Post by: Kris Green
continue with my commitment? I’m not doing it for a record; it’s a personal challenge. Some of what’s kept me going is definitely an obsessive personality trait. That’s the part that has me log each class. (That’s how I know that I’m averaging just over 63 minutes per day.) Mostly though, it’s the desire to improve myself physically, mentally and emotionally that’s kept me going. I started simple, challenging myself to keep an official seigan going. Then I tried to bump it and do an hour each day. It doesn’t always work: sometimes I’m sick or injured or too busy or make other excuses and only get in 30 or 45 minutes. But I always feel a little bad about it the next day – there’s the obsessive part of me. A half hour sometimes feels like I haven’t quite gotten what I want out of my workout, especially since I’ve started trying to bring more balance to them. A big key for me is variety. For a while I achieved this by making each day’s workout different. I’d do my kata as slowly as possible one day (I made the motion-sensing lights in a racquetball court turn off and stay off while doing kata once!) The next day, I might try to get power out of the kata, or focus on my stances or balance. Or really envision all the attackers and different ways to apply the movements. Some days I’d do a thousand kicks, or a thousand punches, or both to work on stamina. Recently, though, instead of doing the same thing for the entire workout, I’ve started to bring variety into each day. I’ll break the hour up into segments, like three 20-minute segments or four 15-minute segments. Then each segment gets a different focus. I may do one segment for conditioning, one to go over the most recent moves from kenjitsu, one to run through some self-defense moves, and one to work on my kata for third degree. It’s amazing how quickly the time passes. Another trick is to add in a little outside element to your training. For example, if you like to watch cartoons, have them playing while you work out and make them part of the workout. Scenes change quickly in cartoons, and every time the scene changes, you could swap to a new sparring combination, or add in an extra punch or kick to the head of your imaginary opponent. Anything we do in class is a potential source for a workout, and everything can be modified for different situations. Try doing all you upper body basics sitting in a chair, or doing the lower basics from seiza. Start small, build up, and pretty soon you’ll realize that you’ve made it 100 days or more! Keep a record of your workouts so that you can vary them and to encourage you to remember to do it.
Photo by: Salvatore Vuono
Awesome line about the motion sensing lights! That is cool.
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