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Now that the government has decided to get back to work, we take you back to our regularly scheduled blog. When I wrote this it wasn’t below zero temperatures, so everyone stay warm and safe.

   I woke up at 4:00 AM and just couldn’t get back to sleep, the book I’m writing was too loud in my head. I thought I’ll get up, feed the dogs really fast, and get to my desk. Of course, it didn’t work that way. I got to chase one of our dogs through the cold, snowy darkness because he was eating poo in the yard – again. But not all was lost, because when I got the dogs back inside the sweet, sweet smell of coffee greeted me from the coffeemaker. Then I heard the first sizzle and pop, and realized water was leaking out of the coffeemaker. Steam rose as the water hit the hot plate under the coffee pot. I thought at first it was smoke, but just steam, thankfully. The pot was full of coffee, so I thought, I’ll try it. The wonderful aroma wafted up as I took that first sip. It was weak like water that coffee had run by and waved at, and so cool that I could put my finger in the liquid and not be burned.

I still hadn’t fed the dogs or gone to my office. I did a quick video about my morning and posted it online, thanks to everyone who hoped my day would get better. I wanted to let you know that the morning’s coffee debacle was the low point and the day improved. I managed to get some writing done, perhaps not as much I wanted, but some days pages are pages. Celebrate your victory and move on.

But what finally chased the last of my morning crankiness away was going to the dojo for Filipino Martial Arts, (FMA). I normally do Kali which is stick and blade training, but tonight I did Jeet Kune Do, (JKD). I had an hour and a half which I was splitting with my daughter. I never dreamed that mother/daughter bonding time would include the dojo, but it’s wonderful that it does. She did Kali with our instructor, our Sifu, while I did JKD, because she’s a lot newer at this than I am. Sifu trusted me to be self-entertaining, so I stretched and then used padded sticks on one of the heavy bags, but I prefer to use sticks of any kind with a partner, so I got gloves from my equipment bag and started working on punches. I have a tendency to like to want to make the bag move as if it’s all about strength, but it’s not, it’s about form. The strongest fighter in the world will lose if they’re fighting someone with more precise technique and better form. The latter will also keep you from hurting yourself when you’re hitting the heavy bag. Sloppy form means injuries, I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. So I had to keep forcing myself to slow down and be precise, turn my body and not just try to muscle through with my arm and shoulder. But it’s my kicks that still aren’t up to snuff, so that’s what I asked for one on one help with when it was my turn with Sifu. I have some new exercises to add at home to help with hip flexibility. We ended with him holding focus mitts for me while I kicked and punched. My kicks were weak enough at the beginning that he wanted me to kick his thigh so I’d get a better feel of it, by the time we were done he wouldn’t let me kick him, just the mitt, which meant I’d improved. Yay!

I’m reading back over this blog and realized just how much I enjoy FMA. Yes, some of Anita Blake’s workouts in the books are based on what I do now, and some of it is what I did in college or my twenties, like the running. Not sure my ankles and knees will take that again, we’ll see. For now I’m apparently very happy to be doing FMA. I don’t think I realized just how happy until I read this over. I was still pleasantly achy from yesterday’s gym workout, which is weights and cardio, before I even started on the heavy bag tonight. I haven’t worked on JKD this long and hard in months. Somewhere in the heavy bag work with the sweat and the sensation of my body hitting something solid on purpose over and over I let go the anger that had started to accumulate with the morning’s coffee debacle. The negative head space had haunted me all day, I just couldn’t shake it until that moment in the dojo tonight. The last of the bad feelings and the dark head space floated away on the feel of my body doing something so physical. Sometimes no amount of mediation or yoga mudras work for me. I need something harder hitting, literally. It helps clear my mind, soothe my spirit, and add strength, dexterity, and speed to my body. What’s not to love?