This is my second week of one hundred repetitions for my daily exercises.
At work, a friend had told me about a comic character called “One Punch Man,” who really does seem inspired by Masutatsu Oyama’s karate teachings. In theory, One Punch Man claims to have gotten his super powers by doing one hundred push-ups, sit-ups and squats, plus running for 10 km a day, for roughly a year and a half. That comes up if you just Google “One Punch Man,” under “how did One Punch Man get his powers?”
Here’s a link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Punch_Man
Though my requirement for push-ups is technically sixty, given that everything else is one hundred, I’m trying to get in a hundred, even if I have to do forty on my knees. If I were not doing push-ups on my fists, the requirement would be one hundred. H, who promoted to shodan last year, did do one hundred and advised me to go with doing push-ups on my fists.
I did do exercises before work and after work. That went well in the morning, though I did not leave myself enough time to do my usual ten minute write. Evening exercises were a different matter. My back-right thigh is still stinging some, so I did squats without alternating punches. I did try to work in some punches around fifty repetitions, and it just hurt. Most likely, the hip-twist I do while punching at the top of the squat is somehow messing with that sore muscle.
During my lunch break, I jogged for twenty minutes on the treadmill, with a warm-up and cool down. I am hoping that, on Wednesday, I’ll be up for jump rope intervals again, but not today.
Work is also worrying, given the lack of work at work. As I mentioned earlier, my company does visual effects for live action, which is not happening at the moment.
I was also saddened to learn on Sunday that one of my cousins unexpectedly lost her younger sister. She had the burden of informing her father and the rest of the family of their loss. These kinds of events remind us to be grateful for the family and friends we have and for our own health.
On a lighter note, one of the stories in “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” reads like a joke. Soyen Shaku, the first Zen Master to teach in the United States, would take a nap every afternoon. This is according to his students in Japan.
One day, they asked him about it. He said, “I go to Dreamland to meet the old sages, just as Confucius did.”
One hot afternoon, the students, children at that time, also took a nap. Shaku scolded them upon finding them sleeping. The children answered, “We went to Dreamland to meet the old sages, just as Confucius did.”
“What was the message from those sages?” asked Shaku.
“We asked them if our schoolmaster came every afternoon to meet them, and they said they’d never seen any such fellow!” answered one wise child.
