Move It Mama Monday! Walking, karate and goals

I’ve been playing Walk It Out! for two weeks now and can definitely say I’m addicted to the game. I’m so addicted that I got up early yesterday (Mother’s Day) to make sure I squeezed in an hour of playing/walking time before the kids and the Hubster kicked off the Mother’s Day festivities. I walked about 5 miles on my DDR pad and was very tired later in the day.

So Walk It Out! has become my new favorite exercise game. I have decided to alternate days of Walk It Out! with actually walking outside, since the weather has been so nice lately, and since walking outside will take me past the neighborhood tennis courts. I like to stop at the tennis courts when I run or walk to practice karate for 20 minutes or so before finishing my route. I haven’t kept up with my karate practice, which is bad, but after a week or so of getting up early to play Walk It Out! I’m finally feeling awake enough in the mornings to get back into the swing of things. And it turns out this is a good thing because I’ve recently been informed that the Hubster and I will be testing for 3rd degree black belt at the end of summer.

Wow. Who’d have thought I’d make it this far in karate? But I have made it and that means I’ll really need to stay on target with my practice. My biggest problems with practicing karate tends to be time and location. For months, I hadn’t been able to figure out a good time to practice. Honestly, it’s not something I prefer to do when the kids are home and running around because I need to be able to concentrate on what I’m doing. Plus I’m always afraid one of the kids is suddenly going to show up underfoot and get accidentally kicked or karate chopped.

As for location, the two best locations I know of are the local tennis courts and the Y indoor basketball court. Each is ideal for karate practice since they offer so much empty space to move around in. However, I can’t find time to do karate practice AND water aerobics when I’m at the Y, and as for the tennis courts… Well, they’re outside, and if the weather is sucky, I just don’t have the motivation to go out into the rain/snow/heat to do what I need to do.

I finally decided that the only way karate practice was going to get done was if I made it a priority and that meant doing it first thing in the morning. Thus I’ve been getting up early to walk and then practice. This is where Walk It Out! has really helped, because I’ve been able to train myself to get up early to play the game (it’s EASY to play and I enjoy it a lot, so I have no excuse not to get up and do it!). Making the transition from Walk It Out! to actually walking outside and then doing karate practice turned out not to be so hard. I’m still walking, which is still easy for me to do at an early morning hour, and once I’ve walked a mile or so, it’s not hard to convince myself to stop and do a kata. And hey, if that first kata goes well, why not try a second or even a third before I go back to my easy, enjoyable outdoor walk.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that I’ve been able to get back into karate practice and early morning workouts in general by making it easy and fun. And I think that’s the attitude I should take when I approach any physical activity. Is it easy for me to do? In other words, can I just jump right in and get started, even when I’m half-blind with sleep? And will I enjoy it enough to keep doing it every morning at the ungodly hour of 5:30AM?

So far the answers have been “Yes!” to both activities. We’ll see how well I continue to do with my new workout schedule.