Hey there!
Hope your weekend is going well. I just finished writing my post and it turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated. And as I review my writing, I realise that to level up, I need to get a lot better at editing. Can I say the same thing in half the words? Quarter? I don’t know if these are the right questions to ask but let’s start there.
Anyways, the 3 things for today.
on peer pressure and why are we talking about it?
3 quotes for this week
what I think you should go to a gym for - looking good, staying healthy, and getting fit. And on GPP.
on peer pressure
Peer pressure. We face it all the time. I've done a lot of things I did not want to do as a kid because I did not know or understand this any better. I am sure a lot of you have similar experiences. Funnily, these things don't go away after you become an adult.
For me, it was moving away that allowed me to discover myself. What did I want to do? What did I NOT want to do?
Recently, a student of mine spoke to me about peer pressure. I'll refer to this person as TP. Normally, I am reluctant to offer any advice on things that are not in my area of expertise but over the past few months, I've started sharing more of my personal thoughts and journey to allow people to make of it what they can. With a genuine question like the one TP had, I could not abstain from it.
TP is part of a fitness community (besides The Quad) and loves the group and the activity that they are a part of. TP is also a successful professional with a full day and what's leftover is generally prioritised for family first and then friends next. TP's concern was regarding the social outings that the group did and how they could not make it most of the time due to professional commitments. And the backlash, the snide remarks, the peer pressure and negative vibes that it results in.So, TP had a conundrum - love the group, love the activity, is fine hanging out socially but most times just cannot make it. How does one deal with the negative remarks, with the folks who don’t get it, with the silly peer pressure and snide remarks?
Simple. Ask yourself some questions.
Do you have your priorities straight?
Do you want to go? Or would doing something else make you happier?
Are you avoiding all social interactions? Could you make more of an effort?
In the end, do what makes you happy. If it is not a resounding yes, most often it is a NO.
3 quotes for the week
Examine what you tolerate.
We are familiar with how actions are more important than the words we speak. Equally powerful is what we tolerate. When we tolerate something - a stupid, crass joke or tardiness or whatever - we are saying we are okay with it. If it is not something we agree with, then should we tolerate it?
Are we surrounded by true friends? Are we surrounded by people who add value to our lives? Are we setting a good standard? Are we seeing people exhibit good behaviour around us? By examining patterns of behaviour and patterns of toleration, we can see why certain things keep happening again and again.
When we started The Quad, we were told we were silly to expect people to come to class on time. In India. We disagreed. People come on time. Set expectations. Stick to them. And of course, in extreme cases, make exceptions. But when we tolerated lesser and set higher expectations, our students improved.
The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see the bird again.
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
We are pattern machines. We like wrapping things up into a concept and seeing that same pattern or concept everywhere. It makes life easy. It makes data processing easy. And of course, it is a necessary skill.
But there's always a flip side to these things. How often do we enjoy simple pleasures? A sunset is beautiful every single day. The wind on your face is glorious every single day. Watching a bird fly is fascinating. Observing a cat jump and move is to watch gracefulness in action.
But if we've seen it once, we've seen it all.
The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you.
– Elizabeth Gilbert
I needed to read Big Magic before I could understand The War of Art. Her writing is a caress while Steven Pressfield slaps you in the face on every page.
Whenever I think of what I add to the world, or ask myself if what I am doing unique or worthy enough to put out there, I read a bit of this book. Everything that has made me has given me my perspective and voice. Only I can produce a piece of work with me in it. You cannot. But you can produce a piece of work that can only be made by you.
We need to allow it to happen. This means writing a ton of average and poor posts and not posting them. Or posting them and not getting any feedback. But as we do this, as we channel more and more of ourselves to step out into our work, magic happens.
When I started coaching, I realised I needed my own voice to coach. Not everyone gets me. Nor is my coaching style appropriate for everyone. But that's okay. This is the way I am meant to coach and that means the few of you I reach, I connect at a deeper level. That makes both of us better.
If you think a friend will enjoy one of these quotes, do share it with them.
on triads, continuums and GPP
This is a long post. I suggest you read the original here.
Let me summarise it here though, in case you do not like reading too many words.
We want to get fit. Fitness simply means the ability to do a task - what task are you looking to do better? Well, just general fitness and life, whatever that means. Let's probe a bit deeper.
We want to ensure we are healthy for the long-term i.e. all our organs are working well, our mind and body are in good shape and we are doing our bit to stay away from the lifestyle diseases that are all around us - obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure etc
We don't want to feel unfit. Whether it is walking about 10 flights of stairs, or playing with our kids, or looking at ourselves in the mirror. The key is to realise that the end goal that we think we are looking at - flat abs or being a beast - is silly. Maybe we will get there if we fall in love with fitness for the longer term. But if you just don't want to feel unfit, then shouldn't you be looking at what the minimal amount of work you need to do is?
We want to be in that middle. That’s the service we want to provide. While we can bias our results towards the “Get Fit” side if needed, we don’t think the other two should be sacrificed. And if your goals are in the yellow or pink circles, we will ensure that you are taking care of your minimum dose with us, and you need to look at other experts to get to those goals.
Continuums. One thing to realise with looking good, feeling fit, and staying healthy is that these are continuums. That is, we should not be looking at it as 0 or 1. We are unfit or we are fit. Only a 6-pack means you look good and anything else is a 0. Nah!
We want to trend towards the right. What does that mean - might mean different things for each of us. But we need to ask some questions on how we might draw the line. For example,
getting blood pressure checked
getting blood sugar checked
ensuring our weight is in a safe range i.e. via waist:height ratio
how about our cholesterol levels?
and our stress levels?
how often are we connecting with our friends and family?
and so on.
At The Quad, we want to help you have fun while answering the question of how can you get all 3 components - look good, stay healthy and get fit!
Enter GPP or General Physical Preparation.
... any "sport-specific" or goal-specific training must be done on a foundation of general physical preparation (GPP).
The Russian concept of GPP got misinterpreted in the West as metabolic "smokers." Nothing could be further from the truth. GPP embraces all attributes: strength, flexibility, endurance, etc. And when Russians talk about "general" development, they imply a wide carryover to a great many applications: "… the ability … to perform any physical work more or less successfully." (Ozolin, 2005)
Thus GPP is about developing all fitness components with means carefully selected to have the widest possible carryover.
…
GPP is what "functional training" was supposed to be but failed, confused and distracted by random acts of variety.
At The Quad, we make GPP fun. We build on protocols and methods from our favourite coaches, giants in the field, and we adapt them to our students. For a lot of us, that's enough. For those of us with more time to commit or more physical activities we want to dabble in - we provide the foundation for which one can go and explore these things.
As we say, show up 3 days a week. We will take care of it.
Thank you for reading/listening. I’ll see you next Sunday.
