Roz – Page 11 – Serenity Through Sweat

Conquer

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week we made a family project out of rehabilitating our conquered side yard.

I say conquered because the side yard was suffering from a very specific problem. Our water system was malfunctioning and dumping salt water into the surrounding soil.

Like the conquerors of old, the earth was left scorched and salted, preventing any sort of regrowth.

History is filled with examples, both recorded and theatrical, of conquered lands left as scorched and salted earth. The question left is how to rebuild and regrow?

El Duderino helping with the color profile

Grass was clearly not the answer since the salt prevents new growth. So we decided to go with a hard scape. That meant lots of heavy lifting from yours truly.

3 ton of stone, 1,600 lbs of cinder block, and another thousand odd pounds of pavers later, we had reclaimed our conquered side yard.

We added planter boxes for herbs and veggies, and flowers in the cinder blocks for color. The once conquered space is better than it ever had been or even could have been for that matter.

The scorched earth presented the necessity to rebuild, but also the opportunity to reimagine and redesign the conquered space.

Being conquered is not the ending, it is a state of transition. It is in that transition, that struggle, that defines the path ahead.

A lot of things have been scorched, salted, and otherwise conquered over the past year, what are you doing to reimagine the space going forward?

El Duderino’s first fishing trip with grandpa while daddy got some laps around the lake in

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Control

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to revisit another Dune quote that I was thinking about while wrangling my raging toddler.

I’ve spent the majority of my life in the practice of controlling and manipulating other people’s bodies. Wrestling and jui jitsu, at their core, are martial arts of control.

The rule sets are somewhat different, which alters the strategies, reactions, and the way that engagement with an opponent plays out. But, both are incredibly similar in the objective of controlling and manipulating your opponent into a certain positions or techniques.

With jui jitsu especially, I’m reminded of another Frank Herbert Dune quote. “He who can destroy a thing, has true control over it”

In the context of the book, Herbert is talking about a natural resource, and that the ability to destroy it, but also the ability to be without it after it is destroyed, is the true measure of control.

In jui jitsu, the goal to submit your opponent often manifests as true control of a joint. Armbars, shoulder locks, and chokes, are all a form of control over another person’s body, with the ability to destroy that particular part.

Jui jitsu is self described as the “gentle art”, because despite the ability to destroy another person’s joint being the main focus, it can be practiced (if done correctly) at full intensity, without fear of injury. The same thing is hard to say for other martial arts especially ones with striking.

While Herbert’s definition of control is incredibly accurate and very fitting for grappling arts, I would submit that it is overlooking a different element of control that is equally as important

The last two weeks Speedy and El Duderino have transitioned back into daycare. They visit a small in home facility with a provider that takes wonderful care of them. Speedy has been happy as a Clam, but El Duderino, being older and having spent the past year home with us, is struggling to adjust.

This has brought on many of the inconsolable temper tantrums that “allegedly” were frequent in my younger years. I find myself now on the other side of the equation, and trying to exert over it a modicum of control.

I find it interestingly ironic that a toddler having a temper tantrum can be accurately described as both out of control, and self destructing. If the ability to control a thing is based on the ability to destroy, one if our definitions needs a reworking

Once again I find myself manipulating and controlling bodies, this time a raging toddler instead of a fellow grappler. With that change comes a different meaning of control.

The most difficult opponents to grapple are those that respond and react in unpredictable ways. That sums up the movements of a temper tantrum pretty well. Once it escalates to a level where my 40+ lb tasmanian devil could hurt himself, his little brother, or start breaking things, I step in with the attempt to control.

With just shy of 30 years of grappling experience, it isn’t hard to keep him in positions where the risk of injury or property damage is almost non existent, regardless of his erratic movement. Just like the gentle art he can be at full intensity and I’m not worried about hurting him. But unlike the gentle art, I’m not looking to destroy anything (except maybe his current mood)

This type of control has, as it’s foundational definition, compassion and preservation rather than destruction. When I’m truly in control of him I’m no longer worried about him hurting himself or somebody else. Just like a wrestler who lifts his opponent off the mat is responsible for his safe return, this level of control is focused solely on the safety of the other.

I would argue that while being able to destroy a thing is indeed control over it, being able to prevent it’s destruction requires just as much, if not more control.

I’ve always been grateful for the many gifts that grappling has given back to me over the years. This new level of control is just one more blessing, and one I look forward to sharing with my boys (once they no longer require me to practice it on them of course)

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Running, cycling, and heavy bag with a predatory audience

Lurking

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past weekend we had a 6ft gator lurking around our backyard. It got me thinking about what other threats are lurking.

I was especially ready to hit the heavy bag on Saturday. My wife had a hernia repair at the beginning of the week. That left me dealing with a rambunctious 3 year old El Duderino, and a nonpliant newly toddling Speedy, neither of which were ready for a week without mommy snuggles.

Our reptilian friend still lurking in the background

I first noticed the gator when I started to hang the heavy bag. The heavy bag seemed to be a magnet, drawing the gator to the water’s surface in the middle of the lake, and then swimming a beeline to the lake’s edge at the foot of my backyard.

With a gator at the water’s edge, I thought about my level of risk aversion, especially while wearing boxing gloves and hand wraps, and being focused on my workout rather than the reptile. The threat was lurking, was I comfortable with it, and was there anything I could do to be more prepared?

Ultimately, it was the thumping of the heavy bag waking up Speedy that ended my workout, not our neighborhood gator. I found myself with my sweat cut short and my serenity still lacking.

My blood still pumping from the first five rounds, my patience worn thin from a challenging week, and now an interrupted sweat session, blinded me to the threat that had been lurking closer and closer throughout the week, my temper.

My wife did not deserve my frustration, but she was the recipient. My boys did nothing out of the ordinary to precipitate my descent from mostly calm fatherhood, but nevertheless there is was.

The threat (my temper) had been building all week, lurking below the surface, and was finally exposed by the accumulation of minutiae.

An old boss and friend you used to tell me “this business is full of traps, what is the trap that is going to get you?”. He wasn’t referring to parenthood or marriage, but I think it applies equally to both.

This week the trap was one of my own making, born out of my inadequacies. To my wife and boys I am sorry. This week I fell short of serenity. But, as El Duderino often says, “maybe we could try again tomorrow to make the good choice”.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Back in the saddle with Layla and some longer running miles with the boys in daycare

Family tradition

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about a family tradition I was able to finally get back to.

Part of the traditional polish Easter meal as far back as I can remember in my family has been pierogi. My family makes pierogi the way Hallmark channel families make Christmas cookies.

There is an assembly line of pierogi production that involves the whole family and consumes not only the entire kitchen but also the entire day.

The dough is made from scratch, rolled and pressed into circular form, before being stuffed and crimped. The cabbage (a family favorite) is sauteed for hours before being ready to fill the pierogi.

Each pierogi has to be boiled and quick cooled before being stored. The pierogi have to be wrapped so they don’t stick to each other in the freezer when it is time to fry them.

I have bypassed this family tradition and labor of love for the past three years since El Duderino was born. Every year I said I wanted to do it, and Easter came and went without me making the time.

Speedy helping crimp pierogi, and acting as official taste tester

The past year has put a lot of things in perspective and a family tradition was not something that I was going to pass on again.

That said, pierogi production isn’t exactly a toddler friendly activity. So my wife and worked together to make sure we could keep the boys active and still share the tradition with them.

She took El Duderino out for the morning and afternoon while I worked at a furious pace during Speedy’s morning nap. I then finished production one handed while holding Speedy after we both stopped for a lunch break.

Despite the fact that El Duderino has passed every time I’ve fried up some pierogi, I’m glad I made the time to share this tradition with my boys, and my family.

There are always a plethora of excuses not to do something, especially with two young boys ruining around. One of my biggest parenting struggles, is deciding what things I want to pass down to my boys and what things inevitably fall by the wayside.

This year family tradition for back in the win column, and I mean to keep it there.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Je ne sais quoi

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about an indescribable quality, a certain je ne sais quoi, that is a child first learning to walk.

Je ne sais quoi is a French phrase that is a used for “a pleasant quality that is hard to describe”. Literally translated, it means “I don’t know what”.

The first time I remember it being used was in a Sonic commercial for boneless wings. One guy says the wings are going to help him out with the ladies as his wingman, to which the other replies, “oh they’re going to give you that, je ne sais quoi?”. “Wait what did Jenna say, did she mention me by name?” Go back and give it a watch, it is still just as hilarious.

That hard to describe pleasant quality can mean a lot of different things based on the context. As Speedy is starting to test his legs walking, I struggled to come up with the right words to describe his (and every other child learning to walk) demeanor.

Perseverance, determination, discipline, there are plenty of words that come to mind when we don’t give up in the face of a challenge that we have deemed worthy of our time and energy.

Learning to walk obviously fits that description, but there is something different about a child’s approach to the particular learning process of walking for the first time.

Walking is an innate human ability, and thanks to modern medicine we can see examples of adults learning to walk again after some form of trauma. However, the approach is significantly different from that of a child learning for the first time.

Discipline doesn’t really apply because babies don’t have a regimen when it comes to learning to walk. Sure there are some things they try before taking those first steps (walking toys or pushing chairs, and pulling themselves up on furniture,) but those are organic experiments more than organized plans towards a desired goal.

El Duderino helping install cabinet locks and wash cars, he even brought his own tools

Perseverance is perhaps a little more apt, but still misses the mark. Most kids will pull themselves up on a surface, fall in an attempt to walk, and then appear to lose interest and revert to crawling, only to appear inspired anew in a few minutes. Is it really perseverance if it appears to be a first attempt every attempt, or if you seem to lose interest and the regain it on an apparent whim?

There is perseverance, determination, and discipline. There is pain, frustration, eventually triumph, and a slew of other emotions along the way. Still there is a innocent, indescribable, pleasant quality, a je ne sais quoi, about a child learning to walk that is inspiring.

Speedy taking his mobility vertical

As adults we encourage each other to take “baby steps” when learning something new. I always assumed this meant small, measured, slightly nervous steps, like, you know, a baby takes. Maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong. Maybe that je ne sais quoi of a child’s learning is less about unsure legs and more about being undeterred in the face of upright mobility, and approaching the challenge organically when the body and mind are ready.

I still can’t quite put my finger on what exactly it is. But, if we all continue to learn into adulthood, the way a child learns to walk, with that certain je ne sais quoi, we’ll all be that much closer to serenity.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Some windy runs (17mph in the face on my tempo run) and 10 rounds of heavy bag therapy

Reason

Thanks for joining me for the 100th edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past week has seen a dramatic uptick in tantrums from El Duderino, and the following quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah seemed especially fitting.

“Reason is the first victim of strong emotion”. If that doesn’t sum up a toddler tantrum terrifically, I don’t know what does.

It doesn’t matter what set it off, or what he was or wasn’t allowed to do/have/play with/ etc. Once he is in tantrum mode there us no reasoning with him.

A toddler temper tantrum is a pretty obvious example of reason giving way to strong emotion, but I started thinking about how often I’m guilty of the same thing, (and without the excuse of an underdeveloped frontal lobe)

The past year, with stresses from work, family, and everything COVID, how many times has my reason been the victim of my emotios? The answer is probably too many.

SerenityThroughSweat, breathing, exertion, perspiration, all help tremendously in processing, deciphering, and managing that emotion in order to return me to a reasonable state.

Tantrums lead to boo-boos, boo-boos lead to bandaid mustaches

Sometimes that’s not a viable option for me, and telling El Duderino to go take a lap doesn’t seem like the best parenting for a three year old, so my wife provided some much needed guidance.

From the Harvard Health Blog, the three steps to parenting a tantrum are to validate the emotion, ignore the dandelions, and praise good behavior.

Validating the emotion yelled your toddler you are listening to them and even if you don’t agree, you understand what the are feeling.

Dandelions, are the bad behaviors that pop up as a result of the tantrum. The blog equates giving them attention to watering them in your garden. What you water grows, or the behaviors you respond to persist.

Assuming alternate forms isn’t always result of a tantrum

Likewise, praising cooperative and good behavior will help the toddler come out of the tantrum and back into a reasonable state, or at least as reasonable as a three year old can be.

I think these same principles can serve adults with some sense of emotional awareness. Validate your own emotions. Be aware of them and feel them, but beyond awareness, only spend your time and energy on the emotions and actions that you want to grow, otherwise you’ll get stuck in the weeds.

And if all else fails, go take a lap and sweat your way to serenity.

Windy runs this week, intervals, tempo, and a 10k

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Tangible

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about something I struggle with both personally and professionally, the nature of a tangible finished product.

I think all of us feel a sense of pride and purpose from a completed project. There is something about our own creation, something new where before there was something old, or even nothing, that fills a hole inside all of us.

Even the simplest of tasks can produce a spectrum of emotion inside and generate the momentum necessary for a positive day. But it is easy to overlook so many of our tasks because the world we live in has moved away from the tangible.

An early birthday celebration for Speedy

As a pilot I struggle with this concept. On a given three or four day trip I will fly hundreds if not a few thousand people. Each of them have a story, a reason for traveling, and connecting them from point A to point B is an important and fulfilling endeavor.

But, at the end of a long day of flying sometimes it is hard to remember where I even went. There is nothing to show for my day’s work, just another hotel room and another day’s worth of missions ahead. The service I provide is very real and valuable, but it lacks a tangible nature that serves as a validation and a reminder of worth.

Fitness has a lot of the same characteristics. Miles run or biked, kettlebells swung, pull-ups rep’d, they are all valuable and worthy endeavors. Oftentimes though we are left only with a puddle of sweat and delayed onset muscle soreness as our only reminder of the work that was done.

I think that is why I feel a special sense of fulfillment when I complete a project around the house. To build, to create, to progress through a planned project, producing something new, scratches an itch that is left unattended by my other endeavors.

My wife requested a new bench for our kitchen table. The project was a relatively simple one, and we were able to involve the whole family in one way or another. The result is nothing special, but it is functional, matches the existing table, and is more resilient than it’s predecessor.

Beyond that it is a tangible creation, a useful household item shaped by family hands, and a reminder of the fruits of our labor. The bench project has been a nice change of pace from a expiration based service job and a a fitness journey that is mostly solo (especially during covid).

I hope that we are all able to find serenity in both the tangible and the intangible as they ebb and flow through our lives.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Time

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I celebrated my birthday this week, and I’m thinking about how we measure time, especially with the unusual events of the past year.

The traditionally accepted secular calendar we are all used to is the Gregorian calendar, and it is predated by the Romulus calendar, and the Julian calendar.

The Romulus calendar had ten months from March through December. The year started with the spring equinox and ended 304 days later at the end of December, leaving a no man’s land of winter until the next year began anew.

The second Roman empire Numa, decided to change the system to a lunar based year, and give names to the nameless period of winter. January and February were added and the year, based on lunar cycles, resulted in 355 days.

At the time in Rome, even numbers were considered unlucky, so every month had either 29 or 31 days except February which had to have 28 in order to round out the Lunar year at 355 days.

Measuring the passage of time by lunar cycles is as good a way as any, except if you are a farmer trying to plant your crops based on the Earth’s relative position in orbit of the Sun.

A 355 day lunar year, after a few years, resulted in mismatched seasonality for the crop growing population. This was corrected by inserting a 27 day leap month called Mercedonious every few years. Starting on February 24th, the month would be added, or not, at the discretion of the roman high priests.

El Duderino kicked his undies all the way up to the chandelier as part of his new pre potty ritual

This obviously resulted in significant confusion not knowing whether an entire month would be added, or being able to plan ahead for agrarian lifestyles.

Julius Caesar changed the calendar back to a Solar based calendar with 365 days, (and a single leap day when appropriate) but maintained the 28 day month of February. In order to realign the correct seasonality of the months with the new calendar, the year 46 BC was 445 solar days long.

I think we can all sympathize with our ancient ancestors, as 2020 (and especially that past 12 months from March to March) has seemed like a 445 day year with mismatched seasonality and no predictability.

Virtual high school reunion with scotch tasting

Still, the sun rose and set, the moon changed phases, and the requisite number of calendar pages were flipped. The year passed by, but how did you measure it?

For me, (and I would venture for most of us) the year brought a level of stress and uncertainty that I had not previously known. That necessitated a shift in focus and an awareness of my emotions, and the habits that feed them.

A lot of my plans and my ambitions were put on hold, and that energy needed an outlet. I find myself restless, angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed. I think more than anything the last twelve months presented an opportunity to confront these things in my life, rather than occupy myself with other things.

When everything is shut down, the internal struggle is amplified. The struggle continues, but I have an awareness and an appreciation for it that I don’t think would have been possible without the last year.

Seasons of love tells us there are 525,600 minutes and asks us how we measure a year. Regardless of the calendar you subscribe to, I hope the last twelve months have brought you an awareness and an appreciation like only a pandemic can.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Attitude

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’ve been working my way through Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland while also sharing the the original Disney film from 1951 and the 2010 remake with El Duderino.

There is enough whimsy in Carroll’s works to make them enjoyable for readers of all ages, but also an engaging wordplay that adds an invigorating layer for more adept readers.

El Duderino getting in on the heavy bag training

Alice has just fallen down the rabbit hole and finally reached the bottom. She has spied the most beautiful garden through a small door but is much to big to fit through. She thinks that she ought to be able to collapse herself like a telescope, and that if she could just begin to, she would know how to do the rest.

Carroll narrates Alice’s mood early in the book saying “For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

I find myself often reciting my own version of Carroll’s message to my wife and El Duderino saying “not with that attitude” after they have decided that something or other can’t be done.

“I don’t think that bite will fit in your mouth”, or “you can’t carry all those toys in one trip”

A very merry birthday to the best wife and mother

Most of the time this is done in jest, or poking fun at my wife, since El Duderino still lacks the finer understanding of sarcasm. Nonetheless, the truth in Carroll’s words and my own version remain. Our attitude can go a long way in determining what is in fact possible.

All kidding aside, attitude plays a huge part in determining what we are capable of. Whether it is a physical project, a problem you need to think your way out of, or an emotional battle, the right attitude can make all the difference.

Some running with El Duderino to explore new playgrounds

This is especially true with toddlers, and a lesson I’m trying to improve in myself and model for my boys. The range of things that three year old boys are capable of with the right attitude versus the wrong attitude is staggering. The same goes for thirty something year old men.

Just as Alice discovers throughout her adventures, very few things are indeed impossible, but only if you have the right attitude.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Lost in Translation

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m working my way through The Immortality Key by Brian C Muraresku, and a recurring theme is the true message of some ancient text being lost in translation.

Muraresku is a modern day Indiana Jones and his book walks you through his years long quest for an understanding of the world’s oldest religion.

It’s easy to get lost in the swagger and swashbuckling that Harrison Ford portrays on screen, and forget that behind every adventure in a lost temple, were hours buried in a book studying the ancient languages.

Muraresku embarks on an adventure that only he can, because in the end he is the only one able to read the treasure map. A student of the classics, he meticulously follows breadcrumbs left in a mixture of Latin, ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Castellan, German, and English.

What he finds are the clues that have been hiding in plain sight, in large part due to translation gaffes, either unwitting or intentional.

Following Muraresku’s story I’m reminded how fragile our communication really is. There are so many opportunities for our message to be “lost in translation” on a day to day basis, even without the perils of centuries old dead language.

Muraresku demonstrates, in sometimes hard to follow detail, the effort and energy required to find the intended message through translation. What we are left with is a different message entirely. Which begs the question why don’t we put that same effort into our everyday communication? After all, we are mostly speaking the same language not trying to revive the original content from a centuries forgotten dialect.

From inadequate ability to encode our feelings into a message, transmitting that message through a faulty medium, or improper decoding of the message, everyday communication is a minefield that demands precise navigation.

A value has been placed on instantaneous data transmission, at the expense of verification, which is a much more time and labor intensive process. Who cares what you felt, how you’ve grown and changed, and what message you wanted to disseminate, when the 140 characters you tweeted a decade ago are readily available for instant scrutiny?

The desire to be understood, to clearly communicate our wants and desires to others, is universal, and begins as soon as we are born. Yet somehow the same desire to understand, and to properly translate the incoming message has been left lagging behind.

Whether it is a frustrated child, a tired spouse, or a centuries old prophet, we could all find a little more serenity, by taking the time to translate the message and communicate better.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Hiking with my favorite adventure partner