Comfort is the enemy in starting to train. At first comes the desire for change. Seeking to learn a skill or better yourself in some way. For me, I wanted to be able to perform high level kicks and increase the performance level in my flexibility, strength, and control. After college, I became a fulltime software engineer sitting at work for so long periods of time. You get used to sitting and when your life gets busy, you make excuses not to exercise. That comfort becomes easy and those excuses started to compound on my life as each day they built up creating a mountain of sloth. Only I am responsible for choosing to create that time in my life to establish that health and achieve my goals. You must become uncomfortable repeatedly until what is uncomfortable is now the new comfort level. This has been true for every new technique and establishing the practice itself.
The drive to want to feel and move better got me to start exercising again. Only when I became dissatisfied enough with my situation did I choose to do something about it. At first, it was pure brutal pain. My lungs started to hurt early into the exercise and I could feel the fat layer under the skin on fire as it burned off. Knowing it was good for me, I pushed through to attain my goal. I tried my hardest to finish every exercise with good form, yet sometimes failed, but when it was over I’d be hurting for 3 or 4 days afterwards. It’d be hard to stretch and move and it was difficult to establish a routine. Those days are hardest because you don’t even want to push past those moments and you forget why you even started–the pain is tough to push past. It becomes easy to fall back into the stagnation. One thing that’s helped me recently is starting off slow and allowing my body time to strengthen before getting into more intense training.
When I started taking classes again, the structure provided gave slow and consistent growth that overtime established itself as a foundation. Now looking back on my training, which never ends, I understand why it’s so hard to get started. My mind wanted to be comfortable and relax enjoying a nice TV show all weekend. I thought my body did, too, but I was wrong. My body was screaming at me asking for love and attention. To circulate the blood through these ligaments and muscles that long for it. It’s not until a few months into consistently training that I began to crave it, miss it, and desire the exercises. It made me release tension from the day, increased my mood afterwards, and increased my metabolic rate. These were only catalyst for greater change coming over the horizon.
Knowing I had tasted it, I sought to establish this foundation in my life. That which was hard becomes easy after enough attention is brought to it. Knowing this, knowing that if you put the work in, made it easier to not only start but to keep going until I achieved my goal. The drive to establish a pain free life both in my mind, body, and spirit drove me to keep training. Only once we are fed up enough with our current situation do we chose to change it. Yet not one else can make us train, we must know and choose that path within ourselves.
Starting can be hard and keeping going is oftentimes just as difficult. If you’d like to start training and don’t know where, reach out to us and we can help guide and establish the foundation required for the changes you want to see. Starting you off where you are and building up to where you aspire, we aim to spread the awareness of self to all that are open. Reach out to us to find out more about our Mind, Body, and Spirit program where we use your diet, Martial Arts, Calisthenics, Yoga, and Meditation to create a balanced way of life meant to empower you.
