Philosophy

Quote for the day

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

One last piece of advice — if in doubt and you don’t know what to do, train your balls off and take the last week off. If you’re strong, you’re strong. Weak people find excuses — strong people lift big weights. And to be honest, this last paragraph of advice is all you really need.

– Jim Wendler, from a Blood & Chalk talk.

Jim might be talking about powerlifting, but the concept applies to life period. Weak people find excuses. Strong people lift big weights. Those weights may not be pulling a bunch of 45# plates off the floor. It might be working 4 jobs because you need to feed your family. It might be writing the next big app that will change the world. It might be caring for a sick and disabled loved one, because they cannot care for themselves. Weights aren’t always made of iron, but strong people move those weights every day without excuse.

 

Quote for today

/ hsoi

Pro FB players need to change nothing. Zero. Unless one of us have played 12+ years in the NFL and can comment from experience and have coached as a SC coach in the NFL for a decade or more, it’s nothing more than being Al Bundy. I realize that this is way off topic but it drives me nuts when anyone criticizes something that have never, ever done or ever will. Grow fucking balls and realize you don’t have all the answers. And listen to Sabbath. And fuck your wife every night. And make sure she never goes a day without being fully appreciated. Hug your kids every day but don’t be their fucking best friend. Use baby wipes post-dump too.

– Jim Wendler (a post he made on the 5/3/1 Facebook Page)

 

What’s your excuse?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Ali McWeeney. Lost the lower part of her left leg (above knee) in a boating accident… at 20 years old.

She refused to give up powerlifting and strongman competition.

(h/t RossTraining)

What’s your excuse?

on being reliable

/ hsoi

Wife and I were talking and it hit me that the concept of reliability has been a central issue in my life the past some weeks.

There’s our problems with our home phone service. AT&T’s phone service wasn’t reliable, and while certain people I spoke with were kind, helpful, and understanding, their general repair process was proving to also be unreliable.

So everyone suggests to me to switch to VoIP, but the main reason I’ve stayed away from that is because Time-Warner Cable’s RoadRunner Internet service tends to be unreliable. In fact, as I was going through the AT&T debacle and even blogging about TWC’s unreliability, my net connection went down numerous times.

My car is old and starting to have big problems not worth fixing. It’s reliability is failing and I don’t always trust it to get me around. When I took the kids on that deer hunting trip? I rented a truck, not just because of the hauling utility, but because I figure a new truck will be more reliable than my old car and minimize risk of being stuck on the side of the road and the hunting trip ruined due to such problems.

Furthermore, as I shop for a replacement vehicle, I’m looking for something reliable. Heck, the reason I bought the car I have now was because I wanted a reliable car.

Buying that M&P to have as a new carry gun? I won’t carry it until it proves itself a reliable gun. I’m betting my life on it, so it better be something I can count on.

Then there are friends. There have been some issues with people flaking out, and while that’s alright every so often, a pattern of unreliability becomes a problem. Wife even mentioned to me that’s one thing she really appreciates about me: how reliable I am.

I just find it interesting how the concept of reliability has been at the forefront of so many things in my life right now.

People talk about important traits one should have: to be honest, to be hard working, punctual, honorable, humble. As I think about it, people don’t often talk about how important it is to be reliable, yet it’s something we all do want be it from our family, friends, co-workers, cars, businesses, politicians or really just about anything in our lives. It’s understandable because, due to its nature, you come to take it for granted when it always is there, it’s always working, it’s always doing what you need and expect. It only becomes noticeable when it breaks or isn’t there and is no longer reliable. Perhaps we need to consider reliability more explicitly and foster it as a trait, and not take it so much for granted.

“Experts” say, just give them what they want

/ hsoi

Remember ladies… just give them what they want.

“I keep thinking, what would have happened if I had that little moment where I would punch the guy and run,” she said.

But experts said she made the right choice.

“Basically, don’t show any emotion either way,” said Tilton Polcie [sic] Chief Robery Cormier. “Just give them what they want.”

Full Story (h/t The Gun Wire)

So this “expert” says to “just give them what they want”.

OK ladies… you remember that. When you’re being raped, don’t show any emotion either way, just give them what they want. This is the advice  direct from a Police Chief. An “expert” in your safety.

*sigh*

Now I admit, I’m mixing contexts. The article and the Chief are talking about a robbery, and I put their advice in the context of rape. And to be fair, many of the things they suggest in the article are actually sound: assume the robbers have a weapon, be a good witness, be aware of your surroundings, don’t attract attention, and in general yes…. don’t try to stop them. The best advice in the article is this:

“Unless you get directly involved and there is a life-threatening imminent situation, stay out of it,’ he said.

That’s right. Is there a life-threating imminent situation? And it doesn’t even have to be you in that situation, it could be a third party.

We come back to the maxim of doing what it takes to maximize your enjoyment of beer & TV (click and read if you aren’t aware of this maxim). This thought process is far superior to “just give them what they want”. The “beer & TV maxim” carries you in any situation, be it you’re the victim of a mugging, you were unlucky to be in the 7-11 as it was being robbed, or you’re the victim of rape. This is a better guideline towards helping to decide if it’s worthwhile to fight or just give them what they want.

I do not like nor subscribe to the “give them what they want, never fight back” approach to life. Think about what that means. Think about the implications of it. Think about it from an evolutionary standpoint (both evolution to this point, and what will evolve from it). Think about it in the workplace. Think about it in your personal life. Think about it in your relationships, with your spouse, with your children, with friends, co-workers. Sometimes it’s an acceptable response/tactic, but usually only because it’s a single step in a greater movement. But generally I just can’t see how we’ll become stronger and better with that sort of approach to life.

What can we learn from Mir vs. Nogueira – keep fighting until the end

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Keep fighting. Push beyond. Don’t give up. Be it self-defense, competition, or anything in life.

If you haven’t heard, in UFC 140 this past weekend, Frank Mir vs. Minotauro Nogueira, Mir won because Norgueira’s arm broke… not sure exactly what happened, looks like joint dislocation (maybe both elbow and shoulder) and not bone breakage, but I can’t find exact medical reports at this time. Either way, it was pretty ugly.

But the details don’t matter. There’s a good lesson to be learned from this.

Never give up.

If you know anything about Nogueira’s career, the man doesn’t give up. He fights until the end, and this was proof. Yeah he finally tapped but only AFTER his arm snapped (the ref saw and immediately stopped the bout anyways). The fight wasn’t over until he couldn’t fight anymore. He kept looking for a way to get out, to escape, to work to his advantage, to turn the fight around, to win.

This is something you have to do with anything in life: don’t give up. You can keep going far longer than you think. Our mind and bodies are programmed to stop well in advance of actual failure as a preservation technique/instinct. You have to learn to push beyond that. It will be uncomfortable, it may not be fun, but it may be what you need in order to succeed, to grow, to improve, to win.

In a self-defense situation, you have to keep going. You get kicked, you get punched, you shot shit, you get stabbed, but you keep fighting. When you’re dead, you’ll be dead and then you can stop fighting. Until that point, you’re not dead and you have no excuse to not keep fighting because you may still make it out alive. Isn’t that the whole point?

Keep fighting. Push beyond. Don’t give up. Be it self-defense, competition, or anything in life.

Start Too Light, Progress Slowly

/ hsoi

Many concepts in life are universal. We might learn them in one context, and when we remove the specifics of that context, we’ll find the concept applies to almost anything in life. While writing the last observations post, although it was about guns and shooting, some words from powerlifter Jim Wendler came to mind.

I wrote of how I felt some students would be well-served to step back to a beginners/fundamentals class before progressing further. I mentioned how that sort of thing is hard, because it’s a blow to the ego. Jim writes about “starting too light”:

My coaches emphasized this to me when I was in high school, but unfortunately, I didn’t listen. Hopefully you will. Starting too light allows for more time for you to progress forward. It’s easy for anyone – beginner or advanced – to want to get ahead of themselves. Your lifts will go up for a few months, but then they’ll stall – and stall, and stall some more. Lifters get frustrated and don’t understand that the way around this is to prolong the time it takes to get to the goal. You have to keep inching forward. This is a very hard pill to swallow for most lifters. They want to start heavy, and they want to start now. This is nothing more than ego, and nothing will destroy a lifter faster, or for longer, than ego.

Forget that he’s talking about weightlifting. He’s talking about keeping your ego in check. Start lower than you think, start lighter than you think. Maybe you think you’re the best shooter around, but you’d still be served well to take the school’s intro class — even if it’s well below your perception of your skills, there’s something to be learned. If you try to jump in at too high a level, that’s just ego and will ultimately destroy you.

I wrote:

Sometimes improvement requires taking a step back and regressing down the ladder a bit, but only so you can make your foundation more solid. To expand upon that metaphor, if you realized your ladder was planted in sand, how high do you think you could climb? But if you started up the ladder, realized things were getting shaky, then climbed back down, poured some concrete around the legs, then climbed back up, how much higher do you think you could now climb? Don’t be afraid to back down and pour concrete.

To bring it over to lifting, a hallmark of a good program is progressive/incremental resistance: the program always strives to add more weight, more reps. If you look at the Wendler 5/3/1 program, it’s divided into 4 week cycles. When the next cycle starts, you increase your weights by a certain amount (e.g. 5# on bench press) and continue along. While a 5# jump on your bench press every 4 weeks doesn’t sound like much, over the course of a year that can mean a 60# increase, which is significant!

The reality of lifting, however, is that the linear progression will not always happen — you will stall. What’s the solution? Back down. There are numerous ways to calculate this. One thing Jim writes:

You’ll eventually come to a point where you can’t make any more progress on a lift. You won’t be able to hit the sets and reps you’re supposed to hit, and the weights will start to get too heavy. When this happens, I simply take 90% of my max (either a 1RM or a rep max) and start all over again.

[…]

If you’re really starting out with 10% less than your actual maxes, you can expect to go through 5-7 cycles at a minimum before you stall out. I’ve gone through 8 before having to back off.

You see, it’s actually expected that you’ll stall, that you’ll have to back off. You don’t have to back off far, just “90%” of what you were doing, but paring yourself back just that slight bit helps you make longer term progress. If you allow your ego to remain in control, you’ll only try to forge ahead, will eventually hit a wall, you’ll never get over the wall, and ultimately you’ll fail to achieve your goals. If however you back off, if you go “beneath your skills” and maybe take a beginner class (again), you’ll come out of it stronger and able to progress further.

And so, the same with shooting. Back down. If you get to an intermediate-level class and find yourself struggling, take the class again, or maybe take the previous class in the curriculum progression and reestablish some fundamentals. Ultimately this will allow you to progress longer and ultimately reach higher goals and loftier heights. If you continue to be ego-driven, you won’t achieve your goals. Taking 2 steps back so you can take 5 steps forward only helps you in the long run.

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about shooting, or weightlifting, or anything else in life. The principles are universal. Keep your ego in check, be honest with yourself. Never be afraid to take a few steps back if that means over the long term you’ll progress further.