I'm taking the day off. My ass hurts. My back hurts. My hips, hamstrings, quads, knees, ankles, shins, feet, and calves hurt. Basically my everything hurts. Yesterday was my 7th day of training in a row. I was determined to get a whole week done, even though really it's as arbitrary a number as any. But I wanted to say I had done it, even if it meant it would hurt. I just wanted to train hard as I could. I always said I wished I could train every day and now is my opportunity. It was sort of like an extended version of class and far as the mental and physical pushing of myself. And it definitely helped reveal things to me about why and how I train.
I spent a large part of the week getting to class early and working on my left handed ceshoufans for a new move I learned in Level 2. As we all know it is not my strong side. I spent over an hour in L2 on Friday doing cartwheels over and over and over again and still not getting it. I know what to do; I know not to be scared; but my body is just retarded and won't obey me. I really started to get angry at one point. It's so frustrating to not be able to do something so basic even after spending half the class doing nothing else. I tried to focus my anger into chi but I just got worse.
I am terrible about getting really angry at myself when I mess something up. In kung fu this hasn't been as bad because the mental training has helped me mature beyond internal tantrums, (mostly), but there were several times this week when I was learning something new, or even going back to something I already know when I just got so frustrated I wanted to hit something. It was somewhere around my 500th ceshoufan that I realized that this anger was actually holding me back. I couldn't "use" that anger to train better because I was just going into the whole thing with the wrong attitude. It was weighing me down. After all, I didn't decide to train every day because I wanted to be angry at myself for not being perfect at things. I trained because it's fun to work at getting better. I guess this is a fairly straightforward revelation, but I had always operated under the understanding that you could focus anger or frustration as energy in what you were doing. But for me at least, I realized it was just making me worse, and that what I actually had to do was let it go entirely.
Once I started to focus on having fun and being happy that I was learning I already felt lighter. My ceshoufans improved dramatically in how they felt and even some in how they look. :) Of course, I got to the point (today that is) where what I really needed to make things better is a little rest. But it was good to remember that training harder does not mean you have to take yourself too seriously. However, I seriously am enjoying resting my legs. :)
