Learning New Things, & Sword Skills

While still practicing the original things.

I mentioned the other day that I had signed up for a new program with ISSA– Transformation Specialist. I’m really excited about this program, because it really just further cements all that I’ve been studying on for the last few years.

Even when I was drowning in my Sad Girl Era, I was still researching about behaviors and thought patterns. I knew that there was something that I needed to change, and I knew that just trying to start doing things differently wasn’t enough. I’d done that before, when I trained to run that marathon. I didn’t address my trauma or anything that I was upset about, I just started throwing myself into my workouts. I never processed anything. I knew this time around, I had to get into my brain and start to excavate the trauma and sort through the reactions. I knew that was what held me back from everything I wanted.

This course is exciting to me because I get a real psyche breakdown and explanation of the various behavioral patterns and how to recognize and challenge them to change. It’s like confirmation for everything I’ve been researching. Now I’m going to school for it. I’m going to be Certified for it.

Pairing this with what I’ve learned as a Personal Trainer, I feel like I’ll really be able to help and make an impact on people. I’ll be able to get to the root of a behavior or thought process and help customize a solution to edit and recalibrate that behavior into something positive and life affirming. Which is how I’ve been outlining the offers on my new site anyway: working on routines and habit formation and mindset is the basis for what training with me will look like.

Since I started on my journey, it’s become more and more apparent to me that if you don’t address the trauma and the mindset, your wellness or fitness or health journey will always fall short. You’ll slip back into your old habits, slip back into that self loathing. You have to do the deep work, the inner work. You can exercise all day long, but if it’s a punishment, if it’s out of hatred for yourself, you stunt your growth. You never reach your full potential. Your body keeps the score on your mental health, and if you don’t address your mental health, your physical health will line itself right up to match.

We all love a matching set, but not like that.

I’ve also been looking up more sword fighting techniques and ways to expand on the skills that I’ve picked up through Valkyrie Squad. I wish there were more opportunities available for this skill set, but as it’s an ancient self defense method, there are few resources locally. I have to travel more than 40 minutes to find much of anything. There is an Eskrima style fight studio, but they’re open on a very limited schedule so drop-ins to investigate aren’t a thing. There are a few LARP reenactment collectives that I’m going to be contacting in the next few days to see if they have any information they’d be willing to share with me. Everything else is at least a day’s drive east of me, or really really south. Apparently people are still swinging swords down in the Bayou, but not here in the snowy swamp of Michigan.

I’m all about continuing Valkyrie Squad and my training, repeating the things I’ve learned until they’re thoroughly part of my body and personality. But I also want to make my fight skills my own, my sword skills my own, and tailor them to my body, my reach, my preferred sword style, all the things that are important to keep in mind as you progress through any kind of fight style training. I’m not small and petite or even fast; I’m tallish, I have big shoulders but not a long reach. Quite frankly I’m a tank, sitting pretty at 205lbs, with thick arms and legs and a lot of power coming from my torso to drive it home. If I’m going to call myself a Professional Valkyrie, I want to learn as many different kinds of fight styles and sword styles as I can, so that I can tailor them to suit me and the way that my body wants to move.

I am a Student of Life, and I fully support studying your interests until they’re practically your blood type.

My blood type is swords and badassery, so why the hell wouldn’t I spend my “spare time,” looking up how to fully embody those things? I’m tired of hiding in the shadows and trying to be soft, I’m not soft. Not always. Soft has it’s place, but I feel like I’ve been the marshmallow for a good while. I’m too fiery to melt and be soft goo, or burn up like sugar.

I am hardened steel. I’ve been hammered on and heated up and cooled down just to get tossed back into the flames again to start all over. The Forge of my life has taught me that soft and gooey isn’t how I thrive. I have to be hardened, sharpened, honed and polished, until I’m something able to handle the battle. Not that I haven’t handled my battles thus far, but I’m pretty scarred up. I could be better. I want to be better.

Never stop trying to be better.

And speaking on those improvements: last weekend my husband helped me unlock my lats! That probably sounds like there’s some kind of weird kinkery involved, but there wasn’t. My husband is learning massage therapy and has been going through muscular anatomy with me when I’m studying. I told him that I struggled to do push ups even still, because I couldn’t get my lats to engage, like my body straight up didn’t know where they were. Well we found them, wadded up in my armpits.

Did you know your Lat can literally flip and roll up, disabling them? Did you know your bra band being too tight can do this to you?! Legit, that’s what happened to me. My lats were a wad of muscle knots along my ribs and up high into my armpits before my husband massaged and pulled them down. Talk about a weird ass sensation, your muscle rolling over out of a knot to lay flat. Of course then my traps, which have been taking on the load since my lats were disabled for who knows how long, have been tight and low key throwing tantrums because THEY HAD A JOB AND THEY WERE DOING IT!! Just.. not a job that they should have been doing.

My posture is improved like 200% since my lats were moved back home, and now I find myself really interested in the workouts that engage them. GIVE ME MY WINGS. Push ups, you will be my next bitch.

I ran sword drills again yesterday, and went through sword forms for nearly an hour. I also picked up my Mace yesterday to do some work and found… that it feels really light all of the sudden? There are a lot of moves that it’s not light for, trust me. I have little interest in going up in weight for my Mace just yet. 10lbs is good for a while, it just means I have to modify UP the moves to challenge myself more. But I was pleasantly surprised when I started repping moves that I struggled with a month ago. Maybe it’s my Follicular Phase, or maybe I’m a badass, but I’m feeling myself a bit.

I’m not even sore today. Mace never leaves me anything but sore and limping away.

I’m sure I’ll be singing a different tune after today’s Ataraxia workout, another HIP today- High Intensity Pilates- which always challenge me and also make me swear at Sam profusely. I’m sure that my neighbors leaving for work are wondering why I’m swearing loudly to the darkness outside. It’s spooky season, I’ll leave them to their own ideas