Tenacity from Creative Improvisation

Spring in the city!

 Excuse the schizophrenic nature of the post- tried to get this down in an understandable format. Recently, in the process of a receiving a particularly painful tattoo(outlines on the elbow during a 2 hour session), I found myself digging deep into my toolbox for help. The pain was excruciating when the buzz of the tattoo gun rattled my bones in the non fleshy areas around the joint. There was no way to displace the sensation or avoid it. There was no special place to go, only the incessant bzzzz. Deep in the recesses of my mind I struggled to find any way to stop the pain without giving up. Suddenly, I remembered a very similar place in the Open WOD 14.5.  During into the long workout- I seemed to have lost everything- my rhythm, my breath, perhaps even  my soul while everything burned like nuclear fire. Out of the air floated down Coach Frieberg's words - 'get back on the bar'. Damn that's it! Why am I treating this experience on the table any different than that of  a really tough workout. I overcame that WOD- I can overcome this.  Breath deep-stay focused-this will end.

Instinctively, I gripped the rope covered steam pipe next to the table as if it was a bar for a thruster or a clean, relaxed my arm under the needle, engaged my core, took a deep breath and boom... it was bearable. Breath, focus and shortly thereafter, it was over. Substituting the lessons of one experience for another to adapt to the situation. Who knew the lessons from a Crossfit workout would apply to everyday life?

No- my arm is not that swollen- its the distortion of focusing so close on the elbow. The redness though- that is real irritation.

We do many things in life that crossover from one field to another. The problem of incongruity is the seed of transformation by the process of overcoming & adapting to adversity. In art school,  we seeded one art medium with another, not as a superfluous challenge just to keep students busy, but as a tool for growth. Tell a photographer to go draw and you get a bunch of bad drawings yet seeded within that freedom of experiencing something new(without the baggage of history)  amazing new ideas.  A new medium for an artist has no rules much less baggage to get in the way which allows creative juices to flow freely. The magic occurs when the artist returns to his original medium, there he has new ideas coupled with experience to produce meaningful artwork.  This transformation is really just a creative improvisation process. Somewhat difficult to teach, but with simple tools and practice it can assist us in everything we do. One can use  simple brainstorming cheats in everyday life to creatively resolve problems. The Marines for example-use Improvise, Adapt and Overcome as a mantra.  We learned in art school SCAMPER: Substitute,Combine, Adapt, Modify or Minify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse, Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

It is no different than  being in a tough workout and feeling tired & dejected in the struggle. There are right ways and wrong ways to complete a movement or push ones cardio- If it's not right,  the feedback loop is a wall of  pain the body pushes against to continue. When the mind thinks the body has run out of steam from over-exertion or exhaustion, we rationalize easily giving up. The fact that there is a wall(pain or exhaustion) is your flag that there is another way, that a transformation is possible. That point where you rationalize dropping the bar and walking away- that is precisely the point where you need to engage the tools from your improvisation toolbox. You dig deep, to use the preferred metaphor of our gym, in yourself for that nugget of change to keep going. Perhaps it is refining your stance, breathing faster or slower, changing the grip, engaging different or more core muscles, changing rep scheme or cadence,...anything you can come up with to successfully overcome the pain of the moment or the idea of quitting to push through.The more time you practice improvising new ways to push against the wall of pain and exhaustion; the stronger physically and mentally you become, thus allowing you to push past the old thresholds of the limits your mind has placed on a capable body. As we grow our ability to work against the wall- we develop tenacity to adapt and overcome & apply it to everything we do in life. Stronger than yesterday, bad-ass everyday.