officially frozen

So after reflecting on my last entry I've decided to address something. That post, you might see, was less than three hours ago, not the norm of two weeks. I've become one of those people, and nothing can help me now.

That post was probably the first entry that discussed my personal life in any degree. The previous ones have mostly been my opinions and maybe an obvious attempt to change your mind. Considering the atmosphere in which we all started these blogs (sharing experiences and such) I feel a bit dishonest. I mean, I see most of you once a week, several more than that, yet all you've gleaned about me from this is that I enjoy graphic novels and that I straddle the line between 'amusingly eccentric' and 'dangerously unbalanced'.

Some of you perhaps might see arrogance in my wish to discuss myself, but my reason is that I'm curious about you. When I looked at Sihing Prince's profile and saw Iron & Wine under his favourite bands I not only high fived him in my mind, I also found it endlessly interesting. What he listens to in his spare time has never crossed my mind, and I think that's a bad thing. So I've posted some favourites in my profile. Delight in my potential lack of taste. Woo!

As you can probably tell, I'm removed from the world by about four layers of irony and cynicism, and refuse to take most things seriously, except for the really important things. Now, this is horrible for relationships and funerals, and I do my best to curb it when needed--with little success. As a result I'm uncomfortable discussing myself. That's ok, because beyond some tibits that fill me out as a person, none of you are here to be my internet friend. I'm not going to dye my hair black, get it cut asymetrically and vent about how bad I am at talking to women. I have issues, but so does everyone, and this isn't the forum for it.

However I know that I, along with everyone else here, have something to offer in terms of my training experiences. I still don't want to. Part of it is my attitude that if you want to know about my training, we can step on the mats--but that's a sidestep (or helix stance?). I can't self-deprecate with a coy smile when it comes to my failures and triumphs. It has to be real or it isn't worth anything.

While testing for second degree in November, Master Brinker noted that my forms are lacking in expression. I believe the term he used was something like "shouting in binary". As I've struggled to bring more artistry into my forms, I've slowly realized it is my attitude. Let me get this straight: I love kung fu. Quite a bit. I think that's obvious, if I didn't I wouldn't be showing up. I also have no trouble expressing myself artistically in other venues (and I'm not discussing discussing that. Waxing poetic about my work is just the most pretentious thing evarz. What I will say is said work has taught me about being genuine). The problem was I removed myself from kung fu like I do with everything. It's very easy to insulate yourself with wit, but going through life like that--while hilarious--prevents me from really giving myself over to kung fu. Being genuine is the hardest thing in the world but if you want to do something worth anything it's necessary. It can be even more difficult with kung fu, since you have an audience whether you like it or not, but that makes it even more important.

So yeah, that's that. I'll try and get a little more personal with my opinion pieces so I'm not coming down from on high too much. One last thing--and it should show how disarming I'm being--I swear. I know I look clean cut, and I don't in public, but by myself or privately with friends it happens, and is quite creative. Look at this sharing, it's intense. I feel like we're all growing.