Learning
Take care of yourself...
Hit a little wall yesterday after 7 day's in Tassie with Wurfy chasing him up and down a heap of hills. Happily though over all the years of training I realised I have learned a few things. Each and everyday we have a certain amount of energy it's not unlimited in a physical sense. Then this would lead to realising there are limits. Self imposed, imposed by others, imposed by the situation, environment and fundamentally there are things we just can't get our heads around, these are impositions also. Learning to live with all this is critical. While riding up a hill the gross impositions appear vivid and unrelenting. Other during some of these times faded into the background and even seemed to disappear altogether. What I have learned and been reminded of over the last week is how we perceive this limitations and impositions is at the center of what governs our ability to sustain ourselves, our efforts, performances, how we help others and how we influence a wider collective of people. It's relatively easy to have a personal impact on riding a bike up a hill. Even if the particular day is less impressive there is always tomorrow to try again. To improve and to change. This level of learning is simple with less variables and less byplay between elements, characters and objects. Anchor points are more easily found and formed. When I rode up the second last climb two days ago I knew I was limited. An accumulation of fatigue from some 34+ hrs of riding in 7 days with much of it around heart rate 150 bpm had and was taking it's toll. Mentally I had been pushing solidly each day with Wurfy often setting the pace up the climbs. I learned to ride my rhythm, to find my own groove and to sit on the knife edge with fatigue, discomfort and sweat surrounding, penetrating and leaving me. At no stage was it intense like a rowing race or a super burst of effort. It was an experience in sustaining a level of force which body and mind was saying, 'BACK OFF'. Like some sinister and shadowy creator holding an emotional gun to my head. Tempting as it might have been I had committed to the 7 days and on the last to having a great ride with heaps of challenge. You could say I learned what I have learned before and now I have been reminded of it again. Stretching and challenging is healthy. It requires us to keep pushing and to keep seeking motivation for why we would continue on. Why I asked my self on more than one occasion during the 7 days. Even as I spent the day at back home yesterday I was still asking why. Placing your self in a challenging situation forces the questions to be asked. I did this by going to Tassie to train with a good friend. To train in a way which would force the questions to come thick and fast and they did and with each and every moment which one appeared I toiled and churned it around to cultivate and see what I would learn about self, others and the World I am in. Again I say why? To learn is the only answer which I could find. To Learn, but why? It gives life. Maybe. It brings clarity. Not always. It energises, YES, but it can also be draining. Why then would I do any of this? Why would you? To be challenged is something which for sometime now I have said is a reason for my motivation. Maybe challenge is not enough. Challenge without the acknowledgment of the learning required and needed is only one side of the coin. What happens if every time we toss it and it only ever landed on the challenge side. We might assume that is all there is. Every stage, moment, event, session, day, hour and minute if challenged we might eventually find little else but a sense of seeking something which never ends. Flipping the coin, the moment, experience and our perception can bring light to the other side or even sides. Maybe less a coin and more a cube it is with multiple sides and perspectives. A cube like RUBIX which starts out perfect with all colours separated on each side. Then with everyday the play, the games, and events acting to jumble the cube until we finally realise it is rearranged. How we feel about that becomes essential and what we do with it becomes simple a challenge. From this rearranged state we might begin to work to find the form or the essence of this box or cube. Learning to work with it in what ever state jumble or un-jumbled becomes important I think. Living with and learning from it. The challenge of it, the frustration and the joy. So there it is I have gone away for 7 days of challenge which was more about learning than anything else.
Hit a little wall yesterday after 7 day's in Tassie with Wurfy chasing him up and down a heap of hills. Happily though over all the years of training I realised I have learned a few things. Each and everyday we have a certain amount of energy it's not unlimited in a physical sense. Then this would lead to realising there are limits. Self imposed, imposed by others, imposed by the situation, environment and fundamentally there are things we just can't get our heads around, these are impositions also. Learning to live with all this is critical. While riding up a hill the gross impositions appear vivid and unrelenting. Other during some of these times faded into the background and even seemed to disappear altogether. What I have learned and been reminded of over the last week is how we perceive this limitations and impositions is at the center of what governs our ability to sustain ourselves, our efforts, performances, how we help others and how we influence a wider collective of people. It's relatively easy to have a personal impact on riding a bike up a hill. Even if the particular day is less impressive there is always tomorrow to try again. To improve and to change. This level of learning is simple with less variables and less byplay between elements, characters and objects. Anchor points are more easily found and formed. When I rode up the second last climb two days ago I knew I was limited. An accumulation of fatigue from some 34+ hrs of riding in 7 days with much of it around heart rate 150 bpm had and was taking it's toll. Mentally I had been pushing solidly each day with Wurfy often setting the pace up the climbs. I learned to ride my rhythm, to find my own groove and to sit on the knife edge with fatigue, discomfort and sweat surrounding, penetrating and leaving me. At no stage was it intense like a rowing race or a super burst of effort. It was an experience in sustaining a level of force which body and mind was saying, 'BACK OFF'. Like some sinister and shadowy creator holding an emotional gun to my head. Tempting as it might have been I had committed to the 7 days and on the last to having a great ride with heaps of challenge. You could say I learned what I have learned before and now I have been reminded of it again. Stretching and challenging is healthy. It requires us to keep pushing and to keep seeking motivation for why we would continue on. Why I asked my self on more than one occasion during the 7 days. Even as I spent the day at back home yesterday I was still asking why. Placing your self in a challenging situation forces the questions to be asked. I did this by going to Tassie to train with a good friend. To train in a way which would force the questions to come thick and fast and they did and with each and every moment which one appeared I toiled and churned it around to cultivate and see what I would learn about self, others and the World I am in. Again I say why? To learn is the only answer which I could find. To Learn, but why? It gives life. Maybe. It brings clarity. Not always. It energises, YES, but it can also be draining. Why then would I do any of this? Why would you? To be challenged is something which for sometime now I have said is a reason for my motivation. Maybe challenge is not enough. Challenge without the acknowledgment of the learning required and needed is only one side of the coin. What happens if every time we toss it and it only ever landed on the challenge side. We might assume that is all there is. Every stage, moment, event, session, day, hour and minute if challenged we might eventually find little else but a sense of seeking something which never ends. Flipping the coin, the moment, experience and our perception can bring light to the other side or even sides. Maybe less a coin and more a cube it is with multiple sides and perspectives. A cube like RUBIX which starts out perfect with all colours separated on each side. Then with everyday the play, the games, and events acting to jumble the cube until we finally realise it is rearranged. How we feel about that becomes essential and what we do with it becomes simple a challenge. From this rearranged state we might begin to work to find the form or the essence of this box or cube. Learning to work with it in what ever state jumble or un-jumbled becomes important I think. Living with and learning from it. The challenge of it, the frustration and the joy. So there it is I have gone away for 7 days of challenge which was more about learning than anything else.
Comments
As always you quantify (in a way that I could never do) much of what I have felt, experienced and learnt
I am grateful that you can find the words and that I have found your words (since early April 2007).
Thanks .. Geoff
http://eljeiffel.blogspot.com/