Squad Day 28: Habit Alarms & Schedule Reboot
My body woke me up this morning at around 6am, my habitual wake up at 5am to ready for the day and train, reminding me that I’m supposed to be awake already. It’s the weekend and I tend to try and get some extra sleep since no one has to be up for work so early. My body had other plans today though, and while it wasn’t hunger waking me like it did yesterday, there was a restlessness in my muscles that had me up and moving.
Before I even made my tea I had my mat out on the floor and I was moving through some of my favorite Yoga poses from Valkyrie Yoga 1 and 2, combining them in memory to create a perfect sequence of relief from sleepy stiffness and blood pumping holds that forced deep breaths and concentration to move through. I practiced Mindstilling without audio, the rhythm of the deep breaths beginning to come to me naturally now. I lay on my back in corpse pose, feeling the depth of those breaths and bringing them deep into my belly, and wooshing out of me with a steady grace only achieved by practice. I could feel each section of muscles in my belly expanding slowly and then contracting to release, still sore from the last few days, but stronger than before.
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Today I’ll be drawing up the schedule for my repeat of Novice month, with some changes for core focus and hip mobility. I’m not going to follow the whole month as it was set up, I’ve got to tweak some things to keep the intensity where I want it so I don’t fall off this wagon. I’m going to spend some time this morning reviewing the Blade drills and bonus videos so that I can see what I can integrate into my repeat of Novice, and what I can switch out of Novice and replace with core and hip mobility. I’m grateful for my love of planners and all manner of organizational tools that help me think I have my life together, I have a plethora of ways to rewrite and organize my training plan. I’ve spoken to Sam about proceeding with my training this way and she thinks it’s a great idea for me to repeat Novice and work on my core stability and Hip control for posture.
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One of the worst things you can do as when trying to follow a program, is not assess your body and your progress with a healthy dose of reality. We have a tendency, or at least I do, to say “I’ve done so well so far and I’m loving it, lets dive into the next challenge head first!” When the reality is that while we may have made those improvements and we may feel fantastic about it, we are likely ignoring a lot of key elements, like form and posture, and that can lead to injury and burn out. Simply because we aren’t as ready as we think we are. Mentally, I’m already in Blade. I’m ready to box it out and up the ante and have some fun with those workouts. Physically, my form needs a lot of help still and my pelvic tilt is still a dominant issue, which can result in hurting my back as I have before, or creating the bad habit of pursuing an action incorrectly, which can set me up for future injuries that I’m not even aware of yet.
The longer I am on this Valkyrie Journey, the more I am aware of my body and the way I need to approach my training. My core and my very bones have lingering damage from pregnancy and a lack of information about how to take care of myself postpartum, and I’d be really doing myself a disservice to ignore those things and move on anyway because I don’t want to be behind everyone else I started squad with. That’s a real thought that I’ve had, that I don’t want to feel like I’m behind. But this is my journey, and I’ll take the longer route, the path of Ennalius, if I must.
I’m reminded so much of Emerie and that first training day, when she showed up to the Training Ring and Cassian was assessing her form and her balance issues with her wings, and told her that the damage to her wings was causing her major issues. That what was done to her wings was causing the weakness in her core and her legs and that she needed some extra work to be able to overcome it. That’s me, that’s what I’m facing. Like Emerie though, I’m not shying away, I’ll be hitting the mat first thing tomorrow morning with my 2nd round of Novice, albeit spicier. I’ll control my injuries and how my body moves, not the other way around.
As graceful as Gwyn had been, Emerie proved to be equally awkward and unbalanced. “It has to do with your wings,” Cassian said with such gentleness that Nesta, balancing on one leg and sweeping the other up behind her, nearly fell into the dirt next to Emerie. “Without full use of your wings, your body compensates for its off-kilter balance in ways like that.” He nodded toward the ground-eating spill she’d taken. Gwyn halted her own balancing. “Why?” “the wings usually act as a counterweight.” He offered a hand to help Emerie rise. “They’re full of delicate muscles that constantly adjust and steady without us so much as thinking about it.” Emerie ignored his hand and stood herself. Cassian explained carefully, “Many of the key muscles can be impacted when someone’s wings are clipped.” page 300, A Court of Silver Flames
The Sun is creeping over the horizon now, and I can hear Yrsa in her crate, shifting around restlessly like I was an hour ago. Time to go for a walk, I guess I better get dressed.
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