*smack*
I feel pretty frustrated, in a subtle way. Not really angry or flustered in any real sense, there's just a little frustrated thought in the back of my head that's nagging at me.
Here it is: I feel like I just can't get better at karate. I've been a green belt for about a year now (not sure exactly, but something like that). There have been improvements in certain areas, sure. I've taken on nunchaku in the past week and I've already improved a lot with them. However, a lot of the combinations I come up with seem old and stale. That feeling of being stagnant is persistent.
Long ago I hit a training wall which put me on a training plateau. There's something in my mind that I can't get past and thus my progress is really slow at this point.
Lately, I've found some hint as to (possibly) what my training wall could be. No matter what scenario I imagine in my head or what combination I think of, I cannot get past the thought that I cannot hit another person, or if I did that I would hit with weak force ("like a girl" :-P). Now, when I consciously think logically and reasonably about what I could do, I think I could really hurt another person with my body. Hell, I've accidentally hurt people at karate by barely doing anything to them. I know how fragile the human body is, and I know that I have a good bit of power available. There's a lingering thought, an emotional override, that always seems to come up, where I'll say, "Sure, I could hit hard, but..." I lack that confident understanding in myself in any true sense.
Oh, and... Sorry guys. But I have to do it. I think I'm gonna drop alcohol for a while and probably try to get on a more regular sleeping schedule. I need to get back up to par in my strength. During class I can really feel how drained I am when I mess around with my body. If I'm going to move on to purple belt, I'm going to need to be truly at 100%.
I want to try to meditate on my own as well. Doing so, I hope, will help me to relax and have a more fluid and broader awareness - useful tools for improvement.
On a different note, I have some prospects for jobs coming up, so hopefully I will be employed in the next week or two. Send me some good vibes.
And on a different note, I hate the thing that I do, specifically when tired and rambling about some ideas I've had that are unformed and I just kinda ramble on without any real structure or purpose to the things I'm saying. It's just kinda stream of consciousness. It makes me feel uncomfortable and kinda dumb. I hate that. But anyway.