Back on Track

Honestly, I’d totally forgotten it was St. Patrick’s Day until I was walking around Wal-Mart and wondered why everyone was all greened up. Someone passed me with green hair, and I finally figured it out. What a week!

After my leg injury I spent all of last weekend hobbling around, and got almost no training done when my Sifu came to town. On that Friday, we did a little bit of tai chi, and he said that at least it looked better than it had looked last time he saw me perform that set. Not exactly high praise, but better than ‘wow, that sucks.’ My grimaces gave me away, however, and he spent a few minutes working on my calf before saying that, yes, it’s jacked up, and that our training time was pretty much over for the weekend. I had a choice to either rest it and allow it to recover or work on it, and have it really mess up. So, I sat on my duff during the entire fan seminar and allowed my friend and colleague Sifu Israel Flores to assist Art Laoshi while they taught my students the fan form. Argh. Very frustrating, that was. There was still a lot of good in the weekend, though. We did all manage to go see the movie ‘300’. Twice! It was even better the second time. Awesome, awesome show. Worth the wait. And we did some push hands work that will be quite helpful in addition to the other networking, business plans, and goal setting we did. Which reminds me, I need to get to work on our organizational mission statement ASAP.

So all of last week was spent with no lower body workouts. That was hard to take, especially since I’ve been working out far more consistently of late. I did work on some pushups, ab stuff, and pull-ups, but very little actual martial arts stuff that would inevitably stress my injured calf. I finally met up with Amy last Wednesday for a memorable and painful session, and then continued to stay off of it for the next couple of days. Then came Saturday, which was my first chance to really test my leg at one of our lacrosse games. I showed up late since I couldn’t leave until my classes were done, and I had trouble finding the field. I managed to roll into the parking lot just before halftime, so I was ready to start the second half.

I did worry about the leg…I mean, I need to be able to walk around to teach effectively, and pulling it on the lacrosse field would not be a good idea. I jogged around on it, did some juke moves and sideways shuffles, and everything felt pretty much like it always had. And it stayed that way throughout the rest of the game. My sprint wasn’t what it was a few weeks ago, but I did well overall. I felt good about a few spearing checks that made the opposing midfielders drop the ball a couple of times. My defense was good, but I still need some work on my offense. Our next game is this Sunday, so I plan to be ready to give ‘em hell out there.

Monkey is now with me during the daytime. He was having some trouble assimilating in his classroom at his last school, and we decided to pull him out for awhile. It’s been a great bonding time for us, and I’ve enjoyed it, although I’m still getting used to including him in all of my plans. I used to be able to get out and run the streets as part of my training, but now I’ll have to run on the treadmill at the Y so he can have a place to play nearby. No problem. Minor adjustments, really.

So all is well, life is good, and I’m looking forward to the week. Train hard, everyone. And maybe have some fun while you’re at it.