The Slow and Steady

There are the parents. It's in my blood.

I feel certain that true progress comes not by setting the power to 100% and plowing through life (though there are moments for that).

Rather it is the slow and steady.  The consistent perseverance moving with the rise and fall of the tides and waves. Sailing. Setting a course. Tweaking and adjusting the sails as necessary.  Tacking and Jibing along the way.

It's just life. It must be lived. Lived deeply.  Lived patiently. Some might call this boring.  But I see through it - it's beautiful.

My training has taken a turn since regionals.  Despite some definite opposition from within, my heart and my body are surrendering to the rythym, the routine, the quiet of the slow and steady.

I know what I need to do. Stick with the program, Week in week out.
Moving stronger and stronger in areas of strength and Stepping back to fundamentals, relearning what I thought I knew, where my form is weak.  



It looks good. It is good,
but not good enough for what I can be.



Specifically.

The squat.  The Snatch.

I can back squat 235. Overhead squat 145, or more by now.  But put me in a squat snatch and it's deplorable. I could barely catch 80# the other day, while I've splitted 125#.

I'm better than that.

I have so much more capacity than what I've accomplished.

So how do I unlock that?  How do I develop it?
Go back to the beginning.
Friends, after 3 yrs of crossfit, I'm humbly relearning my squat.
I'm training my body to hold a better position. I'm spending a lot of time jumping and landing and hanging out with a PVC pipe.
Fix my position, drop weight, and rebuild.
Set my course.
Sometimes you have to step back to step forward.
Never quit.

I have often become very upset at times I was not at the top of my training: I was not clearly lifting heavier than the time before, Running faster, doing more sets unbroken, or just beating what ever competition I had that day.  In these moments I would become particularly vulnerable to the voices that suggested I let up or let go. I felt bombarded with "I can't" or "I'm not made for this."
"I'm not good enough."
"I don't have the genes."

Now I realize those times, those voices, those people, have nothing to do with me and what I am capable of accomplishing. They are only acknowledging it is HARD, and trying to offer me a respite.
But only I can say, this is worth it to me.
It doesn't matter where I fall in the end.  This fight is worth it to me.

The training of my body, the training of my mind, I have found are essential to my spiritual life - essential to becoming the best version of myself.  Of who I was created to be. Of deepening the relationship with the one I was created for.  And so it reminds me of this quote:

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried". G. K. Chesterton

Live, Love, Perservere.  Difficult is nothing to fear.
Stay the course. Slow and steady as necessary.

I'll let you know how it goes:)