Stepping It Up

It's been very hard to be consistent lately with MMA classes and other workouts. Last week was my 28th anniversary and my son's birthday; I've worked both last weekend (made it to Saturday class, guiltily) and this weekend (missed Saturday class, guiltily).

I will boost my classes to four a week; Monday, Wednesday and, on Friday, two classes in a row, to try and build conditioning more. I'm going to schedule an hour out of work to be at the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Sunday, I'll try to find something to do at home. I know this will be very tiring initially, and work and life will interfere. But you set goals, and you shoot for them.

My main focuses are 1) health, and 2) getting better at MMA.

Point 2 is simple: In striking, I need to move more, especially laterally, and relax a bit. In grappling, I will be taking two classes a week, which should help me really learn more techniques, at the muscle memory level; there too, I need to relax more, my sensei says. Another focus, picked up from a friend at work who used to do Gracie jiujitsu, is to either give the other person no space, or to take any space he gives me.

My Saturdays will be free. I'm hoping this means I can spend more time doing things with family. My Saturdays have been very hectic.

It would be nice to have a Saturday where I don't have to work. Pray for a slow news week.

Whitewater

I told my wife the other day that I felt like my entire career had been spent NOT preparing for my current job. Her response really caught my attention: She said her image was of the young guy she married, taking her on a canoe trip, being excited about the whitewater rapids we were about to head into. I'm excited by challenges--even if at times I feel like I'm going to drown in them.

Now I'm thinking of challenging myself in martial arts.

My job has been extremely demanding, time- and mind-consuming, but I feel like I'm getting a handle on it. At my MMA school, the schedule has changed, right at the time when I'm feeling like three classes a week just isn't enough.

Now, rather than take any "core" classes that are very focused on conditioning, I'm planning on taking two stand-up sparring and two grappling classes, for a total of four a week.

In grappling, I simply need more practice to get more techniques in muscle memory. In sparring, I need to learn how to move better (forward, sideways, not back), and to develop more combinations in muscle memory, which again will take repeated practice WHILE sparring. (These classes do provide a real workout, and I am trying to supplement a couple of days a week at the office gym.) I really want to improve in both areas.

I'm also going to talk with my sensei about whether to take steps toward the second degree. I don't know if I want to commit to that while my job still is very demanding, my daughter is preparing to leave home to go to school, and I need time with my wife. But it's a challenge I want to consider at least.

Two Hours

One reason I haven't posted frequently lately is that, by my count, I have about two hours a day on weekdays, after commuting, working, commuting and working out to do the things that need to be done in life like eat dinner, talk to my family, deal with whatever needs to be done on a work night.

Happy President's Day. I'm going to bed!

Foreshadowing?

A classmate once observed the tradeoff for not having the ills of a sedentary life--aching back, diabetes-related ills, heart troubles--is having lots of little acute pains.

Today I still have a sore thumb which I jammed a couple of weeks ago, but I also have aches from three days in a row of class, including my first grappling class since August.

And, weirdly, I'm sore from falling out of the shower for the first time in my life. Yesterday, after grappling class, I was taking a shower at home, and I lost my balance; my feet slipped out from under me, and down I want, pulling the shower curtain down with me.

Fortunately I didn't do any serious damage--I didn't hit my head, and my knees bent normally, so no knee injuries. I remember putting a chair in the shower after my ACL surgery to avoid falling and tearing my new ACL.

But I definitely got bruised up. I don't know why I fell, but I quickly thought of how my father, at 89, fell a few months ago and ended up in the hospital. It felt like a foreshadowing of what's to come when I get old, and I didn't like that feeling.

How Much Wood Would A Nunchuck Chuck

Tough week; I strive for 8 hours of sleep even on work nights, and got only 6 hour Monday night (after Martin Luther King Day) due to a combination of crises involving work and my elderly parents.

I did have a good sparring class Wednesday--I forgot my helmet, which required consideration by my partners, and in any case they were considerate sparring partners. One was my buddy Larry, the other was a joshu who is incredibly skilled and who was giving me tips as we drilled and then sparred.

On Saturday, I varied my schedule by attending a class where my sensei went back to our MMA school's karate roots; he was teaching nunchucks to the black belts (we don't do forms/kata any longer to get a black belt). I never used them before. I didn't think I would be able to get the hang of them at first, but I did eventually, even if I was very slow. We worked on one of the forms the school used to teach.

Interestingly, my knee with the repaired ACL was more sore after doing those forms than it usually is after sparring.

I told sensei that my goal was not to become the next popular YouTube video of a nunchuck accident, and he laughed.

Today I've got a slight fever and I'm going to just rest. Busy week of work ahead. My wife's friend in Italy said everybody she talked to in America is ill with something, and I think she's right. What a winter.

Blah

Sparred tonight. I don't like getting hit in the head by people who don't know how hard they're punching. I don't like that I still have a hard time dealing with people who rush in. I feel like I don't know how to spar right now and wonder if I'm past the age where it's fun. Blah.

Making the Most of the Midlife Crisis

I've told people over the years that martial arts was my midlife crisis.

Martial arts, which I started in my 40s, changed my life. So I like this description of the "midlife crisis" in a Wall Street Journal article from this past week:

A growing number of researchers are defining middle age more broadly and in positive terms, as a good time to reassess life goals and chart a new course. "Midlife is your best and last chance to become the real you," declared an article on the topic last year in the Harvard Business Review, which drew thousands of emails in response, says co-author Carlo Strenger, an associate professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University in Israel and a researcher and consultant on midlife change.

This week I'll be taking a lot of classes to make up for holiday feasting.