Moon Palace Resorts Day #4
I am sitting in my hotel room. I spent all day in the hotel spa. They have a nice spa here. In the spa they have a cold plunge and a jacuzzi. They have a sauna and a “cold” room.
The first part of the day I spent going back and forth between the cold plunge and the jacuzzi. The second part of the day I spent between going in between the “cold” room and the sauna.
On Tuesday I took a boxing class offered here. It was great. Carlos was the trainer and it was just me and one other guy in the class. It was a great work out and really fun. I had never boxed with a trainer like that; it touched something deep inside of me. Very healthy.
On Wednesday, I went golfing with my parents and my brother. I’m not sure where along the way this happened but at some point in the round my wrist started to hurt.
This morning I did the boxing class again. This time it was me, a woman from California, and a pre-teen (maybe 12 or 13) who didn’t speak much English only Spanish. It was, again, a blast.
The only problem is my wrist flared up during it so I pulled my left punches and I’m glad I did because I could feel it entering the precipice of it potentially getting more hurt. On my other hand my middle knuckle also got sore.
It made me think of Kung-Fu Panda when Tiger punches the trees to harder her fists. Or also the 1-inch punch in Kill Bill.
Need to strengthen my hands. Let them recover before putting them through it again. Saturday is the last boxing class before I go back home. I think I will say to Carlos that I will just shadow box to let my hands rest.
Back to my spa session. After the boxing class today I had breakfast with my brother’s fiancé. We were the only one’s not golfing this morning. It was a good chat. We talked about the strangeness of witnessing your parents grow old.
Honestly, it felt really good to talk to her about it. I really enjoyed that chat.
Then I went to the spa and focused on being gentle to my hands and doing as many hot to cold to hot transfers as possible.
I started around 10:45-11ish and left there around 3pm. It felt healthy. Before I started I went poop and I (or the person before me) clogged the toilet. I felt responsible for telling the staff guy who checked me in about it.
After my poop and heroic act of service I had a shower, put my swimsuit on, shaved and brushed my teeth.
They had a complimentary wood tooth brush and travel crest toothpaste, a one blade disposable razor with a fancy wood handle and shaving soap, and… I think that was it. It seemed like it was expected for you to throw that stuff out after one use but I wanted to keep it all. So I put it in the pocket of the bathrobe they give you when you get your locker.
So if you remember I did the wet stuff first. Cold plunge 3 minutes, jacuzzi 10minutes. 3 cycles. I put my robe down on a lounge chair and someone had taken it away (probably assumed someone had just abandoned it there) by the second cycle.
They had this waterfall thing that acts like a powerful massage in the medium temperature pool between the cold plunge and jacuzzi. So I stood under that for maybe 5-10 minutes. Felt nice.
After my wet work, I moved rooms to the “cold” room, sauna, steam room area. They also had this “thermal” lounge chairs you could lounge on in this room but I didn’t do that this time. I also didn’t use the steam room, which does get super hot.
I started in the “cold” room. In the wet room and this room one of the big questions I was meditating on was the question, “What am I most avoiding?” and I found it quite a profound thing to think about.
Not everyone is like this but when I meditate I scan my body for areas of tension and I observe what thoughts and feelings come up while a stretch or massage that area. Commonly in these tense spots in my body I notice a lot of my stress, sadness, worry is stored in these spots. And as I am able to loosen these areas (i.e. stretching, massage, especially yoga, etc.) I notice these thoughts and feelings easing up. It is quite a fascinating sensation. I think this paragraph is the first time I’ve actually tried explaining that. Good for me.
So I was doing a lot of that today at the spa. Stretching, massaging. I was a bit hesitant to do yoga because it seemed out of place with what other people were doing, but I did do some moves.
Something that popped up today while coming back to the question of avoidance was the avoidance of some hard conversations with a few different people. Some family, some not. Maybe some hard conversations with myself too.
While thinking about all that in the “cold” room I closed my eyes and fell into one of those not quite asleep but almost could be asleep any second frame of minds and was startled awake when a guy opened the door to come in.
The guy who came in was interesting. He started chatting with me, asked where I was from. Told him, asked back. He started talking about the hotel and how many times he’d been there. Another guy came in. We all talked. Then the first guy left. Then the second guy. Then I went in the sauna.
The sauna was hot. I stayed in for about 15 minutes.
Then had some water and this “chlorophyl” drink and went back to the “cold” room. Stayed for 10 minutes then filled a small towel with ice and went back to the sauna.
The small towel with ice I placed just under my balls to keep them on ice. My ex had told me that’s important for fertility and I saw a thing from Brian Johnson about it as well. The ice felt nice on my balls. Stayed in there another 15 minutes.
Last round before starting I made myself a mint tea. It was a mistake. Last night we went bowling (there’s a bowling alley here) as a family after dinner. I drank a tonne of mojitos and the mint tea reminded me of them and it was kind of gross.
As a side note, there was a [redacted]. It hurt and was painfully awkward but I’m glad I did it.
Back to today. I drank the tea in the “cold” room and cycled into the sauna for the last time (restocked my little towel with ice for my balls).
I showered. Got changed into fresh clothes I brought with me and stopped by this coffee bar place and got an Italian sandwich.
They heated it up and I took it with me and ate it on the cart ride home.
Running out of steam to wri...
goodby...
pce…
;P