I’ve been having difficulties in Da Mu Hsing when I do spins and this causes the following moves to lack connection. I found I would throw off my centre and then I was falling into the next moves.
Is my foot position wrong? Am I spinning too fast? Am I raising my centre? Are my harmonies working together? When I focused on one, others would fall apart.
As I talked with Sifu Brinker, he emphasized that I need to contract and then expand at the end. This is changing my whole intent. As I focus on the contraction/expansion, I no longer worry about my feet, speed of spinning, or my centre yet these are all fixed by changing my focus.
This is my first big “aha” moment where one action groups in a whole bunch of others. Can’t wait till that next one comes.
This blog is about my weight struggles throughout these last 3 years. Before I started my treatment program I was 145lbs, the lowest I’d been in years and that was due to my blackbelt grading year and the years leading to that. At that time, I was in the best shape of my life although I knew I could still improve. That was my mindset.
I really don’t know what my lowest weight was but there was a time that I was given nutrition by IV as I was failing to thrive. I hadn’t eaten anything in many days and I couldn’t keep anything down. That was probably my lowest and it wouldn’t surprise me if I hit 130 or even lower as I had also lost all muscle mass.
The first year, all they want you to do is take in lots of protein and calories. Added to that was a super strong anti rejection medication and 9 months later I was at the highest weight I had ever been at, including my pregnancies, 199 lbs. That is over 70 pounds in 9 months. My medical team would always say “we worry about weight after year 1, keep doing what you are doing” so I wasn’t really worried until I got off my immunosuppressants and the weight didn’t just drop off. That is so mean! Mentally I struggled with my weight gain, decreased self image, hating to buy clothes, wanting to go on a quick fix diet but knowing it was wrong. I had to ignore the scale and really focus on doing my exercises and to keep being as active as I could. Every couple of weeks I would check with the scale to make sure I was on the right path.
Yesterday I weighed 171 and I know 8 weeks ago I broke the 180s because I was so excited about that. I am coming up to year 3 and still I am fighting with each pound. I was going to wait until I broke the 170s to blog but I want to rejoice in the small win because I am almost there and I know that this blog will help me be mindful of the food that I eat and motivated to continue the exercises that I do. This is still not a healthy weight but it is in the right direction with the right momentum and so I will take that win!
Today was the first day in 10 days that I finally feel better. Numbers really suffered but got a few in.
