One of these mornings - Part II

In the first part of this blog post here I described one of those mornings, when you would do anything else than stand up and go to the gym. The question I ask myself is why do I do this? Why do I do things I don´t want to do?
It is kind of crazy to take one year off to simply concentrate on what I like the most and, when it isn’t fun anymore, to continue.

Of course, if it is only one day on which you don´t want to train, it´s easy to say that you should just keep doing it. But when there are a couple of days in a row – when you go to bed in the evening thinking already about the next morning, not wanting to stand up early and being everything else than excited for the workout or days on which your body tells you that it is time for a break – then what? Or may it be just your mind trying to convince you that you should listen to your aching body but in fact it´s the laziness inside you?

Sometimes there is just the problem of being able to motivate yourself. Times that once you’re on the mats, you´re realizing you’re having fun with drills and exercises. But during a bad week it isn´t even fun to work out: I step on the mats feeling tired while checking the time way to often, waiting for the two hours class to end. And when doing padwork, I curse the padholder when he makes me do 20 fast middle kicks.

What is it that keeps me doing it? I can do whatever I want; I have no obligations and the freedom to go where ever I want to. No one is stopping me from lying on a beach and having an ice-cold beer; no one is hindering me from going partying or forces me to train twice every day. So basically, in a bad week, I am doing something I don´t have to do. And, add to that, I don´t even enjoy participating in the training twice a day, six days a week.

That sounds... weird. Maybe stupid. And don´t think that I am already completely aware about my reasons on why I do this! But I have some idea: The easiest answer may be to say that I simply want to get better - wanting to get better means that I have to work hard for it. Then you might wonder: would it be that much of a difference if I would take a day off or just train once a day?
For me, it is. What keeps me motivated on these days is that I want to be sincere – I want to be honest to myself.

I don´t want to be one of these guys that go to the gym once a week and tells everyone about what tough fighters they are but what is waaayyy more important, is that I hate having the feeling that I tricked myself into skipping a class.

In my opinion that is what makes fighters and serious, competitive sportsmen different from most of the other people: There are no excuses. We believe that every missed training session due to a lame excuse is a sign of weakness – a weakness your opponent will use against you to beat you the next time in the ring. Having a bad excuse for skipping the workout will make it easier to skip the next one too and so on. It is as if I fear this process, this process of becoming lazy.

isn´t always fun - padwork

I am not one of these talented guys that watch a movement once and can copy it nearly perfectly – my body control is quite average as is my talent for this sport. To overcome this lack of talent I simply have to work harder. And not to train because I just don’t want to, means failure to me. Not to train means never becoming the best I can be. It doesn´t even make me happy not to train...

... because I know it´s wrong. Deep inside, I feel that I’ve cheated myself of a day’s training and, with this, an opportunity to become better. A feeling of hatred, even a little guilt, eats me up and I cannot even enjoy the day off. Instead, all I do is think about the training I’ve missed.

So, to answer the question as to why I get up every morning, rain or shine, motivated or not; I do it for myself. I do it to improve; to push myself to the limits and test my boundaries. I want to be better, no, not even that, I want to be the best I can be. When I step into a ring, I want to be able to say that the fighter in the middle of the ring is the best fighter I can be – that I am in shape and there is nothing I forgot to prepare for.
Then... it doesn´t matter to lose anymore.