"What should I do for active recovery?"
As I was making my way out of the gym,
I overheard one of the young athletes ask this to his "coach".
And as I noticed my knee-jerk internal response to what I heard,
(which was - "How childish, stupid and unaware could you guys be?")
I calmed my mind - "Hold your horses, dear friend."
~~~
Now before I continue,
I am going to make some assumptions about you.
(Yes, you, the reader who has his eyes on these words on your monitor,
phone or whatever new interface mankind has been able to discover by now.)
The two assumptions I am going to make are these ...
1) You are fairly new to my website or ran into it for the first time.
2) You are are a mainstream/semi-mainstream athlete or coach.
The reason I am going to make these two assumptions,
is because unlike most of my posts, which are "put out there",
with this one, I really want it to hit home about certain things.
What things?
We will get to that soon.
If the assumptions do not apply to you, you are more than welcome to stick around,
(In fact, unless you did not just randomly fell from somewhere,
you would find that you cannot help but stick around).
Alright.
Enough digression.
Let us get to it.
Dear unenlightened, sleepy, sleepy human being,
you are in deep, deep trouble.
But fear not, for if you do something NOT, nothing "bad" will happen.
It is just that you will stay exactly where you have been for as long as you can remember!
And actually,
to be completely honest,
staying exactly where one has been no matter how recent was their start,
to me is akin to being dead and never really getting to experience progress.
For there is "progress" that happens over weeks and months,
and then there is PROGRESS that happens almost every moment!
Yes.
That is how I feel walking around in society.
And I cannot help but wonder,
how the same basic things that make me what I am - a living and breathing human -
you know - blood, bones, viscera, muscles, gray-matter and other things,
can also make those I see around me.
I say it because I cannot seem to fathom putting myself
in their shoes or even contemplate asking, behaving, doing and being
in the manner they do.
And that is why my mind responded,
the way it did when I heard the innocent 21-year-old ask his "coach"-
"What should I do for "active recovery"?"
Now before I take apart what was asked,
and show clearly how completely non-sensical, unimaginative and backward of a statement it really is,
I will say this ...
It is NOT the 21-year-old's fault!
His only "fault", is that he was born and bred in a society,
that at its very root preaches...
...mediocrity in the name of "success",
...group-thinking and herd-behavior in the name of "individualism" and "be yourself",
...regression in the name of "innovation" and "progress",
and things that at the core make one sacrifice their true talent,
but sugar-coated enough to "sound interesting" and forcing the addict out of everyone.
...
Let us start from the end of the statement - "active recovery"
What is recovery?
Let me guess, you will begin to answer some jargon from a book
or an article that you were recently exposed to.
To which I will say,
If you had to read something to understand that which is the part and parcel of existence,
then I will pay no heed to anything that will come out of your mouth.
Yes.
Recovery is not something "to be done"!
In fact, any active attempt at recovering would imply that one is not really RECOVERING!
They will (actively) walk? They will not RECOVER.
They will (actively) swim? They will not RECOVER.
They will (actively) foam-roll? They will not RECOVER.
They will (actively) "do yoga"? They will not RECOVER.
Yes.
True recovery is about INactivity.
Now before you get all excited and say...
"Yes! One must do things like "long stretches" or "Yin yoga""
I will call you out again on that!
NO!
My friend, here is the Truth you do not get ...
One needs NOT to DO anything to recover.
True recovery is about UNDOING!
So before bothering with recovering, one must master the art of being inactive!
Walking ... inactively.
Swimming ... inactively.
Foam rolling ... inactively.
Doing Yoga ... inactively.
Anything ... inactively.
For when one can do anything and everything INactively,
everything becomes RECOVERY!
Yes.
And the thing inactive in "Active Recovery" is ...
...zilch, nothing!
...
I understand that you are yet grasping what was said above,
so please revisit, but I must continue with the rest of the original question,
here it is again ...
"What should I do for "active recovery"?"
The other thing completely broken in his question,
is right at the beginning -
"What should I...".
This is something I have almost given up in trying to impart to the society I am surrounded with.
It is not just that asking "What should I" or "How to" is almost instantaneous.
It is not just that such questions are encouraged.
It is not just that no one knows anything.
It is that ...
... no one WANTs to KNOW anything!
Do you realize if the person in question,
knew what he was doing,
he would not have to ask "What should I..." in the first place!
Now I will warn you,
your Mind may have made what I said,
completely normal to you.
"Of course he does not know"
But you do not understand the graveness of the problem!
You have no idea what you are dealing with.
"What grave problem?" - you say?
"What is wrong?" - you ask?
What is not the problem, my friend?
If an athlete needs to ask "What should" for non-sensical things like "active recovery",
do I have to write a book to necessitate the absolute darkness of your predicament?
You are LOST, my friend.
You and your athletes are completely LOST.
For no one knows why they do what they do.
For everyone is deeply programmed to ask "what should I", "how should I", "When Can I" etc
Every single one of you is an over-thinking robot.
Every single one of you is but a slave to your Mind.
Every single one of you is conditioned to believe...
...that what you have been doing is THE way to do things.
But I will openly say ...
... all you have been "up to" is scratching the tippy tip of the iceberg.
You have created your house at the top and content leveraging the tip.
And you are so many, many light years away from even contemplating -
"Hmm... is there more than the tip of this iceberg?",
that unless something completely unforeseeable or unimaginable happens in front of your eyes,
you will gladly continue to believe what you believe.
And in doing so you will continue to head the other way.
And so,
I cannot even say to even a single one of you...
See you on the other side, friend.
For something tells me,
that no one on your side,
will truly get my message.