We were asked in class last night how many reps of Stick 1 we think we've done on our way to the magic number of 50,000. My knee jerk (and very confident) response was "maybe about 2000". After inquiring whether this was my IHC form (it is not), Sifu Csillag's response was "No you haven't". And so I said "ok, at least 1000 then", thinking I was being modest by cutting it in half. Oh how I laugh at this now.
He told me to start by thinking about how many reps I do for my IHC forms. I'm on track with these, and I record the numbers, so I know that I do 3-4 per day....which will equate to 1000 for the year And so, in comparison, have I also done 3-4 per day of Stick for the last 2 years? Hahahahha....not a chance. So we worked out some actual numbers. I would "confidently" estimate about 5-6 reps of stick per week. My overall number will also be dependent on when I actually learned stick, which I will say was about 3 months into my Kung Fu journey. This puts me at roughly 2 full years of knowing and practicing Stick 1. But can I also "confidently" say that I've never skipped a week? My immediate response was, yes, I can attest to that. But later on as I was thinking about this more, I resigned myself to the fact that, no, I cannot. But for the sake of this exercise, we'll pretend that my estimations of time and numbers are accurate. And once you crunch all those numbers, I would be looking at 520-624 reps over the course of these last 2 years.
So firstly, this "best case scenario" number is not even close to my initial response of 2000....which I honestly felt really confident with as I blurted it from my mouth. 😂 And again, not even close to my more "conservative" estimate of 1000.
But really, this is all irrelevant. Even after working out these numbers, I can't call them accurate. I've never recorded them, and so they are only a memory. An unreliable memory at that.
This exercise was a real eye-opener for memory vs reality. And the importance of maintaining accurate records if I truly want to analyze progress. It actually really bothered me how off I was. And so I am adding a personal requirement to my Year of the Tiger and commit to recording ALL form reps for the year. I challenge others to do the same if they feel it would serve them.
Freaking awesome post! My big eye opener on this concept was when I was teaching a bunch of kids in Onoway. They were complaining about how many pushups I had them do in class. I remember telling them that pushups are really important and that I had done over a million pushups in my lifetime. Then I joined the UBBT and committed to recording of 50,000 pushups for the year. Recording those 50,000 pushups that first year made me realize that I had not even done 50,000 pushups in my lifetime. Here I am thirteen years later, still doing 50,000/year every year since, and I still have not completed a million pushups in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not recording, you do not know where you are. Our memory conveniently lies.