I’ve trained my body consistently for 25 years – there have been more years in my life spent training than not.

I came to learn that the act of “training the body” has been the easiest task. I know, it sounds backward… isn’t training hard, especially Contortion? Yes, it is.

I remember interviewing Ana Venizelos once, a talented contortionist from NY, asking her why she liked Contortion. Her precise words where “I like it, because it’s hard”.

When you truly enjoy something, the physical difficulty of it isn’t the worst part: the skill being learned must be a bit out of one’s current capabilities – not too difficult or anxiety or frustration ensue – for its development to be enjoyable. If it’s too easy, it becomes boring and not enjoyable. Finding this middle ground – making training hard and challenging enough, yet still enjoyable, is at the core of what the “optimal/flow experience” is (read more about it on the book “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).

I believe the hardest part of training being the mental aspect – during training, but especially away from it.

What is that mean? When you’re training consistently, at the right intensity, after a while your mind enters a state of order: mind and body get attuned, the focus in on the present task, the hardest the task the bigger the need for focus. Throw in there a sense of enjoyment and you’re flowing: only you and your practice exist, you become the training, almost like there is a loss of identity and a strengthening of it at the same time during these deep moments of synchrony.

I think training does not start and end on the mat or at the gym. Your training extends to everything you do outside of the physical practice. How do you recover? How do you sleep? How do you eat? How do you see yourself? And lastly, what is your mind doing… when you cannot train? To me that is the biggest challenge there is.

If you’ve read my posts in the past year, you know I’ve talked extensively about time off training (like in the post reverse discipline). The pain of not training, of not knowing when and if the body will come back, that is the greatest challenge of all when you’ve known what it means to flow through the use of your body. Without it, all you’re left with is your mind, which can be your best friend as much as your worst enemy, beautifully stated in the poem Paradise Lost by John Milton, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven“. Caring for the way you think during these times is essential, so if you’re going through a hard time in your practice, be it an injury, loss of motivation, anything requiring time off like pregnancy, I want to give you some practical advice on how you can keep you mind strong as things return to balance (they do!).

Be grateful for what is working, in your life and your body. Write it down.

Take care of yourself: solid nutrition, sleep, rest, allow for down times to be. Show love and compassion to yourself.

Don’t talk about it constantly with others. I know sometimes it feels good to share, but I really believe you attract more of what you think and talk about.

Trust even better times are on the way.

Practice other things to bring “order” to the mind (journal, meditation, writing down a plan of action that feels good, rearranging priorities, take care of other things you usually have no time for).

Don’t force yourself into feeling good if you can’t. Let yourself be. Allow yourself to feel whatever is there.

One thing I can tell you, as difficult as it can be to either not train or to deal with our erratic mind and thoughts, it is a powerful learning experience. We learn the most, especially about ourselves, when we face uncomfortable situations and even then, there is still so much to be happy about, while this part of our life gets rearranged.

So yeah, the hardest part of training isn’t the physical training, but dealing with all there is around it, uncertainty, doubt, mental chaos. Training hard is the fun part.