The Post-Astolat Task List – The Climb #185

Tuesday 25^th July 2017

I still feel shattered today. I am awake and alert but my body has a weariness that goes down to my bones.
As a result, I didn’t jump back into the edits tonight, instead catching up on Game of Thrones (I’m several seasons behind). If Leggedon taught me anything, it’s to listen to my body. I will often push myself, knowing my body can take it (such as when I walked 26 miles with a 6” hole in my leg), but there are times (like now) when I just need to give myself a couple of days to rest.
The good news is that I’m finding my mind naturally beginning to drift to the novel and the edits. I suspect that I’ll be back on them with force in the next few days. But there are a couple of obstacles in the way.
I’ve come out of Astolat with a lot of tasks to do.
The first thing I want to do is to organise a seminar on sports psychology. One thing that came out of the weekend was a greater conviction that fights are won and lost inside your own head. I think the others in the school are interested in this but I’ve taken it upon myself to research the various firms out there and get this organised. I suspect a one day / half day workshop may prove too expensive… but I think it’s at least worth investigating.
Spinning out of this is a change about how I want to teach students. We have a school style and I think it works very well. So I don’t see a need to change it. But I’ve also become very aware that my style as an instructor is to give the students a lot of room to think for themselves. Someone said to me at the weekend that I make an environment where it’s OK to make mistakes, and I like that I do. I’m not aware that I taught like this, but I think being able to make mistakes is a fundamental part of learning.
As I said on Facebook tonight, I fundamentally believe that if you want to succeed at tournament then you have to own your training. I’ve seen friends who moan about their performance as if it’s a problem with instruction. Classes are just there as a resource you can use. Just turning up won’t make you good.
But this in itself got me thinking about the instruction I want to receive. What resources do I need as a fighter? I certainly need to use the sources as more than a thing I occasionally dip into. I need to pick the information apart, reformulate it in a way that I understand so I might make greater use of it.
Going forward, I want to create the lessons I would want as a student. I believe that the act of creating those lessons will give me the instruction I need whilst making them useful to other students. I plan to experiment a little, keeping to the school’s method of teaching but playing to my strengths of creating an open learning environment.
I have to keep in mind that some people don’t want to fight in tournaments and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t want people who don’t tournament fight feel like they are being left behind or are ignored.
As well as this, I’ve been invited into the Wessex League committee to create the website. I’ve got the domain ordered and installed wordpress but I need to find time to create the pages.
And then there’s another thing that’s been going on for a few weeks that I need to do some work for.
I’ve got cake club on Thursday and I need to do some prep for that (when I’ll have time I have no idea!)
So it’s probably just as well that I’m not back in the edits right now. If I can spend a couple of days clearing off this post-Astolat task list, then maybe come the weekend I can dive back into the edits fulltime. I have this growing fear of time ticking away and I want to get these edits done as soon as possible.
Of course, with Fightcamp coming up in a couple of weeks there will be another break but there’s nothing I can do about that.
But for today at least, I rest. The next few weeks will be insanely busy but my task list can wait until tomorrow.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.