More than just Martial Arts
Posts tagged motivation
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
Meaningful
0Oh hai! Sorry about that. I disappeared a little. I apologize.
The wedding weekend was great, I saw so many old family friends that it was like going to a reunion. I also got the opportunity to hang out with two kids who I knew very well, both through my church and from babysitting them for around 10 years. I haven’t seen them in 5 years (they were 12 and 7 then, they’re 17 and 12 now) so it felt like being put through a time machine. I always had high expectations for them, but I was completely blown away. They have become the most beautiful, smart, and incredibly personable young people…I feel grateful to have had even a small part in their lives.
I’ve spent so much time working on ‘real job’ kind of things for the last few years, but I look back on it and it doesn’t mean anything to me. Those two kids mean everything, and every other kid that I’ve taught or mentored in the last few years…Some pixels on a screen pale in comparison to that. It’s why I’ve always loved teaching Taekwondo, and why I miss teaching it now. It’s not so much what’s being taught as the impact that it has on kid’s lives.
So anyway…after that. I went to my final ballet class last night – it was almost a relief. As much as I would love to have the abilities of a dancer, I don’t connect with the experience of training the same way I do to martial arts. I enjoyed it while I was there, but I didn’t find myself practicing in my off days, or really wanting to go back to class the way I do with Taekwondo. It was a fun and worthwhile experience, but I’m glad I don’t have to rely on it as my new hobby. Maybe I was wrong, and what’s being taught does matter…passion matters. It took me one whole paragraph to change my mind on that subject.
Tonight I had kickboxing, and even though it is much more brutal and exhausting physically, I would much rather be there. The fact that I have friends who take class with me is a factor as well, but it’s where I want to be. I’m glad that everything came together to get me into that class – it was a hard decision at the time, but it’s been the right choice by far. I’m wired to kick things, or something.
Food:
Yes, food. We’re still doing this?
Breakfast: PB&J
Lunch: BBQ Pork sandwich (wedding leftovers…win.)
Other: Chocolate Milk, and I think I ate some other things but I forgot. Sorry.
Seriously drawing a blank on the rest. Ah, well, there was food there somewhere. The wedding weekend didn’t derail me as badly as I thought it might, although I certainly ate too much. But I think (knock on wood) that I’m done with crazy holidays, weddings, graduations, baby showers (did I mention the baby shower the day after the wedding? Same family, different couple ;), and the like, so I can go back to eating like a normal person for more than a week at a time.
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.)
Musings
0I have a lot on my mind tonight but I don’t know what to say about it, so I think this will be short.
An uneventful day. I’m giving my legs a break for the moment, although I’m seriously considering going to another workout tomorrow morning…we’ll see if I maintain that motivation when the alarm goes off. So today it was work, read, clean. Which reminds me – dear world, my counters (and the rest of my apartment) have been clean, all week! Small miracles, baby.
Food:
Breakfast: PB&J (exciting, ain’t it?)
Lunch: Pizza
Other: Random snatches of soda, chocolate milk, and half a hamburger.
I actually am hungry now, but I feel like I’m making progress and that I’d rather be hungry than eat a thousand pounds of carbs, which is probably where I’d end up if I ate any more. I’m much better at abstinence than moderation.
Current Weight: 161
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
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.
7.1.10 – One Week In
0Happy Canada Day! The only reason I even know that’s today is from working at a summer camp long ago with a bunch of wonderful Canadians, but that’s another story. The fourth of July is looming, as I am reminded by the periodic explosions booming outside my window. I love the fourth, but as I age I’m feeling a little of the get-off-my-lawn attitude about people blowing stuff up at all hours of the night for a week in either direction of the holiday. But at least they’re getting into the holiday spirit, right?
As of tonight I have been to five kickboxing classes since last Thursday – every muscle in my body is sore, but in a good way. I no longer feel like I’m going to vomit halfway through class, although whether that’s from my conditioning getting better, going back on acid reducers (I have a bad history with nausea), or a combination both I don’t know. Most likely both. Whatever the reason, I feel much better.
It’s a really well-balanced class – as I said before, almost every muscle in my body feels sore, and my entire body is getting worked pretty evenly. The class is fast paced, with lots of changes in activity, and a new set of drills every week, so there’s repetition without it becoming monotonous. Which is good, because some of us have short attention spans…
There’s also a good mix of people, so I don’t feel like the most out-of-shape, and I feel like I have people to push me. I already feel better, and all in all I like it. I signed my life away a 6-month contract on Tuesday, so I better like it. I can’t really afford it but I decided I can’t afford NOT to work out either. I am a much better functioning human being when I work out.
Still undecided on whether I’m going to try their Taekwondo (I can’t afford it right now anyway, so it’s kind of a moot point), but this at least gets me into shape. I haven’t gone through my form again since the last video I posted, but I’m hoping to work that practice into my new schedule and that my better conditioning will make it easier to improve technique.