The shapeless and formless entity
needs a medium to be truly appreciated.
By giving the entity both form and shape,
the medium blesses it with a heightened presence,
almost exuberance.
However, the entity does not need
the medium to exist.
It can exist just fine.
It needs the medium to be appreciated and recognized.
(For something more than just its existence.)
Without the medium, the entity exists,
and yet it does not.
It is there and not there.
It is "lost" amidst the crowd of others like it.
It is the medium that gives the entity
the shape and the form
that others can appreciate.
The medium makes the entity stand out from the rest.
Okay, enough with the abstraction.
Do you know what I am talking about?
Weightlifting, of course.
You are on a Weightlifting website.
But what else?
That is a tough one...
...
The Body!
The body, in reality, is a shapeless and formless entity.
Intellectually this will not make sense, I understand.
Because your mind will immediately try to fit "shapeless"
to the shape that it associates with the body.
Consequently, your mind will "not agree".
But let us try this.
Close your eyes.
And when I mention "The Body"
as the Body, what shape do you see?
Do you see a shape at all?
I hope you are getting where I am coming from.
The gist of it all really is
that the Mind is an entity of its own.
But humans tend to mix all three together.
And perceive things from that standpoint.
The medium, then, is Weightlifting - the movement
and the related equipment.
The resistance of the barbell enabled via gravity
is the medium that, over time, blesses the Body
with strength, speed, stamina, elasticity, agility,
power, ... you name it.
Yes.
That is the true, raw art of Weightlifting.
The true, magical art of exhibition
both in the physical and mental sense,
latent in the movements of the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk
is revealed fully when one "let's go" of their Body.
The last statement
is not to be made sense of intellectually.
"Letting go" does not mean leaving as in dying.
It entails slowly releasing the grip from that which one knows.
It entails slowly separating "them"
(the self who would rather use a technique or rely on cues or get coached)
from the Body.
So that the sport of Weightlifting (the medium) is allowed to
give form and shape to the Body (the entity).
(Which having being released from "them" (the Mind),
is now formless and shapeless).
Thank you.