Life has gotten in the way, as a lot of martial artists and athletes know; life can get in the way of training. I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs this past 2 years, initially starting with my separation from my former husband.. that’s neither here nor there, but it made me realize how unbalanced my life was. I was so focused on competing and training that I forgot there was family, health, and others to be concerned with.
Training is not bad, actually that kept me sane, and was my only ‘constant’ during the turbulent times of changing jobs and switching places to live. Training has kept me connected to friends, while also living a healthy lifestyle.
Now that I’ve finally hit a norm with my career, new relationship, and establishing a new home, I’ve found my training schedule now suffering. I have a great job, but I do travel and it is more demanding of my time. I have a great relationship, with a black belt from the gym, but he doesn’t like training as much as I do . I also have a really long commute of a little over an hour to my office, and an hour and a half to my dojo.
Yes, to me most of this sounds like an excuse and I’m trying to get back to the schedule. I’m finding the journey back is more than just a physical barrier but a mental one as well. Your mind starts playing tricks, and you hear yourself saying things like “you aren’t as good as you used to be” , “you are lazy”, “you will get beaten up by a white belt, and they’ll laugh cause you’re supposed to be a purple belt” , “YOU’RE A PURPLE BELT??? really? that roll was a pathetic excuse for a purple belt”.... you get the point.
There’s really only one way to know and that’s get back on the mats, and I’ve been doing just that. Starting with atleast 3x a week on the mats, and supplementing my diet with a nutritionist (thank you team njff for supporting me all the way from SD), alternative training (holla Madabolic traning in NC and Orange Theory in Glastonbury), and training at two gyms (Carlson Gracie in Rhode Island -- my O.G, and Sould Fighters in Cromwell, CT -- who have taken me in like an adopted child).
You’ll be seeing my journey to get back into competing, but you’ll see rants too :)