Goals for the Year of the Fire Horse

Study sketch done traditionally (pencil on paper)

Here we are, the Year of the Fire Horse, with a bit of a befuddled start on my part, but a start nonetheless.

The I Ho Chuan (IHC) team has been discontinued and a new format laid out for the black belt candidates instead. Since I’m not a black belt candidate, just a blue belt, I decided to continue the goal setting and tracking on my own. My goals aren’t fully planned out for the year but here’s what I have so far.

Pushups: 166 / 25,000

Situps: 122 / 25,000

Since I set a personal record of over 11,000  last year (almost for Situps) I wanted to see if a smaller number goal might be a good stepping stone, a small win that still takes me toward the goal of 50,000 in the long run. Provided my body will let me.

Hand form: 17 / 1000

I’ve chosen 18 Temple Motions for this year.

Weapon form: ?

Not sure how to quantify this one yet because I want to do “contact staff” this year. I’m hoping that learning how to handle the staff this way will contribute to my mastery of it. Maybe I should just mark whether or not I’ve learned how to consistently do certain moves, like “hand wrap”, “conveyor belt”, etc.?

Sparring: 15 / 1000 minutes

Kilometres: 42.3 / 1609

RAoK: 4 / 1000

Might as well keep practicing tracking Random Acts of Kindness because I’ve been so bad at tracking the last few years.

Flexibility: ?

Another one that’s hard to quantify. Probably best to just state whether I’ve achieved the ability to do certain things, such as a forward bend with chest on thighs and legs straight, splits, etc.

Help with Level 1 classes

Figured I should be able to do this approximately once per week, especially since I don’t have the IHC classes anymore.

Draw:  ? / 236

Would like to draw on at least this many days of the Year of the Horse. More would be great. I still have my art mentor, and I’m still doing my Aaron Blaise class videos, not to mention all the art reading material that I now have.

Decluttering continues to be a priority. Setting up systems to make life easier goes with that. Still haven’t found a good way to quantify this one.

One-on-ones:

I also want to make more use of the one-on-one sessions this year. My goal is weekly.

Reading: ? / 12

I read 6 books last year and would like to increase that to 12 this year.

Dog training:

Not sure how to quantify this one either. However, the dogs training was rather neglected last year, and it shows. They are high energy dogs (Malinois x Dutch Shepherd) and the easiest way to keep them active is to get their minds working, not just their bodies.

Some of my goals for this are change of position from a distance, differentiation, walking a plank/ramp/balance beam, deciding on individual whistle commands, and muzzle training. Many of these also have practical applications. Walking on a plank (ramp) may be useful later in life when stairs can get hard for older dogs but, being big dogs, they are not easy for me to carry. I’ve gone through that with previous elderly dogs. Muzzle training can be useful for if dogs need surgery and can be used as an alternative to “the cone of shame”. Part of the training for the muzzle is also useful for training dogs to do a retrieve and not chew what they’re retrieving.

Is this too much? Knowing me, probably. Still going to attempt it though. Course adjustments can be made along the way. Some of the goals are ongoing responsibilities whether I set goals for them or not.

Here goes!