When you rent fitness, payments are always due
When you rent fitness, payments are always due
Keep the heat on
Keeping the water boiling
I like a good inspirational quote. They are sometimes great to give people the nudge they need to either start down the right path or keep going on the right path.
I’ve jumped around martial arts styles a lot in my life but I consider karate to be my strongest base. Granted many traditional karate practitioners might consider what I do now to be simple thuggery, but I personally think there are a lot of ways to do karate.
I’ve spent some time doing 松涛館 (Shotokan) and Shotokan derivative styles. The founder of Shotokan, 船越 義珍 (Gichin Funakoshi) is often credited as one of the people to have popularized karate by bringing his style of karate from Okinawa to mainland Japan.
Funakoshi Sensei is quite widely quoted in karate circles and I am quite fond of the quote below:
One of the reasons I am fond of this quote is because it emphasizes the importance of maintenance. This is true not just of karate but in everything we do.
Cool fundamentals
I’ve moved around a lot in my life. As a result I’ve picked up martial arts, spent a few years training, then needed to move onto something new when I moved somewhere else.
When I moved to Japan I started Wado Ryu Karate and trained for 5 years. In those 5 years I was constantly drilling the techniques of the style, but it’s been years since I’ve attempted any Wado Ryu kata. With a little bit of practice (adding some heat) I could probably pick them up again quickly, but without the continuous drilling of the kata those particular sequences have gone out of my head.
When I was practicing Wado Ryu, I was also practicing 無双直伝英神流居合道 (Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaido). My readers that pay close attention to these things might note that I currently practice 夢想神伝流 (Muso Shinden Ryu Iaido). The fundamental seitei techniques are exactly the same between these styles (they are both part of the All Japan Kendo Federation Iaido) but the koryu techniques are totally different. My Jikiden kata are also something that have largely gone out of my head but could potentially be reclaimed with a bit of practice.
(The video below is a Muso Shinden Ryu technique. Jikiden practitioners will note that the way I sheathe the sword is different to the way it is done in jikiden)
I would consider my Wado Ryu and Jikiden Iaido techniques to not be totally lost to me but currently in a state of being “on ice.” I have largely kept the fundamental and transferable skills/knowledge involved with these styles but I consider myself to be an ex-Wado Ryu and an ex-Jikiden practitioner, because I am clearly not a representative of those styles at the moment. (Take note people who got their shodan at 10 years old and still talk about being a black belt in their 40’s).
Reheating the water
Although karate and iaido require physicality to perform, they are ultimately skill based systems. The evidence for them being skill based systems can be seen by the fact there are some incredibly knowledgable martial arts practitioners that are completely incapable of running around the block without passing out.
Activities that require a high level of physicality such as running and lifting weights also require continuous input (heat) in order to be maintained (kept boiling). If you show me someone who used to deadlift 200 kg back in the day but hasn’t lifted in years, I’ll show you someone who is about to injure themselves as they add 200 kg to the bar.
In October 2021 I ran my first ultramarathon. In 2021 I maintained 70km running weeks for the whole year but as 2022 started I dropped off quite dramatically and my running volume halved and then dropped down to almost nothing for a few months due to a very important life event. (Having kids will do that).
After a few months of low running volume I finally went out for a run and could barely finish a 5K. I expected my fitness level to have gone down but to go from being able to run 70km to barely being able to complete a slow 5K training run was a blow to the ego.
If you have been following my blog you will know that I more than recovered from this but at the time it was evident I needed to start reheating the water. I’d estimate it took about a month of hard slogging to get back to where I was and in a few months I was setting new personal bests again.
I would say all’s well that ends well, but it never ends.
Paying the rent
Although I enjoy Funakoshi Sensei’s analogy there’s another one I quite like. I’m not sure who said this originally (plus this is my own rephrasing of this):
You do not buy fitness. You rent it. And payments are always due.
If you go out and run a new 5K personal best of 20 minutes, you are a 20 minute 5K runner…TODAY. If you do absolutely no running for a month then I would wager you could not run a 20 minute 5K.
Speed, strength, stamina, flexibility, and probably a lot of other things start to cool off when they are not being maintained. If you are a very high level at something, even when you “cool down” you are probably still going to be at a higher level than most, but you are definitely going to backslide.
If you are a 20 minute 5K runner and want to keep your 20 minute 5K runner status, you’ve got to keep paying your dues to rent that status. And the only way to pay your dues is to run.
Likewise with lifting weights. If you want to lift heavy and keep lifting heavy you’ve got to pay your dues in the weight room. If you want to stay flexible, you guessed it, you’ve got to keep stretching.
When it comes to our physical fitness, we own very little of it. The more you pay in, the better you are going to be and the longer it is going to take to cool off. That’s why people who are former elite athletes will still absolutely destroy most amateurs even if they aren’t training anywhere near as intensely as they used to. But that’s not really something you or I need to worry about. Nobody can pay the rent for you and what other people do or have done doesn’t impact your payments.
Keeping up with the rent is your responsibility and your responsibility alone.
Final thoughts and take home messages
There are some things we are able to pick up and never seem to lose. The analogy, “It’s just like riding a bike. You never forget,” is frequently used, but that’s mostly due to the expectations of being able to ride a bike being so low. Just being able to get on a bike and move forward without falling off doesn’t mean you are an amazing cyclist. You’ve just got to the point where even if you’ve let your cycling ability “cool off” the minimum level you go down to is that you can use a bike (but might be sore after using it).
Martial arts are mostly a skill based practice. If you don’t practice complex movements like kata they will cool off and go to the back of your mind. You might be able to recover them, you might not. But Funakoshi Sensei is quite right when he emphasized the importance of maintaining what you have to make sure it doesn’t cool off.
Your fitness is exactly the same as this. I went from being an ultra runner who could literally run all night to someone who could barely complete a 5K. Thankfully applying heat again allowed me to bring my running to a boil again and I’m getting better every day. (I’ll do a full write up on this soon but I set a new PB in the mile last weekend. Instagram pics here).
And probably the most important take home message in this post is that you absolutely do not own your fitness. There is no finish line. The fitness you have today is rented. If you want to keep it you’ve got to pay up. And the rent is always due.
Embrace it.
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Osu!
Anthony
Cover image:
Lurking in the background is the whole ageing thing. Physical decline doesn't always happen like the slowly boiled frog; it has sudden and surprising drops. The work needed to keep it on the boil has to be a lifetime and determined effort.