You’ll notice that I’ve been lazy yet again, and haven’t written for a couple of days. There’s a good reason I assure you (other than just being plain old unmotivated to write – though that is a big factor). You see, I’m becoming a monster.
Not a monster in the Sesame Street sense, nor a monster in the redneck, shotgun rack in the truck sense (though scarily, I’m probably closer to that one seeing as I have enough firepower to take Big Bird down for good, and certainly wouldn’t mind doing so). No, I’m just on a big workout kick again.
It started when I got back into my weight-lifting regime with Feng’s live-in, hetero-life-partner, Fatun. After going through the obligatory few days of intense pain, it all smooths out to a nice ache, and you begin to like that ache. You begin toneed that ache. I’ve also had a lot of motivation to get back into martial arts of late, since I’ll be moving down to Portland soon, and I’ll probably have to end up being an assistant instructor to my girlfriend, so I’ve got a lot to learn in a very short time. However, the key element that made it all kind of click into place, that made me see my weakness about the mental aspect of working out, was watching the Tough Enough marathon on MTV this weekend.
For those of you who don’t really want to waste the time checking up on what Tough Enough is, it’s like a cross between The Real World, and Survivor. 13 people who want to become WWF wrestlers get chosen, go to “training camp”, and eventually get weeded out either by quitting (30%), injury (20%) or trainer elimination (50%). No contestant voting is involved. The winner gets a contract to wrestle with the WWF. Doesn’t sound that exciting, right? Well, once I started watching, I couldn’t stop. I watched 6 hours straight of this show. Pain, sweat, blood, and pounding, pounding, pounding. Two of the people who left did so because of a fractured femur and wrenched knee, and 3 herniated discs. The guy with the back injury was outright bawling.
Now I’ve watched wrestling for some time, and I know that overall it isn’t real, but let’s take a look at what is real. Slamming down on the mat flat on your back time and time again, that’s real. Jumping off of the turnbuckle and landing flat on your stomach, that’s real. People who fly from 20+ feet in the air landing on their elbows and knees, that’s real. And that’s not even getting into what happens outside the ring. Concrete floors, metal stairs, folding chairs. I’ve been watching long enough to know that the one thing that’s real is the blood, even if they have to cut themselves to get it. These people have pins, braces, and scars that they wear day in and day out, and they keep on doing it.
It made me realize what a pussy I am.
So now I’m doing something about it. Part of me immediately wanted to find out how to audition for Tough Enough 3, but there’s no way I’ll ever have the build of a professional wrestler, so I’m just stuck with all the pain and sweat I can muster on my own. It’s a lot harder that way, actually. It’s one thing to have to stick it out, when you have people yelling at you, and therre are others to compete with, but when you’re the one who sets the regime it’s awfully difficult to not say “eh, I don’t feel like working as hard today”. Now, I’m not going to go out and start smashing myself against metal beams, falling down stairs (although I’ve had it in my head for a while that I want to be a stuntman), etc. But the next time I go to grappling class and get a headache from slamming against the floor too many times, I’m going to have a slightly different attitude. The pain isn’t ever going to get any easier if I keep babying it, and taking it easy when it starts to hurt. Nope. I just have to suck it up and keep going full force. Eventually I’ll build up a tolerance again.
So I’m going to go for a run now. Followed by an ab workout. And then another run.
Then I’m going to crawl into bed and die.. I mean I’m going to suck it up and keep going like the trooper I want to be.
So here’s a question: What do you wish you were motivated to do?