It’s Sunday — my day off, the one I look forward to each week.

The sun is shining, creating the illusion of warmth, though it does little to soften winter’s bite. The trees are bare now, stripped of leaves and flowers. The grass has faded to a muted brown, signalling a season of rest rather than growth.

And yet, even in these harsher conditions, there is still so much to learn. Secrets remain. Small, meaningful progress continues to present itself if I’m willing to notice it.

This change of season seems to have stirred a change in me as well. Not a sharp turn — more of a soft adjustment. A gentler approach. A kinder mindset that allows me to step back and see the wider landscape, instead of forcing myself endlessly up the same hill.

Christmas came and went, as it always does. A lot of fanfare, very little substance.

It was a pleasant day, but it passed like a brief storm — a small disturbance that rattled things momentarily before disappearing without much trace. And now we move toward a new year, carrying hope, dreams, and often more old baggage than we care to admit.

For me, not much has changed. I’m still walking the same path, holding the same goals. And strangely, I’m grateful for that. Lately it’s taken real effort to stay focused and optimistic, but continuity feels grounding.

It’s Christmas Day — a day I’ve always loved. There’s something almost childlike about it. For a brief moment, not much seems to matter. Who you are, what you’ve achieved, what you own — all of it softens, fades into the background.

What remains is simpler, and somehow heavier.

Christmas has a way of reminding you that family and friendship outweigh any belief system built on imagined achievement. That may sound harsh, but today it feels undeniably true.

For many, this day means returning to where everything began — the family home, the place where early dreams were formed, where love and learning first took shape. A return to familiar walls and familiar voices.

The truth is I’ve felt a little lost over the past few weeks. Nothing dramatic. Just lonely. Which, when I say it out loud, makes sense — spending both my birthday and Christmas alone has a way of amplifying quiet thoughts.

What’s surprised me more is the direction my mind has been drifting. I’ve caught myself circling everything that isn’t working. All the things I could be doing. All the ways I imagine I’m falling short. It’s a narrow lens, and an unfair one.

Because when I stop and look properly, the evidence tells a very different story.

That was a tough week.
There’s no dressing it up.

Sore and painful is the only honest description. My hips hurt all week and no matter what I tried, nothing shifted. Same outcome, day after day. Frustration built quietly at first, then all at once.

Today it tipped into anger.

Not a great way to practice, but it was real. Pretending otherwise would have been pointless.

Today passed largely without event.

I’m still a little sore and tight from the run — not injured, just reminded — but otherwise things are moving along quietly, without friction. No drama. No breakthrough. Just steady ground.

I made one meaningful decision today. I signed up for another six months.

It feels both long and reassuring. A stretch of time that will no doubt be demanding, but one I’m ready for. These forms still hold layers I can sense but not yet access. I’m fairly sure they’ve always been there, waiting patiently for the right combination of skill, patience, and clarity to reveal themselves.

Over the last week I’ve been struggling with a set of photographs. I couldn’t quite understand why. They weren’t bad, but something felt off — unresolved.

When I sent them to a friend and tried to explain the discomfort, she offered a simple thought: you’re changing every day, so the way you see things is changing too.

That sentence stayed with me. It sent me back into the files.

About thirty minutes later I closed the computer, slightly stunned.

To call this week up and down would be generous.

Training has been tough. It always is. But beginning a proper review of Tai Chi 28 stripped away a few comfortable assumptions I didn’t realise I was carrying. The distance between where I am and where I want to be revealed itself very clearly — and not gently.

That’s not a bad thing. There is space to grow into. Room to build. I simply believed I was further along than I actually am.

The issue is familiar. I think the body is moving, but it isn’t — not fully. The arms are still doing too much of the work, stepping in where they shouldn’t. They’re meant to follow, not lead. The movement should originate from the body, carried through naturally, posture to posture.

A new day. And in many ways, a new year.

The plans are simple.
This year I want to become quieter. To exist in a place few people notice, and even fewer bother to look for.

I don’t want to be part of a bigger game anymore. It brings me very little joy. I want my head down, my thoughts kept mostly to myself, expressed only through writing, while I give my time to the one thing that continues to feel honest.

Training.

Today was my birthday. It was quiet. Peaceful. And, if I’m honest, a little lonely.

I spent most of the day training and keeping to myself. That usually means less friction. Fewer explanations. Less energy spent trying to bridge gaps that no longer feel worth crossing.

I’m starting to realise something simple: the less I give of myself to others, the less I need to listen, the less I need to explain, and the less I need to ask what happened to the world I thought I knew.

The start of the week always carries a sense of possibility. Today felt quietly good. I didn’t learn anything new, but we began a review of Tai Chi 28, and that alone turned out to be revealing.

As you move deeper into anything, your capacity to notice detail grows. What once felt complete begins to open again. The best way I can describe it is this: the Tai Chi 28 I learned a year ago is not the Tai Chi 28 I practiced today.

The form hasn’t changed.
So something else must have.

I’ve been back at the school for a few days now, and the truth is it feels good to be here. It feels like home.

I know how strange that sounds — living in temporary accommodation in the middle of China, studying Kung Fu — but it’s still true. When I was away, things felt slightly off. Not wrong. Just misaligned. Not how I want to live, not how I want to move through my days.

Everything out there seemed faster. Quieter moments were quickly filled. Silence treated like something to avoid rather than sit with. It’s not impossible to think in that world, but it takes effort — the current is always pulling toward familiar noise.

I’m sitting at the airport, waiting for my flight after a few very quiet days away. I did very little, exactly as planned. The rest was needed, and it landed where it was supposed to.

The time didn’t burn brightly on this trip. It passed gently. Maybe my attention has shifted to softer places. Maybe things are fading a little. Or maybe this is simply how time behaves when you stop trying to fill it.

I don’t really need to know. The days were simple, and that was enough for them to be what they were.

I’m a few days into this small mid-year break now, and while I’m enjoying the time away, there’s a part of me that misses Wudang and the rhythm of training more than I expected. I’ve grown used to that structure. To the repetition. To knowing exactly where effort belongs.

A break is good. Necessary, even. Still, my mind keeps drifting back to what I want to work toward. The list feels long, and the place where most of it can be done is very clear.

So while I’m resting — doing very little, intentionally — the future keeps nudging at me.

I spent part of the morning watching videos of people teaching what I’m currently learning. I tried to watch without bias. I didn’t succeed. But in that failure, something useful surfaced.

Seeing what felt clumsy or overstated helped clarify what matters to me — not just how I’d like to teach one day, but what I’d rather avoid.

It isn’t only about movement, though correct movement matters. And it isn’t all about the dam and  endlessly invoked Qi, spoken about as if it were a private possession or special ability accessed while holding an imaginary ball. That language feels tired to me. Overworked.

The sun is shining today. Truly shining. And with it, a long-awaited break has arrived.

Leaving the school always feels strange. I didn’t expect it to become a place of safety, but it has. Somewhere I feel comfortable, accepted, quietly held. A place that asks me to work harder, to be better, to solve what needs solving without drama.

To say it feels like home is too simple. It was more like a harbour — somewhere I could ride out the storms without being asked to explain myself. Somewhere I could live plainly, move my body, and let things settle.

Another day accounted for, and now it’s time for a short break.

For the past few days I’ve been nursing a sore back. Nothing serious, just another reminder of distance — how far I’ve come, and how much still lies ahead. Injuries aren’t welcome, but they do have a way of pointing directly at what’s been overlooked.

This one has made something clear. I need a longer, slower warm-up if I want to keep progressing. Not a dramatic adjustment. Just more time at the beginning, letting the body arrive before asking anything of it.

I was stopped at the front gate of the school after returning from a short, quiet walk in the park.

An older Italian student asked me why I was here. Why this place, this life. I found myself pausing longer than expected, not because the answer was complicated, but because it was so simple it felt almost unusable.

I knew whatever I said wouldn’t satisfy a Western way of thinking. It would invite more questions. Still, I didn’t have anything else to offer.

It’s 7:50 on a cold Tuesday night. Cold enough to see every breath hang in the air. I’m sitting off to the side, watching the coaches train — moving like machines, steady and relentless.

Tonight I feel a little sorry for myself. Once again, I’m injured. This time it’s my lower back. Probably the result of fifty-five years of wear layered with long hours of training. I shouldn’t be surprised. Somehow, I always am.

This one needs rest. So I’m skipping basics this week, moving slowly, stretching deeply. I’ve been doing that for the past couple of days, and the body seems to be responding. Not quickly, but honestly.

I had an interesting day yesterday. It almost felt like stepping backward into an older version of my life — and, unexpectedly, I liked it.

I swapped my training gear for filming gear and shot a small project for a friend. Simple. At least, that’s how it felt. Like pulling on an old glove. Familiar. Comfortable. For the first time in a long while, I was doing something instinctively, without thinking, operating at a level my body remembers even when my mind has moved on.

I enjoyed it more than I expected. Enough to make me wonder why I’ve done so little of it over the past few years. I like creating. I’m good at it. And it’s still good work.