Are you fully appreciating your life?

As humans, it is impressively easy to take things for granted. Just look at these few examples:

- Food: Go to the store, buy, eat. Repeat. No questioning where it comes from, what’s in there, how is it fueling your body, will there still be more of it next week. Nah. It’s food, tastes good. Ever heard of that question asked to a kid, “Where do eggs come from”? He answered “the grocery store”. Yep, they magically appear there.

Riding On Dragons

Good day to all!

Just a quick note to let you know I’ve been requested a guest post from one badass dude known as Adam T. Glass.

This guy amuses himself with 48kg (104lbs) kettlebells. I’m just saying. Go read his stuff!

Oh, and said guest post can be found here. By clicking on the link. It’s about dragonboat racing.

EDIT: A part of the text is inspired by my team’s inner philosophy. By the way, here’s my team’s website. Take a look! (click here for an automated translation)

Tell me what you think. Makes you want to try it out?

Cheers!

So… what’s next?

So in the last couple of weeks, I’ve achieved 3 of my challenges! I am rather proud (read: I feel awesome) to finally be making some tangible progress. I hope you enjoyed it, too!

I promise I’ll try not to hit my proud swollen head on door frames.

Now, far from being one to rest on my laurels (it’s not even comfy), I’m looking at my list and I still got quite a lot of work ahead!

Challenge #5: Where I Sing Just Like a Lady

(Okay, maybe not)

Here you go! The karaoke challenge!

I apologize in advance for the poor audio… it’s the best I could do in a bar setting.

Hope you enjoy! Feel free to post your impressions in the comments (bonus points to the one who can describe my poor voice the best)

Now I can move on to the next challenges… some are going to be really tricky!

Cheers!

The Juggling Challenge: Finally!

I did it! Yay!

After 3 tries with 3 different songs, YouTube accepted my audio. Shut up YouTube, I give credits at the end, dammit!

Anyway, let’s stop the ranting… Enjoy the vid!

Thanks

Mat

4 Tips for Iron-Hard Relentlessness

So um, let’s call this little hiatus of posting an Olympic break, shall we?

Talking about Olympics, it was a pretty amazing event. Even more so, I think, from a Canadian perspective! (Yea I’m biased, so what?) – 14 Gold Medals, are you kidding me?! And 26 medals total! Congratulations to ALL the canadian Olympic athletes.

One special mention, of course, to Joannie Rochette and her hard-earned Bronze Medal in Figure Skating. In case you’ve been living under a rock or gone at a trip to Mars, you probably heard about her tragic loss and how she overcame it, STILL going out there and giving her best. TWICE.

She was an inspiration to all of us, and a brilliant example of relentlessness. (I like that word, “relentlessness”. Sounds smart, doesn’t it?)

So, how can we use this inspiration and become just as relentless? Here are a few tips:

The V-Day Challenge: I DID IT!

I might post later to add some comments.

Enjoy!

V-Day Challenge: Briefing

Of Strikes and Belts

– Note: This clever title pattern is directly copied from the classic “Of Mice and Men”, for absolutely no reason –

Last week, I passed a belt test to get my brand new green sash in Fang Shen Do Kung-Fu. I am proud to say that it went very well and I can see the progress I made from the last time.

Progress is an amazing feeling, and testing your abilities and skills is one of the best ways I know of to measure personal progress. In this regard, Martial Arts have been of tremendous help and have ever been my guide.

Challenges: Update

Hi guys,

I haven’t checked in for a while and I missed it. I’ve worked hard lately to find ways to make more time for this blog and project and I think I got a couple of things back on track.

This dude rocks.

I’m working regularly on juggling, too, and my personal record is now 47 throws! Still no video, but that’ll also soon be covered again as I’ve found a way better software to work on that.

I’m still aiming for those 30 seconds (which I estimate to be about 55-60 throws), and I’m getting closer. Right now I can do 20-30 throws pretty regularly, so it’s only a matter of repeated practice. I want to get the first challenge down SOON so I’m going to make it happen. And capture it on video for your enjoyment.

Also, I have to prepare for the challenge #7 (a.k.a. Valentine’s Day Challenge!) in only ONE WEEK already! Gosh, time flies by so fast. I’ve repeated the translations a couple of times, and I’ll put a focus on it this week to be ready for V-Day.

One thing though, is I’m still not sure how the heck am I going to just happen to cross paths with a randomly-selected beautiful woman whom is also single. Maybe I’ll just go to the shopping mall and ask around or something. Lonely girls OUGHT to get on a shopping spree to drown their tears or something. I don’t know, I’m not a girl.

Got any ideas? Please help me and post a comment

Meanwhile, I’ll also be posting something soon regarding my Green Sash (belt) test I passed last wednesday, and my martial arts progress in general. Stay tuned!

Mat