the phagos blog

Well, last night was my not quite so triumphant return to class. After a twenty minute warm up, ten minutes of rolls and falls, I lasted about 15 minutes before I had to stop from heat exhaustion. It’s my own fault really - I deserve to be out of shape for not showing up for almost 3 months. To paraphrase from the Karate Kid - “You jujitsu do, or you jusitsu don’t. You jujitsu try, squish like grape.”

Did I mention I was sore today? Still am. Tomorrow should be even more fun, since the second day after starting back is always the toughest, because that’s when it hurts the most. A couple more weeks, I’ll be used to it again, but until then… well, let’s just say I’ll be taking a lot of warm baths and sleeping a lot better.

But just so you don’t think I’m a masochist and that it’s all pain in addition to hard work, I really do like it. Doing rolls and falls is like free chiropractic. I remember coming into class one night, and the first time I did a certain type of fall, my entire lower back popped, much like a zipper sounds. My back hadn’t felt that good the entire day as it did after that. There’s really a sense of centeredness after a good class too. I work hard, do well, and when I leave, I feel like I’ve taken a shower on the inside, there’s just this sense of peace and clarity of thought that permeates. I come home physicaly tired and hungry, but at the same time energized and relaxed. It’s very similar to the sensation I get after doing a really good healing session for someone. It’s not something I can easily put down in words, and I don’t think I’m going to try at the moment. i could use a bunch of metaphors and tell you it’s the same feeling I get when I go to XYZ or do abc, but my frame of reference is different, so I’ll just leave it at either you get it or you don’t for now.

Jujitsu - it’s not a spectator sport. And neither is life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 8:57 pm and is filed under life, martial arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.