I got into Muay Thai Kickboxing almost two years ago when I lived in Chicago. I honestly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I first stepped on the mats for the first time. I got into it because I wanted to skip sitting down with a therapist and get a different kind of workout than running on a treadmill. The first month was the most difficult. The warm ups, bear crawls and then we'd wrap up and learn combos, which consisted of punches, kicks, elbows, etc. (those of you who are familiar with Muay Thai know what I'm talking about.) What I'm saying is workout is one thing, but learning the technique, the art of Muay Thai is another. It kept me coming back, that's for sure.
After my move back to LA, I was lucky enough to find a new gym which has been a haven for me during this season of transition. Many stresses have been constant in the past six months. Not having consistent work, thus not having consistent money... I digress. Today in class my coach was demonstrating a 1-2 punch combo, jab-cross. During his demonstration he mentioned to RELAX into the stance. Relax the shoulders. He said if you tense up and attempt to execute a jab-cross, we're making the movement harder for ourselves. We'd be resisting the flow of jab-cross, which wouldn't serve the movement or us. I giggled to myself because I'm one to resist the flow more than I'd like to admit. One of the amazing gifts from practicing Martial Arts (Muay Thai and a little bit of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), is that the habits that continuously show up on the mats (good or bad) are more than likely showing up off the mats in your everyday life. For me relaxing in situations where I have no control is a challenge for me. Being in a state of not knowing when a hard season is going to pass sucks and is hard to not worry and/or stress about. BUT I offer you this: what if the answer to a shitty season or the path to the ending of an shitty season is to relax and just surrender to what is? Just a thought. Accept fully what is happening. Acknowledge things are bad, and just do what you can. Sometimes that's just enough.
I wonder in what areas of your life can you identify where you need to relax? Just throwing it out there. Comment below if you'd like to share.