!Empower!

I don't consider myself as someone who likes to fight, someone whose looking to lean back with my hand in my pants and do a rock away. For sure I consider myself to be the exact opposite, but a funny thing's happened since i joined the gym last week.

It started last night, when I got off work and got ready to go to boxing. I got to the gym but the parking lot was full and I didn't want the trouble of parking down the block, and plus kunal and ashwin were gonna play ball so i rationalized not going to the gym and headed home, but before I got to the light i mentally bitchslapped myself, ha, and was like what the hell, get your ass back there, so i busted a highly illegal U and headed into to the gym.

Turns out I was late for the boxing class, so I talked to the owner Brian, and he was like just take the Muay Thai class. I thought it was gonna be an intro class, nice and easy but not the work out like boxing, I was wrong.

The warmup was a thousand situps, and Jason the instructor gave us his disclaimer that Muay Thai was not a gentle sport, its rough, and its raw, and that some nights we would go home banged up for sure. At that point I was like damn, I'm in over my head, but then he touched on stuff that hit me later. He spoke about the respect factor on the mat, he spoke about how the folks in the class are a family, and that he didn't teach Muay Thai to make money, but to help people get better. He said that when we spar and we hurt someone we didn't finish them off, yet you encourage them finish.

But after that we went through one of the most grueling workouts, and my partner Mitchell, a cool cat, but freaking kicked like he had bricks in his feet. During one of the drills he completely shut my leg down it went a bit numb and I was wincing everytime he kicked me. After that we went into the clench drills that brought me back to wrestling days, and just the complete exhaustion you feel when your battling someone with everything you've got and it's a stalemate. I weighed myself after and I lost 3 pounds, and I was dripping, and my whole body was hurting.

What's crazy though was the sense of accomplishment I felt with getting through the workout. I thought about it later, and I think I came to the realization that, even though I'm not a fan of pain and fighting in general, the mental toughness and focus you need to be in there, is something I got from the whole situation with Dad, and the fact that you've dealt with things in your life you never could have prepared for, life rocks you in the gut, and it's not like you've dealt with it before, but you get through it, and you become all the better for it. When you go through the worst pain you've ever felt, and you come out of it, everything else seems so very tangible and possible. I'm just thankful for that, and even more so for the fact that I feel like I'm reaching this point where my mental peace is coming into accord with my physical.

Jason also said something that I've been marinating on and wanna improve upon. He was referring to a quote about over thinking

He said to think but not to overthink.
Overthinking leads to doubt
and doubt leads to hesitation
and hesitation leads to inactivity.

It's a lesson that I can use both mentally and physically.