Back to the Grindstone

I recently got back into regular training for the first time in 3 years. I've blogged before about my reasons for not training, and about what to do when you can't really train fully, but I've finally reached a point in my life where I can do some minimal training and actually go to classes once in a while.

If you're keeping track (and there is no reason you should be), I started training in Seido Karate in the fall of 1988 (probably September). It is now May of 2015. That makes about 26.5 years elapsed since I first started training.

In that 26.5 years I've taken off - and I'm not counting a week or two away, I mean blocks of time longer than a few months - at least 16 years (maybe as much as 18, I don't have dates for all of it).

So I've trained regularly for about 10 years, despite starting almost three decades ago.

Coming back to karate training after a break provides some massively inspirational moments and some massively depressing ones.

First of all, I always forget how wonderful the social aspect of karate training is. Seeing and reacquainting myself with old friends is a large part of what's great about returning.

There are, however, multiple traps you have to avoid if you want to enjoy returning to training after a long absence.

You have to avoid the trap of comparing yourself to those who stayed. If you dwell on how much better everybody else has gotten, and how much you've lost (or at least stagnated), then you won't enjoy the training. This is a constant battle for me. It's nice to see others succeed, but it's a little difficult to see people I used to teach who have progressed far beyond me.

You have to avoid the trap of comparing yourself to the you-who-would-have-been. I'm not particularly good at karate, talent wise, but I'd probably be a lot more skilled if I'd managed to train regularly for the last 26.5 years. If I compare where I am to where I might have been it's a little depressing.

The last trap is trying to do too much too soon. Going from couch surfing to six day a week training will wreck you, especially if you're older or not particularly athletic. Take days off and get back into training gradually - if you're doing things right you'll have the rest of your life to train, and a couple days off every week won't make any difference in three months or three years. There are tools now to help you manage your workload - like Heart Rate Variability tests - that I'll try to discuss in a future post.

The last point I wanted to make is a confirmation of things I've said before: the most important thing to maintain during times when you can't do much training is strength. I didn't do a ton of cardio or flexibility training in the last three years, but what I did was keep up my strength training. And now that I've been back at regular training for two months, my technique is very close to where it was before, and my endurance is catching up fast.

First of all, you can maintain strength levels without taking a lot of time. Keeping strength will not take multiple hours a week - you can do a lot to keep your strength with, say, two half hour workouts a week, which is within what most people can manage. Compare that to the time it takes to keep up peak endurance - much different.

Second of all, strength takes longer to come back. Building lost muscle tissue just takes a long time. Re-acquiring skills (nervous system adaptions) are much faster, and the adaptions needed to rebuild endurance are also fast.

So if you don't have time to train, at least keep up your strength work. When you do come back, expect to be less skilled than you were, and expect to be behind your former peers in skill. But even if you can't catch or pass those who started training with you, you can definitely be better - far better - than if you just spend the rest of your life riding that couch.

And if you have to spar with me, please take it easy on this old man who can't seem to manage a life that keeps him in the dojo.

Osu!