“Turns out you can go home again….”

So, it’s been a while…… (folk of a certain era will have said that in a certain way.)

So whats been going on?

Well, the worlds kinda re-opened…. Kinda. We were promised Freedom Day on 21st of June….. but we are now (at time of writing) on the 3rd of July and nothing has changed.

To be honest other than knowing I can travel if I wanted to, I am OK with how things are now…. In the main anyway.

I don’t enjoy the added layer of social anxiety of going out not knowing what the rules are of an establishment, or the ability to spontaneously go out for lunch or dinner not knowing if you’ll be able to get into an establishment.

I really don’t mind hiding behind a mask when I am in a shop, it probably makes me more approachable, I am not a natural smiler.

(Future edit update Monday the 19th of July is Freedom Day…. I mean that’s a bit extreme it’s not like we have been in prisoned or anything, we have been asked to keep our distance from one another and stay home but anyway I digress, Monday the 19th of July most remaining social distancing restrictions are being eased also know as it’s now our choice to wear a mask and not push up all into someone else’s space so if cases and hospitalisation increase it’s our fault.)

Works been decent, after 6 years of doing a job role I am now officially accredited. This process gave me confidence and also lead to a major mental break down but that’s a whole other up and coming Blog subject.

Home life has had some improvements. I have created a daily and weekly routine of tasks that need to be completed in order to keep on top of running the house and to stop myself from getting overwhelmed and spiralling out of control.

And most important life update (and the subject of todays chat) I am finally back training in full and loving every moment of it 🙂

So, for the last 6 year (6 years ago seems to of the been the year of significant change in my life, new job, new hobby) martial arts training has pretty much been the biggest part of my life since.

It’s not been an easy road but the decision to take a massive leap of faith and start to train was the best I have ever made.

Training combat sports helps me in many ways, ways I never thoughts it would help me.

It obviously helped with my physical health, as I wanted to learn more and improve, I wanted to eat better and treat my body better. Don’t get me wrong my body got beat up and broke down, aches, pains and bruises upon bruises but every time I got broken, I got stronger.

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Improving and experimenting with nutrition, being around such a wealth of knowledge it was hard not to make improvements to my health.

I mean don’t get me wrong its not been a straight line of progression, life really isn’t like that. I have come to the realisation over the years it’s more like an ECG, there’s ups, there’s down, sometimes theres even straight lines…. I mean if you have a constant straight line on an ECG your kinda in trouble but I’m sure you get what I mean.

The important thing is that it keeps going you keep moving forward.

The physical health benefits are only 1 part of it.

Starting training led to a massive change in my mental health.

I suffer a lot with anxiety and often had bad episodes of heighten emotion. I would feel like I was drowning in my own internal voices.

When I started training these episodes decreased exponentially, even when I was dealing with massive life stresses, training gave me a happy place. It was a place of hard work and massive physical exertion but it was the only place my mind could rest. The only place I had for myself for a long time.

After both my parents passed and I had nothing but my own space I had to work through trainings new role in my life. It was no longer that rest space as the “thing” (believe me I don’t use that adjective lightly but I can’t find another word right now) I needed the rest from was no longer there. It was another factor of life that I needed to adjust to.

This adjustment took time…. more time than I thought it would.

In the start of March 2020, I was starting to feel renewed mentally and ready to start forging my own new routines…… well the universe had other plans….. enter the first Global Pandemic in 100 years.

So, combat sports were out of the question.

Enter the world of virtual strength and conditioning….. 2020 was most defiantly the era of Zoom meeting codes and FaceTime.

The Lab Darlington has always been a community, it’s always been my community, my home and Covid really proved that. There was so much support, in a time a time when isolation and loneliness was taking over the world, I never felt it… I was lucky, so so lucky.

My one 2 one training session shifted to FaceTime utilising equipment I had at home and things around the house, it became much more functional. This was coupled with group classes ran on Zoom in a similar vain. They were the highlight of my weeks during the height of the Covid Pandemic.

My friend group outside the gym started having exercise sessions via Video Call a few times a week, we would each take a day and run a work out. On my days I started taking the ideas given by Lanchana (The Labs Strength and Conditioning Coach) and sharing them with my mates.

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As the weeks and months of Lock Down went on my body started to feel stronger than it had ever been. I had struggled with knee issues for years…. like the type of knee issues where if I had gone to my doctor, I would have been told to stop any form of impact exercise and sent for a scan which would have probably resulted in surgery.

But for some reason the change in routine, the addition of Yoga, the millions of Start Jumps I did strengthened every thing and now I have full range of motions in both knees… I feel a little super human now if I am honest.

When the world started to open back up again (for the first time) I didn’t rush back to the physical gym, I still took part in classes virtually. I live a good 45 minuet drive from The Lab and it was a lot to adapt back to, physically and mentally.

I slowly started to add training days back at the Gym in, I didn’t go balls to wall, it was so important for me to build back up slowly. I didn’t want to undo all the good I had done rehabbing my body and my mind.

As I started to add more skill drill type classes in like striking and bag work sessions, I felt stronger and faster than I had ever been before.

This was very curious to me; I was no longer at my leanest and had a massive break from classes.

Had my time away from the ‘class room’ allowed skills to become embedded more, have I just been underestimating my muscle memory?

One of the few things which kept going during the whole of the pandemic was UFC… Had watching that almost weekly helped my muscle memory form?

So many questions.

I liked the results tho, I really liked the results. It gave my confidence the boost it needed and gave me motivation to start looking after my diet better again (thats a future blog also…. shameless plug.)

I built up attending more and more sessions, soon attending all the fitness and striking session a week and it felt great.

There was something holding me back from attending the Jiu Jitsu classes, I wrote in a previous week’s blog about the anxiety which attending class has brought for me in the past.

Jitsu was the only class I never got back in the swing with after mum passed, I don’t know why but there were some mental blocks there.

Maybe this played a factor into getting back to class, maybe it was a subconscious concern about being that close to other people again.

I finally attended 1 or 2 classed with a designated partner, but when that partner couldn’t attend, I would take the excuse to skip out on the class also, I just had no consistency which was blocking any sort of confidence or routine building.

Then more national lock downs happened, this didn’t help the little momentum I had built coupled with an actual bout of Covid-19. Jitsu was back to square 1.

So, the process of working out how I was going to get back to Jiu Jitsu training began again.

I decided that Fridays were going to be my Jitsu days, but it would get to the end of the week and I would generally be burnt out, it would be a nice day and I’d want to sit in the garden after work nit a hot car.

I live a 45 min drive from the gym I go to and I would just talk myself out of going.

On top of this I had started to suffer from what I had dubbed Wednesday depression; I don’t know what was triggering it. Wednesday were like my mid week rest day, a day to put work into writing blogs and editing videos, but it never happened as I would end up depressed and just laid in bed or on the sofa feeling so low.

A couple of weeks ago, I pushed my comfort barrier again and went back to class… on a Wednesday it was great.

I came home and wanted to make notes on what we had done and wanted to drill the movements on my grappling dummy Sandra.

Since that week I have done at least 1 session a week of Jiu Jitsu and I am proud of that.

I have built up slowly, staying back when I could to watch some of the advanced classes and even last week stayed and took part in one of those advanced classes.

Since the world opened up a little more theres been more call for social events, dinners out, the cinema… you know just regular life stuff. But this regular life stuff made it hard to build a routine and a habit.

This has been a true battle with my mental strength one I feel I am finally on the winning leg of.

As I sit and write this now, I am sat in my car waiting for Monday night Jitsu to start at 7pm, this is something I haven’t done since pre my parents passing… today is a mile stone.

This battle has been a tough one but I don’t regret stepping up and owning it.

Until next time fellow Outliers be brave and push those comfort zones.