Do That Thing

A new guy walks in. He looks fit, Dad bod indicating that in the twenty years since college he has added a few. I meet and greet. Get him set up. Read him our version of Miranda rights. I inform him that he has selected a particularly challenging day in which to test our program. We are after all, in week two of the infamous Super Eight protocol. We do these every Wednesday at oh-five-thirty. They sting like nettles on bare legs and don’t just take your breath away, they sell it too. Robert Cray nailed it when he penned ‘The Forecast (calls for pain),’ while in a completely different genera Rodney Atkins warns us that ‘If you’re going through Hell’ to ‘Keep on Goin.’ You get the idea. 

He is doing fine as we push through the progression. I am keeping an eye on him multitasking in my analysis of his prowess and performance. We might have a keeper here. 

We make it through the hors d'oeuvres set, five tasty thirty-second blasts of eighty-five percent power, a five minute waltz (actually more like a salsa today) into and out-of the groove zone, where I took full advantage of the lower intensity power requirement to once again expound on my current understanding of the urgency associated with our collective goal, the importance of moving towards continual improvement and the dynamic synergy possible with the balancing of optimum parts of mind, body and spirit. 

We recover and repeat, enduring the demands of the main course eight. We are back in the GZSS*, prepping for the desert entree of the final four at eighty-five when a young man comes to the door and tries to gain the attention of the new guy. I immediately assume that the young man, maybe a senior in high school or an underclassman at the U, buff, cut and athletic, is the new guy's son. Cool. 

One of our regulars in the front row, he a father of three highly successful and talented sons, looks at the kid and invites him to join. Dad is sweating hard, a pool of salty coolant on the floor beneath his bike. The kid, who has been lifting upstairs, shakes his head and announces that biking is not his thing. He moves away from the door and towards the water cooler for a drink before anyone can offer a rebuttal.

We have ten minutes remaining. The trauma is over and we are cooling down. I am struggling to improvise an appropriate response to the exchange, a first-time occurrence in our dojo. 

We warm-down, stretch and finish with the obligatory applause, saluting the efforts of the team. I finish with a spontaneous insight:

‘Always do the thing you consider not your thing.’ 

You can quote me on that. 

*Groove Zone Sweet Spot.