Every one who has aquired his driving license heard this one example from his/her teacher:
While driving at night you might stumble across a deer standing on the street.
Even though it recognizes your headlights, understands they pose a threat to its life it will not move. Blinking lights will not change the fact that it does not move.
It is caught in-between two things:
escaping to the right and escaping to the left.
Unable to decide what to do it remains standing still and will eventually end up on my BBQ.
One of my favourite sayings goes someting like this:
"In any given situation you can do three things: the best thing would be doing the right thing, the second best choice would be doing the wrong thing. The worst thing to do would be nothing."
Still, only one thing a time. If you would try to do the best and the worst you would end up having done nothing at all.
A few months ago I was at the hospital at around 9pm. This time not because I had hurt myself but because I had night services at the department of pediatrics.
We (me and a colleague of mine) where talking with the doctor in charge, discussing the last patient, treatments,... And as always students would recieve some advices for their future in the medical field.
One of the most important advices I recieved that night from a nurse. She said:
"If you are ever in charge of the walk-in clinic, please, finish one patient after another. Even if there are nurses, other doctors pressuring you to do something else, keep calm and finish your work.
Last week we had a doctor who just had finished medical school and was doing his first night shift. He got so carried away with trying to treat 3 patients at once to save time, after one hour there were still the same three patients in there and an uncounted number of patients was already or still waiting..."
I experienced the same thing while falling with 200km/h towards the earth this summer...
As I mentioned in a previous post I had some problems when starting to skydive. I still have but back then lying still while falling was problem enough.
Even though I had my trainer with me, giving me signals, my mind was racing with thoughts like
"Is my head back?" (He is giving me the signal to make my legs longer so I start to extend them more...)
"How do I get my pelvis down more?" (Again the legs- longer signal...)
"What´s the next step in the program" (Still the legs- longer and somehow he is looking pissed..Why, I´m doing all I can...)
"How high up am I?"...
So instead of just fixing one problem at a time I multi-tasked several ones and ended up doing not much the right way.
I´m not sure if it is because men can not multi- task or because it´s just my problem but nothing got better, only worse and I was lucky to pass that level.
The making of an elite warrior, SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, Nightstalkers, you-name-them, they get one principle taught from the beginning: One evolution at a time.(this line in particular was taken from the BUDs- Phase of SEAL- training)
Set priorities and then do one thing, 100%, give it all you got until you are done, then do the next thing.
Or like they say in the Zen- Buddhism: Plunge yourself in the moment, immerse yourself completly. Be the moment.
Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry
Mittwoch, 3. November 2010
Mittwoch, 27. Oktober 2010
Take care of your Bells
Oleg Ilika demonstrates how to get rough spots off you handles. especially useful when you still have old Kettlebells standing around like I do.
If you want to evade all that trouble when buying new ones, I can recommend you check out www.spodo.at , an extremly well equiped, obliging and dependable shop run by Mark Dorninger, a guy who is living at the other side of Austria and still manages to send me new Bells in about 1-2 days. That´s the kind of service you will not find at other stores.
Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry
Samstag, 23. Oktober 2010
Samstag, 16. Oktober 2010
Gifts
Too often we despair facing such gifts life has given us, placed in font of us, simply because we do not understand...on one side. The other side does and will eventually guide us to what we have to learn from it.
"A warrior has no choice but to believe"
Tales of Power, C. Castaneda
Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry
Mittwoch, 13. Oktober 2010
Dienstag, 12. Oktober 2010
Simplification
I´m gonna stay true to the title of this post...
1)Pick yourself a pullup- variation (Towel as seen in the video below, close, medium or wide grip, palms of the hand facing you or pointing away, a neutral grip, hands at different heights, comando pullps, walking at the pullup- bar, etc.)
2)Pick a Pushup- variation (Scorpion as seen in the video below, Dands, Divebombers, Iranian Pushups, CLose, shoulder width or wide pushups, pushups on a gymnastic ball, be it with hands or feet on it, ring- pushups, clapping, one- arm, hands in an offset- pattern, etc)
3)Pick a leg- exercise (Lunges as seen in the video below, Jumping Lunges, Lunges forward, backward or to the side, Squats, 1 & 1/2 Squats, Jumping Squats, jumping forward or for height, one- legged squats aka Pistols, Split Squats, Rope Skipping, Sprinting, Cossack- Squats, Box Jumps, Knee Tuck Jumps, etc.)
Set a number of repetitions for each exercise and do them.
Keep perfect form and enough tension throughout your body.
Keep a good pace in order to get a excellent cardiovascular workout.
You can split the exercises, for example if you goal are 50 Pullups, 100 Pushups and 200 Squats you can do 5 Pullups, 10 Pushups and 20 Squats for 10 rounds.
Use any other number you like.
Another way to go is completing one exercise after another. So do all the pullups, then all the pushups, then all the squats.
Simply get the reps and keep your time to measure progress.
Train hard and enjoy life!
All the ebst,
Harry
1)Pick yourself a pullup- variation (Towel as seen in the video below, close, medium or wide grip, palms of the hand facing you or pointing away, a neutral grip, hands at different heights, comando pullps, walking at the pullup- bar, etc.)
2)Pick a Pushup- variation (Scorpion as seen in the video below, Dands, Divebombers, Iranian Pushups, CLose, shoulder width or wide pushups, pushups on a gymnastic ball, be it with hands or feet on it, ring- pushups, clapping, one- arm, hands in an offset- pattern, etc)
3)Pick a leg- exercise (Lunges as seen in the video below, Jumping Lunges, Lunges forward, backward or to the side, Squats, 1 & 1/2 Squats, Jumping Squats, jumping forward or for height, one- legged squats aka Pistols, Split Squats, Rope Skipping, Sprinting, Cossack- Squats, Box Jumps, Knee Tuck Jumps, etc.)
Set a number of repetitions for each exercise and do them.
Keep perfect form and enough tension throughout your body.
Keep a good pace in order to get a excellent cardiovascular workout.
You can split the exercises, for example if you goal are 50 Pullups, 100 Pushups and 200 Squats you can do 5 Pullups, 10 Pushups and 20 Squats for 10 rounds.
Use any other number you like.
Another way to go is completing one exercise after another. So do all the pullups, then all the pushups, then all the squats.
Simply get the reps and keep your time to measure progress.
Train hard and enjoy life!
All the ebst,
Harry
Samstag, 25. September 2010
Lessons from skydiving (6) - Smooth is fast. Take your time.
"Remember: Smooth is fast!!"
I heard the instructors saying this to the students of the Basic Underwater Demolition training(BUDs) over and over again. It was a gift from a very dear friend of mine, a documentation about the Making of a NAVY SEAL.
I heard it but I did not truly understand it until my skydiving- course.
Even when we were still practicing the key movements on the ground during the theoretical part of the skydiving- course we were told repetedly to execute the movements smoothly and a bit slower than we thought they should be.
Because during stressful situation movements become shorter, staccato- like.
Martial artist learned to first practice in an environment without stress, where movements can be executed in a smooth, somewhat exaggerated, slower and wider manner.
Only if you start with wide, relaxed motions, only then will there still be any movement left which is still useful during stress.
I want to take about 2 things which can be learned now from this statement:
1) The physical aspect:
Everybody involved in any sport does know how movement tends to change during application under stress.
Be it the martial artist who suddenly gets tight during sparring or in a fight when he should be relaxed and breath freely.
Be it...to be honest, there is no sport coming to my mind when you do not have that kind of problem...Well, maybe Soccer. ;-)
Even if you are playing, e.g., the piano and giving a concert...If you tense up, interrup your flow you got a problem.
This is why training, the steps of learning the technical aspects of your sport, should be happening in an relaxed environment.
Why?
Because our brain is a marvelous, little box.
It not only remembers the physical sensations but the emotional state as well. And as everybody knows emotions translate into physical/bodily reactions back again.
One of the most common examples I get to observe is the frequent shot people recieve when in the hospital.
Sometime in tha past they associated a lot of things with recieving a shot: pain(the injection itself and maybe a hurtful inflammation afterwards), fear(we do not like when being hurt), deception(when mommy told you "this will not hurt"), violence(they had to held you down to give you the shot), disappointment(mommy lied to you), relief(when it is over I feel better).
(To some adults this seems exaggerated but to a child without the proper connections a ability to construct a future based on the events currently happening it may very well seem like this.)
Even when we do know better as an adult("It does not hurt that bad..."; "It´s for the better"/"If I get that shot now I will not suffer in the future", etc.) some of us still experience some sensations when facing a needle.
Breathing changes...Somehow it feels like your chest is getting to small for your lungs, your breathing muscles won´t move so freely as they used to. Breathing becomes shallow.
Somehow certain muscles are very tense...Abdomen, neck, shoulders,...
Your heart is starting to beat faster...faster...faster...
You do not need all this tension, cardio- vascular stress.
It disrupts what some coaches call "flow", a term I really like. It increases your energy demands and robs your precious recources.
A lesson I´m still learning when having a sparring situation and somehow I get tense(which is still happening much)... I´m a quite physically fit individual but those tensions combined with the demands of perception, action and reaction, movement burn me out very fast. At least it happens to everybody. ;-)
Ok...Old dogs not only can learn new things, they can learn new ways of learning.
Still... They are old dogs and have already learned a lot of things in ways not very productive.
I will talk about "arousal control" and mental training soon.
Now we are off to number 2) The symbolism behind todays "Lesson from skydiving":
This lesson actually started building itself in my head when attending the Steve Maxwell workshop in July.
We were talking about the execution of movement, the ongoing empahsis on numbers/repetitions under the label of effort/output/power per time aka intensity.
We talked about the goal of training which can differ from person to person and the necessary adaptation of the means to the end.
To show you what I mean: if you want to build a muscular upper back and biceps strict pullups are a great way to accomplish this. Kipping pullups have their value but in a different context.
So it is not just what you do but how you do it.
"It´s not about the present, it´s about the way it is given" to quote my mother.
It is not about what you do but how you do it.
Simply starting you own company and trying to get as much money for yourself without a thought for the well- being of your employees, customers, family, friends will not be enough. Within months you will be out of business.
Simply going into the hospital, running test, diagnosing and treating according to lab results, CT- scans will not make me a successful doctor. True compassion for my patients and mindset of truely helping them to get back into (social) life will make them happy, healthy and myself a better doc.
Too many examples come to my mind to write them all down, many, many more I do not know.
When you stumble over a good example, post a comment below because this is one mather best learned by examples and experience.
Just keep in mind: it´s not just about what you do, but how you do it.
Train hard and enjoy life. Smoothly. ;-)
All the best,
Harry
I heard the instructors saying this to the students of the Basic Underwater Demolition training(BUDs) over and over again. It was a gift from a very dear friend of mine, a documentation about the Making of a NAVY SEAL.
I heard it but I did not truly understand it until my skydiving- course.
Even when we were still practicing the key movements on the ground during the theoretical part of the skydiving- course we were told repetedly to execute the movements smoothly and a bit slower than we thought they should be.
Because during stressful situation movements become shorter, staccato- like.
Martial artist learned to first practice in an environment without stress, where movements can be executed in a smooth, somewhat exaggerated, slower and wider manner.
Only if you start with wide, relaxed motions, only then will there still be any movement left which is still useful during stress.
I want to take about 2 things which can be learned now from this statement:
1) The physical aspect:
Everybody involved in any sport does know how movement tends to change during application under stress.
Be it the martial artist who suddenly gets tight during sparring or in a fight when he should be relaxed and breath freely.
Be it...to be honest, there is no sport coming to my mind when you do not have that kind of problem...Well, maybe Soccer. ;-)
Even if you are playing, e.g., the piano and giving a concert...If you tense up, interrup your flow you got a problem.
This is why training, the steps of learning the technical aspects of your sport, should be happening in an relaxed environment.
Why?
Because our brain is a marvelous, little box.
It not only remembers the physical sensations but the emotional state as well. And as everybody knows emotions translate into physical/bodily reactions back again.
One of the most common examples I get to observe is the frequent shot people recieve when in the hospital.
Sometime in tha past they associated a lot of things with recieving a shot: pain(the injection itself and maybe a hurtful inflammation afterwards), fear(we do not like when being hurt), deception(when mommy told you "this will not hurt"), violence(they had to held you down to give you the shot), disappointment(mommy lied to you), relief(when it is over I feel better).
(To some adults this seems exaggerated but to a child without the proper connections a ability to construct a future based on the events currently happening it may very well seem like this.)
Even when we do know better as an adult("It does not hurt that bad..."; "It´s for the better"/"If I get that shot now I will not suffer in the future", etc.) some of us still experience some sensations when facing a needle.
Breathing changes...Somehow it feels like your chest is getting to small for your lungs, your breathing muscles won´t move so freely as they used to. Breathing becomes shallow.
Somehow certain muscles are very tense...Abdomen, neck, shoulders,...
Your heart is starting to beat faster...faster...faster...
You do not need all this tension, cardio- vascular stress.
It disrupts what some coaches call "flow", a term I really like. It increases your energy demands and robs your precious recources.
A lesson I´m still learning when having a sparring situation and somehow I get tense(which is still happening much)... I´m a quite physically fit individual but those tensions combined with the demands of perception, action and reaction, movement burn me out very fast. At least it happens to everybody. ;-)
Ok...Old dogs not only can learn new things, they can learn new ways of learning.
Still... They are old dogs and have already learned a lot of things in ways not very productive.
I will talk about "arousal control" and mental training soon.
Now we are off to number 2) The symbolism behind todays "Lesson from skydiving":
This lesson actually started building itself in my head when attending the Steve Maxwell workshop in July.
We were talking about the execution of movement, the ongoing empahsis on numbers/repetitions under the label of effort/output/power per time aka intensity.
We talked about the goal of training which can differ from person to person and the necessary adaptation of the means to the end.
To show you what I mean: if you want to build a muscular upper back and biceps strict pullups are a great way to accomplish this. Kipping pullups have their value but in a different context.
So it is not just what you do but how you do it.
"It´s not about the present, it´s about the way it is given" to quote my mother.
It is not about what you do but how you do it.
Simply starting you own company and trying to get as much money for yourself without a thought for the well- being of your employees, customers, family, friends will not be enough. Within months you will be out of business.
Simply going into the hospital, running test, diagnosing and treating according to lab results, CT- scans will not make me a successful doctor. True compassion for my patients and mindset of truely helping them to get back into (social) life will make them happy, healthy and myself a better doc.
Too many examples come to my mind to write them all down, many, many more I do not know.
When you stumble over a good example, post a comment below because this is one mather best learned by examples and experience.
Just keep in mind: it´s not just about what you do, but how you do it.
Train hard and enjoy life. Smoothly. ;-)
All the best,
Harry
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