Surfing

Miyamoto Musashi said, "There is no Way that can be approached and petitioned for immediate gratification. The Universe does not work that way. How could it and at the same time expect any perfection to develop?"

Which explains why, when the guy pulled next to me at 287 and 45th in Loveland and said, "dude, I dream of that mustache," I replied, "no problem, it just takes a year." True I have an innate talent for not shaving, but even so a year is not bad. Sometimes I wish everything were that easy, but then I couldn't rightfully expect any awesomeness to develop, and I'd have to trade my Musashi for coca-cola and reality TV.

And sometimes too I read my Herman Melville. Specifically the part about it being a cold rainy November of the soul and needing to go whaling.

And while I'd like to go whaling, or at least go back to sea for a year or two, that's impractical, so I try to figure things out.

Just about when E.W. linked the CrossFit Lisbeth blog about training alone on my Facebook page, I knew it was time to ditch my partners and squat again. Over time you learn that Dave Tate is right: there are only three ways a lift can go wrong; physiological, technical, or mental. I kept putting weight on the bar until I was sure my problem is entirely mental.

I'm going to continue my solitary dialog with my demons. Sorry, the public is not invited.

I could live with most of the demons, but that motherfucker who asks why I get out of bed and even try doing anything is killing me.

And that's why I had to go surfing. I don't surf, although I'm sure I will when my two years at sea end with me in Rio de Janeiro, but the jiu-jitsu guys in Rio surf, so with my perhaps perverted logic I'm sure I can get the same restorative benefits by playing some jiu-jitsu.

I learned I can still beat white belts, and that I'm still not a dick because after using my arm-drag fan sweep at will a few times, I taught my partner how to do it and had him try it on me.

But more importantly, I learned that 280 pound purple-belt Big Richie can still beat me just as effortlessly. Probably sometime I'll compete in another tournament, but regardless I still train as if I'm getting ready for a competition which means while I don't do anything completely idiotic, I don't immediately tap out when I'm caught in a submission. So even after Big Richie beat my attempt to posture out of his triangle choke, I tried to hang on. If you've been here as many times as I have, you can be completely calm while you're being strangled. I felt the familiar dizziness come back and watched my peripheral vision blacken in ever tightening circles as I stared down the tunnel.

And there you remember you don't have problems. You only have a problem. While it's not today, you're going to die.

You can take the demons out for a 64 ounce dumb-fucker gulp and listen to their soothing lies about how being spherical is entirely normal, or you can meet them on your own ground where you might, possibly, be a hero just for one day.