve this feeling of success.  Students will come to us for many different reasons. 

Some may be looking for the best self-defence system to make sure that both they and their loved ones are protected in an unpredictable society;
 … others will be looking to compete in either the ring or the octagon and have heard about the incredible success of our training program and fight team;
….others may be looking to get into better shape to improve the quality of their lives and have read about our award winning workouts and are looking to challenge themselves physically in a fun atmosphere;
…. still others may be aware of the incredible benefits that martial art gives to young students and how the training will benefit them in the years to come as they develop the skills of respect, dedication, perseverance and confidence.

It would be easy to continue the above, but I think you get the point – whatever your reasons, whatever your goals – we can help. 

One of the reasons that Fang Shen Do can offer this ability to assist some many others in reaching their goals is the way that we (as school owners) were/are trained.  Both Sijo and Sibok go to great lengths to ensure that the Fang Shen Do system is taught properly and that all instructors are fully trained in all aspects of the system, be it trapping, closing, grappling or …weapons. Which, in a roundabout way, has brought me to my title.  As we currently do not live in feudal Japan in the 16^th century, how will training with weapons benefit you today?

I am glad you asked that question, my friend….

If we look at the four scenarios provided above (and there are many more), I can report with certainly that weapons training can help all of them:

For the people looking for self defense - understanding and learning to use the weapons will familiarize themselves on how the weapon may be applied.  This will be critical in learning how to defend themselves against it as well as the familiarity will reduce the fear / hesitation that could be deadly in a self defense scenario. 

For the people looking to enter competition, training with the weapons will develop the critical attributes of speed, distancing and footwork.  As the weapon moves faster than the hand, by training with weapons (in conjunction with the fighter training) the fighters start to see and react faster.  In addition, the coordination drills help them develop their off side (right or left) as well as their dominate side, making them more of a threat.   

For the people looking to get into shape, training with the weapons will help develop focus, coordination and speed.  These attributes provide a foundation and become critical when undertaking the advance workouts.

For the junior students, training with the weapons provides focus, control and respect.  In addition, the weapons training is also a symbol of achievement as the students have to reach a certain level at the school before they are allowed to train with the weapons. 

I am especially excited for our next testing day as, in addition to all the sash tests, we will be testing our first junior student for Level One Weapons Certification.

If you have any questions about our Fang Shen Do school or how we can help you, feel free to contact me personally at sifuscotthill@icloud.com

Stay Solid,  

Sifu Scott

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Everything is hard….

… Before it’s easy

These are the words of the Germen philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  I would just add that, in my experience, anything worthwhile is hard before it becomes easy.  How this relates to us today is the form of discipline.

 

We have spent considerable time in the past week talking about discipline in the junior class and every student is now clear on the three different types of discipline.  Now, our next step, for both Junior and Adult students is to apply this discipline in our martial art training and other aspects of our daily life.  We are going to start that this week with the mini home workout / pre-class routine.   

One statement that I truly believe is:

With knowledge, many things are possible

Without discipline, nothing is possible

As I have mentioned before, I do a considerable amount of driving in the average week.  In order to avoid unnecessary down time, I take this opportunity to listen to audio books in the car.  This way I am learning something during my drive.  The books chosen are usually those of an educational nature so that I come away from the ride with new knowledge or different ideas.  I learned this many, many years ago from Sijo as I remember driving with him in a car as he listened to cassettes (which shows how long ago this was). 

Last week’s audio book was on self-discipline.  I thought to myself that as I am teaching discipline in class, I should use my drive to review.  This thinking lead me to analyse my own discipline - while I consider myself disciplined, is there more that I could be accomplishing?

Without a word of exaggeration, the author stated in the introduction that when he was asked to write the book, he suffered the same momentary self-doubt.  As he continued to research the book, he found that all people with above-average discipline feel that they could accomplish more.  It is the people that never self-analysis that need the boost in the self-discipline department. 

When it comes to self-discipline, obviously, there are two people that I look to for motivation.

One thing that Sijo has taught me is to “develop a sense of urgency”. 

I am often amazed in both the business and personal world on how long it takes to get things done.  At first, I thought it was because it is everyone is so busy – now I realize that it is because most employees maintain the same slow work pace, no matter what the schedule and do not believe in working extra.  I have seen this with engineers, lawyers, contractors, trades, etc.  One of the things that sets the entrepreneur apart from the masses is that the entrepreneur gets his/her tasks done right away – no excuses.  A martial artist applies self-discipline to their tasks and “ gets ‘er done”.

I remember sitting in a Fang Shen Do owners meeting many years ago and hearing Sibok saying that he borrowed a mantra from a sports-clothing line “just do it”.

    

As I mentioned in a previous blog, there are many good excuses for not getting a project done, but not one good reason. It is amazing to see the number of people that consider themselves entrepreneurs, yet are more concerned with taking time off or social matters than working hard to set their future.  Time management concepts instructs us to do the thing that we hate the most first thing in the morning – this sets a tone of accomplishment for the rest of the day and allows you to accomplish much, much more.  So, when you look at that to do list and see something that you are dreading – just start repeating “do it… do it… do it” in your head and “get ‘er done”.

To wrap up this longer-than-usual blog with our take-aways:
Incorporate self-discipline into your routine; it will get easier with time
Develop a sense of (self-imposed) urgency for your tasks
Just do it
And …. Of course…. Stay Solid

Sifu Scott

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Show Me Your Friends...

…..And I will show you your future. 

That is how the old adage goes, and for the most part I agree with it.  Like-minded people are more likely to associate together.  Anyone who has taught or observed a children’s class in elementary school will observe the phenomenon in action as the unruly ones may migrate to the back of the class room and the studious ones tend to stake their position at the front.

It is this principal that parents keep in mind as they supervise the activities and the company that their child partake.  For this reason, parents are looking for activities that allow their young ones to grow, learn and thrive.  My biased opinion is that this is why so many parents chose martial art training.  It allows their child to develop physically (through the techniques and workout) as well as emotionally (through the development of discipline, respect and focus).

As well as friends and acquaintances being an excellent barometer for the potential of success in our young warriors – I am often gratified to meet the parents of the students.  Right away you can tell how committed they are to excellence for their children.

I had the opportunity to meet such a group last night during our Registration.

We invited the parents on to the floor to train with their young ones and every one took us up on the offer. 

It was a great class !!

We talked about safety (no-go-yell-tell), discipline (the three types), focus (a black sash is a white sash that never gave up) and learned techniques and combinations.  The energy in the class was great, the parents were motivating and encouraging with their children, and the kids were super-focused and well mannered – what more could a Sifu ask for…..?

One comment that I would like to pass on is the importance of leading by example. 

At the end of the class, we were about to start our station workout.  I gave the opportunity to the parents to observe this part of the class.  Not one of them took me up on it – they chose to get in there and workout with their child, doing their push-ups, sit-ups, etc. right along with the class.  Afterwards, during my ride home, I reflected on how important it was to demonstrate to our young warriors that it is not a case of “do what I say, not what I do”. 

To everyone (parents and young students) that attended the class last night, I would like to say thank you for joining us, you all did an excellent job and it was indeed a pleasure to meet you in person – I look forward to our martial art growth over the months to come….

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It is a game of inches…. But….

Sometimes, you make huge strides…. Or at least, your martial art growth is recognized as such.

I often write about the benefits of consistency, especially when it relates to martial arts. One of the many lessons that I learned from Sijo is that “by the yard it is hard, but the inch it is a cinch”. As many of you have heard, success comes from doing the right things often enough. For martial arts – that begins with training consistently.

I truly believe that perseverance is one of the many traits, which the martial arts develop and deliver – at least for those that stay with the training. The lessons teach that nothing worth-while is easy, but that success is a reward.  I also believe that persistence is a reward in and of itself – I make sure that I live this principle myself.  Many of you know that I drive a considerable distance every week, sometimes to teach a small class.  If I had a nickel for every time someone told me I was crazy for doing this, I could buy a lot of fancy equipment for the school.

Let me tell you why I do it - 2 promises. One, a promise to Sijo to run a Fang Shen Do school in Toronto. When I committed to being a part of something, especially to someone who I admire and respect, I am not one to cut and run when things get tough.  I am with Fang Shen Do for the long haul and I need my actions (not just my words) to reflect that.

The second was a promise to a friend that invested a considerable amount of money to get things going.  At the time, there were three people involved, but this friend wanted me involved because he knew that my word meant something (this was all done in 2007 and was based solely on a handshake).  That third person has left, and people will come and go at our school, but I am also there for the long haul.

But this writing is not about me – I just mentioned the above to illustrate that I try to live by what Fang Shen Do teaches.  

The topic sentence is about one of our students named Hari. Hari has been with us for years and is one of the students that lives by the constancy principle.   He is not a student that trains one month and then takes the next month off.  We will see him every week in class.  He is a very well-behaved and disciplined student who is always respectful of the instructors and his training partners.

I always knew that Hari was a martial artist, but it took one class to show me how much he has improved over the last year.  This class was late last June. It was a smaller class, as some of the non-martial artist types thought it was too hot to train (joke).  Because of the number of students, I had some time to go one-on-one with Hari.

We were concentrating on power and endurance.  Hard core drill after drill (some of them from the adults class), we took on, with only 30 second breaks between rounds.  

Halfway thought the class, I was amazed.  Not only was Hari not asking for a break, he was completing the rounds without pause.  As an example, one of the drills that we did was on the heavy bag.  It was 20 full power punches, followed by 5 push-ups (3min).  Not only did Hari complete the three minutes without stopping for a rest, he continued throughout the whole round to punch as hard as he could when on the punching bag.

It was warrior training at its best – no break, no complaining - just results.

Our junior classes start up again in September (Registration on September 11th) and I can’t wait to see Hari back on the mats again – Just imagine the progress he will make this year!

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What A Great Weekend!!

The last weekend was the Annual Fang Shen Do Training Day / Kids Olympics.  The day was broken down for the younger students to train in the morning, and then the adults to train in the afternoon.  I had the opportunity to talk to Sijo about the students and we both commented on the level of commitment this year’s student showed.  Many travelled for hours for the opportunity to receive amazing instruction and train with fellow students who are similarly committed to martial art excellence.  

As I have also heard Sijo say...“we can come up with many excuses not to train, but no good excuses”  

This goes very nicely into our Yellow Sash concept of Consistency and Effort.

I have written about this before, as I feel that this concept is a core success principle in anything.  Remember, if you never quit, you can never fail.  As Sifu Stephane talked about in the opening comments – Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he successfully invented the light bulb.  But he refused to give up……sounds a little bit like the Fang Shen Do instructors when they train – they never, ever give up.  The training that we have received has taught us that anything worthwhile is worth working hard to perfect.  

This type of Consistency and Effort is perhaps easier to discuss than it is to put in practice.  Of particular importance is to teach these core values to our younger students.  One thing that occurs with some students of the junior class, is spotty training.  Students will train for a month, take a month off, train for 2 months, then take the summer off – and they wonder why they are not getting better or why they cannot test for their next rank….?  

I think one quick glance at the attendance card will answer that question for them.  Fang Shen Do means the way of survival – besides teaching the most completed martial art, it also helps the students prepare for success.  You cannot be a part-time successful person – either you strive for excellence or settle for mediocrity.  

Back to the training day – I had the opportunity to work with a man that embodies the concept above – Sibok.  For the adult training portion, I was Sibok’s secondary as he taught almost 3 hours of energy drills to every rank (White to Black sash).  For those who have heard me teach before, you know that I feel that it is the energy drills, from palm phon sao to contact drill, which produces a superior martial artist and sets Fang Shen Do above other training.  Anytime that I get to touch hands with the other Sifu’s  - I learn a lot.  To get to spend that much time with Sibok was pure pleasure – I got to pick up many details that will help me strive for that excellence that I have been discussing.  You can always learn something, no matter what level you are.  

For those that chose not to attend, the following is what was taught:
Sijo  – Speed and Power drills (with special equipment that measured reaction speed and pounds per square inch-power)
Sibok - Energy Drills
Sifu Stephane - MMA Drills for speed and flow
Sifu Pat  - Grappling
Sifu Silvain  - Kicking drills

I would like to express my appreciation to everyone that was involved in the day – from the instructors who taught, to the organizers who made the day possible, and to the students who attended who made the day fun.  We all embodied the effort factor of Fang Shen Do and all got better because of it !!

Stay Solid,
Sifu Scott

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