ECD

[rm]

Okay, the English Country Dancing is definitely much more my thing than contra. I will definitely go again, albeit not constantly. I think what I really need to do is start going to Scottish on Thursdays (since soon there will be fencing on Fridays). This is all a little mad. I suppose I'm becoming addicted to exercise, eventhough I feel like part of me is going "stop! for the love of all things you need a break!" while half of me is like, "every day, bitch, are you serious about this or not?" Yikes.

I have also determined that I like pop music. That is, big classical symphonies don't do much for me, but give me a dance tune or a waltz on some fiddles and I'm perfectly happy.

I'm still shocked I'm not more sore than I am, but how in the hell am I going to fence tomorrow?

Comments

[roy-batty.livejournal.com]

Just remember excercise tears down muscles, it's the rest afterward that builds them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

By and large the fencing and the dance hit different muscles (although they all protest a bit when getting to the next days task. The real death of me this week is all the crap I had to lift on Monday.

So tell me this, what's up with all the really buff peopel who do run or fence or whatever it is they do every day. How does that work/

[roy-batty.livejournal.com]

Good question. It has a lot to do with acclimitization. IME, after a while some things that seemd like a hella-workout can actually become trivial . . . I can still remember the first time I went into a Jun Fan Gung Fu class - I thought I was going to die. Now, it seems like it's mostly a technical excercise, and perhaps a good warmup for Muay Thai class afterward. Likewise, as I'm getting to about 6 miles on my long run for the week, the mile or two that used to be murderously taxing is barely enough for me to get my legs warm and loose. It's only now that I'd even consider putting a short 2 mile run in between my medium 4 mile runs during the week.

As max capacity increases, the baseline moves up as well.

Still, it depends on what you're doing and how hard your pushing your limit. Even top bodybuilders who work out every day won't hit the same muscle concentrations without at least a day of rest in between.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, yeah. there's stuff in fencing that near killed me at the beginning that I don't even notice anymore. Fencing is a little maddening in terms of how to approach it because I have both a lot of strength to develop, which demands rest, and a lot of motions to grasp, which for me, as someone who danced, really demands a bit of every day.

[roy-batty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear ya. It's been explained to me, and I buy into it, that is one of the main reasons we (at least my school) puts such an emphasis on conditioning in the Martial Arts. Aside from issues of fatigue during a fight, pain endurance, &c., there is the simple fact that in order to get good at what we do we need a lot of repetitions, and we need to be well conditioned to actually be able to do the required reps.