I am sitting here contemplating the days events and started considering how I feel now that we are 3 weeks into the program. I feel sore but that is starting to diminish. I have found that my 30 minutes on the rowing machine is no longer giving me enough cardio to satisfy me. I have stepped up the pace and the resistance on my machine. Motivating myself to do the push-ups, sit-ups, and bag rounds is becoming much easier. An actual bag rather than a shadow would be much better from a training standpoint but I'm making due until I can find an actual bag! I find myself more often than not wanting to work out and feeling much better once I do. My energy level is gradually rising and my appetite has leveled off. I'm not eating as much as I use to but feel better anyway. My largest concern at the moment is related to my previous post; self-consciousness. This is a demon that I must confront, that I must conquer if I am to become all that I can be. This is something that I hope that you all may be able to help me with. You all seem so confident when performing in front of others and I must say I envy you for that ability. Any advice you can give on this matter will be most appreciated.
With that said, how are my teammates doing? How do you all feel at this point?
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Good questions, Dean! Three weeks into the program -- I feel mentally more capable, physically more powerful, and spiritually fully engaged. Mind, body & spirit. Yesterday afternoon, my energy flagged a bit. I have a small cold, and felt uninspired. I did pushups and situps anyway and my attitude immediately improved.
ReplyDeleteMore than just exercise, it's the consistency that is making a difference in my life -- the daily regime. I find it grounding and satisfying.
Dean -- self-consciousness is a demon I face too. Thoughts of performance freeze my soul. Often when I am just driving in to practice, I find that my palms are damp and my hands are shaking. Training in martial arts takes me outside my comfort zones. It fits no previous pattern in my life, there's no reason I should be either as interested as I am or as capable as I'd like to be.
But, you know, the more I persist, the more I ignore the small voices that tell me to withdraw from the field, the stronger I become. Steven once told me to take the “persona” of a martial artist with me wherever I go, apply it to whatever I do. Slowly, that concept has made performance easier. What I do on the floor is very different in some ways, but if I integrate martial arts into other parts of my life (marriage, teaching, parenting, friendships), then it's easier to fully engage in the training. If I am a martial artist – however unlikely that is – then I can be one in everything I do. One of Steven's earliest East West blogs outlines that idea more fully.
Also, the closer I get to those I train with, the greater the trust, the stronger the friendships, then the easier performance becomes. Remember practicing Gung Gee before your sash test? That's what I'm saying. There's a purity there somewhere that is soul-satisfying. There's a feeling when the moves are right that connects with something larger. That “something larger” doesn't stay on the floor – it gets into everything, if you let it, like water when you swim. You feel that – at least, your written words convey that feeling (reference your last posting). You will capture that essence more and more, regardless of where you are.
For me, it helped to try to figure out what I felt when I experienced self-consciousness. What is my reaction based on? What are the triggers? I figured out I get nervous at two points: when someone is watching that I want to do well for, and when someone I care about is watching who may not understand. I'm doing better at the first one, since observation and correction are a natural part of the learning process, and I want to always be open to improvement. The other will take more work and is an internal journey. But knowing why I feel self-conscious helps.
Now, the crowd at graduation is a little different. More practice is the only thing I can throw at that problem, since I don't mind the performance as much as I mind forgetting the form in front of people. It's not much of a performance then! I want to be able to internalize the forms well enough to remember them no matter what happens. While I may not be able to entirely defeat the “master of self-consciousness”, I can take away some of the effects.
Take a look at Sifu Tammy's latest blog posting “Guard the Mind” at http://wakeupandrun-willowmu13.blogspot.com/2009/01/guard-mind.html
(apparently, comments can be as long as we want!)