Exercise

I have often wondered if exercise is a kink for me.  I have a love/hate relationship with it, just as I do some of my kinks so maybe it is safe to say that exercise is also a kink.

I have always been active without going to the gym or scheduling a workout.  I danced for eight years; tap, ballet, and jazz.  I then moved on to karate for 6 years and reached my brown belt level, testing for my green belt when I was eight months pregnant.  I played basketball in high school and did gymnastics as well.  I never had the habit of purposefully exercising.

When kids and family came into play, all the activities swayed a bit.  I was still active when my daughter was younger.  We went camping and hiking and biking.  The interesting thing is, that I was heavier then than I am now. What do I do now?  Not a lot actually.  I am not proud of it but I just don’t do it.  If someone says, “let’s go kayaking!” , I am there!  Left to my own motivation, however, I am writing on the couch or something much more low key.

Having said all of that, I do feel better and even sexy when I am working out and after.  Let me be clear.  I have a gym membership that has a pool, and multiple workout machines and free weights in my basement.  I have no excuse to not work out, I just don’t do it regularly.  When I do, I always feel better.  I just can’t keep that feeling flowing long enough to take me to the next day.

There is a feeling of strength that used to come to me when I would weight train or do yoga.  The shakey feeling I would get after I pushed myself during exercise is always a charge to me. I felt proud that I was pushing myself and I knew/know that even if I don’t do it every day and can not see immediate results, it is making me stronger.  I got the same feeling when I was in a D/s relationship.

The level of strength I showed during some of our scenes impressed even me and I am the harshest critic of myself.  Nothing felt better than asking for another hit from the crop or whip and actually wanting it because I knew I could handle it. The joy I felt when he would say “good girl” and after tell me how proud and impressed he was with y ability to push myself further.

It isn’t lost on me that one example I gave when comparing exercise to sex is the one where I am not doing any obvious cardio!  I really hate cardio.  I use to be a runner and forced myself to do it.  Running for the sake of running didn’t work for me.  I like yoga and weight training and stretching.

During a scene of spanking with whatever he chose to use on me didn’t feel like cardio.  I laid or kneeled waiting for what was to come.  My heart rate would rise,  my breathing would speed up.  It was standing still cardio!  I loved it.  I miss it.

During those times I felt strong, capable, and powerful.  If I was sweating, I didn’t mind because it showed strength and focus.  I had to control my breathing and manage the anticipation. I had to be aware of my body.  Not just the pain but the willpower it took to take more, ask for more, accept more.

I have recently started working out again.  (100th time is the charm?). I would love to say that I had the same kind of control and got the same kind of self-pride from my workouts that I did from my kinky cardio.   I have set up the gym in the basement to be as pleasing as it can be when sharing with spiders and camel crickets.  I schedule these workouts twice a week because I know I won’t do it seven or eight times a week.  I force myself to do two days.  Sometimes it looks like a half-hour of intense planned and scheduled exercise and sometimes it turns into 15 minutes of half-ass stretching, but it is something.

I miss my kinky cardio.  I hope to have that again at some point.  That was one cardio I never minded at all!

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