Do you remember your first exposure? Can you recall the day you found out about what "Fran" really was? Do you remember being devastated by your first taste of metabolic work capacity?
But now you're habituated to suffering. Sure you realize you can still improve your Fight Gone Bad, and you can squat, run, push, pull, and burpbee till you literally blow up. And as gawd-awful as that is, and as bad as it is each time you do it, it literally isn't equivalent to "first exposure."
Buddhists believe that humility is equivalent to concern of how to be liberated from the sufferings of life and the vexations of the human mind. No matter how hard a workout is, you know you'll survive now, and given enough time, stomp that same WOD.
First exposures are humility made manifest. You have no reference points, only a vague notion that you are really not the athlete, machine, human you thought you were.
First exposures are vital.
Gandhi is attributed as suggesting that attempting to sustain truth without humility is doomed to cause it to become instead an "arrogant caricature" of truth. Crossfit as fitness paradigm is legitimate because it recognizes that there is always improvement to be had. The Crossfit athlete is never finished, always developing. Because of this nimble, emergent, guiding principle crossfit can never become a caricature of truth, nor our athletes arrogant at their blossoming work capacities.
How could we? There's just so much to be bad at.
Coach Boz and I committed a while back to embracing our physical failures, and to even flaunt the ass kickings we were taking in our physical seekings. For example, Boz got to hang out with a senior Navy Seal Instructor in the training pool. (Boz is not designed to float. He can do it, he just doesn't dig it.) It wasn't pretty, but he IS committed to seeking out the margins of his capacities.
And you should too.
So here's your homework.
Go suck at something. Get out of your comfort zone and be terrible.
Borrow a bike, go for a long run, go sprint in the pool with your tri-buddies, go climbing, kayaking, surfing, whatever. Just go have a first exposure. Go remember why Crossfit got your attention. Go out and realize you have just scratched the surface of what you can do. Go find your "first time you did Fran" humility. That's why we train. We train to realize our unseen, unknown potential.
Post the week's humilities to comments.
Coach K
17 comments:
Good Post.
Humility of the last week or so:
A dip contest, then Tabata rowing followed by tabata line sprints with Dutch (arguably the 7th fitest male homo-erectus on the planet).
Current 'out-of-comfort-zone' experience:
Sitting at an airport waiting for my (horribly delayed) flight home. MMmmmmm, airport sandwhiches for dinner. Can't wait for 5am!
Oh, and Kelly is wrong. I can't float. The sheer density of my porcelain-white legs won't allow for it.
See you all soon,
-Boz
Ps If you haven't seen it yet, there are some new toys at SFCF that Kim and I brought up in a big truck last week...I'm excited.
I consider myself reasonably comfortable in the water. On Friday, I went swimming with an Olympic trialist where she proceeded to swim 25 meters freestyle followed immediately by an underwater using only the dolphin kick with no rest. She told me she used to swim 1000 meters (25 freestyle, 25 underwater dolphin kick) like this. I had fins on and I was beginning to black out on the fourth one. I hate drowning. I am in awe.
I went water skiing for the first time in about 10 years on Saturday. I used to go out a few times a week on a short rope and would do well.
Unfortunately, a good Fran time doesn't translate as well as I would have liked into slalom strength. My 14 year old cousin completely kicked my ass through the buoys.
My pride prevented me from getting any help out of the water but my legs were shaking for 10 minutes when I got done.
Luckily I beat her in a game of rock-paper-scissors later in the day to restore my pride.
Last year I went running with my 20 year old tri-athlete brother in law. Trying to keep up with his pace had me sucking wind in the first five minutes.
My latest out of my comfort zone experience was presenting a topic in Economics to an Economics professor at the Haas School of Business. I was more apprehensive then on my last attempt at fight gone bad.
Damian
Last year I went running with my 20 year old tri-athlete brother in law. Trying to keep up with his pace had me sucking wind in the first five minutes.
My latest out of my comfort zone experience was presenting a topic in Economics to an Economics professor at the Haas School of Business. I was more apprehensive then on my last attempt at fight gone bad.
Damian
Last year I went running with my 20 year old tri-athlete brother in law. Trying to keep up with his pace had me sucking wind in the first five minutes.
My latest out of my comfort zone experience was presenting a topic in Economics to an Economics professor at the Haas School of Business. I was more apprehensive then on my last attempt at fight gone bad.
Damian
current out of comfort zone: moving across the country again - leaving all you great athletes is very sad.
Join Adam and I for a goodbye drink after Tuesday's night class - 8pm at the Final Final.
I am officially leaving my comfort zone this weekend when I go on a two week grand canyon river rafting/hiking trip. Being on the river will be out of my zone (never been rafting) camping for more than three days, and hiking everyday.
I am at once excited and nervous.
Cheryl and Adam, I will see you tomorrow.
Aw, Cheryl and Adam, where are you going? That is bogus.
Well, I'll also have an out-of-comfort-zone experience at the end of August, when I move to Guam for one year. I intend to take up a number of water sports while there. I expect to suck at all of them.
Nick, you will have a blast.
Tried wakeboarding this weekend. Extremely embarrassing...didn't even get up the first five times...not to mention I got showed-up by my 12 year old cousin. Ouch.
Adrian, once again an awesome pic of you on crossfit.com! And it must be said that the guys supporting you are very easy on the eyes ;)
-Kitty
This week's Humilities:
Overhead Squats.
The New Pull up Standard.
Spending Sat. Evening in the ER because my cat bit my finger to the bone. Lame. And then getting a tetanis shot which has amplified the soreness in my legs from Friday's squats, not to mention a very sore muscle at the injection site. Again, Lame.
But thanks to the 300 double unders we had to do on Friday, I can safely say that double unders are now in my comfort zone.
Is it humble to suck at sucking? Just wondering.
Are you referring to the flabongo Michael?
I definitely did not suck at that, even though it was my first exposure to that remarkable invention.
I suck at surfing. A while back with some friends in San Diego I tried to get the long board through the short, fast waves. It was all I could do to stay on the board and try to duck 'em. But they inevitably washed me off pulled me down and held me in the sand...while the board pulled my ankle back to shore. Let me try that one more time...
I'm going to miss not seeing you both, Adam and Cheryl. Have a safe trip and best to you in starting your new life out east.
Jack
Altitude running or burpees or anything above 5000 feet was my weekly humbling. I felt like i was breating half water half air. definitly beware of any high altitude cf'ers at games next year big advantage.
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