Who Is In Control Of The Ride

The ups and downs of school life have a way of catching me off guard, no matter how long I have been living inside them. Yesterday was a classic example.

I woke up physically sore — the new exercises making themselves known in the particular way that new exercises always do, as though the body needs to register a formal complaint before it agrees to adapt. Soreness has been a companion for a few years now. It still surprises me, sometimes, how much it affects not just the body but the mood — how a tight muscle can cast a shadow over an entire morning without quite being located.

Training was hard. I wanted to be alone. So while everyone else headed to a local palace to practice, I went in the opposite direction and spent two hours doing Tai Chi by myself. Just me and the forms, no audience, no expectation. It helped enormously in the way that solitude sometimes does — not by solving anything, but by creating enough quiet for things to settle on their own.

Lunch with a friend, just the two of us, which was a gentle pleasure. Then back for the evening session, earphones in, my own world, my own pace.

And somewhere in that session, something shifted.

The new exercise routine — designed specifically to address a couple of flaws I have been working to correct — began to show its first signs of life. Small ones. Barely visible from the outside, probably. But I could feel them, which matters infinitely more than being able to see them. Small steps forward, arriving quietly and without fanfare, carrying the particular satisfaction that only comes from knowing the work is actually working.

Those tiny improvements made me smile in a way that was entirely disproportionate to their size. Because they are not just physical corrections — they are proof. Physical, undeniable proof that the only thing standing between me and what I desire is the way I choose to think about it. The mindset I bring to the courtyard, to the day, to the difficulty.

Life will always rise and fall. The ride will always have its ups and its downs, and I have long since stopped expecting otherwise. But what this practice keeps returning me to — quietly, consistently, without drama — is the understanding that I get to choose how I engage with the ride. That the hands on the wheel are mine.

Every so often a simple day of training reminds me of that. And when it does, what arrives is not pride or satisfaction exactly — but something closer to overwhelming gratitude.

For the practice. For the reminder. For the life I have had the courage to create.