The Restoration of the Unexplained

Since last Saturday I have under gone a major change in my attitude and how I feel about my training. I feel so light and have this incredible excitement that I haven't felt for some time. My focus has changed and my inner energy is at an absolute high. My hands and body won't stop tingling when I train, my focus and awareness to everything I do is on a ultra sensitive frequency. It's just cool to feel this happy and this buzzed when practicing my Kung Fu once again. Grading was an intervention for me, I put it all on the line and offered complete exposure. I now have a new beginning, a new mind set and focus, new tools and new path to cut. I feel clean and transparent, like I have severed a cancer that has been hampering me for some time now.

I'm still hard on myself when I doing things, but instead of man that sucks and feeling bad about it, it's more like, man that sucks but I am going to make it better and I feel good about it. I've relaxed my stubborn ways and it hasn't been easy at all, but I have reached out to others for help and chose to remain accountable to them in the process. I want the people that help me to witness they're words and thoughts turn into physical results. Not saying I want a guide through it all, it's still training with my signature on it, just that their words have made a difference and they're respected.

I have many goals to reach over the next while but I will attack them one at a time until they are solid and become second nature. I am hoping this will hold my engagement strong throughout the year. All of which I intend to share with others on the I Ho Chuan and those that help outside the team, but part of the school.

One last thing to maybe to clarify and perhaps send an understanding for those following my journey. Sometimes my writing may come off as completely negative and maybe sometimes it is. However, I am providing a transparent view to some of the things people can go through and just how that person deals with, or doesn't deal with, these events and prevails. The intention is for others to see it is not always going to be roses and sunshine. Sometimes you can spiral into a very dark place that takes something incredible or a different perspective to come out of. I am honest about things, and I hold myself accountable to everything I do or whatever decision I make whether it's right or wrong and I hope that by sharing these experiences, good or bad, people can take something away with them and apply it to their own thoughts or experiences. It's all in the perception and how it is taken, and the intention is not to send out the wrong message or negativity, just the truth of what's happening or how one is feeling at that particular moment in ones journey. See you at the kwoon.

Brian Chervenka

Compassionate Leadership

As an instructor, it is my experience that the most common antagonist to confront a student is themself. Their insecurity, their ego, and their limiting beliefs - all conspire to take away a student’s control and limit their potential.

Control is essential for success. It is impossible to remain committed to a strategy or to stay the course over the long term if outside influences have too much control over the outcome. Accepting complete responsibility for the influences that affect you is the only way to retain control of your situation. You may not have control of what others say or do but you have absolute control over how you choose to react to what they say or do. The best way to get a student out of the way of themself is to empower them by helping them adjust their perspective.

The easiest attitudinal adjustment a person can make is through changing their perspective from that of an impotent bystander to one of a compassionate leader. There are problems and stressors in this world that can overwhelm one’s resolve. It is not difficult to let your mind slip into a negative cycle and apply blame and fail to take proper initiative to change a situation for the better. It is a lot more empowering to go beyond just recognizing another’s shortcomings and compassionately inspire them to amend their ways.

It may be far simpler to impose will through threats and consequential punishment but we will only reap what we sow. Imagine a world run by people who inspire kindness and tolerance through their compassionate leadership. That vision can only be realized through the efforts of each of us.

Jeff Brinker