Housekeeping:
An important point I forgot to include in last week’s post about the ground resting positions:
Just being on the ground (or floor) will generally put us in a more favourable posture/position to alternatives with one major exception— sitting with one or other leg internally rotated as in the ‘W-sitting position’. It’s typically only kids that can sit in this position without pain, nevertheless, in addition to other potential issues, it only reinforces the opposites of good movement mechanics.
O Captain! My Captain!
I did a lot of sailing when I was a kid and over a few years worked my way from the front of the boat—the bowman— to the back, and skippered a 6-man (boy) crewed cutter. If you imagine one of the boats used to ferry crew to and from the old sailing tall ships, only with a mast and sails instead of oars, you’d be bang on. An old lifeboat, I guess, the sort of thing Captain Bligh was set adrift in after Mel Gibson threw one of his earlier rum-soaked tantrums.
But I’m not that old so the one I skippered was fibreglass. Although I did on occasion sail a wooden one—Number 2— the oldest then sailing vessel in NZ at the time, and although a nightmare to get in or out of the water, once there she sailed beautifully.
Anyway. Sailing is full of nautical slang and terminology as old as those tall ships and older. As a skipper, instructions are often delivered in this salty lingo.
One of the less sailing-specific was: Eyes in the boat.
When racing it’s easy to get caught up watching competitors instead of sailing your own and this was a reminder to keep your mind on the job.
It has whaling origins apparently but the meaning remains: focus on what you are doing. And not just where but when. Focus on what you are meant to be doing right now.
I was chatting to a client this week who was getting bent out of shape over not knowing what to do next. [I’m deliberately not offering specifics or broader context as this applies across the board to all things fitness, dietary, lifestyle and life so fill in your own gaps.]
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But what am I going to do then?
Do you know what to do now?
Yes
Do that then.
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Nothing good comes from doing otherwise. And it cuts the long list of potential problems off at the knees.
The Shiny Object Syndrome that will have you enjoying that first flush of excitement, enthusiasm and confidence you’ve finally found the perfect answer. Over and over again. Instead of what you want.
An impatience with the physiological reality that has you wondering if things might be hurried along either by force, miracle or secret. You wouldn’t know it to look at them but Guns and Roses were fitness experts and if you haven’t been in shape since Axl was it may be that all you need is just a little patience.
And looking to a result over a focus on the process, aside from encouraging all the wrong behaviours fails to acknowledge that there is no end.
All describe a denial, an unwillingness to engage with an uncomfortable present.
And in fitness, an uncomfortable present is the only path to progress.
Nonetheless, you might easily misinterpret this exchange as flippant or uncaring, especially when reading it. Even less generously, as a way to keep someone off balance and thereby reliant on a coach keeping trade secrets close to the chest.
Tough crowd.
It is a maxim of coaching that you should spell out the next step and I’m not suggesting otherwise, but this was somebody relatively new to the Leftfield approach and while you dear reader will be more familiar then they are—spoiler alert—with the Leftfield love of discomfort and the promise you’ll do nothing in the short-term at the expense of the long-term, any desire to see the journey laid out before you begin is only procrastination in the guise of preparation.
As James Clear has observed, “it is much easier to notice when something is working than to predict ahead of time if it will work.” But, beginner or otherwise, at no point do you need to know what lies around the next corner.
Which is just as well, because the future leaves no clues.
The Leftfield approach is less to understand the specifics of any single step but to arm yourself with a knowledge of the underlying principles that equip you to deal with anything that arises. The essence of self-reliance.
Not prepared, or preparing, for the next step, but for ALL steps.
It’s not that anticipation and foresight don’t have their place, but, in most instances, even if you did know what you might be doing next, many things can and will change before then so knowing or otherwise is irrelevant.
You needn’t spend any time wondering about what might be, first because you can never know, and secondly because you are ready for anything.
In any case, now is not the time to worry about it. I don’t serve anyone by making their lives a misery, and throwing somebody in the deep end even if they do manage to swim isn’t coaching. In the early days, as described last week, the chief directive is only to ensure you’ll do it again tomorrow so if I’m not smoothing the path of any discomforts they can safely be deemed necessary and it’s only because I know the reward that lies on other side.
And I know the greater discomforts that come from avoiding them. As do you.
Negative examples can be as inspiring as positive ones. In fact you can sometimes learn more from things done badly than from things done well; sometimes it only becomes clear what's needed when it's missing.
- Paul Graham
I often write that these principles prove themselves and at Leftfield you need take nothing on trust but this holds only when we accept discomfort not as part of the process but the path.
Fair winds or foul, trust that while I am charting your course, it is always to your benefit, but, make no mistake, you’re on the bridge of this enterprise and responsibility for all souls on board rests with you.
The need for certainty is natural and understandable but if it’s certainty you want there is but one place you’ll find it.
And it’s never out there.
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Whether A happens or B happens or… whatever happens.
I’m doing this.
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The only way to get comfortable with the uncertainty of all externals is through certainty of action and the rock-solid reliability of a practice.
You can get yours here.
It’s a different approach that immediately puts you in the only place you can make progress. Or enjoy it.
And if the chaos of the new year is the high water mark of failed fitness endeavours then the clichéd catalyst of warm spring weather runs a very close second so there is no better time to start. But to immediately dispel any illusions, not because it’s spring, but because it’s now.
Enjoy your weekend.
- OLI