WD-40 For The Body

That’s what the first training session of the year felt like for me last night. I arrived really keen to get going and get back into it after almost 3 weeks of comparative inactivity, but I think I was a bit naive in thinking it wouldn’t be as tough as it was. I remember bouncing around before we started feeling pretty good and pretty limber, but after a couple of minutes of the warm-up I was really beginning to feel the effects of my time off. By the the time the physical had ended I was sweating, panting and wheezing. Wheezing! I can’t remember the last time I had any kind of asthmatic wheeze. Forms practise was equally as tiring, and to my shame I couldn’t remember past four moves of Pyung Ahn Sa Dan, which to my mind is quite abysmal. I’m not about to beat myself up for it though, we were told to take a total break and that’s what I did, apparently my brain did too. Once I found that elusive fifth move the rest of it flowed back to me instantly, like breaking a dam in a river.

Sparring was a different matter. As tiring as it felt at first, within about ten minutes I felt really quite sharp and fast, although that could just have been the drills we were working through. It felt so good to get the pads back on though, and to make and take some contact. I’m really fired up again now, and the break was exactly what I needed. My sore hip/top of thigh is feeling so much better, the sore spot on the back of my calf is gone and my tender achilles is fine. The human body is fantastic at repairing itself, but sometimes it really needs the opportunity to do so.

Now the hard work starts, the training and running, and I have to say I’m really looking forward to it.

Oh, and here are a couple of photos from the beach training session from Christmas.

This dip was so refreshing.

And just off at a little tangent, and probably to remind myself of it when I browse back over this in future months, here’s a song which has really got stuck in my head lately, I love it.

Bloc Party – Flux