At 3:00 am I knew. It woke me, and immediately I knew. I have a cold.
After a dose of 2 grams of vitamin C and a shot of mango juice to wash it down, I managed to get back to sleep after meditating with a shroud of white, healing light around me. At 6:00 am when my alarm went off, I felt cold; a low-grade fever was my body’s response to this invader. With another 2 grams of C, dressed with a shirt under my gi top, I headed out in the drizzling rain for our early morning training.
I started the class with the usual warm up and stretching, then moved into kata practice. Today, I lead two kata, then stopped to tell a story for minute. I only did this twice before my senior student said, “I know what you’re doing – you’re in healthy mode”, while he patted his chest. Very clever, he’d picked up on the frequents breaks as my way of managing my heart rate and breathing intensity.
Keeping the same pattern, we repeated basic kihon and fundimental fukyu katas and discussed subjects from off-balancing striking combinations to managing fear. I kept my heart rate under 80 bpm for the hour, but felt like I was working and moving properly in during each kata.
By the end of the class, I felt much better. The soreness in my core had eased, my chest was not tight any more and I was breathing more easily. The fuzzy head feeling was still there, but diminished.
When I got home, I quickly dried off and got changed into warm clothes, (socks and a jumper), on this 20° C Queensland summer day. I’ll keep using the vitamin C, green tea and rest. Having a great base of wellness should let me win the battle with this bug in a few days.
Day 2 of cold vs kata.
After a miserable day and an early bed-time yesterday, I was up at 4:30 am today. The cold was a bit heavier in my sinuses, but I felt better overall. I was tired, but no way was I about to miss my training this morning. The sky was foreboding with patches of light and dark clouds, but it was bright and humid today.
The warm up and stretching were more taxing today, and it was a relief of sorts to slip into the routine of the kata practice. We did the basics like yesterday, plus Naihanchi and the Paisai kata, plus Shuto, Geri and Yakusoku drills to round out the hour.
Dressed in warm clothes after a hot shower and shave, I feel almost human again.
Rob likes to say the cold virus is “proof of life”; that when it attacks and our body fights back and kills it, we prove we are alive and ‘kicking’. An apt expression for us.
Day 3… Saturday.
Yesterday’s afternoon class in the dojo was fun. It was the last class of the year before our holiday break, so we each did a solo kata performance, then had some fun with the “add on” game, where each person contributes two moves to build up a new kata. We played our belt game and the touch their head game to put a bit of competition in the class. I gave out my ‘famous’ Anzac bikkies as Christmas presents to the students and we said goodbye to a great year of karate practice together.
I turned my alarm off and managed to sleep in until 6:30 today. I have a bit of congestion in my sinuses and some soreness in my core, but I’m feeling about 80% again.
I don’t train in the park on weekend mornings, but I will do some light kata practice today.
Day 4… day of rest.
I’m feeling pretty good today. A bit of congestion in my throat, mild soreness in my core, but about 95% well now.
I normally don’t train on Sunday, but I’ll probably get some light exercise in doing something else today.
Day 5… return to wellness
My cold is gone, I’ve recovered completely after 4 days. In fact, by last night, I was feeling so good I got in an extra strength and conditioning workout.
My cold fighting strategy of lots of vitamin C, water, as much food as possible, plenty of rest and continuing daily kata practice at a moderate pace is as close to a cure as I’ve discovered.
Be well!