It took half of part one. Four and a half day for me to have my first break down.
I barely slept last night. Don’t really know why. I was tired, but I just couldn’t relax. I was kinda wind up as well with all the nipples and groin kicks last night. Anyway, I knew when I woke up this morning (by the way, only my hamstrings told me ”no, ain’t gonna happen”, the rest of my body was quite alright) that this was gonna be a hard day.I know that everybody is tired, and for those who know me, you know that when I’m real tired I only have two settings – pissed off or sad.As long as we were punching and kicking it was alright. I could be angry as fuck and just get my frustration out – easy peasy. But then came the techniques. Hand defenses against kicks.
Fucketi fuckety fuck… Not today…
These are some of the techniques that I have most difficulty with. I just can’t seem to get it into my muscle memory, I can’t get the right steps. So I have a mental block in my head. It’s this little annoying voice that keeps saying
You can’t do this. You can’t do this. You can’t do this.
Do you think that helps with the technique? Not a god damn thing. But Dima is awesome to train with – he sees what I’m doing wrong and is great in explaining how to fix it (even though I still don’t seem to get the hang of everything). He also lets me train on some stuff much more than he does himself, so that I can get more coaching.
I held up until lunch. Then I had to have a small melt down.
I felt useless, slow and stupid. Not sure why I would be stupid all of a sudden, but that was the general feeling (General Feeling). But if there’s something I’ve learned these last couple of years, being on the waiting list for a new heart, feeling the strain and toll that takes on your mind – I’ve learned that breaking down is not a bad thing. If I need to break down to get back up again, then that’s what I’m gonna do.
The afternoon went much better – we still worked on defenses against kicks, but with techniques I like much more, I got to kick and hit and get to get some more frustration out. Especially the last exercise when we were toughening up our legs by doing squats two on two, and every other time I did I a round house kick on one of Dima’s thighs, and the next time he kicked me. The guys already say I’m a sadist (hm, could be true, to some extent), but today I really needed to get kicked. Since I can’t kick myself very effective, I need someone else to kick me out of this funk.
It is tiring. It is hard. It is a lot of info to take in.
I don’t think I’m the only one feeling like this, and don’t get me wrong – this is also enormous amounts of fun, it’s a huge challenge (and you know I love those), we have an awesome instructor and all the guys are just so great, goofy, and hilarious.
Now day five is about to come to an end – and we have a 15 minute lesson to prepare for tomorrow, in groups, on how to teach a new technique. That’s about the extend of what I can do for today – I’m gonna be the first one in bed tonight (pinkie swear) – and tomorrow is a brand new day.
Day 6, look out – here I come!
All the other days, this is energy.
Today, it’s comfort food.
Thank you for writing about your experience, it’s a pleasure to read.
Reading your blog makes me long for the Krav Maga semester to start again!!