I can't believe that I'm doing this

On the advice of a very wise karate ka that I admire very much, I'm going to cut back on my training schedule before my test. Now.. as the date of my test is looming over my head, I feel so much inner pressure to ADD on more practice to my schedule, not take away practice. But he has warned me that too many Shodans will overtrain before their test, and then perform very weakly and not do well at all.

O.K. let's see.. I would have to remove my weight lifting. Every Tues., Thurs., and Sunday night I would do 45 minutes of upper body weight lifting with 3 pound weights. O.K.. I understand that my muscles are overloaded, and need to repair and heal. Alright.. I'll let that go until after my test. ... and I guess that the 30 minutes of conditioning will have to go on those nights too then. The 100 sit ups, and 50 regular push ups, 20 knuckle push ups, and the tricep lift thingies too. BUT... I can replace it with stretching. can't I? Stretching is supposed to help muscles reconnect, and heal. Perhaps I can do some relaxed stretching during that time that I've slotted for home training.

I guess that my special Sunday night training of kata, and Bo staff is going to have to go, also. Oh no.. no.. I'll half it to an half hour for each, but not gone. I don't want to lose that part. Maybe I can just do the kata in slow speed. It can't be too bad to just do the Bo staff warm up lightly.. just to keep the feel of the Bo in my hands.

I'll bring down my kicking practice to 10 kicks per side. I can't help thinking "Is this a good idea? Aren't I going to lose that which I worked so hard to gain?" but I'm going to trust in the experience, and wisdom of my friend. He's been there, done that more than once. He knows what needs to be done.

I've got to say that I feel a real inner pressure now. AARGH.. this is going against what I want to do. It's like reining in the head of a race horse before the finish line. I'm champing on the bit like crazy with that "Let me RUN!" feeling inside me.