You Deserve a Break

After writing my last post I went to help assist the children’s beginner classes.  There, even though I am helping, I always find I take a tidbit of information home with me as well.  What stuck with me after yesterday’s classes was the notion of ‘taking a break’.

Periodically through a class after the children have been pushed to run further and faster or to do more, Senpai may ask them to ‘breathe up’ and to ‘shake it off’.  Sensei stopped the class having seen that the kids today weren’t putting in 100% of their effort and told them that at this point, they should be feeling tired and that’s why they are given a short breather.  If they find that when they are given this breather that they don’t need it, that they aren’t sweating or their heart isn’t racing, then that should tell them to put in more effort.

On the drive home I had to stop and think about that.  If at any point in the day, if someone asked me if I could take a break, could I?  Was there something to take a break from?  I had just written a post about how I felt stressed and any time spent not studying was time I felt I had wasted, even if it was spent training.  But did I feel exhausted?  No. 

Sensei knows best

Each month at our dojo we have a challenge that we try to accomplish.  This month’s challenge is to ‘Train like a Brown Belt’ (basic idea: train for a couple of hours in karate each and every day) and it brings up two different topics I want to talk about: 1. what it feels like to me to train like a brown belt and 2. the guilt I felt for no longer training like a brown belt.

This challenge brought me back to when I was first told I was going to be graded for my brown belt; I didn’t feel ready.  I had seen female brown belts and they looked strong and deadly.  I questioned that I was as strong as these women but regardless I went to work.

This is the studio I have in my gym at my condo (picture to come), I call it ‘my dojo’.  I spent hours every day here and the more time I spent here the stronger I felt and the more precise my movements seemed to be.  No amount of nervousness could distract me from my katas because I had done them so many times.  I felt great at the grading, so much so that I continued to train this way afterwards.  I had questioned that I was ready to move on to brown but I was told that Sensei knows best and always has a larger plan.  After this grading I thought maybe this was part of it, to push me further and keep me focused and it worked.  Sensei does know best and I am a big fan of this challenge and highly recommend that you try to find time in your busy schedule to train this way if you haven’t already.