Sunday Story…Why (part 1)

About 2 years ago I was sitting in Jim Fitzsimmons' office at the University of Nevada, Reno looking for a coach to help me in my quest to get to the CrossFit Games. He asked me the all important question…”why do you want to go to the games?” Now, Jim had been to the games before, and he was the one guy I could find in my neck of the woods who had the experience and knowledge to help me on the quest. I answered, rather flippantly, that I wanted to wear the cool pants like all the rest of the cool kids. Jim, graciously, gave me some things to do that would improve my game and sent me on my way.

Fast forward to the present moment. At this moment I have qualified for the 2014 CrossFit Games Masters (55-59) division pending video review. And Jim’s question is even more in my mind than it was 2 years ago. Why do you want to go to the Games?

Lots of people want to go to the games. After all more than 200,000 of us entered the Open this year. Does my success in going to the games define me? This is the corollary question asked of me by my current coach, CJ Martin of Invictus. Does my success in this pursuit make me a better person? A better coach, father, friend, or leader? Of course not. What my success in this venture does is show that I am pretty good (and better than most) at doing some fitness related activities.

I have been pursuing this goal of getting to the games for 2 years. I had no idea that getting to this point would be this hard. I have had to train with little or no break for the past 12 months. This would only be possible given that I work in this business since with warm up and cool down a workout might be 2 hours. Meal preparations, mobility work, ART (Active Release Treatment) appointments, injury restoration, mental wear and tear have all factored into the time spent in the pursuit of this thing.

In many ways the process of training has defined me. The daily commitment to the process of training. The unwavering dedication to learning new skills, fixing poor movement patterns, staying objective in the face of self doubt, and trusting the training process while in the middle of fear and self loathing. What defines me? Commitment, dedication, stick-to-it-iveness, perseverance, keeping the forest in mind while lost in the trees and faith in the process are what define me. The achievement of the goal is the tangible result of this definition.

None of this answers the burning question, however…Why do you want to go to the games? Stay tuned to part 2 for the answer!

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…In My Room

Up in my head, there are lots of rooms with doors that are mostly locked. As well they should be. These are the rooms that don’t serve me and my mission. We all have rooms like this.

Rooms full of
Negativity
Self Doubt
Self Hate
Fear
Loathing
Discontent
And more

We keep them locked for the simple reason that they don’t serve us anymore. Maybe we were feeling that way one day. Maybe someone in our life filled that room for us. Maybe we filled ourselves from messages we took to heart too deeply. Maybe we were young, and dumb and didn’t know any better. Who knows why or how those rooms got filled, or who filled them. None of that stuff matters. Those doors are locked…mostly.

But, every once in a while, we re-open one of them. Maybe we forgot what we put in there and opened it by accident on purpose. Maybe we thought we were tough enough, grown up enough, experienced enough to handle it now.

In those moments we find out how far we have really traveled. Can you face the slings and arrows, the stones left by a rocky past? Have you grown enough to look and see that the who you are today is so far from the who you were that the scars from those wounds have disappeared long ago.

I know you weren’t ready to open that door. But you did, accidently or accidently on purpose. So take a good hard look and realize you aren’t that person anymore and haven’t been for a very long time. The you of today is ready to move past those doors with them unlocked and open. You are ready to look and see the ugliness and not let it define you…again or any longer.

You are stronger now. You are better now. You are amazing now. So ask yourself just one simple question…Are you going to let those rooms and the things you locked inside of them define you? No you are more than that; you are bigger, better than that.

Define yourself by who you are today. What you say and what you do today will create the future you live in. And the future you want is not the past you had.

Namaste

John Mariotti

www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Now

You can wait until the kids get older, your work settles down (or ramps up), the weather warms up or cools down, you lose those few pounds, or the stars align and the cows come home. There will always be something. Some obstacle, some resistance to whatever change you are thinking of making.

My favorite is “I need to get in shape before I start coming to your gym or martial arts class.” No you don’t. You need to come to class because you need to get in shape. Stop resisting and start working.

The only thing standing between you and the change you want to see is a gossamer curtain of excuses. Just like the curtain that the Wizard of Oz stood behind…it really only serves to fool you and allow you to not to the work you already know you must do.

This is true in whatever endeavor you are looking at…new career, new body, new anything. Whenever you are going to shift and transform your life there will be resistance and excuses. The bigger the shift, the bigger the resistance and the better the excuses will appear. After all, wasn’t Oz the all powerful? And in the end he was a small weak excuse of a wizard. All of your excuses, even the best ones, are no good once you finish your work.

It is time to pull back the curtain of resistance and expose it for what it truly is…a no account version of an excuse.

Get started. Now. Today. Right this very minute. There is no time like the present. Besides the sooner you start the sooner you will finish!

Namaste

John Mariotti

www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Maximum Sub Lethal Dose

Not everyone ascribes to this theory. Most people are in the M.E.D. —Minimum Effective Dose corral. In other words doing the least you can to get the most benefit. And, honestly this makes sense in a lot of places. If I am taking a drug I want to only take the minimum necessary to for the drug to be effective. I certainly don’t want to take so much as to cause the side effect all the small print is about. M.E.D. is good but won’t work for everything.

I prefer the Maximum Sub Lethal Dose. How much can I do to get the maximum effect from the activity? What happens if I do more? Crossing over into the lethal dose neighborhood is bad, of course, but how close can I get. Shouldn’t we be trying to get as close to the edge as possible? Shouldn’t we be attempting to get to the highest point of human potential? I do not want to be average. I do not want to be mediocre. I want to be the best I can be. I want to be the best of the best. I am not interested in being the best of the average, the mediocre. That isn’t exciting, that doesn’t light me up. No, what gets me fired up is seeing how far I can go, how hard I can work to get to the top of the mountain. No sense in only climbing halfway, right?

Just imagine if the Beatles settled for the minimum effective dose when they were playing and writing music. Do you think they would have been great? Would we still be listening to them all these years later? I think not. How about Michael Jordan? Jerry Rice? All those free throws shot when no one was looking are an example of Maximum Sub Lethal Dose. All those off season workouts made Jerry Rice one of the greatest of all time. When he came out of a small no name college it was his work ethic that transformed him into the player we still talk about today. Was he good in the beginning? Yes but not great. We went over and beyond what anyone could have ever predicted.

Where can you get the maximum sub lethal dose in your life? Where can you make a massive shift in your life to get massive results? How can you get out on the edge, the tight rope where a mistake may put you in the hospital (metaphorically speaking)? If you want to get what you have never gotten, if you want a different result you are going to have to do what you have never done before. You better be willing to do what everyone else won’t…then you will be able to do what everyone else can’t.

Maximum Sub Lethal Dose. Go get some.

Namaste

John Mariotti

www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com