“Hey mate – how do you work your rear delts?” was the question I was asked today when sitting by the public pool with the kids on this scorching Brisbane afternoon. At first, I wasn’t sure if this chunky gym looking dude was trying to hit on me, talk crap, or was being serious. My lack of understanding of shoulder anatomy was partly to blame and I had always thought the delts were only found at the front (Had to google ‘rear delts’ when I got home to double-check it wasn’t some kind of homosexual euphemism).
Anyway back to my delts – I had always been a lot heavier than I was now.. about 20-30 kgs (66 lbs) more. This went on for many many years and it was only due to a health check when I was at my heaviest, where the doctors raised serious concerns about my cholesterol levels, fatty liver, and other not so nice issues. Being overweight I was never concerned with, as I was still flexible enough to do the splits, could pump more sit-ups than someone with a six-pack, and swim farther than a fish. Due to my love of fine food and alcohol especially my decade living in Japan, fresh food could be found in an abundance on any street you walked in, as a result, a 10th dan eating monster I became.
Because of the health warnings, I knew it was time I had to change my gluttonous ways. Change can only be made if one wants to, if there is no desire, then it is almost impossible. And so, I would shred the weight pretty easily and quickly from consuming about 10 meals a day down to 5 – and drinking alcohol only once or twice a week. In a way I was lucky as I was and have always been exercising /training on a daily basis ever since I was a kid – so no physical aspect needed to be altered.
Sometimes I think about the guys we train with in kobudo. Great people who practise a different karate style for longer than we have trained in our own, and people whom I treat like family. I was a complete beginner when they were already teaching kobudo. Having said that, often I wonder. (But my visibly defined rear deltoid incident today and comparing it to my flabby gut days triggered these thoughts even further). As time training in kobudo progresses and more training in Okinawa with our sensei is carried out, a better understanding of kobudo is grasped, thus, can notice more and more chinks in our kobudo senior’s armour. Not an issue if one continues to work on their weaknesses. Incorrect techniques and bad habits they often told me not to do when I first started, I could see they were and weren’t doing themselves. Often I hear statements similar to….”Oh I’ve been doing it for such and such amount of years, I can’t change em now… “ I believe habits are challenging to change but you can state that anything on earth is hard to change if you don’t want to change them. Let’s take a tradie for example who habitually must incorporate the F word into every sentence. No one is born with a bad habit, but over time you become fkn comfortable with these fkn bad habits whatever the fck it is, and the end result is it becomes a fkn part of you. Nah nah it’s too late to quit smoking or I’m not happy in my karate style but I’m too old or it’s too late to change etc etc. Nothing worse than hearing such nonsense.
If one can realise how bad or damaging a habit is, if you really have that desire to make a difference for the better I strongly believe it is achievable regardless of how old or how long you have been in that rut. You only need to want it!
If one day for whatever reason I become one of these Nah-Nah-it’s-too-whatever kind of people, someone please give me an uppercut ….or two … and slap in the face …and kick in the nuts too!
And for your interest - my response to how I work my rear delts, I responded with “swimming” 😊.
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