Part 1 was posted on 3/21.
That was a general approach to life. Think too much and you'll get stuck in the minutia of the moment and nothing substantial will get accomplished. We need to have the ability to let go and be a messy and make mistakes and find joy in just *doing*. It's fun and freeing and good things crop up because of it.
Part 2 is a general approach to sports. Think too much and your golf swing, your tennis stroke, your flip turn, your power clean will become so strained under the minutia of each detail that you are laboriously thinking about and you end up not performing well at all.
It seems I have been running across this concept quite often lately. To over think during the action of a sport not only takes the fun out of it, it prevents an athlete from feeling a particular movement, which usually allows for a better understanding of what one's body is supposed to be doing during that movement.
This is not to say that it's not necessary to learn some technique or strategy or practice a lot. What I am getting at is that an athlete's heart allows for the feeling of the sport that is being played. And what is heart, but feeling. You can delve into the minutia of your sport but if you don't allow the heart in, technique contributes nothing to the joy.
A couple weeks ago, Bubba Watson won the biggie in golf tournaments, The Masters. What makes this so spectacular is that he is a golfer who has never taken a lesson and never watched a video of himself to analyze his swing. Rather, he is a man who plays and plays and plays to feel a better swing, to be a better golfer, and mostly to quench his love of the game. By doing so, he keeps his heart in the game and his head nearby, but not looming.
Ben Smith of CrossFit fame is another one of those athletes who keeps his love of his sport in the forefront. He is a unique CrossFitter in that he mostly workouts alone at his home gym. From interviews I have seen, he connects CrossFit to nature by default, putting a pullup bar between two trees and a wall ball target on one of the trees as well.
He just gets after his workouts. Does he practice technique? Sure, but mostly just WODs.
Unheard of by most CrossFit athletes entering a competition, Ben went into the CrossFit Mid Atlantic Regionals without having practiced any of the WODs beforehand, apparently deciding to trust his abilities and succeed at them in a "one and done" mindset. He won, thereby making it to the CrossFit Games in July...again.
Those are just two athletes, but they are two who I personally think embody the concept of success through feeling, keeping their heart in their games. To me, it's incredibly inspiring.
**On a semi-related personal note, today I needed to throw around some weights and make some noise at my box. I have less than 10 weeks to go before my participation in the Games, and I have been not feeling my CrossFit experience of late. I have been missing the grunt and grit of why I love it so much. So, result?...the WOD I came up with today. I love the clean & jerk. I hadn't done any in so long that I was almost a little nervous about doing them so the following fit the criteria of my needs today:
EMOM (every minute on the minute) 10 mins:
3 deadlifts
1 clean & jerk
increase the weight every two minutes.
I wanted this to simulate a competition WOD in that I didn't have a lot of rest time to get to a heavy (for me) 1 rep max of c & j and the DL was just an added bonus. ;]
My previous c & j was 120# so I was hoping to get to there at least...too much thinking pre-WOD! Once I got into it, I just went at it. My form on the last clean wasn't great (i pulled too early), but my jerk was strong. I went 95#,105#,115#,120#, 125#. New PR and I felt a shift in my attitude...I quenched my love of how free and fun CrossFit is for me.
Setting aside *thinking* and just digging in and *doing* was just what I needed. More of that to come.
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