My 100,000 technique challenge- 1 month on

Last weekend was my second Masterclass with Geoff Thompson. That meant it had been a whole month since the first one and a whole month since I started the 100,000 technique challenge. So I thought I’d do a bit of an update on the blog to chart my progress.

So far I have done 15,940 punches (right crosses) in 35 days. That’s an average of 455 punches per day… kind of!

This challenge is incredibly unrelenting; if you miss a day you have to do double the next day (1100 punches approx). If you miss 2 days or 3 or 4… all of a sudden the task seems very daunting indeed.

On the second Masterclass Geoff urged everyone to keep on with the challenge, as the rewards would be greater than we might have imagined; that we would learn a lot about ourselves in the process of punching and along the journey we will take to reach the 100,000. I guess I am starting to see what he means by that.

I have realised that making excuses not to punch comes easier to me than I thought it would. If I punched for around half an hour a day I’d reach 100,000 easily, but some days that 30 minutes is as welcome a thought as chewing on a wasp! It’s not an exciting 30 minutes, it is bloody tiring if you put everything into it and my knuckles have constantly got a purple colour to them, and usually some rather fetching scabs to boot.

To counter the excuses my brain keeps thinking up I need to develop a strong purpose for doing this. I need a rock solid, unshakeable, brick wall of a reason for doing the challenge.

Of course, the punch itself will come in useful in a self defence situation, should I ever find myself in danger; that is, if my body doesn’t send a shed load of adrenalin coursing through my body, rendering me incapable of doing anything useful!

But, my reason has got to be more than this.

Some people have looked at me like I’m mad when I’ve told them what I’m doing, others have told me I’m mad (charming!) In a strange kind of way this makes me even more determined to finish what I have started. Geoff has a sweatshirt with “100,000 technique challenge” on it. If, no… when, I finish this challenge I’m going to get one of those. I want to go there, do that and get the sweatshirt to prove it! Ultimately though, it’s not about proving it to anyone else. I’m starting to see that to finish it will take a lot more than the need to prove something to other people.

My motivation has got to come from me, for me…and it is starting to. I am trying to catch up any days that I have missed and I do feel good when I stop making excuses and just do it. I want to prove to myself that I can do this, despite all the excuses!

I will let you know how I’m getting on next month!

Sarah Wilson x