"Train, Train, Go Away"

Whenever I first wake up, I never want to train. On the border of sleep and awake getting out of bed seems quite unappealing if not totally impossible. Of course once I'm up for ten minutes then I'm fine. But today, waking up after a night out to a gray rainy day, I decided to roll over, snuggle deeper into my comforter, and snooze until noon.

WHAT? "Now way. I have taken two days off because I felt a little under the weather, but I was getting my lazy ass out of bed and training no matter what. I threw myself out of bed, and in under fifteen minutes, cooked and ate breakfast, got dressed, got my bag together, brushed my teeth and ran out the door.

I can't train tomorrow, which means that Monday would be 4 days since my last class. That's less frequent training than when I was working full time. We simply can't have that. Class was very humid, and the last vestiges of my cold left me feeling woozy and lethargic, but it was a fun class and by the end I felt stronger than at the beginning. After all that bitching and moaning my Shaolin whatever sword was tight but not excessively troublesome and my shinsplints took a brief respite. Then, instead of booking it home to curl back in bed I stayed for a really great Buddhism class then helped do some storage reorganization with the demo team practicing in the background. It was a good reminder how many different kinds of training I get when I walk into temple: physical training, mental training, spiritual training, community training, and inspirational training watching those I admire. Those are the things that I need to remember to make the next hauling out of bed a little less melodramatic.

These boots were made for walkin'...

Today when I got to temple I was tired. I took the day off of work, woke up early and did laundry, then spent the rest of the day hanging out with a friend. We started off at Columbus Circle, and over the course of the day zigged and zagged our way all the way downtown. We covered something like 70+ blocks, and when we arrived at Canal around 6 I did not have the chi. I was actually sleeping on my bag as we sat in Starbucks. I used to trek all over the city all the time, but ever since I started my 9-5 I don't get to as much, and I forgot how tiring and dehydrating sauntering around in the sun for 6 hours can be. But I couldn't very well find myself at Canal and Broadway at 6 on a Thursday and not go train. Especially after lugging my bag around all day.

I'm so glad, as always, that I overcame my lameness and trained. It was a lovely night, big class, and lots of people doing a trial so I felt urged on to extra chi. Another inspiring element was the posting of the testing schedule. My name with "erluquan" written next to it reminded me how very near testing is, and how much I want to do well. Even better, lots of my fellow dorks are scheduled at the same time so we'll be there to boost one another's chi. I'm trying to do erluquan all the way through at least once every class to work out the endurance, then do it in pieces so I can focus on refining the tiny tricky bits. It's starting to feel more comfortable. So maybe, when I try it in a class that does not follow six hours of walking, it'll feel even better.