words of wisdom...

so here's the story. on my second week of teaching at venice fitness a man in his 60's watched as a friend and I did some light technical sparring in the ring. he approached me afterwards and said that he was interested in martial arts and he was very intrigued by our display. I then told him that if he was interested in hitting some mitts at the end of my classes on wednesdays that I would be more than willing to work with him, and he said yes. a couple of weeks go by and we begin to learn more about each other. I learned that he is a retired lawyer, had a stroke 2 years ago and joined the gym in fear of what he went through. he's a very quiet man and very shy at times. every week we would meet up after my class and go through 5 rounds of mitts, mainly for his hand eye co-ordination and reaction timing. we never really get intense with our pad holding, i sense that he wants to do this as more of a social thing and to keep active. we work on timing and reaction and we also slowly work into learning combos. after we hit mitts we usually talk. we talk about business, past experiences, religion and life. yesterday he brought me a book that he talked about the previous week. the book is called "the book of five rings" by miyamoto musashi. he said that it's a good read that compares martial arts to the philosophy of life. i have read the first 40 pages of the book today and couldn't put it down. so far so good! i think it's great how a lawyer used this to help himself mentally prepare himself during his career and has now continued to pass down some words of wisdom...

pho...

I forgot how much i actually like pho! I went twice in 2 weeks lol http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/10/134259/restaurant/Scarborough/Pho-Saigon-Toronto

Surround yourself with positivity...

I forgot the importance of this message and experienced a great reminder of it today. The past few weeks have been very busy and stressful for me and I almost felt like I was on a steady downfall from how I felt before starting this blog. When I first started writing on this blog I was full of energy, confidence and I felt balanced both mentally and physically. As the weeks progressed I started to lose sight of my goal. I started to decrease my physical activity, started partying more, started eating unhealthy foods and started thinking about myself less, which slowly started to bring on stress, lack of proper sleep and started draining my energy.

Today in the other hand, I decided to start reading on my commute to school again. I like to read the books of Robin Sharma (who I was introduced to by a college friend of mine who I felt was personally balanced both physically and mentally). The current book that I am in the middle of reading again is The Saint, The Surfer and the CEO. The message in most of Robin Sharma's books are mainly to improve not only yourself, but also your surroundings. I was reminded today of the importance to start your day off on a positive note and to keep a positive outlook towards the rest of your day.

This morning for me was pretty stressful. I woke up extra early today for school so that I can be early for class instead of always being late. My plan was to be early, but TTC's plan was to have a delay on the subway line. It set me back 30 mins, which made me late for school. But before the delay happened, I was already deep into the pages of my book and have already read the message "Always start your day on a positive state." When the delay occured, I was very frustrated because recently it seems that no matter how I plan out my day, there's always some sort of delay! I just decided to take on the message of the book and see things in a more positive way.

I figured that the delay gave me an opportunity to slow my rush-rush day and give me some time to think. I thought about what I wanted to accomplish by the end of the week, and what I wanted to do for myself by the end of the week. If the delay never happened, I would have still been in a continuous "rushed" state and just carried on with my busy day.

Having that positive outlook on my day rewarded me with my instructor not being mad at me for being late, in fact, we had a great talk afterwards on how I can boost up some of my marks! Having a positive outlook on my day also gave me the energy to stay awake and give my full attention to my other professor during class, when usually I would be too tired to even stay awake lol.

When I woke up this morning, I also told myself that "Today's turn out is whatever I make it to be." And I decided to make it a positive one...

Protect Your Dreams...

Always a great reminder with a great message. I like to watch it every now and then to give me a boost in pursuing my happYness...

patience is a very important lesson in life...

i'm a very stubborn and impatient person. when i want something done or want something in general, i don't want it now, i want it yesterday. but the older i get the more i realize that life doesn't work like that. i'd like to think that life is a canvas and to live it you have to create it. we learn through our experiences and we tell ourselves to avoid the negative and try to repeat the positive. but just like everything in life, nothing is bound to happen in that very same moment you think of it. you have to start with a solid foundation to build a house, and the same goes to your life. what i have learned is that if you don't build a solid foundation with an idea, as in, creation of a step by step layout to track it's progression, you are heading nowhere. patience is a very important lesson in life. if you are patient and accept life as it is, everything will fall into plan. just because something isn't happening for you right now doesn't mean that it will never happen. just enjoy life as it is. think positively about how you are living because no matter how bad it gets it could always be worst...