Peer pressure can be a positive thing!
2/15/16 – Major Employer’s Club Dojo
No college class today (or work for that matter). Campus was closed for Presidents’ Day. So time to rest, right?
Nope. I may have had time off from work, but no way was I going to take time off from my favorite hobby.
I’d already arranged to go to Major Employer’s Club Dojo. Sunday night I was briefly tempted to cancel. But then I realized I couldn’t use the excuse of doing heavy physical labor all weekend because one of the dojo’s brown belts (five years my senior and my height) had been laboring right alongside me all weekend – and he knew from Friday night that I was planning on coming. He wasn’t planning on skipping class Monday. That and Sunday evening, one of the dojo’s black belts, who is old enough to be my father, helped out with loading and unloading the truck – he and I team-lifted a lot of stuff. I knew he was going to be teaching tonight and he’d already been told by the dojo sensei that I’d be coming. No way could I have backed out on my plans 🙂
A little peer pressure goes a long way.
And I’m really happy I didn’t skip. The class consisted of the two gentlemen I mentioned previously, a guy who outranks me by one belt, and me. SWEEEEEEEEEET! I get tickled pink when I’m at the end of the line. It means I’m going to have a really challenging class. And it was.
So I could’ve just caved to being tired. I could’ve farted around on the computer (which I’m doing now, but I’m waiting for the washing machine to finish up so I can hang my gi up to dry). And I’d have missed out.
Big karate lesson today – how to do push-ups properly and how to build up my ability. This from the brown belt, who used to train people in physical fitness for the military. He walked me through everything and pointed out what I needed to do differently. He demonstrated and let me walk around him so I could really see what he was doing. Way better than YouTube. Now I have a bit of peer pressure to do better at this exercise.
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Update: I am continuing to do more and better push ups!
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