Just a short post today.

For the past two years, I’ve been training in Wing Chun kung fu. I really love it because it fulfills different needs: I’m doing something that connects me to my Chinese heritage; it fulfills the analytical part of my brain; there are many lessons that can be applied to everyday life; I’m learning how to defend myself; I’m learning to relax and go with the flow – this last bit is very important to me and also supplements my interest in Daoism.

There was a short period in 2015 when I couldn’t attend classes as much. I had some cracked ribs from an out-of-town sparring session, then I got into a car accident. When I returned, it was nice being back. But 2015 also saw me transition from getting back into illustration for fun to focusing on how to make it a career. I started attending classes more sporadically and even cut down the number of times I attended each week.

Studying Wing Chun, or learning anything new that you’re enthusiastic about, requires time, patience, and commitment. When I started, I was advancing at what I thought was a pretty brisk pace. I was going four times a week and really focusing on learning and remembering everything I could while trying to apply those lessons to sparring sessions. Now, I’m behind where I think I should be due to my lessened attendance. I’m seeing classmates I started with passing me up which, due to my competitive nature, doesn’t feel great at all and is very frustrating.

But, my long term goal is to replace my dayjob with illustration work. To do that I need to draw, draw, draw. To do that I need to improve in areas I know need improvement. Going to Wing Chun classes takes enough time out during the week, even at only a couple nights, where I feel like I’m not working hard enough towards my art goals.

But I don’t want the last two years of training to go to waste.

Balance in martial arts is important, balance in art is important, balance in life is important. My gut tells me to take a break from kung fu and focus on illustration until I’ve developed some of the work and technical habits that I want to develop, and I put out work I think demonstrates I’ve reached the proverbial “next level”, and then reward myself by returning to my Wing Chun training. But there’s a part of me – probably the part with pride or the obsessive part of me – that wants to keep going to class, to keep up as best I can so I don’t fall too far behind where I could be – where I should be – and just make sure I draw during the rest of my time, regardless of what time it is or if I’m tired or not.

But as a friend pointed out: who wants to live that way?

I’m not really one to get too personal in my blog posts, but the reason why I share this little story is because I wonder how other artists balance having a dayjob, the need to create, while also investing time pursing other interests. Are all artists in pursuit of a career, or just a significant output of art, sacrificing almost everything else except their dayjobs and maybe time spent with friends to go after what they want? Do all artists hole themselves up in their homes, narrowly focused on the prize? Are they going to bed super late and getting up early to go to work (which I normally do, and I can tell you it takes a huge toll on the mind and body – I’m perpetually tired and it’s catching up to me)? All of that sounds ridiculous to me, which begs the question: if they’re not artist-hermits, how are they balancing everything they do?

I still don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but the artwork is calling to me much louder than anything else.