summer's end

Walking home from a conditioning class last night, I was cold for the first time in months. It was almost 70, but breezy. The sun was going down, my clothes still drenched in sweat, well after my heart rate had dropped back to normal. During the night the temperature dipped into the fifties. My outdoor plants will stop giving me peppers soon.

It's been a great summer. I got to the park for sparring twice. A real summer activity type of thing, doing something I like to do, in the sun with other people and everything? That alone was a huge departure from the rest of my life. I didn't know if I'd even be able to get myself there at all. I've been hitting the open gym every week and making it to lots of classes. I survived cancer, and made it through the pandemic. 

I'm still struggling with low grade depression every day - which means being tired, listless, apathetic and cynical. Not to be confused with being sad about something, anything, or nothing in particular. Just far more tired, unfocused, and unmotivated than I should be, but I managed to have a great summer in spite of that. Almost entirely due to dragging myself to the gym again and again. 

I feel like I should have more to list, that made the last few months worth living, but no, training has been pretty much everything to me. This is why it wrecked me to have it taken away. This is why I'm devoting myself to it more than ever now.

I'm even thinking about doing some competing. Martial arts schools always encourage that, but before the pandemic, I wasn't interested. I'm too old, it was just a side hobby, but mostly, I'm just not a competitive person. Now that I'm training harder and finding that I'd actually be competitive within my weight class, it might be a good way to more fully immerse myself in the experience. It might help me feel more engaged.

BJJ tournaments are the safest. Not necessarily in terms of injury, but they're tournaments. Participants are one of many, in these day long events. They sign up, and join in, and the sport itself isn't about hurting your opponent, per se. Accidents happen, but most matches are relatively painless.

Striking competition on the other hand, I'm a lot less sure about. They aren't tournaments. They aren't open to anyone within given requirements who wants to sign up. Fights are set up for specific people, and it's just you, your opponent, and spectators. Amateur competition comes in all different forms and levels. Lots of it involves sparring style protective gear. Shin pads make kickboxing a lot less scary. Almost too much so.

Headgear is of more dubious benefit, but often used. It protects from cuts, bruises, and broken noses, while it does nothing to prevent CTE, arguably making the risk worse. A note on that though, as I've been sparring more. Getting punched in the face far more than I was in Hwa Rang Do, where strikes to the face were against the rules. Strikes to the head were allowed but had to be light contact. Where I train now, light contact is encouraged, but some people hit harder than others, some more intentionally than others. It's all pretty friendly, and people tend to adapt to their partners somewhat. 

I've been ok with everyone I've sparred with so far, but I have been getting punched in the face regularly these days. It's a big part of what's made this summer so good, but I have been conscientious of the risks. It's nowhere near the level of head trauma professional boxers train with, let alone what they experience in the ring. For various reasons, the punches I'm talking haven't been big enough or frequent enough to be worth worrying about, in my estimation.

Meanwhile, I accidentally hit myself in the face with a medicine ball yesterday. It was way too bouncy to be that heavy. That might have cost me a few brain cells, but fortunately I didn't lose any teeth.

I don't even know what these sorts of amateur fights involve. I know my gym has students participate in them now and then, but I don't know anything about how it works. The first step would probably to work myself up to mentioning my curiosity to the head coach. There are also MMA matches, which would be interesting, but they seem to be less common than kickboxing or BJJ.

So, I don't know. It's just something I'm thinking about right now. BJJ would be safer, but I'd probably lose. Could well even lose the very first match, although in most cases, I'd be up against other white belts in my own weight class. So maybe not. Kickboxing or MMA , more daunting on every level - except that we'd be talking about someone in my weight class, who would have to fight me😈 I don't care what belts they have. I'm almost worried for that person already.

I don't like to admit this, I'm not proud of it, but I would love to see how that would actually go🥊💥💀