In my athlete days, which ended about 15 years ago, the goal was to NOT feel and just complete the tasks put to paper.  It was something I was given or sought out — “more” was agreed upon by all to get better, so I did “more”.  What I did centered on who I respected at the moment, and who’s programs were financially accessible to me.  It was the twilight of an era when I did the things I was told, because I trusted others more than myself.

This ‘good follower’ mindset changed after tearing my ACL.  I did EVERYTHING the physical therapist said, and then some.  I was told I was whole but I did not feel whole.  I could not do the things I used to, in the manner that I used to.  It felt like a big lie.  It felt like I got cheated.  I felt like the work was all for naught.  I remained confident (and stubborn) in my ability to learn, so I started channeling my efforts into figuring things out for myself.

I tried multiple systems and followed multiple perspectives, convincing myself that each led me down a more correct path. The “training” during this time was minimal; I didn’t lift as I had, but became accustomed to cables and bands.  Slowly, the work turned internal. Instead of investing time and energy to find something didn’t work as I had hoped, I could honestly distinguish in real time whether the intent matched the outcome.  The results could be immediate.

I had (re)learned to trust my feeling.

I had faith that I was right in many areas of my life: where to live, what profession to pursue, and whom to invest in.  My body was the one area where I lacked certainty.  I was still chubbier than I’d liked.  I was no longer the best athlete.  I had this casing that I walked around in, but it never felt like home.

Though it was far more good than bad, I did not interact with it as something I loved or wanted to know.  I treated it as if it had betrayed me, as if it was separate from me and holding me back.  Its value had been tied up in its performance, an external measure tied to an external reward.  I loved being good at something, naturally, and developing that sense of “natural” into “something more”, but continually adding left me with little to no understanding of the concept maintenance.  The premise to this simple yet transformative concept was how to get more from less.

Over the next decade and a half, I stopped training and sought to understand.  I moved every day, with curiosity and delight, seeking out weaknesses in my movement and trying to progress them into a strength.  Beyond knowing what to look for, I began feeling for correctness.  That innate insight I had but then strangled learned to breathe again.

It is hard being subject to the onslaught of so many inputs.  It can confuse and paralyze even the most sophisticated of sensory souls.  At a family picnic an Aunt once told me that we were special people that could grasp the hearts of things.  I knew exactly what she meant, but I did not want the responsibility that came with the realization of that power.

I had spent the majority of my life tuning out this potent attunement because it never ended well for me.  I was ganged up on in multiple occasions because people didn’t want to acknowledge the shame that comes from accurately reflecting what you noticed about their behavior.  Because of my size, the threat was rarely physical, but there was still that underlying learning that people don’t like or react well to this.  I’ll tuck it away.  I’ll bury it.  Instead I’ll focus on escape routes and how to get out of here…

It is difficult to bring something back to life that you killed.  It is a slow process of questioning and developing trust, particularly in what seemed to have led you astray before.  “What if this is good?” turns to “what if this is the best part of me?” and the more you sit with and try to know the more the digging becomes pleasurable and an act of love and self-service.

“What can I find here in me?” started to bleed into “What can I offer this world?” and I realized it was the very same thing:

My offering was my perspective, built upon what I was sensitive to and could act upon.

My entire ecosystem was a cycle of the scientific method, brought into spheres of the ‘immeasureable’ social, mental, and emotional realms.  ‘N’ equals.  ‘N’ is listened to.  ‘N’ adapts.  Ten thousand young people over twenty-two years. My teaching looks nothing like it did in 2010.  The goal isn’t to move their bodies.  It’s to move their insides.

Can you chip away at what you can’t see?  I had done it in myself, so I believed I could do it in them.

This very week, our ‘warm ups’ have switched to tuning into the senses.  I have a premise I deliver talking about the problem with the world being everyone living in their separate realities, and a connection point being the trouble ‘turning their brain off’ when trying to sleep at night, but it is HARD to turn the gym into a place you tune-in instead of tune-out.   I am finishing this post on day two of the experiment, and I have already found a huge point of improvement: have them hold the item of focus in their hands…

Please note, I can only do these things because I have personally experienced these things.  In shifting what I am open to I have shifted what I have access to.  I can tell you what to feel for on a heavy deadlift because I did them this morning AND have started to develop a sequence and a language for how to communicate sensations.  I can point out a where.  I can direct and intrigue without a rush to find the answer.  Because only you have the answer.  And the question will hopefully change.

I am training again, mostly just to see what might happen.  A new operating system driven by a new code has me dazzled by inputs and noticings and internal recordings.  Swimming laps feels like having coffee with my body.  Lifting feels like I am tuning an instrument to create a remarkable melody with.  I am so excited to learn how to play it!  To be here, with amusing desire, and void of a justifying outcome, is the waxy-tactile essence of what it live sensationally.

[Feature Photo by Paul Blenkhorn on Unsplash.]