The Opposite of Play Is Not Work, It's Depression

When was the last time you "played" during a training session? Hopefully, it was the last time you went to the gym, track, pool, field, or dojo. But, if it wasn't, consider the following blog post from Garr Reynolds entitled The Secret Of Great Work Is Great Play.

Garr Reynolds website Presentation Zen is one of those blogs that should be in everyone's bookmarks.

Commitment Follows Competence (Part II)

This is one of those "I told you so" posts...

Related Squat Rx Post:
Commitment Follows Competence

Thanks to Eric Moss RKC for bringing it to his Facebook friends' attention. 

"Skwat!" T-Shirts

I have three XL-sized "Skwat!" t-shirts for sale, $20 each. If you're interested, send me an email at boris_york@yahoo.com and we'll work out payment through Paypal.

- Boris

Tools & Crutches

As we strive to "keep the goal the goal", sometimes we forget that equipment, supplements, routines, poundages, percentages, and stopwatches are just "stuff". The "stuff" might be related to our goals, but they are NOT the goals.

Hugh MacLeod calls this stuff "pillars". Enjoy.

Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod

Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on a piece of ordinary stationery that he had borrowed from the friend whose house he was staying at.

Ernest Hemingway wrote with a simple fountain pen. Somebody else did the typing, but only much later.

Van Gogh rarely painted with more than six colors on his palette.

I draw on the back of small business cards. Whatever.

There's no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada.

Actually, as the artist gets more into her thing, and she gets more successful, the number of tools tends to go down. She knows what works for her. Expending mental energy on stuff wastes time. She's a woman on a mission. She's got a deadline. She's got some rich talent breathing down her neck. The last thing she wants is to spend three weeks learning how to use a router drill if she doesn't need to.

A fancy tool just gives her a second-rater one more pillar to hide behind.

Which is why there are so many hack writers with state-of-the-art laptops.

Which is why there are so many crappy photographers with state-of-the-art laptops.

Which is why there are so many unremarkable painters with expensive studios in trendy neighborhoods.

Hiding behind pillars, all of them.

Pillars do not help; they hinder. The more mighty the pillar, the more you end up relying on it psychologically, the more it gets in your way.

And this applies to business as well.

Which is why there are so many failing businesses with fancy offices.

Which is why there are so many failing businesses spending a fortune on fancy suits and expensive yacht club memberships.

Again, hiding behind pillars.

Successful people, artists and nonartists alike, are very good at  spotting pillars. They're very good at doing without them. Even more important, once they've spotted a pillar, they're very good at quickly getting rid of it.

Good pillar management is one of the most valuable talents you can have on the planet. If you have it, I envy you. If you don't, I pity you.

Sure, nobody's perfect. We all have our pillars. We seem to need them. You are never going to live a pillar-free existence. Neither am I.

All we can do is keep asking the question, "Is this a pillar?" about every aspect of our business, our craft, our reason for being alive, and go from there...

- Hugh MacLeod (Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, pp. 43-45)

Happy Father's Day for all the Papas out there.

If it bears repeating then REPEAT IT!

I know many coaches, teachers, trainers, and parents who get sick of repeating the same instructions day in and day out to staff, students,  athletes, and their kids...

"Well, I TOLD them!"

"They should have listened!"

"GAWD! How many TIMES do I have to say it?"

I've been coaching and teaching for quite a while now. It took me a long time to realize that there is no one magical analogy, cue, or drill that guarantees the message will be received and permanently internalized. It doesn't matter how well the lesson is delivered, how eloquent your description, how effective the activation, or how often you've modeled the correct behavior, if it bears repeating then, by all means, REPEAT IT!

When my son was three years old, he was learning to look both ways before crossing a street.  I modeled. I reminded. I praised. I admonished. I cued. I nagged... After months, he was going through the motions - his head turned, but he wasn't seeing ANYTHING. Now, years later, he's much better, but occasionally I still have to model, remind, praise, admonish, cue, and nag.

Here's the deal, giving a lesson or piece of advice once does not absolve our responsibility to see that the lesson has been learned and properly implemented. It's our JOB to repeat instructions when necessary. ...and sometimes, when the occasion calls for it, we need to repeat advice for our own benefit and for our own training.

Related Article:
The Gable Method by Dan John

A Kettlebell Complex For Next Weekend

A short kettlebell training complex from Jason C. Brown at kettlebell-athletics.com:




Great stuff all around!

"Energy" Drinks

Have you ever noticed that the people downing all those "energy" drinks, always need to drink more of them? I see students line their lockers with these drinks and their labels, as if they are somehow bad-ass for consuming them...

Folks, "energy" drinks are poison. "ENERGY" DRINKS ARE STRESS IN A CAN.

Seriously, I spend half my time embracing my addiction to caffeinated sodas, coffees, and teas, and the other half trying to avoid them. Stay away from them.

"CULTURE IS THE BY-PRODUCT OF CONSISTENT BEHAVIOR"

"Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions." - Edward Murrow

Sometimes I worry about things like climate and culture. In my areas of expertise, many people bandy around words like "professionalism", and yet fail to credit sources, point fingers, choose not to look closely at context, and quickly pass judgement on organizations, departments, and individuals. I don't know what the solution is, but this quote from "Rework" is certainly relevant.

You Don't Create Culture

Instant cultures are artificial cultures. They're big bangs made of mission statements, declarations, and rules. They are obvious, ugly, and plastic. Artificial culture is paint. Real culture is patina.

You don't create a culture. It happens. This is why new companies don't have a culture. Culture is the by-product of consistent behavior. If you encourage people to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust, then trust will be built in. If you treat customers right, then treating customers right becomes your culture.

Culture isn't a foosball table or trust falls. It isn't policy. It isn't the Christmas party or the company picnic. Those are objects and events, not culture. And it's not a slogan either. Culture is action, not words.

So don't worry too much about it. Don't force it. You can't install a culture. Like a fine scotch, you've got to give it time to develop.

- Rework (pg. 249)

Are your words and actions, and the words and actions of your colleagues, creating a culture you want to be a part of?

BML (Beginning Movement Load) Training

In 1994, there was a  book published in Japan entitled "New Training Revolution". At the time, I skimmed the contents but was not impressed enough to look any further. It was not until over a decade later that I had another chance to revisit the ideas of that book and, thankfully, a friend in Japan who, at one time, was a national level full-contact karate fighter, told me about Beginning Movement Load Training.

My friend took me to a gym in Osaka where Koyama Yasushi's training philosophy was/is carried out by a team of trainers in a small room filled with machines. The training session began and ended with a PNF stretches, the actual workout consisted of moving from machine to machine doing high-rep partial range of motion exercises at a fairly rapid tempo. Exercises included (among others) chest press, dip machine, lat pulldown, pullovers, leg adductor, leg press (for hamstrings), leg abductor, leg press with a frog stance, side bends, and leg abductor from a splits position. Range of motion would generally oscillate around the sticking point of the exercise. Tempo of reps was quick with an initial push (or pull), relaxing once the sticking point was passed.

The general idea behind "BML" training (and theory) is that, as in many sports applications, strength training should consist of movements where resistance is greatest at the beginning of the concentric (effort) phase, accelerated through to completion, and then relaxed through the eccentric or past the release phase.

I don't know if Ichiro Suzuki is still using this method of strength training, but he was for at least a few seasons and some of the exercises I mention above are shown in the video below:

BML (Wikipedia - Japanese)
Dodge Movement During Lat Pulldown and Increased Scapular ROM

5 Tips For Training Time Management - Online Article

I wrote a short piece for AtLarge Nutrition's Wannabebig Newsletter about finding time to train. Let me know what you think - thanks!

5 Tips For Training Time Management

Commencement 2010

Last week, I gave this speech to my seniors. Tonight, I'll be watching them walk across the stage and receive their diplomas. No tears (for me), but always a moving time.

We're here. Many teachers come to the end of a school year thinking "I wonder if they've learned anything of meaning", let alone the things you were trying to teach. As you walk across the stage to receive your diplomas, a teacher (at least this one) is filled with mixed feelings of accomplishment, failure, pride, and relief. We envy the possibilities open to you, but do NOT envy the uncertainty that every young person faces as they "commence" with this new chapter of their life.

My final words are probably nothing I haven't already said to you at one time or another, but this is my last chance to make a lasting impression and I'm taking it! As I read to you the following bits of advice, let them envelop you and soak in as a fog would on a long walk. I hope that one or more of these pieces will be helpful  to you someday.

*If it seems too good to be true, it probably is... but don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

*If it ain't broke don't fix it... but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Inspect things from time to time.

*Use sunscreen... but don't be afraid to get some fresh air. Take it easy on the tanning bed too - you look great as it is and you'll look better 20 years from now if you take my advice.

*Choose the person you'll share your life with wisely. Choose someone with common sense and a sense of humor, because these are harder to develop than a fashion sense, and surgery can't cure an ugly personality.

*Eat well... and understand that eating well is not the same as eating a lot.

*Slow and steady wins the race... if your opponent is fast, but really, really dumb and overconfident. "Isogaba maware" is true, but that doesn't mean that you can't go wrong by going slow. Sometimes slow and steady is not fast enough. Sometimes you will need to pick up the pace and sometimes you will need to slow it down - learning when to do what will take a while, but it will take less time if you understand from the git-go there is a time for each.

*Sometimes you should put your head down and keep on keeping on, but sometimes it's better to stop and reassess. If, at the beginning of a race, your course is off by as little as a few degrees, by the time the race is over, you could be miles off course.

*TV, the internet, nor your cell phone are more important than your classes, the road, or the friends and family with you right now. I have over 300 Facebook friends, but probably know less than half of them. "Real" people are more important than PMs, emails, tweets, or updates.

*Having a clear sense of purpose makes boring less boring and more fun. If you are bored, change your surroundings or change your perspective. ...and do it quickly. Your life is too valuable to waste being bored.

*Woody Allen said "90% of success is just showing up." I believe that to be true, but it is also a fact that NOT showing up will net you failure 100% of the time. Failing to be present in this moment right now is falling into Dr. Seuss' dreaded "waiting place". Choose to be here, right now, over and over again because, good or bad, it's all you got.

*NEVER say "I'll never need this". Ignorance is like blindness - you have no idea what you are missing. You can say "I'll never need math", and yes, you can live without it, but it's like living without fugu... and you, as my students, know how much I love fugu - things as seemingly small as a basic understanding of mathematics, or the experience of eating something new and wonderful can change you in a very real and fundamental way if you let them. Never lose your beginner's mind.

*Don't give up and keep moving. When you get beat down, tell yourself "GET UP!" and "MOVE!" (repeatedly if necessary, and it probably will be necessary).

Congratulations Class of 2010.

May the force be with you always.

Live long and prosper.

gokurousama deshita.

Sensei