Board Breaks

I was reflecting on the first week that I had began training with Sifu Schermbrucker and one day highlighted in my mind that I wanted to post up on my blog. . . here it happens to be the first day that we decided to do some board breaks.

I woke up that morning and was looking at the three sets of boards that I had layed out in front of me, trying to decide which ones would be the best to take. I decided that I wanted to take the hardest set of boards that I had to break, but I really was not sure which one that was, because they all had nice wide grain and no knots.
I decided to call my dad to see which ones I should take.

After a quite short discussion, we decided that I should take the first set, and my re breakable board.

I was actually feeling quite confident as I walked up to the field where I knew that Sifu Schermbrucker would be waiting to kick my butt once again, but I had this feeling that I was going to blast through those boards no problem.

So,
we started off with just the re breakable board, and we held it backwards so that it would be much harder to break, and I blasted through the board no problem with all four techniques.

We decided that it would be time for me to try and break the actual boards, so I set up in front of one, getting ready to do my palm heel strike. I took a step back, and projected foreword with probable one of my hardest strikes ever, and I bounced right off the board, which didn't break.

Okay, not really what I was aiming to happen but okay ill get it on my second try.

Almost forty - five minutes had gone by and I still had not broke a signal board with any of my techniques.

I'd have to admit that I was getting really discouraged and thinking that I wasn't as strong as I thought I was and that, even after countless hours of pounding on my heavy bag, I did not have the right technique.

But, of course, Sifu kept yelling at me to keep trying and that I was going to break a board today.

I did not end up breaking those boards.

So Sifu set the boards up between a brick and the ground and had me stomp on all of them one after another. . .
"the board cannot defeat you Katelyn"

After all of them were broken we picked them up and looked at how they broke.

Well,
Three of the boards didn't even break all of the way through, because they were still held together by splinters.
And the fourth board, I couldn't even break, Sifu had to break it for me.



But those boards did show me something very important that day, that was not only valuable to me, but could probably be valuable to others reading this too.

No matter WHAT. . . you cannot get yourself down on something that you cannot achieve right now. You just have to tell yourself to keep trying and someday, somehow you will succeed at what ever it is you are doing. Everyone has their limits, and they will get stronger when time and effort come into play.

I will break my boards, because I know that I have it in me to do it.

I must have a can do attitude when it comes to these things, because when I am in the moment, I can do anything that I set my mind to, and nothing can stand in my way, not even the boards that I cannot break.

I will be a leader, I will show everyone what I can do and how I have come to do it.
Because even if I fail I will have succeeded.

Wow! I haven't blogged on here in a really long time! I feel like I want to say that I really haven't had any time but that is definatly not true! I guess that I just have been sort of slacking off and not doing what I need to do. But anyways, lets cut to the chase, lol. . . My training has been coming along excellently, I have definatly noticed an large amount of improvementin my technique and . . . well . . . everything! Just this current week I have started another sort of plan towards my black belt.Every morning (monday - friday) I have been waking up at about nine am to get ready to walk to a field by my house to meet Sifu Schermbrucker. Every day we have been working on some area of training towards my blackbelt. On Monday I wasn't really sure what was going to come of all of this. . . and I really didn't know whether or not I was going to make it through because the night before I had told Sifu Schermbrucker to really push me past my limits and not let me give up! So, low and be hold, he did and I came home and was exhausted! Even though all that we did really was go through the white belt curriculumn! But, you see, I felt really good about myself, and that I had started something good. I later ran my two km and did all of my board breaking techniques one hundred times each on my heavy bag!!! So as we continued on through the week, I could already feel this starting to work its way into my daily routine. I found myself waking up at six am, looking at the time, and wishing that it would go faster, just so that I couldget up and go hard into my training. The week has seemed to fly by so fast. Last night, in the Sihing class, Sifu Brinker had mentioned how we should start our day with pushups and situps and then end the day off with pushups and situps. . . Well I am doing something totally the same, but different! I am starting my day off with hard drive into my kung fu training, and ending my day off with a run, or a walk and kicks andpunches, and it feels really good! I think that I have set myself on a great track!Wait. . .I KNOW that I have set myself on a great track! I can only hope for the best, and that everything goes smooth from here on end. Thanks for reading!!!