If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. ~Lawrence J. Peter
this blog has been ruminating a while. a long while actually. but i have a bit of free time right now so thought i would take the opportunity to revisit this subject, because it literally makes me INSANE. for about 5 minutes every other week or so, and then i forget about it. ha.
im just curious when we stopped having a normal standard. like across the board. this makes me sound like im 100, which happens a lot more these days, but i just dont remember remember the goalposts shifting so often when i was younger. and its not just in fitness, altho to me that's the easiest example, and the one i will beat to death here. but really in life also. grading on a curve has pretty much always been around, but it used to be reserved for like the super special, once a year test that no one passed for some stupid reason. now its the norm. and everyone hates that one kid who might ruin the curve for the rest of the class. but guess what, if there was no curve, that kid would still get the A. why it is his job to make it easier for everyone else?
It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall. ~Mexican Proverb
it happens in both directions. which is weird right? we make things easier so everyone can do better or we make them harder so no one can reach them. i just dont get it. what happened to average? and why is that not a thing anymore? you cant just be OK at something? or god forbid, you cant be a rockstar? are there too MANY rockstars that we cant afford to have a few more? i think it started with the whole everyone gets a trophy thing. like seriously, thats the root of all evil. we are all GOOD enough to get a trophy. so then the people that DESERVE a trophy get what? they have to do more - and then a little more - and then even more still. because even if everyone gets a damn trophy, some of us still want to be better than that. right? and some of us dont give a fuck about the trophy. so why do we need to get one? we dont ALL have to want or get the same thing. but we all DO need to know where the line is that determines whether we get it or not. am i making any sense?
The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds there is no "top." ~Nancy Barcus
i am going to do school before fitness. why not. back in the day, 4.0 was all there was. 2.0 was average. anything below that meant you couldnt play sports. and there was nothing higher than that. sure some classes were harder than others, but you were graded the same BASED ON YOUR ABILITY, not how many ridiculously hard classes you could squeeze into your schedule. the girl that was my valedictorian never took an honors class. but guess what, she probably didnt take 9 gym classes either. she was rewarded for HER work capacity and her success. now, the debate over success in school is how many AP classes you take and if your overall WEIGHT is heavy enough. why should the kids taking biomed or engineering be penalized because those classes arent weighted the same? they SHOULDNT. because weights are stupid. life isnt fair, remember? and we are trying to make it MORE fair by moving the bar around. leave the fucking bar alone. it will be ok. if we have MORE kids who get a 4.0, then GOOD, right? it means that they are working hard enough to get As. why hurt the kids taking harder classes, or make them not want to take a class because it will hurt their GPA? it is ok for them all to be successful! why do we keep making it by turns harder to be successful AND harder to fail. guess what? failure also happens. and we need to let that happen too.
The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. ~Ivy Baker Priest
what sets me off about this stuff? crossfit. as usual. my fitness nemesis. when we started lifting weights seriously 3 years ago, crossfit was this foreign concept that had things like kipping pullups that i had never heard of. as we watched the sport develop and got interested in competing, we set bars for things we knew we needed to be able to do to compete. and muscle up was THE white whale. if you could do a muscle up, you were golden. 3 years later, i still cant do one. BUT several of my people can. and guess what? now you need to be able to handstand walk - over obstacles - to compete. i mean, seriously? how many weekend warrior types can do that? or even have the means to want to TRAIN to learn how to do that? its like the crossfit gods decided that TOO MANY PEOPLE could actually compete at their vaunted "rx" level. so they made it harder. which again, is totally within their right. it's their gig. BUT. rather than leave the standards alone, and maybe create ANOTHER standard for elite athletes, they just keep shifting the bar. there is no such thing as an "average" crossfitter. because we are not allowed to BE average, right? if you scale, which all of us do, then you are forever stuck in "that" space. and while i truly believe in scaling workouts, it is generally a means of moving you towards NOT having to scale. its a process. where eventually, if you so desire and can work hard enough blah blah blah, you can reach the "rx" - the "prescribed" workout. its a great theory. but only if the "prescribed" level doesnt keep changing.
We're still not where we're going, but we're not where we were. ~Natasha Josefowitz
its funny because this sounds a lot like sour grapes to me. me bitching because im not getting to the level i want to get to. and maybe that is a part of it. but its discouraging to set a goal, reach it, and then still not be where you thought you would be, because the line moved farther away. would it be so bad to have more people competing rx? if you can walk over obstacles on your hands, chances are you are STILL going to kick my ass in a competition, even if i get to try to lift the same weights as you. and if i come in LAST, that's ok. and if i fail, that is ok too. but i wont know if i can do more, and have no reason to continue to push myself, if i keep reaching for a line that i will never cross. why bother? goalposts are there for a reason. because EVENTUALLY you might reach them. pursuing the goal, and either reaching it OR falling short is the whole freaking POINT. you learn or you succeed. hopefully both. and once you reach a goalpost, hopefully you reach for the next one. because you learned you COULD. asking people to continually change the rules to suit the players defeats the entire purpose.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. ~T.S. Eliot
you remember the old "you win some, you lose some" thing? i think we lost that whole principle. we need to know how to lose AND to win. their is grace in both. and lessons in both. there is also a ton of experience to be had in the middle of those two extremes. there are a million people out there that neither win or lose. they participate. and they dont need trophies for doing that. people work out everyday for no prize other than personal betterment. or weight loss. or stress relief. but for those who DO compete, you have to know what you are trying to achieve. and then get to feel the satisfaction when you achieve it. or the frustration when you dont. but its ridiculous to finally reach the bar, only to STILL be frustrated because the bar has been moved further down the line. hi deni, i know you got an A on that report, but you need to get an A+ now or it doesnt count. an A is an A people. let's leave it the fuck alone and be happy with it. ugh.
No one understands that you have given everything. You must give more. ~Antonio Porchia
