Originally from the east, I have noticed something about the West's take on things. And it is that of fervor and fierce determination. At everything.
Whether it the cutthroat finance culture of Wall Street fueled by the relentless drive of making more money or Silicon Valley's ever innovating innovation and its never stopping attempts at replacing the human with automation.
However, neither of above are the "problem" or the culprit. Something that does go unnoticed is the deeply rooted belief that the main driver of such things is "effort" or "trying hard".
The culture forces one to believe that achievement, success or goal-accomplishment is possible only through constant effort. Whether it is practicing until one is exhausted or until one has given it all and has nothing left in the tank.
From the pictures used in this post, it may seem like I am singling out CrossFit. But that is not the case. In fact, the thought of writing this post occurred to me during a yoga class.
It seems that the west loves in converting everything into a "workout". With even something as innocent and simple looking as Yoga, they resorted to artificial heat and quick transitioning between poses.
The next thing you know the folks practicing aren't doing Yoga anymore. Other than a select few, most are just hopping between poses, without paying attention to their alignment.
The "Yogi"'s goal has shifted from practicing Yoga to "get as many poses in as possible and look good while doing it". Ohh and never lag behind the instructor's heavily accented pose announcements. Even if that means sacrificing the quality of poses.
When the society and culture around you glorify the importance of sweating your way through everything to make progress, it is not uncommon, even for an individual with a genuine interest in the sport or activity to look forward to going until or past exhaustion every session.
Over time the innocent love for the sport dies and what remains behind is a cyclic process of striving to finish all the sets "prescribed" in the program and feel either an ego boost or a moral drop depending on the outcome.
The athlete continues to feed the beast by making sure to "recover" before the next session in the program. The vicious cycle continues giving the athlete an illusion of progress, all while real progress has taken a backseat. For years.
"But isn't this how it is supposed to be?" you say.
To which I say, there is actually no "supposed to be". Everything follows the simple law of cause and effect. You get what you put in, after all.
But how you put in, is often ignored. Its quality, often contaminated with ignorance, greed for immediate results and regurgitated information from "what has worked so far".
When was the last time you did something just for the sake of it?
Not as a workout but as a movement?
Not as training but as being?
Not as striving or effort to become better but as an act of surrender?
Maybe you experienced this accidentally when you just decided to go at the empty bar for a few.
Or on a day when you were tired and decided to "just work on technique"
Or during warming up when the sets felt "just right". (Before the obligatory need of moving up to the "prescribed" weights in the program kicked in.)
Or during your "max out Friday". But your coach "believed" that you have much more in the tank and pushed you out of the zone.
Such moments, if any, were when real training happened.
Because there was no greed or raging desire to obtain results.
Because in the absence of conscious effort, real effort surfaced.
And the whole of you was available to the movement. And to the moment.