More than just Martial Arts
Posts tagged discipline
Wow.
0I mean, WOAH. Did I fall off the earth, or what?
So, here’s the story, and I’ll try to be brief.
I got hurt, and now I’m less hurt.
…What? It’s brief.
Ok, if the brief version isn’t enough, then here’s the long version:
At some point around the time of my last post, I applied to grad school to study psychology (specifically, health psychology). Rather a drastic career change from some people’s point of view, although less so from mine. I was accepted, and started school in January. In the mean time, I think I was a little burned out from posting on two blogs at once, and I decided to take a break. Apparently that got out of hand (sorry).
The other, more salient thing that happened that probably had more of an impact on my not coming back to writing, was a chronic foot injury that’s had me sidelined for over a year. It’s a chronic overuse type of injury, and I can’t really say how it happened with any certainty. What I do know is that in September I started noticing some pain in my left foot that would flare up after workouts, but go away over the weekend or any time I took a couple days off. I figured it was no big deal, it didn’t hurt that much, and I basically ignored it (kids, don’t ever do that).
Obviously it didn’t just go away, it got worse. In December I went to a doctor who told me that “I don’t really understand what you do, so I don’t know what to tell you.” He confirmed that it wasn’t broken, told me to wear shoes and sent me on my way. Thanks, Doc. As you can probably guess, that didn’t help either.
So I kept working out on it, but with shoes, and it kept hurting…a lot. I tried taping, which got me through my workouts, but eventually even that wasn’t enough. In February I finally hit my breaking point. I went to a different doctor, who sent me to physical therapy, and I stopped working out, hoping that a few weeks of rest would help it heal (hint: it didn’t).
That brings me to the other downside of this stupid injury: food. We’ve discussed how I like food, yes? Well I went from working out 9-10 times a week (seriously, I was doing P90x and kickboxing at the same time – I was a bit of a beast) to doing NOTHING overnight. My eating habits did not adjust as quickly, and my body is still paying the price. After a few weeks I was at least able to stop the crazy gains, but even then I kept slipping – a pound a week, on average, no more, but no less. Let’s just say I have got a lot of ground to make up.
The worst part was I didn’t know what to do about it. Diet changes, yes, but I suck at that. I tried and failed. And failed. And failed. And this whole time, I was barely able to walk. Somehow after I stopped working out, my foot locked up, and it got worse instead of better. There were times I could barely walk across the room, and I could never walk without pain. Frankly, I couldn’t sit without pain. Pain was background noise to my life. Add to that the fact that I’d lost my number one stress relief in workout out, and I was not a happy person.
I had never thought much about chronic pain before I had it…believe me, it’s no joke. Not that I thought it was before, but I never appreciated how much it messes with your head. I was cranky. I was beyond cranky, I was unpleasant. I was unhappy, I was in a Funk with a capitol F. That didn’t help the eating situation any, let me tell you (especially with grad school plus freelancing taking my stress levels to 11). I couldn’t find anything that didn’t hurt, except for swimming, and quite frankly it hurt so bad just to get to the gym and into the pool that I quit doing that, too. It was always ‘just a few more weeks’ until I would be back, or so I told myself. I had to, or I would have lost it.
Ok so enough of that. Where am I now? After 5 doctors, 2 physical therapists, 2 orthopedic specialists, and 2 chiropractors, I seem to be getting out of the woods…for real this time. The real difference makers? The second ortho guy (foot and ankle specialist, referred to by the first ortho guy), who finally gave me a diagnosis and put me in a night splint. And after that, my sent-from-heaven chiropractor. The night splint helped the plantar fasciitis aspect of my foot (one of three ‘itisis’ that I have), but that, the orthotic, and the stretches he gave me still weren’t touching the rest. The chiropractor does this crazy thing called “Active Release Technique,” and it’s a-ma-zing. Hurts like a son of a …gun… but it works. I’ve literally made more progress in the last month than I’ve made in the last year combined.
So how’s that for a novel? I have taken all of the inserts, pads, and orthotics out of my shoes. I am finally back to some activity, and I can walk around without pain or a wonky gait. Doesn’t sound like much, but for me it’s like a miracle…like having my life back. I usually still tape my foot (I have become good friends with Kineseotape), but I don’t even do that every day. I have to use a lot of ice, and do a lot of stretching, but things are looking up.
Coming up: Part II of my return (Oh yes, there’s more. There’s BOMBSHELLS, people. It’s been a year and a half, it’s a lot to catch up on!)
Finito
0Alright, enough of this experiment. It’s been enlightening, but it’s stressin’ me out. Final tally, after one month; I’ve lost about 5 pounds, and almost 2″ off my waist, and things fit better. I also stopped randomly snacking on everything in sight, so overall I’ll call it a success. I didn’t do as well at adding variety as I had hoped, but with less crap and more working out I think I’ll survive. I’m still tracking what I eat on my own, so there will hopefully be more progress from here out.
I will still be around, posting when I feel like I have something to add to the world, instead of every night. Every night leads to boring posts about my day, and it’s not fun for any of us. I will also try to get back to doing my form occasionally, although with kickboxing keeping me in shape I’m feeling less pressed to practice for health’s sake and more to make sure I don’t forget it. That approach is kind of lazy and needs much less practice time, but I’ll try. Until next time, stay well amigos.
Productivity is in the eye of the beholder
0Um. Yeah. Today? Stuff: happened. Laundry: done. Kickboxing: done. Procrastination: also done. Motivation: gone. Not much to update you on. I think my life is not exciting enough to withstand daily updates, amigos…4 more days and I’ll probably go back to blogging oblivion. I’ve never been able to find a happy medium between daily posts and almost nonexistent ones, but I will try.
Food:
Breakfast: PB&J
Lunch: Tacos
Supper: Taco stuff, minus the tortilla
Other: Milk, soda
Yep.
Current Weight: 161
Habits
0I’m not quite sure what to write about – my days just aren’t that interesting. Eat, work, work out, eat, repeat.
I’ve been slowly working my way through Psychology – The Briefer Course, by William James. Now, since this book’s original publication was in 1892, I take it with a grain of salt, but it’s still being published (this edition was printed in 2001) so somebody obviously thinks it still has value.
Habits: either helpful or nasty little things, depending on what they are. Basic premise of the first chapter: habits are a mental process – but mental processes are, at their core, physical processes. Therefore, a habit is made up of a series of electrical signals traveling between the neurons in your brain in the same path over and over – like they’re digging an electrical trench in your brain. This makes it hard to break habits, since you have to convince this current to travel a different path than the one it’s used to. Fortunately, that process can work for good as well as bad.
Habits can be complex – driving the same path to work every day, for example, or complex emotional responses – so the most important part of a habit is the beginning, the first action that triggers the chain reaction. It’s like when you start tying your shoes. Once you start, your unconscious takes over and you probably couldn’t stop in the middle and then go on without thinking about it. To change a habit, you need to head off the first spark. To start a habit, you need to define a spark.
A habit will have a better chance of taking hold in your brain if you set a trigger point; some consistent thing that you do that your brain can associate with the entire chain of actions that make up the habit. Then when it encounters the trigger, it can bypass the conscious part of your brain. Instead of you having to fight a battle with yourself: ‘I should really go to the gym some time today,’ your brain recognizes the trigger – getting home from work, getting up in the morning, whatever point you set that’s consistent – and sets in motion the habit. If you can set and keep to a specific trigger, the habit will take hold more quickly, and be easier to stick to.
To break a habit, you have to somehow divert the trigger point – give it some other path to follow. This is my own inference, but the easiest way to break an old habit may be to set a new one up to take its place that uses the same trigger. So you’re not just trying to stop the habit when it hits, you’re diverting it into some other, more desirable action.
I’m not doing the whole chapter justice here, but I picked out a bit that I thought might be more interesting and practical…and I tried to write it in English. It’s an interesting book, but it requires plowing through a lot of very dense material; you can definitely tell it was written in academia, in another era.
Food:
Lunch: Enchiladas
Other: Cookies, milk, chocolate milk
My stomach is getting better, but not there yet.
Current Weight: 160
Saturday
0Last night, I went to bed early so I could get up at 7 to go to kickboxing (early being 11:30). That was a great theory, but at 1:30 I was still awake, and I didn’t fall asleep for a while after that. I never really felt like I was getting sleep at all, actually. BUT. I got up, I got out the door, and I got to class on time. Then I remembered why I don’t work out in the mornings.
First thing after getting up, I realized I was out of bread. This was bad, because I usually eat PB&J in the morning, and because bread is about all my stomach will handle when I’ve gotten up early. I have a very acidic stomach and I knew I was going to be in trouble. But I didn’t have many options, so I had a tiny bit of milk and some straight peanut butter, popped an antacid and hoped for the best.
I drove to class only to find out that my friend, who had said he would be there, hadn’t shown. I hadn’t told him I was coming, so he didn’t ditch me, but class is more fun with company.
Bad sign number three: only one other guy there. Small classes never have much energy, and usually seem slower than big ones.
Bad sign number four: A different instructor than I’ve had before, who doesn’t usually teach kickboxing.
Actually, if you take all of that into account, it wasn’t a bad class. It wasn’t fun, though. It didn’t take long for me to get nauseous, which confirmed that I almost always do when I work out early. The instructor wasn’t bad, she just switched things up and threw me off a bit, and she added a couple drills that I chose not to attempt due to my shoulder. Let’s just say it was a long hour. If I hadn’t felt like I was going to puke most of the time it would have been better (sorry, but it’s true). And then I’ve been crazy sleepy all day to round it all out.
So, I think I’ll be skipping morning classes from now on, or at least finding a better breakfast solution before I try another. Being tired is bad enough without feeling sick to boot.
Food:
Breakfast: You already know about breakfast – PB & milk
Lunch: BisonWitches!! 1/2 Club, chips & queso. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Other: Chocolate Milk….did I really forget to eat anything else? I guess I was full from Bison.
I honestly didn’t realize until just now that I haven’t eaten anything since about 1. I had a lot of water, but no food…hmm. I can’t decide if this is a good trend or not. I’m a little hungry, but not starving by any means, so it’s not like I’m trying to torture myself. Actually all told I feel amazing. I feel like I have muscles again, injured or not.
Current Weight: 160 (booyeah! 5lbs, 1 week – What a difference a little kickboxing makes.)
The merits of a workout
0I think if I went to kickboxing tomorrow, that I wouldn’t be able to walk. Holy soreness Batman! After being in kickboxing for a few weeks now I’ve decided it is by FAR the best ‘fitness’ class I’ve ever been in. It’s mixed up well, so it doesn’t get repetitive. The music is a good playlist that’s long enough to shuffle and not feel stale. And the workout – sheesh, the workout. I think it either equals or comes close to the level of intensity that the boot camp I was in did, but without feeling so painful, stale, and boring.
Although I gained a great level of conditioning from boot camp in a short span of time, it was torture. I was counting down the days until I was done after the first day. It would have been better if it hadn’t been in the morning, but it still wasn’t fun – just work. It honestly felt like being in a sports practice, without any of the fun sport parts. The only thing that kept me in it was my desire to get in shape for MMA.
Kickboxing is work too, to be sure, but it’s also constantly changing and challenging in different ways, so it doesn’t feel miserable. It feels purposeful, stays moving fast enough that I’m not counting the minutes, and incorporates enough martial arts to keep me happy. So far, it’s been great – I have fun, I’m tired and sweaty and sore when I get done, and I love it.
But what about Taekwondo, you say? Didn’t you love that more? Well, yes, but. Taekwondo was amazing, and I did love it. But it was never a ‘fitness’ class of this intensity. Taekwondo is great for a baseline, and great for coordination and strength, but it will only get you so far. Unless you’re sparring a lot – which we usually weren’t – it’s not that cardio intensive, so I rarely felt very exhausted or sore after class.
It was good, in a way, because I started off so out of shape that it built me up at a rate I could handle. But when it came to getting past decent shape into peak condition, there just wasn’t enough physical work involved in class to get there. Taekwondo can be a very technical sport – get your foot there, pointing that direction, and your arms here, and your head looking there, and your other foot up here, and do it all while looking halfway coordinated, and then transition into the next move that’s just as technical. Your stances need to be perfect – after 81 moves, you should end up on exactly the same speck on the floor that you started from. If you jump, it’s not enough to just land on your feet, you have to land in a perfect stance.
All of that is work. It will build muscle. It will build cardio, if you do it enough. But it’s easy to let the cardio slip, and let the stances get higher and higher until they don’t work your legs. Especially once I started teaching more than training, and adult classes became an afterthought in the wake of changing priorities at my old school, I wasn’t getting much of a workout. I pushed myself to do the moves as perfectly as I could to be an example for the kids I was teaching, and I think that’s what kept me from losing ground, but I wasn’t getting anywhere.
Taking this kickboxing class is part of a change I’ve been wanting to make for a while, of getting in the kind of condition I should have been in all along. I want to be able to perform martial arts to the peak of my ability, and although I know what my moves were lacking, I rarely had the strength or stamina to fix them consistently.
If I ever take the chance to do Taekwondo again, I hope I will feel like I can represent it as well as it deserves. It is a beautiful, powerful, technical sport, and I want to be an instructor who can teach by more than just a decent example and words – I want to show what there is to achieve.
Food:
Breakfast: PB&J, Milk
Lunch: Pizza
Supper: 1/2 slice pizza, Chocolate Milk
The sad fact of food when you’re single is that you get used to eating the same thing a lot. It’s simpler and more cost effective if I cook things in big batches, and fortunately I don’t mind the repetition. Breakfast….well, I have a rocky relationship with morning food. I don’t like to eat right after I get up, and my stomach has aggressive opinions about what it will accept. I go though stages where I eat the same thing for weeks because nothing else sounds good, and then after a few weeks or months there will come a day where I can’t stand the sight of it anymore, and I won’t eat it again for ages. This has happened with PB&J (currently making a comeback), oatmeal, granola bars of various brands, and so on. I’ve never been much of a cereal eater, although lately it’s been sounding better to me than it usually does. Basically I go with what sounds good, and don’t argue with my stomach.
Current Weight: 162
Double Rainbow!!!1!
2Yes, internets, today I saw a double rainbow irl, as they say. To see one at the peak of the double rainbow video phenomenon is pretty epic..I don’t remember seeing one in a few years, so it’s not like they come around every day.
Before I saw the aforementioned double rainbow, however, I was deciding that you know your kickboxing class is too far away when it’s pitch black and pouring at class, and sunny and barely sprinkling at your apartment. But then I saw the rainbow, which was awesome, and then it started pouring again, and that ruined my theory. Still, on Mondays and Wednesdays it’s a 25 minute drive (no kickboxing those days at the closer school), and that’s a pretty long haul.
My legs, they burn! I’m going again tomorrow, and I may be completely flattened after that but by god I’m going. Intense leg workouts 3 days in a row? Yes please. Possibly 4, if I’m feeling really masochistic. I like the sweat if not the resulting muscle soreness, and what’s a workout without pain? My shoulder’s holding up alright…I’m sure it would be better if my ego didn’t think I should do just a few more punches to prove I’m not a wimp. Proving you’re not a wimp is highly overrated, but my pride overrides my better judgment whenever I’m not paying attention.
Food:
Breakfast: PB & J with milk
Lunch: Hamburger and carrots
Other: Part of A Mountain Dew in the afternoon, and milk and peanut butter after working out.
At times I’ve cut soda completely out of my diet, but this is clearly not one of them. It’s one of the few things I crave like crazy, so I decided it can be my vice for now.
I probably shouldn’t skip supper, but I haven’t been very hungry in general the last few days. I don’t know if it’s the heat or just from working out, but I figure it’s not worth fighting.
Current Weight: 162
It’s a miracle!
0Or at least, my apartment is clean. These days, in my world, that IS almost a miracle. Keeping things tidy was a casualty of freelancing – not because I don’t have time to do it, but because I lost all my reference points. I used to come home from work and 15 minutes of cleaning was the first thing I did. It was a habit that took me a while to build, but it served me well…and then I started working from home, and at random hours, so I wasn’t coming in the door at 5:15 every day anymore, and there went the cleaning.
Habits are a funny thing, so hard to build and so dependent on fragile things. Hooking a habit to a trigger is immensely helpful, but when the trigger is gone, so is the habit. So I look for a new reference point in the midst of a life full of chaos, and so far I have failed. But today things are clean, so maybe I can keep them that way. Hah.
Food:
I declare Sunday a cheat day. So there! See you Monday.
Holy Boredom, Batman
2I hate being injured! My research, combined with the fact that the end of my collarbone is visibly higher than it used to be, leads me to believe that I have a separated shoulder. As such, the remedy is rest, ice, and plenty of it. I figured I could just work on design stuff all afternoon, but I went to the library to work and after about an hour my shoulder was throbbing like it was on fire. I finally came home and made myself a sling, just so I would keep my shoulder still, and forced myself to do nothing for the rest of the day. It was miserable.
I admire any elite athletes who take adequate recovery time after serious injuries – it’s hard for me to sit still for a day, and I can’t imagine what it’s like if you’re a career athlete. Sitting still for weeks, creeping through physical therapy…ugh. Hats off to the ones that have the patience and self-control to see it through.
So that’s that. Not much else to report, since I sat around with a sling on all day. I hope this heals quickly, because kickboxing is my sanity and I don’t want to lose it for long. I had too much time tonight to sit around and think about my career, and where I’m going with my life, and all those fun questions that don’t have answers and drive me crazy.
Food:
Breakfast:
- PB&H, the usual
- Milk
Lunch:
- Tacos
- Carrot sticks
- Soda
Supper/Snacks:
- Cookies
- Milk
- Chips with Black Bean, Corn & Avocado Dip
- Oops
Yep, I skipped supper. Or replaced it with cookies, however you want to look at it. Go me! I was having a bad day, let me tell you, and I needed some freaking cookies, that’s all there is too it.
Current Weight: 155
An Injured Day
0Well, this sucks. My shoulder was so tender last night that I had to give it its own pillow to keep it from moving around, so I could sleep. I woke up a few times and had some funky dreams, but I did sleep. Today I iced it in 20 minute stints all day – an advantage of the freelance lifestyle is being at home, so ice packs and bags of frozen things are always handy – and by the end of the day it’s feeling much better…but still sore.
I went to watch my team’s softball game, and by the time I’d done that and then hung out after the game for a few hours, my shoulder was sore. You know it’s not good when sitting down, lifting the occasional soda cup, and driving make your shoulder hurt.
I’m really hoping that if I don’t accidentally sleep on it tonight, and if I rest it all day tomorrow, that it will be healed most of the way. In the meantime, I can’t go to kickboxing, because it’s still arms week, and I don’t want to start this process all over again. But it suucks. I want to go, I want to see people, and I want to work out. I need to work out. But better to suffer now and heal completely than fight an injury for the next few months, I guess.
In another note, I almost hate my reputation for Taekwondo. I get into random conversations and it’s hard to know what to say about why I’m not at my school anymore, and why I haven’t done anything for months, and why anything I could show them would be not that great because I’m out of shape. It’s hard to know how much to say to a casual aquantance or a stranger when I’m telling them that I quit my school, but also that it’s a great school. Both are true, but it has to sound strange.
The details of why I quit are a long, personal and business-related mess, and it’s not something I want to get into with just anyone. And I have no interest in trashing my old school or dragging my instructor’s name through the mud, because neither would be justified. There are things there that I disagreed with, and they resulted in my quitting. It was a heartbreaking decision, and that tends to override the bitterness these days, as long as I don’t think about it too long, and that’s about as much explanation as I care to give.
I wish it was a more satisfactory answer, or that there was a succinct way to express what happened without dredging up the whole messy story. I wish that I had imagined the problems, and that it would just be fixed and none of this would be an issue, but that’s not how life works. So I go to a different school, and I agonize over how involved I want to get, and I hemm and haw around the subject that I used to love in conversation. Sometimes life takes the best things away from you, and what can I do but get up and keep going.
Food:
Breakfast:
- 1/2 PB & Honey
Lunch:
- Spaghetti and Marinara
- Chocolate Milk
- Chocolate Covered Peanuts (So I like chocolate. So what?)
Dinner:
- 2 Tacos
- Salad
Other:
- 2 Sodas at the bar after Softball (Damn you, free refills!)
Well, minus the sodas it wouldn’t have been a terrible day, but take away working out and it doesn’t add up well. I really need physical activity to balance this equation. The sodas were bad, but they were so gooood, you know? And let’s face it, I have very little impulse control, and the waitress took my glass to refill it before I even knew what happened. It would be rude not to drink it, right? …Right? I’ll take your silence and raised eyebrow as a yes.
Current Weight: 166