What would YOU learn from being pounded into the ground?

Morning!

And how are you today?  So nice to see you swing by my blog, for I shall now regale you with a tale of utterly amazing idjutness that is so other-worldly, it’s worthy of the Darwin Awards!

You see, it all started yesterday at the YMCA gym.  No, actually, that’s not true – it really started at Halloween, when I was brazenly attacked by insane amounts of chocolate bar goodness, Milk Duds and other tasty unmentionables that devasated my good eating habits into teeny tiny bits.  Add to that no exercise, and you have a recipe for one, ahem, out-of-shape mom.

So!  Yesterday at the gym, I pounced on my beloved upper body "bash the body workout" routine, and…

No!  Wait wait wait!   Prior to going to the gym, I decided to indulge in the "sit down, stand up, front kick left, sit down, stand up, front kick right" exercise that dissolves your leg muscles while waiting for the school bus.  I managed 120 of those and figured, golly, I’m still walking!  Let’s see what ELSE I can achieve!

But I digress.  Let’s return to the gym and….

The good news is, prior to that day, my record for a left handed arm curl was 35 pounds – yet I managed to blast past that and complete 3 sets of 8 reps of 40 pounds.  Wow!  Not only that, but I was able to leg-press 220 pounds, lat-pull down 150 pounds, and otherwise really out-do myself weight-lifting wise.

Now, should that have been my only exercise, life would have been peachy indeed….but yours truly kinda sorta neglected to realize, yesterday was Tuesday…the day of my beloved adult karate sparring class! 

Let me digress now for a moment and explain in excruciatingly dire calm sentences just how foolishly ill-advised that was.  Karate sparring (get this!) requires you to (are you sitting down now?) hold your hands UP to block punches (Jeepers Barb, ya think?). 

That’s quite a challenge if you’ve already burned out your biceps hours prior to the activity!

So!  There was yours truly, stretching out and warming up for adult karate sparring/kata class.  We always begin with a series of stretches and kicks etc to get the blood flowing (and the good news here is that for the first time (yes!  Mom rocks!) I was able to left/right lunges WITHOUT having to use my hands to push off/balance!).  These wonderful workouts reminded me that I had toasted my quads/glutes as well earlier in the day, leaving my legs about as strong as a soggy wet paper bag.

But!  Did I acknowledge this?  ‘Course not!  That would have been sane!   🙂

Anywhos, we ran thru some great katas (I really adore katas) and then tackled sparring.  For the next 13 minutes (only 13 minutes mind you, 13 minutes), I went against some decent sparrings and some excellent sparrers and realized – the fact it’s been 5 weeks since I’ve last fought was painfully obvious indeed.

In a word – incompetence – thy name was Barbara!

Still, though, I really…REALLY! adored the activity.  I went against one of my favorite senseis, Sensei Infinite (he of the infinite patience) who totally obliterated me (I tried to take him down, he reversed the process and down I crashed instead, he was able to pound on me BUT! I kept my cool enough to roll away and get back to my feet…alas, I did lose my temper a bit later on and thoroughly deserved the punch(es) I took after that), against some other folks, and regretfully forgot one of the most important aspects of sparring – breathing!  I was so out of breath by the end, I could have crumpled into the floor in a heap of wrung-out sawdust. 

Drats.  I really regressed in my techniques.  Wah!  But I’m sure I’ll pick them back up again later.

After class, I returned home…and then endured the realization that those 13 minutes utterly pulverized my body to the point I was aching in joints I never realized I possessed.  Think "brick wall minus the concrete!"  I was lucky if I had 4 hours of sleep last evening….and today will be spent being most gentle on my body indeed.

So!  As I firmly believe everything happens for a reason, you’re probably saying to yourself right now….Jeepers Barb, what did you learn from this?

Golly, what a smashing question!

I learned that:

• Stop sparring for 5 weeks, and you get more incompetent than a parakeet trying to wield King Arthur’s sword.
• Even if you end up on the floor being beaten into sawdust, you don’t have to give into panic – stay focused and you can recover. 
• If you lose your temper when sparring, you’re not simply toast – you’re that lone marshmallow that bravely leapt off the stick at the campfire and ended up being burned into oblivion.
• If you fry your biceps and lats and deltoids and triceps and glutes and quads earlier in the day, you’ll be more than sizzled on a pan left on the stove too long at Adult Sparring – you’ll be roasted ashes stuck on a BBQ grill instead.
• If you can lose your ego and  admit to yourself that folks a weee bit younger than you are 38 times better than you’ll ever be, even when you’re incompetent….you still learn huge amounts of wisdom.

Wow.  Yesterday really was one super class indeed.  I’ll be paying for it big-time today (she said, as she hobbled from coffee cup to computer back to coffee cup), but jeepers….I really can’t say enough good things about karate, sparring, kata and the rest.  It truly is character-building for sure!

And how was YOUR evening?  🙂

Time to make the donuts,

Barbara Ling

ps – speaking about karate, have you seen: