Karate last night

[pegkerr]

I went to karate class last night and got sooooo frustrated. It was just one of those nights when I felt so klutzy. Kept falling out of balance on the slow kicks, and then, just to complete my humiliation, sensei decided to work on spin kicks (tornado kicks, spin hook kicks). Spent some time stretching after class, brooding unhappily on my performance, near tears in frustration, actually, and finally I decided to talk to sensei. I felt a bit craven to beg for reassurance, but it was really bothering me. He assured me that I was absolutely on track of where I should be at this point in my study. I need to work on keeping my breathing regular--if I start holding my breath because I'm getting frustrated, I fall out of the kicks much more quickly. It helped to talk to him. A little.

Still.

One of the most useful lessons I've taken away from my sporadic study of yoga is the concept of understanding that some days your body simply does what you ask of it better than on other days. The trick is to accept what your body can do each day without beating yourself up about what you can't do. I remember what sensei told me a long time ago, that for most kids the challenge in karate is physical, but for most adults (and for Delia, as I've written before) it's primarily mental. Well, it's both for me, but what was really bothering me last night was mental. Or rather, my mental reaction to what I was doing physically.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely: what my body can do at morning workouts varies quite a bit from day to day and has a lot to do with what it's been doing (lifting weights, I'm almost always stronger after a rest day, for instance).

I learned a new aspect one day ten years ago while preparing for my first (and to date only) mountain bike race, and this may be pertinent to you since your classes are in the evenings. Normally I rode trails on weekend mornings, and rode on a relatively flat dirt road near home in the mornings before work. But with the race coming up, to get in a bit of extra practice, one day I packed my bike along and did a trail ride one evening after work. I didn't ride well at all that day. My body wasn't tired in the least: I'd done nothing more strenuous than sitting at a desk all day. But mountain biking requires courage and strategy, and my brain was too tired to do either one well.