Practice Makes Better
There is little in modern fitness culture to aspire to. It’s long been viewed down one’s nose as a trivial pursuit, largely the preserve of meatheads and gym bunnies seeking compensation for a deficit of intellectual horsepower or other more redeeming, refined qualities.
And with some justification. At every opportunity, the industry has promoted a superficial, extreme and mistaken idea of fitness through shows like The Biggest Loser sacrificing health and common sense in their pursuit of the purely aesthetic thinner. The same misguided experience at the individual level confirmed it was never merely a PR problem.
There was a glimmer of hope as we matured beyond that type of ‘entertainment’, but then the advent of social media only exaggerated all our worst impulses—as is its want—and the trend continued such that you’d now be forgiven for believing physical and psychological health are mutually exclusive.
The long overdue kneejerk was predictably ill-considered: that fitness can only be self-indulgent narcissism. The surprising bit being the problem has been less about the posing and posturing and more that being fit might be seen as virtuous. The crux of the argument — if you can call it that— being:
There are many virtuous people who do not have the ideal weight, and many fit people who are far from virtuous.
Right. Well, we hardly need a Venn diagram to state the obvious. And, yes, I’m on board with the fact that fitness should never be equated with moral superiority but to cite blowhards as an example of virtue is to make the mistake all too common in academia these days: to confuse virtue with virtue-signalling.
A confusion only in its infancy when it’s leading to the disparagement of fitness more generally as anything other than ‘good’:
Take a standard Google-derived definition:
______
Fitness
/ˈfɪtnɪs/
noun
the condition of being physically fit and healthy.
the quality of being suitable to fulfil a particular role or task.
______
Combining both definitions, on the understanding that our role or task can be further defined as life, we arrive at the Leftfield definition: Fit for purpose.
That it is somehow better to be unhealthy or ‘unsuitable’ is unreasoned, and unreasonable, in its most literal sense.
So not only should we not be throwing the fitness baby out with the body-beautiful bathwater, but the checks and balances sorely needed by both these lunatic extremes are to be found, via the virtues no less, all bound into a single form.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice! Practice! Practice!
An old and unfunny joke. But musical mastery aside, that supposed punchline points us straight to most of life's treasures more generally.
Meditation, art, yoga, writing, dance, cooking, gardening, martial arts. I could go on.
Pursuits commonly coupled with the word practice (as both verb and noun), signifying engagement, dedication, patience, awareness, diligence, wisdom and humility, to name but a few of the qualities we know as virtues.
As written previously, the deeper you go into even the most wildly disparate disciplines all underlying principles ultimately converge.
If you know the way broadly you see it in all things - Musashi, The 5 Rings
That's what the virtues are— this convergence. To behave virtuously— as every religious text, fable, fairytale and mythology, reminds us— promises success (and happiness) in any endeavour.
A practice is the vehicle to that end.
Success comes less courtesy of any specific skill or technique—at least, not directly— but from the broader (practice-defining) qualities of discipline, regularity, purpose, structure, progression, feedback, adaptability, and commitment.
And from that, everything else will come.
Listen to any coach, teacher or mentor dissect the success of an athlete, dancer, musician, writer— whatever—and they never cite the jump shot, the brushstrokes or the finger-picking, and always default to a list of these same qualities. A cliché matched only by the tales of talent unrealised, the genius that never was for lack of the same.
I'll apologise in advance for raising my voice, but also to make it very clear that I am, because, UNSURPRISINGLY this holds in all things fitness.
And yet in the conventional approach, we find few, if any, of the defining characteristics of a practice and only their opposites. Dipping in and out of fitness (and dietary) ‘efforts’ in a haphazard fashion wondering why nothing ever really ‘works’.
This is where the ‘I’ve tried everything’ sentiment comes from. The same thing a hundred different ways: the flavour of the month. Maybe you pick up a smattering of superficial knowledge and random exercise trends. Over the long term, you might gather a fragmented understanding of underlying principles but no means by which you might tie these together.
It’s like learning to read by selecting random pages of different books. And just as successful.
But, most critically, you develop no corresponding, iterative, knowledge of self. Cast your mind back over your entire history of exercise and dietary attempts and consider where you’d be now, not only if you had made some iterative improvement (learning) from each, but if every hiccup had made every subsequent attempt more effective, more specific to you and your life.
But then ‘attempt' isn’t the right word because you would never stop. If you were serious. But then ‘serious’ isn’t the right word either because it implies a stern-faced, inflexibility and an absence of fun, none of which describe a practice, so sincerity is better.
If you’re sincere about being fit then taking this practice approach is the second of the two subtle shifts that, without exaggeration, make all the difference, to everything.
The good news is you needn’t summon these virtues or try to conjure them up you simply decide to have a practice and they show up. All of them. If you miss one you don’t have a practice anymore, and so all your efforts are, necessarily, dedicated to the practice itself— to that which is greater than you.
By harnessing and directing our focus, energy and intent on the practice itself, it not only serves as a dampener to our negative impulses while amplifying our best, but also as a worksite foreman or a military general, in guiding your efforts and will tell you what and where to put in. And how much.
It can also be thought of through a consumer vs creator lens. There are no prizes for guessing where any industry wants you to be in that equation but this is that crucial shift from getting to giving. You’re forced to take your eyes off the prize: the sixpack, the dropped dress size, the double bodyweight deadlift—any goal— and that’s how you come to achieve it.
This is not to discount the ego and that we might want to look good— or any of our baser instincts— only we’re no longer letting them run the show. And nor, are we suppressing them and inviting a backlash. It’s more an abandonment: recognition they were never the best means to the desired end. And the realisation you had your eyes on the prize all along— the practice: the means to all desired ends.
And while you want it to become habitual, a practice is never a habit. The idea is not for it for it be unconscious but, in fact, always attended to. This is critical to maintaining it and because you’re attentive to change you don’t become habituated because routine only becomes a rut without this ongoing engagement.
And while you might be curious about meditation, moved by art and music, transported or transformed by writing and hypnotised by dance. You might just think that martial arts are some cool shit.
While any of those pursuits might adorn a life well-lived, you aren't living well without your health further bolstered by a base level of fitness, no matter how well your garden grows.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
-OLI