Why I Practice
In 2015, I competed in my last championship meet as a collegiate track and field athlete. It was a bitter-sweet ending knowing that I will never spike up again. There are people I know who joined local club teams or competed unattached after college. It seemed very inviting at the time, especially since I felt like I didn’t live up to my potential. However, my heart wasn’t in it, plus having a banged-up body from overtraining didn’t help either. In my first post-college year, I ran did some charity runs. Going on long runs is very therapeutic for me but I never thought I’d be interested in racing and trying to improve my 5k time, especially since I was a jumps specialist and dreaded endurance-based running workouts at practice. Eventually, I became bored with running every day. At the gym, I pretty much did all of the exercises I did in college. This also became boring. I began to think of other activities I liked or had an interest in.
A year later, I started learning capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. I remember going to my first class and thinking how cool it was. It’s fighting, dancing, acrobatics, music, history, and a foreign language class all in one. No need to learn these things separately. My capoeira training helped me realized one thing: I really love to practice acrobatics and general movement practice, which was popularized by Ido Portal. I began to practice acrobatics more, where I relearned skills I…
