Muscle Memory in Iaijutsu

Dear friends,

We’re officially in the fall routine this week with my son starting his senior year of high school. That exciting, fresh-start energy is giving us a boost to tackle everything coming our way. Thanks for taking a few minutes to let me share about the upcoming conference, a lesson I learned in Sweden, and new Nelson Books releases I’m excited about.

• September 4-6: ACFW Conference, Springfield, MO

  I’m teaching a workshop on self defense and weapons at this year’s ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) conference. I’ve heard from a number of people who are excited to attend! I’m bringing more than 30 weapons, including swords (so many swords!), fighting staffs, combat sticks, throwing knives, a compound bow, and martial arts axes. We’re going to have fun!

• Writing: Remember when I said I was walking 5 miles a day to draft my novel? This summer, over 52 days, I walked 213 miles while dictating the second draft, and it was such a highlight of my day to get to lose myself in the quiet country roads and in my story.

• Bestselling book projects: This summer has been full of success for our authors at Nelson Books. Max Lucado’s new book, Tame Your Thoughts, released on August 19 and hit #3 on The New York Times bestseller list! More on our new releases below.

My first mistake was wanting to visit the palace so much that I didn’t search harder for food. My next mistake was making the first mistake again and again for 12 hours. I would have enjoyed the evening in Stockholm more if I hadn’t pushed too hard and crashed so impressively.

We had spent the morning visiting the Vasa, an incredible 17th century ship that sank in the Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage and was recovered about fifty years ago. It was one of the most surprising and jaw-dropping experiences of our trip. Then we needed food. The nearby restaurants were all, logically, serving traditional Swedish food. Unfortunately this meant I couldn’t eat any of it.1

We opted to walk to the next museum while keeping an eye out for food. No success. I still hoped to tour the palace because I’d heard the library was wonderful. It closed at 5 pm, and it was already 2 pm with a mile-and-a-half walk to conquer—and we needed food.

On the way to the island where the palace is located, we found a promising riverside cafe and the guys scored lunch. I tried, but after an hour wait we were informed that they were sold out of the one menu item safe for me to eat. Instead of looking elsewhere we pushed to get to the palace.

I learned a lesson about Google Maps long ago but still forget at critical moments. It can (usually) get you to a building, but good luck finding the entrance in the limited time before 5 pm when you need ramps, not stairs, and the ramp isn’t paved. The palace in Stockholm has gravel ramps, and I’d love to know the reason. It’s also a maze with the entrance hidden in the center, and by the time we reached the Outer Courtyard with the statue of Queen Christina, we had 15 minutes until it closed—not even enough time to get a ticket and find the elevator to the accessible entrance. (We did get to see the changing of the guard, which was fun.)

We were used to things going wrong, but I was not used to walking 10 miles in 8 hours with no food. Between looking in the cute shops, the guys finding gelato, and wandering the narrow, cobblestoned streets, everyone started getting tired.

You’d have to ask the guys for confirmation, but I’m pretty sure this was when I started getting grumpy. Being discerning men used to my blood sugar crashing, once we were back at the hotel they sent me out by myself to finally find food. I had a nice wander through the old city eating a hot sandwich and trying to guess who were tourists and who were locals. But everyone would have enjoyed the last few hours of the day more if I hadn’t pushed so hard to get to the palace that I crashed.

A lesson I applied on our time in Oxford, which was wonderful. I’ll be sharing our C.S. Lewis-themed walk in an upcoming newsletter.

Muscle memory is fascinating. After about a year of iaijutsu training (samurai sword), I had to take a long break because of tearing some muscles in my shoulder. During the months off, I didn’t mentally review our kata (the sequence of movements for training), and on returning I quickly hit a point where I didn’t remember what to do.

One of the others had started the first movement so I copied him. The moment I committed to the movement my body said, “I’ll take care of this.” It felt like I was along for the ride, as muscle memory kicked in and carried me through the entire kata.

Even more than taekwondo, iaijutsu requires so much time to let your body learn what to do. Until a few of the key movements are on autopilot, you can’t focus on all the other things you’re supposed to be doing at the exact same time. But two years in, my body works faster than my mind, so I’m learning to trust it and not trip myself up with hesitations.

We have two recent releases from authors I greatly enjoyed working with:

1. Don’t Try This Alone: How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain by Toni Collier. This book also released this week and is also creating quite a stir. Toni’s energy and passion are contagious!

2. Sincerely, Stoneheart: Unmask the Enemy’s Lies, Find the Truth That Sets You Free (Insights for a Woman’s Heart in the Spirit of The Screwtape Letters) by Emily Wilson Hussem. This was the #1 ECPA bestseller in new releases for July! Her book is a beautifully profound take on C.S. Lewis’s classic, and she did a brilliant job.

I’ll be back in October to share about how the conference went and all the other bookish news. If you think of someone who might enjoy reading, please forward this to them or send them to my page to subscribe. Have a wonderful autumn!

Under grace,