August 26 2013
My name is Jason Mai and I started the mastery program at the age of 15. I am a brown belt as of now and my motivation for doing the program, surprisingly isn’t that much about the black belt but about self discipline. I have always been able to push myself, mentally and physically when coaches/instructors and teachers were present, yet I was never great at motivating myself or disciplining myself to do things I knew were good for me, it almost seemed I only knew what was good for me around my mentors. During this program I will push myself to work harder by myself, and motivate myself, I will get into a habit of working out regularly alone, and pushing myself 90% of the time. I also will push myself to study more, and more frequently in my academic life. I think if I can do this it will enhance my life, I’ll make physical gains, and receive better grades.
Over a week has passed since the mastery program has started and my thoughts so far are: the physical requirements are a lot easier than I thought, yet the few things I do struggle with seem to be running, kindness and pushups. At first I thought I would have problems with the sparring requirements but after a few days I easily surpassed my schedule, now the 3 things I struggle with now seem to be those of what I mentioned above.
Running is something I have always wanted to get better at. Over the years I have learned that I specialize at explosive quick workouts. I could strike in class with a lot of intensity as long as the duration of the workout wasn’t too lengthy. So I quickly learned I have no endurance, and decided that running would help me improve. Now when I first started up running, I was running a mile a day and when I timed myself I had a 7:30 minute mile time, I was very disappointed in my performance but after consistent work I got my mile time to a 7 minutes which I am still not proud of, but is something I can work with. I am thinking of making one of my personal goals to have a 6 minute mile time by the end of the year, yet I don’t know how obtainable that is. When I was done with my mile and got a 7 minute mile time I was dying, I gave it as much as I could with no one there to motivate me (So I’m not going to say 100%).
Push Ups have always been something I prided myself at being good at, but after this week and a half I’m not so sure, with close examination I quickly found out my form is sloppy, and I’m getting tired a lot faster than I usually do. I’m not sure if thats because I’m getting weaker or if I just push myself a lot harder in class. I want to be able to be proud of my pushups again, so I will need to step up my game and make sure my form is spot on.
Kindness is something I found myself struggling on, now I don’t believe I’m an unkind person but maybe I am. I constantly find myself having to seek out kindness, and not naturally doing it. Yet this might just be a summer concept and when school starts up again I might just be fine. With the expanded social interactions I will have available to me.
Lastly my mom started making me clean my own clothes, as angry as I was, I felt ashamed that I would even be slightly angry. It makes me more angry to see how my spoiled self has made me feel. My whole life my mom has cleaned my clothes, fed me and cared for me. Having one of those things taken away made me angry for some reason. I knew that I should clean my own clothes, it is my own sweat that is in these clothes and for my mom to put her time and energy is ridiculous, she even bought those clothes. Yet I can argue that other people’s moms still clean their clothes and whatnot, but that doesn’t matter. Those kids won’t feel responsibility the way I will need to learn, and I can’t complain. I still have a roof over my head, food to fill my stomach and a bed at night. Cleaning my own clothes is one step further of bettering myself and learning responsibility.
Oh and I also just started the book “Zen in the Martial Arts” so far it seems to be very interesting and opens up something I’ve never looked into in the martial arts. Seems to be an easy read and I can just read a few pages right before I go to bed, and doesn’t seem to be a huge commitment.
Wow for a first post this is really long, I doubt I’ll have this much to say in my other posts haha, but these are the thoughts off the top of my head as of now, I doubt anyone will read this because of how long it is, and in some ways I hope not.
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