Did you ever get to the dojo or gym and think:  I just don’t feel like working out?

Working out alone is difficult when you’re just not in the mood.  Yesterday I thought, “If only I could conjure a teacher and a group of students and ride the wave of their energy.”  Sigh.  I have a program and I usually follow it, but yesterday it was 35 degrees Celsius at 11am.  The day before I’d overdone it and my body was tired.  I just wasn’t in the mood.

For some reason I thought of what my parents did occasionally on hot summer nights when I was a kid and they were burned out from working and taking care of us and just didn’t feel like cooking.  They’d open cans of sardines, tuna, smoked oysters, black olives and capers.  They’d stick that on the table with some saltines and we’d sample each item straight from the tins.  We called it a snitch supper.  Zero preparation time, zero effort but it tasted good and we got a kick out of the novelty.

Yesterday I gave myself permission not to do my regular workout.  I told myself:  You’re a little kid and you are here to play with all this stuff.  Have fun! No goals, no rules – just a few repetitions of a lot of different exercises.  As my parents gave themselves permission not to put a balanced meal on the table, I gave myself permission not to follow my plans, rather to simply amuse myself.

Thus, I tricked myself into an hour and a half of kata, stomach crunches, chin-ups, kettlebell, nigiri-game, chi-ishi and more.  So next time you don’t feel like working out, consider throwing out your plan and playing with your equipment.  A ‘snitch’ workout, as it were.