Poem by Sri Chinmoy

I have been thinking about forgiveness and trust this week, and found this poem. It touched me, so I thought I would share it. In my experiences, forgiveness and trust go hand in hand. We have to forgive ourselves in order to forgive others, and we need to trust ourselves so that we may trust others. I am not sure if this makes sense, but whatever. We learn trust in Kung Fu, in ourselves and our classmates. And I have found that the seed of forgiveness is planted, whether we are aware of it or not. In my opinion, it takes courage, strength and trust to forgive. We learn these things at Kung Fu, and they can carry us far. If you cannot forgive, you cannot trust. Here's the poem...


If I cannot forgive myself
For all the blunders
That I have made
Over the years,
Then how can I proceed?
How can I ever
Dream perfection-dreams?
Move, I must, forward.
Fly, I must, upward.
Dive, I must, inward,
To be once more
What I truly am
And shall forever remain.

- Sri Chinmoy

Not today and maybe not tomorrow

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
- Epictetus quote-

What is beautiful?

In today’s society, we are constantly bombarded with images of beauty. Or what the media and mass producers want us to believe is beautiful or desirable. How do we, as parents and role models encourage our children and those around us to see past that and accept who we really are?

What makes us beautiful is not what we look like on the outside. It what is inside our hearts that make us that way. Our beauty is in how we treat those around us, the respect we have for ourselves and a willingness to accept our genetic makeup and make the best of it.

As a parent and role model, I find this a very difficult thing. I have days where I don’t feel good enough, but yet put on a facade because I don’t wish for my girls to doubt who they are.

I really like where Dove is going with this. Their website www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca is going in a direction that I support. They use real women for their models, and encourage us to accept who we are.

With eating disorders on the rise, in girls and boys, we as role models need to do something. We need to encourage our kids that they need to eat healthy and make good choices when it comes to diet and sleep. The media has such an influence on them that it really scares me sometimes.

This is yet another reason in my opinion that Kung Fu is really good for kids and adults alike. We do not have the pressure to be thin in order to perform well, as all Kung Fu requires is to be fit. And a person does not have to be thin to be fit. And just because someone is thin, does not mean they are fit. Kung Fu encourages us to be the best we can be, without specific measures that are unattainable, but to simply be healthy. Eating right, sleeping enough, exercising, and being aware of our world around us.

I personally would love to see more companies move in the direction that Dove has. We can make a difference in our homes, and our communities, and by leading by example we can overtake the negative images the media puts out there.

Coping Kung Fu style

This has been a really hard week for me. My kids survived amazingly well with the transition to the new daycare facilities and seem to be enjoying it. Day one was a little rough for Maya as she had a few boys chase her and she didn’t like it. And she had a meltdown due to not eating a snack on Wednesday when I picked her up. So it goes with one who is sensitive to her blood sugar levels. Whatever. I, on the other hand did not fare so well, and am still fighting with this decision.

I am not going to go into details about what I issues I am having with this daycare as it isn’t all that important to this ramble. What I do need to say is this.

I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without my Kung Fu. Please note the “my”. My Kung Fu belongs to me. It is my journey and mine alone. I have my Kung Fu family to help keep me motivated and to pick me up when I fall, but when I am there, it is about me and what I get out of it.

With the stress that has been building over the last 3 weeks, I truly needed to focus on my body which in turn takes care of my soul. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I don’t know. My point is that my Kung Fu is my coping mechanism. It is where I go to escape, where I can pound on a bag or a shield, sweat like a pig, and physically beat the stress out of me. Or give my soul a hug with a form like Long or 18 Temple Motions.


Sifu Freitag had the Blue/ Brown class spar on Wednesday night. Now I have had sparring issues for a long time, and I debated in the change room whether or not I was mentally up to sparring. I decided that I needed to and so became the butt kicking pink power ranger I am. Sifu had us spar with ribbons (a tactic Sifu Masterson came up with) and I ended up having fun. What is up with that? I think it was having to keep my back away from my opponent so they couldn’t take my ribbon and make me do pushups, that helped me focus. And then I got to spar with Mr. Robinson. Normally he really intimidates me,(and inspires me) as he seems to go fairly hard, and is quite intense. And while seemingly competitive, he has fun. So while he is the only person I had to do pushups for, I had fun sparring.

Then Friday comes, and we worked on techniques with focus shields. I got to put my whole self into it, when normally I have to really push to keep my intensity up. Technique needs some work still, but whatever, I have another goal. So both classes, I was able to literally beat the stress out of my system. I also had the chance to push myself in Lion Dancing on Friday. It is where I can allow some creativity to come out to play while working my body hard. My stress is still there, don’t get me wrong, but doing Kung Fu allowed me to take the cleansing breath that I needed.

I get to go to a safe place, where years of training has built up trust, and knowing that I have this gave me a chance to cope with the changes and the stress. I take comfort from my body doing what it should do - forms and techniques and that doing Kung Fu makes me feel good. It is good for my soul, and allows me to cope.