When Things Heat Up

I want to congratulate the brave people out there who have to weather the heat. Special mention goes to the Fire Fighters, Road Workers and even the Cricketers. Others worth mentioning are the people who showed up to martial arts training this week, particularly Belmore and West Pennant Hills; I really admire these people. It’s true the heat does keep people away! So does the cold, so does the rain etc, etc. Training in essence is not about comfort, in particular, martial artists are athletes and can endure more ‘punishment’ (if you want to call it that) than the yuppie who takes the escalator to an air-conditioned gym holding a bottle of Powerade. I was wrestling with guys last Sunday and Monday evenings in that ‘over 40 heat’. By the end of the night I was dripping that much sweat the steering wheel of my car was slipping from my hands. I did think about the heat, I said, ‘Too bad, maybe better luck next time.’ Training in the heat is a challenge because your body reacts differently and it is important that you condition yourself to perform in one extreme temperature to another. Remember, if you ever come across trouble, you can’t change into comfortable clothes and you can’t change the terrain or weather.

When it gets this hot again, spare a thought for one of our senior Instructors, Victor, who moved 2.5 ton of dirt this week in the sun then turned up for training in the night and weekend. Or even spare a thought for the older blokes: Drinking water during training, in the earlier days, was unheard of. What we did is sneak into the toilets and line up for a drink of water from the tap in the wash basin whilst somebody else is using the urinal next to you.

Can’t wait for the rain to cool the place down! Maybe, I shouldn’t have said that, some of us haven’t got umbrellas.