Exercise Practice: Beginner’s Mind

When I first became an instructor I was gung ho. I dedicated myself to being THE BEST. To that end, I was merciless. My every action had to be harder, faster, better and stronger than the rest. To hear anything less than praise for my performance wounded my pride.

Easily bored, always wanting MORE, I was an intense bundle of raw energy. Perpetually unaware of sacrificing integrity, here or there, I wielded my ego like a sword and the two edges were always being sharpened on flesh and bone. In need of perpetual advancement, I was encouraged to embrace a Beginner’s Mind but I had a complete inability to enjoy the silence, be still or respect limitations.

Once I decided on a plan of action, I set forth undeterred. I worked 7 days a week, taught over 30 classes and participated in each one.  I trained for a triathlon, endurance races, yoga, martial arts and anything that tickled my fancy. When I got hurt, I would just switch it up until that wound healed. When teaching, I often alienated people by pressing them too hard. If I was going to be hard on myself, why should anyone else be spared the rod?

My mentors would sit me down to instill the value of keeping a Beginner’s Mind. Humility allows you to focus and realize that achievement is measurable in millimeters. Consider that a glacier is one of the fastest moving natural formations in the world and to the naked eye it looks still. Johnny G, the inventor of Spinning, told me to master having “a mind like water.” Water can be soothing, cleansing, calm, raging, relaxing and lethal. I accepted the advice but only superficially. I was conditioned to ignore the evidence. I had married all my insecurities and turned them into my strengths. I wasn’t ready to stop beating myself up or to accept that, in reality, there was always a sinking feeling that I was “not good enough.” I needed to finish my spiral uninterrupted.

I have never known anyone to have a “Come to Jesus” moment when things are going well. Only as I grew more injured, lost work, lost clients, was I willing to acknowledge than wrestle that ego driven beast. True to form, everything I learn I prefer to do the hard way.

Today I own the maturity to approach my Life with a Beginner’s Mind. This is the philosophical foundation of KINETIC Sculpt™ and the meaning of “Exercise Consciously.”

Practicing humility is a process. It is not enough to say it. You need to live it. Trust me, I don’t excel at it every day.

1. Before you go to the gym clear your head.
Check-in with your ego. Your exercises will always be led by your truest thoughts about yourself.
a. What are you expecting to get out of this workout? Be specific. i.e. I want to be able to do 15 pull ups.
b. Do you have a plan?
c. Are you building on a plan?
d. Do you show up to class/workout surrendering to the instructor or do you enter with expectations?

2. No pain. You gain.
Are you body aware? There is a marked difference between strength training and building a pain tolerance. Being body aware requires possessing the ability to articulate what your body is feeling and triggering the right muscles at the right time. Often when a person doesn’t feel the movement, (s)he thinks the next best thing is to go heavier or increase the level of difficulty. This is a great way to hurt yourself. Building a pain tolerance is not equal to fatiguing a muscle.

3. Exercise is NOT always about progression.
Nothing in Life goes up, up, up all the time. To grow at anything you must push forward, stop, review, perhaps retrace your steps.
a. Always approach your exercise from a beginner’s mind. Be curious. Do not take your skills for granted. Walk yourself through the process mentally first.
b. Don’t think you are too good to work with the less skilled. Taking on the roll of coach in a partnership will build your own skill. You will be cognizant of your own accomplishments and it will affirm whether or not you really know your stuff.
c. A skilled athlete can make the simple challenging. (S)he knows how to trigger a muscle and intuitively feel the burn. Increasing the pain quotient isn’t going to teach feeling. It will ONLY teach you pain tolerance. A pain that we are used to is no les painful. Would you care to live pain-free if it were available? It is available.

4. Look at what you are really doing and pay attention to the REAL results these actions produce.
a. Do you spend more time watching TV, engaging in chit-chat or listening to music than you do focusing on your exercises? Your intensity may or may not be missing.
b. Do you enter classes and training late or leave early? It is not a complete workout if you haven’t finished it, regardless of your reasons or excuses.
c. Do you workout for psychological benefits? We can’t quantify feelings yet. Exercise should produce a measurable result. An endorphin rush is a subtle drug addiction. There’s nothing wrong with a relaxing yoga class but mix and match these efforts.

5. To grow you are going to have push through a lot of barriers.
The older we get the harder it is to maintain your fitness. This is a simple fact. My advice is approach your exercise as if it were new. Every now and again attempt to reinvent yourself. Start something new and don’t get caught chasing your tail.

Everything I share is an incorporated practice. I didn’t read it somewhere and espouse it. I live it daily. I am committed to this journey. It is the path I know to longevity. Slow and steady wins the race. Power and force are doled out in smaller quantities and that is why every workout should NOT be a full-on power set. Schedule your time and efforts wisely. Beginner’s Mind is my recommendation to move past plateaus.

Please consider what I have shared. There’s no right or wrong, just choices and paths. It will all lead to the same place eventually. It is really a matter of how we choose to cross the finish line.

Consciously yours,
Erwin