The spiritual journey

     What if we are judged on the journey from where we start to where we finish?  Not where we are in the end, but the progress we make from where we started?

     I've always held the belief that we are judged on our journey.  I worked in the prison every week for 5-6 years and I saw some guys in the level 4 unit that had come a LONG way from where they started.  But they were still pretty "bad" guys....
  

     So what does it mean if your staring point in life is with a decent set of parents and not much trauma...

vs.

     being one of several neglected siblings of a single parent that is ill-equipped to care for themselves much less you and then you experience the consequences of a life without guidance and love....

                                                 

     Let's say our goal is to strive to live a Christ-like life; a 100%.  I've met some prisoners whose past story and circumstance would leave you thinking they must have started somewhere close to 0%.  Seeing how far they'd come from there, I was often left wondering what am I doing with my life....

     On the outside looking in, most of the prisoners still look and act like "bad" guys.  But to see the struggle and the success as to how far they've come....amazing.

     Where did you start life?  Was your start with circumstances of a middle of the road C?  Or dd you grow up with a great set of parents and the understanding of a loving God and a life that might be more akin to an A or a B?

     Where are you now?  What have you done with what you were given?  Did you start comfy and stay there, never pushing your life to be more Christ-like?

     It's easy to fall under the spell of thinking that you're "not a bad person" and that there are lots of people out there worse than you.  But in the end, what if what mattered was what you did with the life you started with?  What if we are not graded against each other, but against ourselves and how far we come?

How I learned bounding box jumps

DISCLAIMER!

     Box jumps can hurt you!  Unless you want to be competitive, you should probably stick to step downs whenever permitted and consider step ups when permitted.  Back in 2012, I was trying to bound and tore into my shin to the tune of 7 stitches and bone exposure.

BACKSTORY

     My box jumps used to suck.  A few years ago in the CF open they allowed step ups (you've always been allowed to step down) and we found out that for many folks it actually was faster than jumping up.  Then there were the freaks that could bound up and down and so stepping up and down for them was much slower.

     So I started to step up all the time from that point forward.  Our box programmed a WOD one day and Rx was jumping not stepping.  I was pissed off because my box jumping was #1 slower and #2 more tiring.  I ended up switching in the middle of the WOD back to step ups and complained to anyone who would listen.

     Then I had a shift.....As I wrote in the beginning, if you want to be competitive, you should probably learn how to bound.

METHOD

     Around August 1st, I started to bound on the 20 inch box each day for 30 seconds as part of my warm up.  Mind you, prior to this I had done double unders, pistols, etc..and some of my usual mobility so I wasn't doing these cold.

     I got to where I could get 18 in the 30 seconds.  At that point, I moved up to 24 inches.  I was getting 13 at the start.  Then the other day I did 19.  I'm moving up to 30" next week.

TECHNIQUE

1. Shoulder blades (this is the KEY that made all the difference to me)

     You cannot use your arms to do bounding box jumps.  You CAN use them to box jump and get the initial jump, but the explosiveness is just too fast for you to get your arms forward upon impact if you are bounding.  The way that you do it is through the movement in the shoulder blades.  

     At the top of the movement, standing on the box, set the blades down and back.  At this point you drop to the floor.  Then on impact as your heels kiss the ground, you initiate the explosion with shoulder blades moving up and apart.  Reset them as you are about to drop to the floor again.

2. Corner jumps

     I learned this from Invictus.  Angle the box so that you are jumping to the corner.  It will cut your forward trajectory down so that you are literally jumping more "up" and then bringing the feet together vs. jumping with feet in the same spacing but up and forward.  It also cuts down on the catastrophe that can result from a miss.

3. Abdominal tension

     This should go without saying, but if you can't maintain tension in the core, then you are not going to have a stable place to brace the impact from and create the rebound force needed to bound back up.

What is a soul mate really.....

   The concept of a soul mate is pretty interesting.  Apparently the term comes from some myth about the gods splitting the original humans in half and each human then longed for their "other half".

     A few months ago there was an interesting video on the subject that said that people with the belief in a soul mate had more problems in their relationships than those who weren't invested in that ideology.  Makes sense.  I guess their always looking for the bigger better deal.

     In my opinion, a soul mate would be able to meet your needs in a wide range of areas:  sexually, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, physically, morally, socially, politically, and etc.... Is that too much to ask from one person?  I mean really.


     The saying opposites attract is often very true.  Are they soul mates???

     And look at arranged marriage cultures.  In Amish, Hindu, and Orthodox Jews the divorce rate is 1,3,and 7%.  Are they picking soul mates?  Just because they stay together though doesn't mean they're happy either...but I'd bet plenty are.

    So a few months ago I made the hypothetical example to a friend that I had everything going well with my marriage, my wife and I were on the same page with everything except religion/spirituality.  Then I said, "if you and your wife had the same issue, would you mind if I met with your wife once a month to go over a bible study or go to church?"  And he said that he would be fine with that.  I said, "are you sure?  You wouldn't feel threatened or upset that you were not fulfilling her in that area, that you two weren't on the same page?".  He said, "no I'd think it was cool".

     So for fun I shifted it to sex.  What if everything was going great except there were some sexual things that just didn't line up perfectly but all in all it was mostly good and the same applied to you and your marriage.  Would it be okay if I met up with your wife once a month in that area??  He said, "no of course not....".

     So it was all a funny hypothetical, but at what point does not being enough in ALL areas of compatibility become an issue.  At what point do you say that you "deserve" to be fulfilled in all the areas of your relationship?  If you believe in a soul mate, then you probably think you are "settling" in a relationship if EVERYTHING isn't lined up and meeting your needs.

     I am married to my best friend.  Don't tell me something you don't want her to know.  And vice versa.  BUT, we also have a lot of areas that we differ in.  We have areas that I think she goes too far and she thinks I don't go far enough.  We have our share of arguments and disagreements about things.

     Is there anyone out there that may be more compatible for either of us?  Maybe.  I guess I don't really think about that because I'm happy.  I suppose that I've learned that since there are no perfect people, that would mean that there are no perfect relationships either.  And so in the end maybe it comes down to this: soul mates accept each other.

     I accept her and she accepts me.  I "know" her and she "knows" me.  And she and I STILL accept each other.  I think that maybe that may be my definition of a soul mate.

     Someone who knows you really and accepts you.

Prayer is the drop of water-the answer is the tipping bucket

     I've always been fond of this analogy about prayer:

     We should think of prayers as drops of water.

And we should think of the thing we are praying about as a bucket that needs to be filled up to a tipping point.


     We don't know how large of a drop our prayers are and we don't know how much water it takes for the bucket to tip.  And so there may be a million folks praying causing drops to pour into the bucket, yet the bucket may be ENORMOUS.  Other times we may experience the immediate answer to prayer right when we pray (Large drop?  Small bucket?  Both?  We don't know.)

     Sometimes it feels as if our prayers are useless.  Like maybe we are putting the same thing out there over and over all to see no tipping point.  Are they useless?  How do we know that our prayer isn't going to be the final drop that tips the bucket?  How do we know that our prayers haven't filled a part of the bucket early on, seemingly going unanswered, only to see the tip occur much later?

     So prayer is measured in its effectiveness not in answers and outcomes but in the act of doing it.  It's the faith in knowing that you may not get your answer but you are filling the bucket the best you can by taking your concerns to God.  In this light, prayer is never a waste....

     (Personally I think little kid prayers are HUGE drops....)

Bottom up squat warm up

     I warm up for squats the same way every time.  It takes under 10 minutes or so and I never have a problem with squats since doing this.  If I skip it or cut things out, I tend to have a few issues (getting too far forward, tight hips in the bottom, quad strains, etc...)

ANKLES

Banded distraction for a minute or so each side.



I usually will not use a plate for this, but you can.  I roll the knee gently to each side and will step on the band near my ankle with my free foot to give it more tension the last 30 sec or so.

Getting my ankles mobile allows to be stay MUCH more vertical in the torso during the lifts.

KNEES

I love a couch stretch.  Usually same thing, a minute or so each side.


I feel this lengthens the cross bridges in the quad muscles and really helps avoid strains from the heavy eccentrics that come from full depth heavy squats.

HIPS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbozu0DPcYI  Ido Portal...need I say more?

Here's a less than 3 minute video showing the Ido Portal Squat routine 2.0.

I run through all of the poses for about 3-5 minutes, depending on how they feel.



I LOVE this warm up for the hips.  It is hands down the best I've seen.


There are other stretches I've played with over the years but its come down to these 3 things as the best and most efficient for me.

My 12 y/o daughter's crisis...

     The other night as a celebration for return to school, we took the kids to Big Spoon yogurt.  It's a place you go and serve yourself with frozen yogurt and then toppings and you weigh your dish and pay by the ounce.

     My beautiful daughter is 12 years old and 5'7".  She's basically a little girl in a woman's body.  Here she is in with me last month: (click the pic to get a good look)

     

     Anyway.  So she gets her frozen yogurt and fills it to the TOP.  Then adds toppings!  The boys ended up filling theirs half full and adding toppings.  I was sure that hers probably outweighed both of theirs combined and I thought it would be funny to call her out.  Sure enough...hers did out weigh both of theirs!

     So we sit down and I start singing a funny (to me) song about getting diabetes, meanwhile Kathy starts telling her that the amount of yogurt she has is ridiculous and way too much.

     We get home later and I can see something is wrong.  Soon enough it comes out that Lauren feels bad about herself because of us teasing and talking to her about going overboard on dessert.  There is talk of someone in 4th grade (3 yrs ago) saying her thighs were fat??  And just craaaazy tears from her about feeling ashamed and not good enough.

WHAT THE HELL?  My kid?  Really?  My beautiful, confident, kid who EVERYONE loves and says is just so wonderful and great?  My kid who is super thoughtful, mature, etc....?  My kid has these issues???

     It was a reminder that we all do.  We ALL struggle with feelings that tell us at times we aren't good enough, that we are disappointing people, etc...

     It was a reminder that my jokes (while funny to me) can push the raw spot inside of a person close to me.  While my message of concern can sometimes come through as condemnation if I'm not careful to be sensitive to the wounds that are there.  

     It turned out to be a blessing.  It allowed me to see that even the most beautiful, confident, together ones in your life still need your reassurance and your sensitivity.  Until the next crisis....!

The warm up....

     There are somethings that are important to visit regularly and with constantly varied programming there are times that you don't see things except for once in a good while.

     So I came up with a warm up that allows me to hit and benchmark some things that are weaknesses for me as well as some regular stuff that should be visited more than every week and a half to two weeks.

     I tend to do this warm up 2x a week.  It prepares me for whatever the WOD is usually as it really is a whole body thing.

     30 seconds on/30 seconds off at 10 stations-once through so the whole warm up lasts 10 minutes.

1. Burpees

(great overall warm up to start.  Also very important to learn your pacing for other WOD's)

2. Double unders

(Again, good to know how many you can get in 30 sec.  Preps you for #9)

3. Strict HSPU (moving into pushups if failure comes before 30 sec)

(If you don't have these, you would just do push ups or even wall walks would be good)

4. Strict pull ups

(These are a different skill/move entirely vs. kipping.  Very important to get them.  Also preps for #6)

5. Ring dips

(An important skill to have/work.  Smart to know how many unbroken you can get or within 30 sec)

6. C2B pull ups kip or butterfly

(You can sub reg pull ups but this carries over to soooo much)

7. Pistols

(I can do alternating pistols all day.  But as we saw this season, it is important to have speed on these)

8. Toes to bar

(Again, 1 max set for 30 sec...important to know and train)

9. Box jumps

(Gives you time to learn bounding if you desire.  Start with low box, move up as proficient.  FGB anyone?)

10. Muscle ups

(Uggghhh...very good to go after these under duress.  If you don't have them, sub out for something else, wall balls, hollow rocks, whatever you want!)

Why this is good:

This allows you to benchmark things.  It's so minimal that you won't disrupt your current day's work with 1 set or 30 seconds of something.

There's nothing worse than having sore calves after a WOD with DU"s in them because you haven't done DU's for a few weeks!

It's entirely measure-able, scale-able, substitute-able, customize-able for your specific abilities and weaknesses.  This just happens to be the version I use.  And I see the #'s improving regularly and I compete with myself to get better and faster.

Now I know I can get 50 DU's in 30 sec.  When it comes up in a WOD I can plan, pace, or whatever!

Good luck!