Post-WOD Position

I have not been able to get the box lately. Lately encompasses since The Games this past July. Life (life and life) outside of CrossFit demanded and still demands my attention. The guilt of being away from the gym is great albeit highly irrational. I am not paid to CrossFit. Nor does CrossFit bring me love and affection. It doesn’t feed me or take me out to the movies or rub my earlobs to relax me after a trying day.

In fact, CrossFit many times treats me bad. It makes my lungs cry. It fills me with self-doubt and self-loathing about my physical abilities. It takes my money. It makes my shoulder, and my ankle and my neck hurt. And sometimes it’s WODs just downright hurt my feelings. But nonetheless, I feel like I have neglected CrossFit. Irrational.

But instead of dwelling on my clearly misguided guilt about being away from it, I’ve decided to call my sabatical my CrossFit off-season. Every athlete at any level needs at least three months off. I’ve taken four. A little extra never hurt, right? So I’m committed again. November 1 was the beginning of my personal CrossFit season. And the first order of business is and has been setting some “Ridiculous CrossFit Goals” for the upcoming 2011 year. Some are not so much goals as they are the intention to perform certain acts. Either way, I’m putting it out there.

I call them ridiculous because there is no reason, given all I said CrossFit takes from me and all it fails to give, I should be at all concerned with settng the particular goals I’ve set. But I’m compelled. The explanation escapes me. It just calls me. So in the law of attraction spirit of asking the universe for what it is you want, I’ve decided to share just a few with the internet universe and see what I attract back.

1. Compete in the 2011 NorthEast Regional and place in the top 16. Probably the most ridiculous of my goals, this would honestly give me the most satisfaction if I accomplished it. Why? Well, for one, I think I’m at a decided disadvantage to other high level CrossFitters in a few key areas: age, access and aerobic capacity. Most of these guys at this level are in their late 20′s. I’m not. ‘Nuff said. Most of these guys have 24/7 access to equipment and facilities. I don’t. And most of the successful guys have a tremendous aerobic ability. Milers in weightlifters bodies. I have never had that ability and have a difficult time developing it.

2. Grease my wheel. More intention than goal, I have to nurture what I’m good at. I may not be as young, have as much time or have the lungs of some others. But I have speed (still), strength (more than most) and knowledge. So over this CF season I plan to,

a) perform two speed/track workouts per week based on CF Endurance as long the temperature is over 40 degrees, and

b)  squat, clean and snatch with, in the words of Mike Tyson, “bad intentions”, and

c) stick to a strict Paleo/Athlete diet except for the occassional buttered bagel.

Bottom line is, I want to be impressively fast and impressively strong and pretty damn fit. I want to allow my body to do what it’s telling me it wants to do. I’m never going to beat, almost anyone, in a 5k. But those same folks will hardly come close to me in a 100m sprint or a bear complex. Now how that translates to 1 to 10, clean and jerk at 155# with a round of “Cindy” is anyone’s guess.

3. Get sponsored. I see what’s happening in CrossFit. It’s becoming a professional sport, mainly through sponsorships. So I want in on the action. Syn Martinez of the Afro Brutality crew has been kind enough to allow me to wear some of his gear. But I want more. And while others may go the traditional route, being sponsored by sports apparel and supplement companies directly, I’m looking for sponsorship from my friends, family and readers. One dollar at a time. I’m going to put a link to Paypal on this and another site I’ll set up specifically for this purpose. So if you want to donate some change, feel free. What do I plan on using the proceeds for? Shoes maybe? Who knows. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Of course I have more CF goals, like getting Level I certified, but I won’t list them all. The main one is I just want to have fun with this.

The first time I visited his office, I asked had he read all those books. Without hesitation he said, “Yes.” I don’t know why but it struck me as one of the best things I’d ever heard. The pursuit of knowledge in and of itself just appealed to me. I thought to myself, “I want to know all there is to know about a bunch of stuff. I’m going to have a library like this too.” Over the next twenty years (sigh!), I’ve accumulated a hodgepodge collection of books, newspapers and magazines. And yes, I’ve read most of these items in whole and all at least in part.

A partial glimpse of my library

As was my goal, over the years I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge over a modest array of topics. However, as I’ve gotten older and perhaps a natural byproduct of doing so, I’ve become less interested in learning about a wide range of topics. I haven’t thought about that change too deeply, but every now and again the thought pops in my head as to why this might be so. I’ve brushed it off as simply being in a reading slump or being occupied with other things. But I’m also filled with the thought it’s more to it.

Recently I watched (re-watched) the movie “The Edge” starring Sir Anthony Hopkins (Charles) and Alec Baldwin (Robert). Charles was a well read and broadly knowledgeable billionaire. In one scene he speaks about skills applicable to survival in the northern wilderness with an innkeeper, while visiting Alaska. The innkeeper asks if Charles has a lot of experience in the wilderness and Charles explains, with some self-disappointed, his knowledge is theoretical. In an earlier scene, when Charles was complemented by Robert for this broad knowledge, Charles explained he had no practical use for his knowledge. Clearly, Charles despite being well accomplished, was less impressed with himself than others were with him having failed, in his mind, to accomplish the “unequivocal” act in his life. (Like becoming a billionaire wasn’t enough.)

As the movie progresses Charles, Robert and Robert’s aide (played by Harold Perrineau of Lost and Oz fame) are put in a situation where Charles’ theoretical knowledge is put to the test. Without giving the movie away (it has several other sub-plots and is definitely worth a Netflix), Charles experiences some success in converting the theoretical to the practical. When it’s all said and done, it’s only after he’s put to these tests that he feels any sense of real accomplishment.

When I saw this movie in its theatrical release I failed to fully understand the nuances of what Charles was going through. His feeling of defeat despite being extraordinarily accomplished simply wasn’t fulfilling. He needed to test the knowledge he had in the real world. In a swift rush of “Ah-ha!”, I identified the couldn’t-put-my-finger-on-it feeling I was having. I have a bunch of knowledge but I have failed to practically apply much of it. Thus there is this bubbling need in me to DO instead of just KNOW. Basically,

Books is for reading, life is for doin’.

As I approach a milestone age for me and with the next decade on the horizon, my life will become a grand lab experiment. I have the knowledge, I know what to do, now it’s time, it’s past time, to do it.

How tempting is it to go it alone? The American spirit celebrates the individual and treats achievements as if they were all self obtained. So each one of us has a little something in us that makes us want to be a trailblazer. We’ll look at someone doing something with ease and skill and think emphatically to ourselves, “I can do that.”

I’ve done it myself. I’ve seen a furnace put into a buddy’s rental property and after it was said and done, I thought I knew a few things about installing furnaces. I’ve tackled small plumbing jobs around the house on my own. I have even given myself a haircut. I have had varying degrees of success with each endeavor. I won’t go into details. But I will say that my degree of success was highly correlative to the amount of time and effort I put into practicing and studying the endeavor prior to attempting it which was very little.

I am a true believer that anyone, given enough time and the right tools, can learn to do anything. The question becomes, should anyone do anything. The answer is probably no. Especially if it’s not their forte or they don’t derive any pleasure from developing the skill. As the saying goes, the way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice. The only thing I’d add to that is you must enjoy the thing you’re practicing. So after performing some of the aforementioned tasks for myself and assessing the successes (eh-hem, cough, cough) I have had with each, I think I’m going to delegate and leave those things to the experts from now on.

I think parenting falls in the category of something that should be practiced extensively before it is attempted. How does one practice parenting before he or she is a parent? Well, there are a few ways I can think of. For instance, as a parent you may want your children to avoid fast foods but you don’t cook. You might want to practice cooking some kid friendly meals. Try ‘em out on the neighbor kid. If his parents don’t mind and he doesn’t gag then you’re on to something. Maybe you might want to volunteer to be the designated babysitter for a month for all your friends’ children. If your friends don’t have kids, that lady with the 14 kids is definitely going to need some assistance.

While it’s preferrable to practice and mess up on someone else’s children, you might just have to practice and mess up on your own. Yeah, I can hear you saying, you don’t want to mess up on your own children. Well, my viewpoint is, they have you for a parent so your kids are going to be messed up in some way that you had something to do with. The beauty of it is, we are all in the same boat. We are all going to mess up our kids in some way no matter how hard we try to be perfect parents. But this doesn’t preclude us from trying to do everything right no matter how futile the exercise. And it doesn’t mean we will fail as parents.

One thing is for certain though. Parenting (at least in my view) is a do-it-yourself endeavor. No delegating here. I believe that even goes for parents who aren’t that good at being parents or who aren’t so good as people. One caveat though. Those folks have to have at least one trait to compensate for their lack of skill. They have to be willing to do all it takes to get better at parenting. There are those that will say some people shouldn’t be parents. (It was recently suggested to me that poor people shouldn’t have children.) That may be true. But some of those same people that shouldn’t be parents, are. My hope is that those folks have that “I’ll try my best” trait. I would bet money, the kids of those parents will be happy in the long run.

While many things should be delegated, parenting isn’t one of them. And I’m not talking about using babysitters and getting help with your children. I’m not advocating home schooling. I have no position on that. I’m not talking about seeking the help and opinion of others. I’m just saying that when it comes to shaping who a child will become as an adult, it is the parents job to take the reins there. Even if that means that parent has to practice, practice, practice and make a few mistakes in the process to get the job right.