Its Monday. I am in the midst of a late afternoon slump. I am tired, unmotivated and not looking forward to going to the gym. My gym in almost an hour drive each way. There was not definitely NOT enough weekend to my weekend. I am constantly on the go all the time when I am not at the gym. And quite honestly at this moment in time I am not really looking forward to keeping the new young white belts at bay during rolling.
I have the perfect reasons for not going. The long drive; that is 8 hours of my week just driving to the gym. My son is busy with activities. My husband has an insane unstructured work schedule due to working on the railroad. My laundry has formerly declared war and I am trying to plan battle strategies. I am sure my cat might have a beginning of a lazy eye. The leftover bologna in the fridge has curled up and died and needs a proper burial. My neighbors are passively aggressively in not so subtle ways that my lawn needs mowed. I need to take advantage of how beautiful it is outside right now while I am stuck inside writing this article. I sneezed and tweaked my back. I have a craft project that I have been putting off for 3 years. My car needs an oil change, seriously though, that one is legitimate.
I want to tell you so badly that I will rise above and make it to the gym and everything will be right in the world again. The angels will sing, and I will hit the technique of the day while rolling. Those may happen, but more than likely I will have forgotten my water bottle. I will greet the guy that has been coming for over a year by “Hey you!” because I forgot his name and it is too late in the game to ask him to tell me again. The athletic tape I need will no longer be sticky enough to stick. I will have again tweaked something while doing warm ups. I will have either dripped sweat in someone’s eye or had sweat dripped in mine. My pants will have rolled down while my belt has now slid up under my arm pits during a roll. I will have pulled multiple hairs out of my mouth, some not my own. I will have blanked on a simple technique because I wanted to do the variation I saw on a video and blanked on that too. I will not have escaped a move that we literally just learned the escape from. I will have gone left when I should have gone right. I will leave the gym mentally exhausted and feeling like the nail instead of the hammer.
However, I went to the gym. I learned a new technique. I relearned a move that I had previously forgotten and most likely will forget again but it is fresh in my mind right now. I learned to push through the 6-minute rolls when everything is going badly. I realized that you can still be tired and still roll with the new young white belts, spazzy as they may be. I still did not however learn the poor guy’s name and one day I will apologize to Greg, or is it Rick, or Adam? Oops.
Don’t get me wrong, there are days that I cannot wait to get to the gym. I didn’t get to be a purple belt by not attending classes. Some days, just some days I find the thought of staying home and doing laundry a tad bit appealing.
I hope in whatever your struggles and juggles are that you put one foot in front of the other and just get to the gym. And I hope you are better at learning names than I!
About the author:
Kim Morris
Staff Writer
Kim Morris is a purple belt with Combative Sports Center in Manhattan Kan., under Joe Wilk. She has been practicing Jiu-Jitsu since November 2013.
I totally relate to everything you are saying. I could make all kinds of excuses, especially the laundry declaring war on me as well as my yardwork and tweaking my back recently as well. We have to push on no matter what. You aren’t alone! The struggle is real! Keep on keeping on Jiujitsera!