3 keys to help a relationship

     My buddy got engaged yesterday.  It got me to thinking about some of the things that help lead to a successful long term relationship as I know it.  I've been married 17 years so I guess that's long term but who knows.  It's all relative.

Acceptance

     It's critical to take the bad with the good.  The key to this is understanding that often times the things that we love about people are also the things that drive us crazy about them.  My wife tells a story about how impressed she was at how hard of a worker I was when she first met me.  Then years later she told another story about me never being home and always working....(more about this in a min)

     I think a lot of stress comes from trying to change your partner or wishing they would change.  But the reality is that you must resolve to love all of them, flaws and all.  Once you feel this acceptance from someone, it creates a safety in the relationship that feels amazing.  "She knows me really...and still accepts me"

Perseverance 

     The going WILL get tough.  It's almost always easier to abandon ship than it is to repair the one you're on.  The thing I've learned though in 17 years is that nothing ever lasts-good or bad times.  When you go through a rough spot, no one can tell you how long to endure but I can tell you that from my years of marriage, adventure racing, ultra-marathoning, crossfitting, etc...that you are ALWAYS capable of persevering a little more than you think.  So when you are struggling in a relationship just try to make it another day, hour, minute, whatever you have to do to stay in the fight.

     Over the years when my relationship was at low points this understanding became invaluable.  It also is another example of the principle of your weaknesses and strengths being 2 sides of the same coin.  I may have been stubborn in an argument over the years, but I was equally tenacious in hanging in there and not giving up on the relationship.

Self-awareness

     Self awareness may be the most elusive but also the most important piece to not only marital but also individual happiness.  When you know yourself well, you become aware of the triggers that can cause problems.  We all have them.  They usually stem from a feeling of not being accepted (see above...) or something that says you are not good enough.  When we really know ourselves, we can spot these triggers for what they are, not really happening in the present, but something being brought out of the past from our present situation.

     Self-awareness allows you to communicate more out of love.  When you realize that certain triggers and fears are not really what's going on in the present situation it lets you slow everything down and give your partner what they need.  When I realized that my value wasn't tied to my work...I started to be home more.


     So for what its worth, these are 3 things that jumped out at me when my buddy told me about his engagement.  The 1st thing I said is, "Congrats.  Now the real work begins".  And it's true.  A fulfilling and rewarding relationship takes work.  But oh is it ever worth it.

Rebuilding......squats, snatches, deadlifts.....

     It's been 3 1/2 years in my crossfit career.  What I think I've learned is that you are must do some rebuilding from time to time.

     Back squat

     When I started I placed the bar lower and at some point realized that the prevailing wisdom was that high bar placement was better for the carry over into the Olympic lifts.  So I had to back off the weight and rebuild my back squat.  Ego aside, PR's were lower than before.  However eventually I got back to and exceeded previous #'s.

     In addition to this, when I came into CF I was used to a much wider stance in the squat.  This too needed to get closer to align more with the olympic weightlifting skill transfer.

Snatches

     This seems to be something that is constantly in flux.  There are so many subtleties and nuances.  In my case, I had to re-learn position 1 (hi hang or hip snatch) recently.  Turns out, Donny Shankle saw my shoulders come forward as I bent my knees and made it clear that hi hang was a knee bend.....PERIOD.  Shoulders must stay in line with (or even slightly behind) the bar as you dip.  This keeps the bar in the pocket and in contact with it the entire time you dip and then jump.  (Since then I have had virtually NO misses due to sending the bar out front.)

     Additionally, early last year I had to rebuild my grip width.  All this time my grip was too narrow and the bar was not finding the power position consistently.

Pull ups

     I learned to butterfly pull up before I learned how to kip.  I learned to "reverse bicycle" and did that for a long time.  (This technique makes you go "up" towards the bar vs. in a tight circle.)  When I went to Outlaw camp in 2013 I learned the arch/hollow cycling for pull ups.  It was then that I learned the mechanics of kip vs. butterfly were actually the same thing.  It took a little time but I learned it and my pull ups went thru the roof.

Box Jumps

     I decided to figure out bounding.  Took a month or so and started "from the ground up" to learn how to get back onto the box fast without killing myself.

Deadlifts

     I recently started in on using an exclusively double over hand (clean) grip on these.  Same idea, want to mimic the pull of a clean.  If I'm going for a 1RM, I'll try with a clean grip but if I miss I will mix my grip, but that has been the only time.


     I'm not sure what the next few months will bring other than I'm sure that I will continue to make little tweaks and adjustments to the way I do things and possibly even do some more "rebuilding" along the way.