Boot Camp

Last week, I started going to this Boot Camp for women. I'm going three mornings a week and getting bossed around. I'm enjoying it very much.

The thing about running a martial arts school is that, yes, I get paid for giving people a good work out and yes, I can work out myself, but this also means I can choose to mostly boss people around or to only do part of the work out then move around and help my students with technique or give them some motivation etc.

At the Boot Camp, I'm only in charge of how much I want to push myself but the actual activity is up to Shannon and Caroline. My ego and my desire for a good workout leads me to push pretty hard; to disregard it when my body says "Hey, this is starting to hurt a bit." My brain says "What are you, some sort of wimp? Forget it and get your ass in gear."

Although the second day I made the mistake of bringing 10 lb. hand weights that were too heavy for the workout that day and I had to admit to Shannon that I couldn't complete my third round of a certain drill. She said that she, herself, doesn't bring more than 5 lb weights because of the number of repetitions that are done.

OK, I learned my lesson. I brought 5 lb. weights this morning. That was plenty. My muscles feel pretty fatigued. They both gave a talk about body type that was very refreshing to hear. They said not to compare yourself to anyone else, especially people in "those" magazines. Also not to compare yourself to how you looked before today such as before you had kids, or when you were in college. They said just realize that we're all doing really great things for ourselves by coming to camp and exercising. Besides that, we just need to eat as healthy as possible.

I'm just hoping to get stronger and increase my cardio conditioning. It sure feels like I'm in the right place. I'm also stealing some of their drills for my karate students and may look into doing this sort of thing myself with a self-defense slant to it.

Shannon and Caroline are a couple and I appreciate the fact that even though they are talking to a group of women, they will say things like "You can tell your husbands or wives that...." When I get the chance I'm going to tell them that I have both!