Returning to Martial Arts After Life Gets in the Way: An Introspective Look at the Negative Thoughts Which Held Me Back

2018 started off great for me, training-wise. I was never one of those people who seemed to live at the dojo, but I was maintaining a fairly regular training schedule and felt I was progressing nicely.

And then, as happens all too often for many people, life got in the way.

My career path had taken me to an exciting, but ultimately extremely stressful place. My mental health deteriorated. I changed jobs, out of the frying pan and into the fire. At my worst peak, I was working a 90 hour week – late nights, and even weekends. I had no time nor energy for life outside of work. In the midst of all that, I also moved house and had some overseas trips. My training dropped significantly where I sometimes wouldn’t attend for several weeks.

But, I won’t lie. A lot of the reason why I didn’t train much was because of my mindset during that period. I probably could have made it to training more often, but for one reason or another, I felt incredibly unmotivated, or embarrassed, or defeated by my situation. As the days went by, it got harder and harder to convince myself to attend.

After some reflection, the following were the negative, mostly illogical, but maybe 100% human thoughts that went through my head and prevented me from training:

• You’re not committed enough – I have many training friends of whom martial arts seems like their life. They don’t just attend, they live it. They train almost every day, injury or not, no excuses. Martial arts is important to them. They are committed.
• Your skills have regressed – I left it too long, I’ll be super rusty. It’ll be embarrassing going back and having the newer people question your belt. My fitness will probably be crap and I’ll have to build it up again.
• It’s easier to quit than be seen as a casual – When I commit, I want to commit 100%. I don’t want to be someone who progresses slowly, when I know I’m capable of more. When you quit, no one asks about you anymore. When you come back, they ask where you’ve been.
• Sadness that your goals have gone nowhere – I was so excited at the start of the year, everything was going promisingly. I was aiming to achieve so much this year with my training, and now I have lost so much time.
• The guilt of having to choose – When life is not balanced, I can’t justify going to training and neglecting the other parts of my life. Barely any time at home after coming home late? I must do chores. Must spend time with loved ones. Must sleep.

The interesting conundrum that the above imposed was a negative loop of procrastination. The more I thought those thoughts, the more I thought those thoughts. At one point my motivation sank so low that I considered canceling my membership. However, from past experience, that moment of low motivation usually means it’s the best time to go. So I forced myself to go to training that day, and I loved it. It was the stress release that I so desperately needed.

I knew it was illogical to allow those negative thoughts to take control, and it was holding me back. I knew I had to stop.

So I kept attending, on the odd occasions that I could. I still felt like a casual, but at least I was there. I was hanging on because I think, deep down, I knew I wanted it. It was still a part of me. I still shadow-boxed in the kitchen while I was cooking. I still walked around the streets surveying people who passed me, checking their body language, checking their hands, checking my surroundings. It is true; you don’t lose the instinct once it’s ingrained in you.

Now 2019 has swung around, and my work has settled down. I made it a priority, nay a rule, to reduce my working hours. Focus on my health. And I’m back at training much more regularly now; I slid back in without much difference in my skills and fitness. I’m pretty happy about that.

Looking back on those negative thoughts I came to these conclusions:

• It gets worse with procrastination – You need to force yourself to bite the bullet, or those negative thoughts will only accumulate and get harder to overcome the longer you leave it.
• It’s a good thing to be taking care of yourself and your responsibilities – Never feel guilty about putting other parts of your life as a priority over training. Aside from the obvious note to myself – don’t let your life get so crazy and ridiculously unbalanced – I should feel responsible that I chose to make sure my life was in order before I went to training. The better off your life is in general, the easier it is for you to go to training, and the cycle will only continue in a positive direction.
• Remember that training can also be stress relief – I shouldn’t have looked to training as a commitment, as a pressure, but rather my release – my aid. The difficulty was removing the pressure I felt about attending, but once I actually got there, I felt so good afterward.
• No one has their life perfect – I’m sure many people are great at balancing their lives, but there’s always some sacrifice to be made. Every attendance to training is less time focussing on another priority. So remember that everyone is playing a juggling act, and everyone has different priorities that they must share their time and energy around.
• It’s okay to be casual – I accept that life can change, and some things will get in the way. I accept that I have other responsibilities and priorities in life. Sometimes training will be one of them, and other times it won’t be. The battle is only lost when you give up completely. I can have a completely poor period of training, but I know that after the storm there will be many periods of great training. I don’t want to sacrifice those because I gave up one day, so I’ll hold on however casually I need to.

Martial arts took a back seat in my life in 2018, partly out of requirement and partly out of fear. But I don’t regret that period, because my other life moved on and went great, and I learned some important lessons from my break. Now I’ve invited it back into the front seat, and look forward to what may come.

So if you happen to be in a similar situation, I can tell you at least this one point – you are here reading a Martial Arts journal. It is still with you, at the very least a tiny bit. The door is there waiting for you when you choose to come back.

Have you experienced your own negative thoughts when training became difficult for you? Let me know in the comments below.

Parting note: Thank you to Scott Bolon, for inspiring me to write this article. He caught me in a period when I no longer felt like a martial artist, and instead of allowing me to move on, asked me to reflect and write about it. Osu.

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Camille Woodthorpe

Camille is a green belt in Krav Maga (Gendai Ryu) who also cross trains in Boxing and Kickboxing. She enjoys reflecting over the mental aspects of martial arts as much as the physical aspects, and is always seeking to learn new things.

Latest posts by Camille Woodthorpe (see all)

• Returning to Martial Arts After Life Gets in the Way: An Introspective Look at the Negative Thoughts Which Held Me Back - January 10, 2019
• Welcoming the New Kid - June 30, 2018