I am trying hard to keep my calm. It has happened again and I am not happy. Although I respect the many legitimate reasons why a person might quit halfway - I still struggle with the appropriate response. This is not the first time this has happened and I am quite sure it will not be the last. The core issue is that everything we do in training has a purpose. From the first step towards your goal to its eventual completion, everything counts. Meaning that if we decide that any given session, workout or level of effort is more than we are able to negotiate, and give up, we have just given ourselves permission to do it again. And like anything else, we get good at it. We get good at compromise. Pretty soon our entire lives are nothing but compromise. We insist on the easy path.
Please remember that this entire blog is dedicated to the ideology that writing is therapeutic and that sharing should ideally benefit both author and reader. I am you as your are me. By isolating even the slightest issue, being sincere in its examination and with reciprocal collaboration on the many possible ways to improve, considering the thousands of available options, we all benefit. This is, of course, where it gets interesting.
Simply because everyone is different. From the drill sergeant to the Zen monk, from the corrupt politician to the most fervent math teacher and from the musician to the thief, what makes this all work, this living work of art we call life, is that we are all in it together. We all have influence. We all have a voice. We help each other.
And so I offer a pithy comparison to illustrate my dilemma, the one of the low hanging fruit. Someone, a newbie, unmistakably demonstrated his disrespect from the start of class by failing to preform our standard warm-up and stretch. He didn’t even make an attempt. His body language was of disdain for the sequence and, by association, of the instructor. Anyone can pick the apples (or oranges) hanging lowest to the ground. The best ones are at the top. You must try. The ladder is your friend.
We go through our set, an uncommonly relentless series of escalating climbs and sprints with very short recoveries. The recoveries are at a very precise cadence. I have been doing this long enough to know when resistance is appropriate and frequencies are at proper amplitude. He is nowhere near either and I try to encourage him, and the others, in class with motivational cues and encouragement. We are grinding through the set when two of the riders depart. They have informed me prior to the start of the session that they must leave early because they are flying to Peru later in the afternoon. This is perfectly acceptable, they know it and I do too. It is one our our agreements, the rule that IF you MUST leave early, tell me up front.
The guy sees them leave and decides to follow. I can see a ‘get me outta here’ look on his face. He fails to clean his bike on his way to the door. I say nothing, think a lot, not much of it positive.
I decide to share my opinions with the class about five minutes after he has left. It is the old apples and oranges Hobson’s choice.
Apples: Please do not start something, this class as a perfect metaphor, if you do not intend to finish.
Oranges: A little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.
I should find some common ground and not feel so offended when someone completely gives up. When I can see the potential, the lesson and the value in ‘seeing it out’, it is painful to witness its exact apathetic opposite. To me this has always been like a teammate quitting half-way through the race or game because it suddenly became demanding. Or like a soldier deserting his post because the fighting has intensified.
I am sure he had a good reason. I am sure I can find a better way to respond.
Low hanging fruit juice, half apple and half orange for your today Mr. Hobson?
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