A Man Reborn

My leg felt pretty good today so I went to Muay Thai class. Hamstring/groin felt a little stiff, but after some stretching and a warm up they were back to normal.

Today was a really fun class with lots of sparring. Started off going back and forth with just rear and lead leg kicks and practicing attacking and defending. Then we did back and forth jab attack/defense, then more sparring with the jab in addition to leg kicks. Finally we did more attack/defense but with lead hooks added then more sparring including all kicks.

A few times I went up against guys that were quick / tricky. Against one guy I ate more than a few push kicks to the chest - need to come in at an angle. I’m starting to feel more comfortable and relaxed but I still have trouble defending against combos. It will come with time and practice. Once my tattoo is healed I’m going to be getting in for as much sparring class as I can so that should help out a lot.

Got home after class and was in my room and took a funny step - I rolled by ankle a bit and stumbled and cracked my forehead on the corner of the open door. It left a nice clean half inch cut right between my eyebrows. It’s not too big but looks a little deep. The position it’s in is pretty much pushing it closed so it should be fine - will see how it is tomorrow.

I somehow hurt my leg this weekend. My right hamstring towards the inside of the back of the knee has been feeling pretty uncomfortable. I started noticing it Saturday and yesterday it was bad enough that it made me limp around. I’m not sure how I did it exactly, but I think it happened sometime Friday night at the carnival… I blame the shoddy rides ;) or maybe when I tried to spin upside down in the funhouse spinny.

It’s feeling a lot better today which is a good thing, but I’m going to take it easy on it and let it heal completely. I ended up not getting my tattoo done on Saturday so I’m able to train this week at least. I’ll do some heavy bag work tonight. I find that I keeping falling back to the same punching combinations so I’m going to look up different combination ideas and try those out. I picked up a book on speed training as well so I’m going to start doing some of the drills from the book to get my punching speed up.

It feels a little weird to not have the day counter from the 9 week challenge here. It gave me something to count towards. I guess it works the same as goal-setting almost. I’m working on my plan for what I want to work towards next, so I’ll have new goals up soon.

Today’s workout was destined to be tough - I went to a concert last night and didn’t get home until late. So I didn’t get much sleep and I was also sore as well. On top of that, I didn’t eat as much as I should have during the day, so by the time class came around, I was running pretty low on energy. I need to sleep and eat well consistently.

Today’s class was focused a lot on defending against attacks. We started off by lining up against the wall with a partner. One partner would then jab and move backwards and the other other would block/dodge/counter the jab. We did that a couple of times then moved on to jab/cross combos. Once that was done we did more drills that were more freestyle, with one that was particularly hard.

For this one, we started off with partners again - one would lean over and hang their arms down and get spun around 10 times. They would then stand up and defend against incoming attacks. This one was tough - for the first 10-15 seconds I got tagged a lot and would lose focus. When I was able to focus / watch my opponent I did pretty good with blocking. I definitely lose my composure very quickly after being hit. I also have trouble watching for visual cues to the next attack. I know that both of these will only improve through time, so I’m going to get to as many sparring classes as possible to work on them.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be at least a couple of weeks before I can really get started with sparring. I won’t be around on Wednesday and then on Saturday I’m getting some tattoo work - so I’ll be taking it easy for a couple of weeks while it heals. I’ll go crazy if I don’t get some exercise in during that time though, so I’ll have to think of something.

In an hour I’m going to go weigh in and test for the end of the Kombat Arts 9 week challenge. Today I went through all my journal entries over the last 9 weeks to review what worked for me and what didn’t. I can say without a doubt that the last 9 weeks has been the most productive, educational and motivating period for me over the entire last year. I am focused on what I want to achieve and I know what I have to do to get there. At the same time I see that I need to stay open-minded and never be set in my ways.

Here’s some rambling points that stuck out for me:

• independence/others - while ultimately it comes down to what I do individually, having many other people in my life to learn from, support me and motivate me is what allows me to push forward - I wouldn’t still be going on my own without all the help I’ve received from everyone in my life… family, friends, teachers
• rest - my best workouts and progress came when I was getting full night’s sleep
• nutrition - I believe that nutrition is more important than exercise as it ultimately controls the energy we can put into activities and the result we get out of them
• motivation - having clear goals and checking in with those goals over and over kept me on track
• patience - long lasting results take time and there is no shortcut
• progress - the only way to get stronger and faster is to push ourselves that little bit past where we went during the last workout
• time - is valuable and shouldn’t be wasted - every second, minute and hour should have a purpose - there’s a difference between saying you’re going to relax for an hour and just wasting an hour of time doing nothing
• tracking/logging - tracking my diet and workouts has really helped me a lot - it keeps me on track and lets me adjust my approach in a much shorter time frame than I would be able to without it
• work - there is no substitute for just plain putting in the time and energy

I think that’s enough rambling for now. It’s been a great 9 weeks and it’s just the start of so much more. For the first time in my life I actually feel athletic and in decent shape. I saw some friends I hadn’t seen in a little while last night and they complimented me and said I looked ‘buff’, which was really weird for me as I’ve been a fat-kid for 29 years.

So what’s next… I’m going to continue training even harder. From the beginning of my training I always had competition in the back of my mind and the more I came to class, the more I fell in love with the art. I’ve really developed a strong passion for Muay Thai and I am going to push myself to improve my skill. I talked to my Kru the other day about competing and he was happy that I had that ambition and is going to put me in fighter’s class to train for a fight in the future. I know the road to that goal is very long and will be hard, but it’s something I want and something I am going to do.

I finally decided on my reward for hitting my yearly goal - going next Saturday to get more work done on my black-work sleeve. So I’ll be taking a semi-break for 2 weeks after that to let it heal. I’m going to take that time to do a lot of reading and prepare myself mentally for the challenges ahead. Then once that’s done I’m going to train hard. My endurance and conditioning really need a lot of work so I’m going to focus on that a lot.

As for now, I’m going to go relax a bit and then drive over for the weigh in and testing. Tonight I’m going to see a band play who’s music and lyrics have inspired me to not only start this whole thing a year ago but have also pushed me through every day. If I believed in fate, I’d think there was some significance to them playing on the last day of the challenge, but I don’t, so instead it’s a nice reward.

I’ve posted this before - but I still listen to this song every morning as part of my morning ritual and it still gives me an adrenaline rush when the drums kick in. The lyrics are very special to me and always make me want to push myself harder.

Hatebreed - This is Now

Another memory and I’m asking myself
why cant I let the past be the past.
Once and for all take a hold of the future
And not let it control what I aspire to have.
I see where my decisions have brought me
Whats done is done and its time to start again
Can’t let it tear me in two or waste me away
I gotta believe
Cause this is now
How can I change tomorrow if I can’t change today.
This is now
If I control myself I control my destiny.

What I’ve seen and what I’ve been through has made me who I am
There was a time in my life where I had no desire to carry on
I couldn’t see a place for me or a will to survive
I never thought to rely on myself or the beliefs that I have denied

But this is now
How can I can change tomorrow if I can’t change today
This is now
If I control myself I control my destiny

If I control myself I control my tomorrow
I got to change today
Cause this is now

How can I change tomorrow if I can’t change today.
I must control myself if I’m to control my destiny.

Cause this is now.

Cause this is now
How can I change tomorrow if I can’t change today.
This is now
If I control myself I control my destiny

Today I went to a Mental Toughness Seminar hosted at Kombat Arts. I am going to compete in the future and being ready mentally is just as important as being ready physically. The idea of mental toughness also applies to everything we do in life as well.

The workshop was taught by Rob Schinke, a sports psychologist who has worked with a number of professional and amateur athletes at the highest levels of competition.

My interpretation of the seminar was that the main point is this - “Self awareness is mental toughness”. This works out in a few ways:

• be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses to know what to focus on
• be aware of the things you do that cause you to have good and bad training days - then evaluate these items so you know what to repeat and what to avoid
• be aware that your posture and the way you carry yourself controls the way you feel and the way others feel about you, which in turn becomes your reality

Rob also talked a lot about the importance of keeping a training log. The way he discussed it was to have it in a very point form manner to really show the nuts and bolts of what was done during a day. The idea is to make it easier to review at the end of the month to see what has been working and what hasn’t. I’ve been keeping this journal updated pretty faithfully, but one thing I haven’t been doing a lot is going back and reviewing it. I am going to review more often in the future to see what has been working for me and what hasn’t.

Another point that was stressed is the importance of being positive. Rob explained to us how even a minor negative thought can lead into a downward spiral as the negativity perpetuates more negativity and self-doubt. This is something I strongly believe in and try to apply in my day-to-day life.

On the topic of goal-setting, we were given an exercise: write out 3-4 specific goals in the past tense as if you have already achieved them. The goals should be written on index cards and put up in places where you will see them multiple times a day. The idea is that by seeing the goals constantly, we are thinking about them a lot more often which leads to taking action to achieve them.

After the seminar and a quick weight workout, I went over to Staples and picked up a pack of the most garishly-bright neon index cards I could find and wrote out these goals:

• I am 180 pounds and in excellent physical shape
• I am skilled enough and have a high enough conditioning level to fight competitively
• I am confident and assertive
• I am taking my career to the next level and improving my skill set

I’m going to put them up on my bedroom/office door, nightstand, bathroom door, home office desk, work desk and fridge, plus wherever else I can think of.

There was a lot more to the seminar, but I’d be writing here forever if I went through all of it. I learned a lot of new ideas and reinforced some existing ones. The seminar was definitely worth it and I’m glad I decided to check it out!