Andrew Meier's Blog

The other day, while playing volleyball, I noticed something kind of strange. To be completely honest, my team isn't the greatest, and the team we were going up against was very, very strong. Going into the game, the general mindset of our team was negative. For those of you that don't know, volleyball is played in "sets". For this game, it was best of 3. To win a set, you have to reach 25 points before your opponent. Whoever wins 2 sets first, wins the game. As I was saying, we weren't expecting to win. For the first set, nobody on my team was having fun. We played bad volleyball and lost badly. The score? 25-8. This is where it gets interesting. Going into the next set, our mindset changed. Instead of playing to win, we all decided that, if we're going to lose, might as well make it fun. So we played with confidence, even if we knew we were going to lose. Strangely, the opposing team wasn't scoring as much as before, and we were somehow keeping u...

Out of all my years of doing Kung Fu, this one is definitely my most notable. Throughout the years, whenever students were asked to help out with anything, I generally never volunteered. Because I never stepped up, somebody else always did. Now, being more involved in the school, taking initiative isn't as intimidating as it used to be. Also, it's always a good way to learn new things and to have fun. This past Thursday, Sifu Brinker brought up an opportunity for somebody new to spearhead our adopt-a-driveway program this year. I'm not 100% sure if it was his intention,  but I got the impression he was telling specifically his year's black belt candidates (myself included) to get to work. So, on our way home, my sister and I discussed ways that we could get involved. Other than revising the schedule, (which you can find on Hannah Meier's Kwoon Talk profile), we had the thought to integrate a system to remind the team when we need to shovel. The tool we're usin...

Another strength I believe I have is being able to keep myself motivated. With Kung Fu training, being able to keep oneself motivated is crucial. I believe one reason for myself being able to keep myself motivated comes from my long distance running training. Countless times, I've wanted to turn around and quit running. However, with motivation, I'd finish those runs. I feel that this skill really help in my Kung Fu training. A weakness I'm aware of in myself is my sparring. I really enjoy it, though I feel my skills are sub-par for my rank in Kung Fu. The best way to work on my sparring skills is probably bagwork and, obviously, actually sparring. Sometimes, I feel as though I rely too much on my kicks, which doesn't help when I'm facing somebody with longer range. For the future, I'm going to keep using my hands more in order to elevate my sparring skills.