When training becomes more mental than physical

By Melvin Geronimo
Melvin Blue Belt student at Wu Dao

As the count down began for the ICMAC ( International Chinese Martial Arts Championships ) in San Francisco, the training intensified. Training for this competition was a bit difficult and different when compared to the last competition our school attended. It was and sometimes still is more of a motivational and mental challenge for me. Tuesdays and Thursdays of the week, I am assisting on training newer students in the first class and I am training in the second class. Most of the advanced students come to the first class and sometimes do not stay and train in the second class. As a result, I find myself training and pushing myself on my own since Shifu is usually busy training newer students. Don't get me wrong, I love that I was presented with this opportunity to help train newer students. It's just definitely a lot easier to train hard and push yourself when training with a partner or group, but when you are on your own, it's a mentally and motivationally challenging. But as the saying goes, "There is no rest for the wicked" and I had to keep in mind that training is more than just physical, it's also mental.

For the about three months we spent most of the time focusing on the Shaolin Hand Form. At the beginning, when we first learned this form I felt as if I was behind. The more advanced students had the opportunity to train and practice the form in both classes while I only had one class to focus and train. My Kung Fu brothers and sisters were far ahead on the form than I was, I felt as if I was being rushed to learn the whole form and started getting mentally dishearten that I wasn't going to learn it completely before the tournament. But once I have finished learning the form from beginning to end we broke it down into a series count and each week we focused on a different part of the form, drilling it down and smoothing it out. This type of training was intense and exhausting, my body felt as if I was hit by a car after every class, but also felt incredibly rewarding at the same time. I felt better and better about the form as the weeks drew on. We also maintained this type of training with the Shaolin Staff Form, breaking it down and focusing on each series count and putting it all together as the tournament date became closer and closer.

A few weeks before our trip to San Francisco, I decided that I needed more training. I asked Shifu if I would be able to train in the first class instead of assisting and he said that was a good idea. Although thinking that an increase my training would help, I hit a speed bump. I started having lower back pains that was excruciating. I noticed that it was very painful to even bend over and try to touch my toes. I tried to mentally block the pain and push onward and even started to take muscle relaxants to see if that would help ease my pain. It was less than a week before the tournament and it felt as if my back wasn't getting any better. I was fearing that I wasn't going to be able to compete. Feeling discourage about it, I decided to take two days off to rest. Just with those two days of rest my back felt better, almost like new. When you're instincts and your body is telling you that you need rest, you need to listen to it no matter what. Pushing yourself and training hard is one thing, but you also need to let the body rest and heal itself.