Things have changed a bit...

As far as I can tell, I still look pretty much the same as I did when I started the program. Maybe my arms look a little more defined or they have a bit more mass added to them, I don't know, but I do know that on a level of feeling has changed. I can't really keep track of it, but things are a tad bit different.

A friend of mine who had recently gone through boot camp said that in the first month, he noticed a few mental changes going on, something that at the time only he noticed (probably because he's a smart son of a bitch and can notice varying degrees of subtlety). Though, when talking to the other airmen after boot camp, they all seemed to notice a similar phenomenon.

Speaking vaguely, these changes are positive, I guess you could say. Overall, that is. I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that the military fucks with your head a little bit.

I forget many of the specific qualities he described, but at the time even though I knew what he was talking about, I didn't notice anything like it happening in me. Yes, I know, the PCP is not boot camp and boot camp is not the PCP. I'm also not interested in comparing them to each other. What I am interested in is the fact that as I sit here now, I seem to be experiencing some sort of change.

I feel as though I have a slightly higher awareness of my body. And I feel like I'm more "here" (not spacing out, or getting completely lost in random thought).

Why is this important? Well, I've been riding my bike instead of attempting to jump for the past few days. Today, however, I got sick of riding my bike in the rain down the same god damn bike path, so I said "screw it, I'm jumping today." My first time picking up the jump rope in almost a week, and my perception was incredibly different. I noticed a hell of a lot more. The tightness of my back and arms, the sloppiness of my landings, and the shock wave moving through my body (to name a few)

Then I put the rope aside, and did some jumps with no rope, but as if I was really using one. The form was incredibly different, I just jumped and instead of going "dammit! frickin' rope!" I just payed attention to my body, and I completely zoned out and wasn't paying attention to how many I was doing - it was actually quite nice. Then I incorporated my rope and noticed a radical difference. Then I tried to jump in the smooth fashion that I was doing earlier with the rope and found it impossible. I was tripping up on my rope at almost every jump. If I fudged my form a little I managed to get up to five.

I don't know if it's definitely the rope, but I know for sure that it's at least contributing to my problems. And I know you guys are probably like, "well, why the hell didn't you buy a new rope like, a week ago?!" and my answer to that is that no where around here sells jump ropes, and my parents have been on vacation, so relying on public transportation to get to where they sell them would turn it into a day-long trip, so that's a no-go.