Sunday, December 17, 2006

Christmas wrecks chaos on my training

I love the holidays. I really do not have a grinchy attitude towards them, but I have to admit that they do cause alot of troubles when it comes to keeping up my training.

I have so many school concerts to attend, why this week alone my Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night is dedicated towards my children's year end Holiday performances. So no training on those days, I'll be sitting in a crowd of parents and watching my little ones sing their hearts out. When you add in the fact that the dojo will be closed on Christmas day, and New Years day, plus all of the parties that I need to attend in the coming weeks.. There goes most of my training time. I'll only have 1 class this week, and hopefully 3 next week. For someone who is used to training almost every day.. this is quite a big withdrawal. Yes.. I could try to train at home.. but the seven foot Christmas tree in the center of my living room takes up even more of my limited space.

Now.. Some people may say "What? What's wrong with that? You should take a break from your karate. You are obsessing too much about training." They don't understand. My body doesn't understand about holidays. The muscles, tendons, and ligaments get stiff and sore when I do not train them at least once every second day. I just can't explain to them about school concerts, and such. I did meet a ballerina that understood what I meant by this.. she nodded her head wisely and agreed that it is difficult to meet the physical requirements of your body during the holidays.

Also, the feasting during the holidays is detrimental to my personal conviction to live by controlled food consumption. When you go to a party the host usually offers you more than what you can eat, and they encourage you to go for seconds. There is always an excuse for over-eating: Easter "Go ahead.. Easter only comes once a year." Summer holidays "Let loose, you'll burn it off anyway.. you're on vacation. Relax." Thanksgiving "It's Thanksgiving.. you are supposed to overeat." Christmas "Oh.. cookies have no calories on Christmas, come on.. just one more." New Year's " Start the year right... you can start your diet tomorrow."
Birthdays "Aw... it's your birthday.. that only happens once a year.. live it up!"

So... combine the fact that there are less opportunities to train, and more opportunities to eat.. and pressure to eat alot.. Oh boy.. not a good thing for someone like me that is working towards keeping her conditioning.

Am I alone in feeling this frustration during the holidays?

5 comments:

Mathieu said...

You certainly are not.

Count in all the renos I do these days, plus preparations to receive, I have no time to train. and I don't have kids yet.

The past weekends have been 14h per day of work on flooring, ceramic tiles and plumbing and so on and so on.

Hey, it's beautiful, but add that to the christmas season, I train a lot less. I keep tuesdays and thursdays. At least twice a week, even if that's very moderate for me. And everytime I have 15 minutes to myself, I do forms.

As to eating, I eat a lot. :-)

Have a very nice holiday!

FrogMan said...

I don't really feel a frustration, in fact, I welcome the break. Kind of take time to recharge the batteries to be ready to attack some more learning after the holidays.

I do understand what you mean about your body telling you that it needs to move, but it doesn't absolutely need to do karate, does it? I mean, even with little room, you can probably find a little space to at least do squats and lunges and such, even stretching and pushups and situps without going through the whole kata everytime. I plan on picking up my free weights (dumbells) during the break, maybe do a few squats every couple of days with a few pounds in each hand then make sure I stretch a little to stay ready for after the break.

Good luck with the evil holiday break ;)

Take care, Steve

Selby Karateka said...

I know what you mean, I train at least three times a week plus any courses etc at the weekend. I wander around the house aimlessly when there is no training. I am sure I put on three or four pounds on the weeks I cant train for one reason or another, or is it I just get bored and visit the fridge? I too have the 7 foot tree in the lounge and we have had to shut off the door from the hall it is so big. Perhaps I will just do some stretching for a few days infront of that open fire, I will have to move the Golden Retriever out of the way first. Luv your blog keep it going in 2007 , Merry Christmas, Osu!

Becky G said...

I can certainly understand your frustration, though I'm more like Steve and welcome the break. School parties and such do take training time away, and I only have one child. I can't imagine how you do it with seven.

About the pressure to eat... boy do I relate to that! I am fairly slim, and so what I get told is "It's not like you have to worry about gaining weight!"--or something similar. But I do. I have to watch every single bite that goes in to my mouth. I sypmathize with you. Stay strong. Do what you know is right for you.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

frotoe said...

It happens to me every year. I do try to keep training at home, I do a lot of kitchen kata while dinner is cooking, its not quite the workout I get going to class, though, but its something. I also try and do some kicking drills just to keep my joints from tightening up too much.
I guess it is what it is ~ and after the holidays are over, I'll get back on track.

Merry Christmas!!