Family – Serenity Through Sweat

Change

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I want to talk about change, how we are the most adaptable creatures on the planet, and at the same time, are incredibly resistant to change.

It has been longer than I like since my last post, but as you know, life has a a tendency to get in the way.

El Duderino had his second cataract removal surgery this month, which saw me home with him helping him recover. By helping him recover, I mean making sure he gets all the requisite eye drops in. Sometimes, that done with a gentle hand and a gentle word. Other times, it was my best grappling skills to stabilize bodied in a pacifying manner.

Last time bouncing before surgery and healing time

The surgery went well, and El Duderino is on his way to a bright new future, quite literally. In the days immediately after the surgery though, he refused to open his eyes. Both the recently operated on eye, as well as the already recovered eye.

The first day after surgery is crucial for examination, I’m told. So much so, that the eye Dr asked about putting him under anesthesia a second time if she was unable to examine the eye.

It took every ounce of physical and emotional strength I had to hold him down the day after surgery. Squirming and screaming in the eye doctor’s chair, he was adamant on not opening his eyes.

Outside of normal human functions, breathing, moving, talking, the one activity I have spent more of my life doing than anything else, is forcibly controlling bodies. I felt uniquely qualified for this task, in spite of the emotional toll it took on me.

It didn’t occur to me that this change would be so jarring for him. I don’t know what his vision was before. I don’t really know what it is now. We have metrics that we can assign to vision, and those metrics have improved. But his lived experience, even as a very articulate six year old, is very hard to discern.

Going from a cloudy field of vision, to a clear field of vision, even with a brief hiatus in recovery seemed like it should be a good change. One to be welcomed and embraced. Instead, he retreated. He stayed in a self imposed darkness for almost three full days.

We were able to pry his eye open safely the day after surgery. Every other attempt to get him to open his eyes over the next three days was unsuccessful. Look, your favorite show is on TV, “no thanks”. Can you help me pick out some cookies to share with our friends? “Maybe you can just tell me about them”.

I’m not sure what he was thinking or feeling. The most I was able to get out of him was, “it feels funny when I open it”

And still, after the third day, his eyes opened, like it had never happened. He adapted to his new reality. How can we as a species be both so stubborn and so adaptable?

I’ve been doing a lot more grappling in the past few months as I transition out of triathlon season. I’ve also tried to train at different gyms across the country as I travel, preparing for an upcoming competition.

I was recently training at a 10th planet gym, known for their unorthodox no gi style, especially their guard. The head instructor commented that I had one of the best “wrestler guards” he had seen in a while.

Wrestlers are programmed from day one not to go to their back. I heard Daniel Cormier (UFC double champ and Olympic wrestler) recently say he can’t sleep on his back without having nightmares, a sentiment I had during my high-school wrestling days as well.

Cycling miles fell off a bit as BJJ season picks up.

As I have transitioned to BJJ over the last decade, I have made a concerted effort to play guard and feel comfortable off my back. At this point, most of my training time is spent there, fighting from my back, or at least the bottom position.

I have adapted extremely well to the new rule set and strategy of Jiu Jitsu. And yet, at this latest competition, I found myself stubbornly insisting on wrestling, despite almost none of my training and preparation for this competition, including wrestling of any sort.

Like a small child with my eyes closed, I clung to what was familiar, shaying away from a change that had already happened. A change that has made me better.

It is difficult in the heat of the moment to embrace the new game plan and not revert to the comfort of old patterns. I’ve done a great job making this change in the gym, but have yet to see that transition fully materialize in competition.

Adaptable and stubborn. Embracing change, and simultaneously rejecting it. Hiding from it. Eyes closed curled up under the blanket.

As the saying goes, the only constant, is change. We are incredibly adaptable creatures, and there is serenity to be found in embracing that change.

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

Loss

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past weekend I competed in the Pan American Jiu Jitsu championships, and I wanted to share my results and my experience.

One of my favorite TV shows in college was scrubs. This was in a TV era where dvr technology had just emerged but I couldn’t afford it at the time.

New episodes of your favorite show aired at a certain time, on a certain day. If you weren’t able to watch it you had to wait till the episode reran. Or, maybe you were lucky enough to have a friend with a dvr and could watch it at their house.

This also gave rise to the spoiler, and the spoiler alert. Someone who watched the newest episode would inevitably want to discuss it with you, knowing that you were also a fan, but unaware that you hadn’t seen it yet.

My roommates and I watched a lot of scrubs. The show was humorous and heartwarming. I was never really concerned about spoilers. (Lost was another story)

Most of the show was narrated in the voice of JD, John Dorian. The main character played by Zach Braff who works his way as a doctor through the Sacred Heart Hospital and grows up along the way.

There are a few episodes which are narrated by his tough love mentor figure, Dr Cox. These episodes occur after Dr Cox’s botched vasectomy where he is having overly philosophical conversations with his infant son Jack, swinging in a baby rock n play. (Way more back story than you needed, but that was more for my trip down memory lane than anything else)

That image of a grown man, established and respected in his profession, bearing his soul to an unresponsive drooling baby swinging back and forth, is one I think about often with this blog.

It is a very one sided conversation, a monologue with a captive audience that is unable to respond.

It is also a beautiful moment of vulnerability and sensitivity for an otherwise rough and gruff character. Dr Cox bearing his soul to a child who likely won’t remember any of what is said.

A lot of this blog is directly or indirectly for my boys. That they might look back in time at the man their father was before they were able to understand such adult intricacies. I found myself in one of those conversations yesterday with El Duderino.

My wife had taken the boys to a birthday party while I went to the Jiu Jitsu tournament. I was able to join them after a rather unceremonious first round loss. By the time I got there El Duderino was in a full meltdown.

My wife scooped him up and took him home. I stayed with Speedy for another hour or so, letting him play while I caught up with friends.

We had a very nice rest of the evening as a family, bit when it came time for bed El Duderino was still struggling. There were lots of things I could have said to him. Things I know have worked in the past to calm him down. But I found myself giving one of those Dr Cox like monologues to a somewhat captive audience instead. (El Duderino had crawled into his trundle bed mattress while it was still tucked under his twin bed, I layed at the lengthwise exit so he was very much a captive audience)

I told him he seemed sad and upset. I told him I felt sad, and upset, and disappointed. I told him I had competed that afternoon and lost. I told him I fell short of my goals and expectations. I told him that good things can be born from disappointment.

I tried to boil my feelings down to a five year old, hiding under the bed, level. To put my disappointment, frustration, and anger into a positive light for El Duderino to see. To show him the soil that can be tilled for growth out of loss.

I don’t know if the lesson sank in. I may never know. I don’t think I was as gracious in loss as I ought to have been in the moment. Losing 0-0 by advantage is a tough pill to swallow. But there was a unique catharsis in sharing the emotions of my loss with my young son. I had never experienced that before.

I don’t like to lose. I am very fortunate to still be somewhat unaccustomed to it, after essentially thirty years of grappling. Still, I recognize the lessons to be learned. Even more so now that I am a father. I hadn’t competed in a Jiu Jitsu tournament in three years, and I hadn’t lost a competition match since having kids. It only felt right to share that with them, and I hope they can learn as much from it as I did.

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

Delimitation

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Continuing to work my way through linguistic research I came across the following entry from General Course in Linguistics by Ferdinand Sassure.

“A linguistic entity is not ultimately defined until it is delimited, i.e. separated from whatever there may be on either side of it in a sequence of sounds. It is these delimited entities or units which contrast with one another in the mechanism of language”

At the same time I was reading this passage I was listening to the Huberman Lab podcast with movement and mobility master, Ido Portal. When Ido spoke about movement he intentionally didn’t define it or delimit it.

You can find the full conversation on the Huberman Lab podcast, but I’ll paraphrase his message. “A fluid is delimited by it’s container but that is not the entirety of it’s being. So it is with movement”

Ido also said it was his goal to not answer any of Professor Huberman questions because words are incomplete and delimiting entities.

I was struck the the diametric opposition of these two points. It is obviously a philosophical thought experiment. One that may not have an entirely productive outcome. But, I found it fun to engage in none the less.

On the one hand, a linguistic unit (not always as simple in academic terms but for our purposes today: a word) only has meaning by it’s delimitation from all other words. On the other hand, an idea, being delimited by a word will often fail to capture the entirety of it’s essence or being.

Words are our most effective tool to express ideas. But words are an imperfect tool. Both Sassure and Portal approach the same point, that words are primarily negatively defined entities, from different angles.

That means that words are defined more so by what they aren’t, than what they are. It is easier to define a difficult word by pointing out how it is unlike other words than what it actual is itself.

Think about a word like morose: “having a gloomy or sad disposition”. But feeling morose isn’t gloomy, or sad, or upset, or depressed. If it were, those words would do, and there would be no need for morose. The same could be said of ecstatic. Happy, joyful, glad, excited… All of these words are close but not exact. We define our some of our most important words negatively, by how they are unlike other “known” quantities.

I think that is why there is such beauty in art. Whether it is the written word, music, or some form of visual expression or story telling. We appreciate the exquisite exchange of ideas.

With an inherent knowledge that words are imperfect, and negatively defined, we are captivated when the right combination of words transcends those boundaries. When a passage speaks to us in a way that isn’t delimited by it’s container. When we feel that we truly understand it’s essence.

Maybe it was your favorite song. A poem that spoke to you. A passage by your favorite author. We all have some array of words which has deeply touched us and conferred meaning beyond the sun of their parts.

Riding through a zwift academy workout this morning “The Light” by Common came on. The rapper’s take on complex topics accompanied by captivating beats, is rivaled only by his longevity in the industry. The song is a dive into relationship communication and one line stuck with me as I struggled to breath through the above FTP effort.

“I never call you my b*tch or even my boo, there’s so much in a name, and so much more in you.”

Words are incredible tools. Occasionally we can string them together in a way that is transcendent. For the rest of the time there is beauty in the struggle to define essence with imperfect tools.

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

Value

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. While continuing research for my linguistics project I found this interesting philosophical quote on value.

Values always involve:

(1) something dissimilar which can be exchanged for the item whose value is under consideration.

(2) similar things which can be compared with the item whose value is under consideration.

An easy example would be the value of a five dollar bill. With a five dollar bill you can buy a gallon of gas (maybe), and you could also get five one dollar bills, or a number of euros, based on a value exchange rate. The value consideration of the five dollar bill is based on both similar and dissimilar items.

Currency of any kind is an easy example because it comes in denominations that are easily changed. A less concrete (or more concrete depending on where you live) example would be a home.

The home would be priced in the local currency, but would also have it’s value partially determined by comparable homes in the area. Homes with similar features, amenities, square footage etc.

The brave and powerful cow knights of the order of Chick-fil-A

With dollars, the value determination from the similar category is really the same, where as with the home, the determination based on the similar category is only comparable. The difference may seem minute but it is important.

The examples given are tangible, but the discussion quoted was about linguistics, and specifically, linguistic units.

Whether you want to break down individual words, syllables, or individual signs (signs, has a very specific and nerdy linguistic definition, that we might get into at a later date) each has a value based on the two criteria above.

“A word can be substituted for something dissimilar: an idea. At the same time, it can be compared to something of like nature:another word. It’s value therefore is not determined merely by that concept or meaning for which it is a token” (Sassure, Course in General Linguistics)

Sassure then goes on to cite the value of the word mouton in French as compared with the word sheep in English. While the meaning is generally the same (a four legged wooly animal that Mary had as a pet) the value in each language is different.

In French mouton can be used to mean both the animal as well as the cooked meat. In English the animal is referred to as a sheep and the meat is mutton. So the value of the word in each language is different.

Giving speeches in his undies, and making friends with dragonflies

The difference in value is due to the presence, or absence of other similar items. It’s value is determined in part by how much it can be delimited from other elements in the same system.

The subtly of similar and comparable, and the variance between value determination in similar and dissimilar categories together form a complex process for effectively determining value.

This is something we do almost instinctively on a very regular basis. Something is on sale. Something looks like a good deal. Something is overpriced. As a consumer driven nation this is a process we engage in regularly.

But what about value determination for items without price? How you choose to allocate your free time? Things like opportunity cost. What value do you derive from your choices? How is that value determined.

This is mental exercise I engage in frequently. Comparing the money saved and the pride of completing a home improvement project yourself, against the time taken that could be spent doing other things with family or friends, the frustration that inevitably comes with these projects, and the workmanship that despite my best efforts will not be the same quality as a professional.

Each option has its own value. Delimited by what it can provide, and what it can exclude. A constant reexamination and assessment of value is important to properly align priorities. It is also a step toward serenity.

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

Storms

My boy’s schedule is all out of whack.

Two separate family beach trips sandwiched in-between the seemingly never ending cold/fever/congestion/runny nose episodes of this summer, and they are off their normal routine.

Melting down at some point during the day has become the rule rather than the exception. I was thinking about this as I elected to sleep at home on my short Orlando layover last night.

We were delayed almost an hour and half waiting for a gate amid the chaos of thunderstorms, wind shear, and ground stops. If I was lucky I would make it home about 15 minutes before the boys bedtime. I would have to wake up predawn and try to sneak back out of the house without waking them.

How much value is there in that short of a visit? Will I be able to rest and be ready for the challenges of another flight day? Will my presence be appreciated? Will it be calming? These are tough questions to answer, especially in the short window that is available to make that decision.

Waffling back and forth on my stroll through the crowded Orlando terminal, I decided smiling faces and little hugs trump peace and quiet every time.

The boys were very excited to see me. Their excitement, their smiling faces, laughter, and playfulness, are never something I regret getting extra of. Then came the melting.

El Duderino complained of a belly ache to which I offered a cracker. Unbeknownst to me, and before I arrived, El Duderino had forgone his dinner. He was subsequently told there would be no other food if he elected not to eat dinner.

El Duderino honed in on this uncommunicated parental discrepancy like a boxer seeing his opponents hands start to dip. The offer was made, but I was unable to follow through without hamstringing my wife. The proverbial left hooks flew. Tears, stomping, jumping, a full blown temper-tantrum.

Once the wheels come off, it’s hard to get back on track. Temper tantrum’s lead to not following directions. Not following directions leads to undesirable consequences. Undesirable consequences lead to more emotion and less listening.

I couldn’t help but think about the quiet hotel room I opted out of.

I started to regret my decision. I love my boys, but no one wants to deal with a temper tantrum. I began to revisit that question of if my presence would be calming. Would this emotional excursion have happened if I hadn’t come home?

Then I started to think about my wife. This was a more taxing and demanding evening for me than going to a hotel, but this is what she does all the time when I’m gone. Having a 1:1 adult to child ratio as well as another adult to sympathize with After the storm was surely a benefit.

El Duderino wore himself out. Much like the afternoon convection in Orlando, it was a quick build up, a torrential outburst and over as quick as it started.

I stayed up later than I probably ought to have, catching up with my wife. It felt like we were stealing time together. Being “at work” but being able to be home is a blessing in this industry. Heck being at home with family is a blessing for everyone with the way the last few years have played out.

After catching up we fell into our usual evening routine. We put on whatever show we are watching together, have a drink, and do some light stretching and mobility work before bed.

We happened to be on the final episode of Peaky Blinders that evening. Birmingham gangsters who have been through the full gamut over 5 seasons are having a toast to their remaining family.

The head of the family Tommy Shelby says, “To family, sometimes it is shelter from the storm. Sometimes it is the storm itself.”

Here’s to to my own little slice of serenity, and my own personal storm front. I love you all to the moon and back, and I’m on my way home.

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

Chronic

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I’m finishing up training on my new aircraft and trying to squeeze in some research work I came across the concept of synchronic vs. diachronic language. It is an important distinction, and one that I wanted to share.

Last week we talked about philology. The study of language and words as they change through time. Philology has a focus on determination of intent. What did the chosen words mean at the particular time of use, and what did the author or orator intend to communicate?

Philologist are concerned more with validation and interpretation of documents and texts. Etymologists focus on the origin and development of words, which brings us to today’s focus.

Diachronic: of or concerned with phenomena, such as linguistic features, as they change through time.

Synchronic: of or concerned with phenomena, such as linguistic features, or of events of a particular time, without reference to their historical context.

Linguists have figured out (at least in an academic sense since I don’t actually know any linguists) that a word’s meaning and communication intent change over time. The same word does not have the same meaning as time flows and cultures shift.

Studying how words change through time (diachronic) is interesting. It reveals a lot about the people using those words. How their communication needs shift with new technology, cultural norms, and ideas. How those words need to evolve or be created to meet those needs.

The study of words under a synchronic frame is a much harder task if you take the definition at face value. Like taking a Polaroid picture but ignoring how everything got into place. It is studying in a time bubble.

We would never examine a person this way. If someone makes a decision or initiates some sort of action. That action is not examined in a bubble, but rather in the context of the person’s history. How were they raised? What kind of transformative experiences have they had? What kind of learning, friends, hobbies, are they engaged in? What type of people do they associate with?

The action can only be viewed effectively through these many lenses. There are so many events and factors that lead up to every decision. To ignore them and view decisions in a vacuum seems at best a disservice, and at worst an intentional misrepresentation.

But with words we have a unique ability to take a snapshot in time. Specifically with regard to communication intent. When words can have multiple meanings across multiple contexts, the communication intention is what matters in a synchronic sense.

Synchronic and diachronic language both have their place in understanding, and they are united by empathy.

“I’m not sure if that move is legal, but I also can’t count that high, so let’s call it a draw” (Speedy, probably*)

You might not agree with someone’s word choice. You may even find a particular word choice incorrect or offensive. However, without knowing the author/speaker’s diachronic and synchronic understanding of the word in question, their communication intention, you have an incomplete set of data to assess.

Empathy and exploration of their intention, finding out how they have chosen words in the past, and what they intended they’re words to convey in the vacuum of a particular communication exchange, while challenging and time consuming. Will ultimately lead to more understanding and serenity.

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

A Thousand Ones

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I was listening to Joe Rogan conversation with General H.R. McMaster and he made a comment that reminded me of something an old boss used to tell me

While describing the recent US military withdrawal frome Afghanistan, McMaster posited the question, “did we fight a twenty year war, or did we fight a one year war, twenty times?”

My old boss, a man who is largely responsible for my professional and career development, used to ask, “Do you have one thousand hours, or one hour, a thousand times?”

The things you learn in those thousand hours

The thought being, there are components of experience, familiarization, and competence that are gained with the accumulation of hours. But that accumulation only takes place if you learn the lessons rather than repeat the same processes of your first time. In other words, have you grown and progressed?

This seems like it should be a given. If you have flown an airplane for a thousand hours there is bound to be some growth and learning. If you have fought a war for twenty years you should have picked up a thing or two.

Learning is hard. Growth is not automatic. The human condition often defaults to the path of least resistance. This is how you end up with “one hour, a thousand times” without some of the requisite lessons learned.

Sure that might be something of an exaggeration, but the concept is there. That’s one of the primary reasons why we have assessments. Every child in a classroom receives the same number of hours of content, but they are assessed to measure their growth and proficiency.

Pilots have intermediate assessments (stage checks) and check rides. There are defined minimum hour criteria to be eligible for a check ride. The check ride itself is a way of verifying that you have accumulated the skill and mastery of those combined hours. Rather than merely repeating the same hour over and over.

This was something I struggled with in the beginning of my professional aviation career. I was a great student in the classroom, and in the airplane. When told what was important, I could immerse myself and learn. The professional world is not always so cut and dry. There is a reason academics tend to stay in academia.

If you are fortunate, someone in the professional world will take you under their wing (aviation pun intended). They can help you sort through what is critical. What to focus on. Push you to grow.

Without that kind of mentorship. That professional nurturing. You are left to your own devices to accumulate knowledge and experience. The risk of repeating your solitary hour grows.

Daddy made it home and he brought treats

I see that lesson more clearly now as a father. My boys need to “build their hours”. But, I can be there to guide them. Making sure their hours accumulate rather than simply repeat.

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

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, zwift double headers and a few days at OBJJ

Debt

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I wrote a few weeks back about Pappyland, a book following the van winkle family and their generational story through the booming bourbon market. The writing even after just a small snippet struck such a chord with me that I bought the book and could hardly put it down. After finishing it, I wanted to share my thoughts especially as they fit in with the overarching themes of the blog.

Whright Thompson spends a few years researching the book getting to know Julian Van Winkle, the bourbon industry as well as the family’s complicated history. The story follows four generations from “pappy”, Julian’s grandfather, all the way to Julian’s son Preston, who is learning at his father’s side.

Maple syrup lollipops from Vermont (what does a father, especially one who travels, owe a son?)

Thompson weaves his own relationship with his father as well as his journey towards becoming a new father into the novel which becomes more about family than it does about bourbon.

“Meeting with Julian and making him talk about his family made me ask myself the same question I’d been asking him: What did I owe my late father? What did I owe a grandfather I never met? What is demanded of a son or a daughter? What was demanded of me?”

Both Julian and Wright’s fathers died of illness before their time. Both sons felt the weight not only of the loss, but of the pressure to live up to family expectations. To succeed and press on in ways that the previous generation was unable to, for one reason or another.

The idea of raising a child, makes you reflect on those questions. If you are fortunate enough, and live in enough comfort to be introspective, having all of your needs met, you inevitably owe a debt to your parents. One that I’m not sure can ever be repaid.

Even if that debt is never tabulated, called in, or otherwise made tangible, it exists. It is an unspoken calling across generations to fulfill potential. To create, and affect, and change, hopefully in a positive and lasting way some part of this world.

In the acknowledgements Thompson writes to his young daughter telling her “let me save you some soul searching: you don’t owe me anything”. He goes on to say that he loves her unconditionally and that the book is for her.

I love his work, and I am inspired by it. Especially as I tackle my own literary project. Still, I think he misses the mark. After his deep and moving coverage of the VanWinkle family, it seems to.me there is always some form of generational debt.

The unconditional love and the debt are not mutually exclusive. If your parents did right by you, whatever their faults and failings may be, a debt is owed. It may not even be payable to them. It may be payable to yourself. But, a debt is owed.

My own feeble attempt then, to answer those questions.

Mom and Dad, I cannot thank you enough for the foundation you laid for me, and especially now for my family. There are lessons that are poignant in my mind, that I feel obliged to pass on. Traditions and relationships that I vow to maintain. An idea, of a fulfilled life that I will strive towards. These are the things I feel are demanded of me as a son.

Speedy and El Duderino, you are loved unconditionally. Your mother and I will support you to the best of our abilities in your endeavors. But you owe a debt, mostly to yourselves, but in a small part to us. To try, to engage, to grow, to explore and experience. In short, to live a life with purpose.

These are broad strokes intentionally. There are innumerable paths you both may choose. Following any of those paths in earnest, with intention, grace, and maybe even a touch of serenity, will clear any debt that may be owed.

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

Reset

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. After a short hiatus for a family vacation I’m back and better than ever, and that is exactly what I want to talk about.

My wife and I drove out two boys nine plus hours from Florida into the North Georgia mountains for a family getaway. A change of pace and a change of scenery. There is something about cresting that first ridge about an hour north of Atlanta, seeing the southern tip of the Appalachians standing solemnly yet inviting in the distance, that raises my hopes as much as it raises in elevation.

I didn’t realize how much I missed terrain, until I moved to a place that has so little of it. Florida has its own natural beauty for sure, but there is a majesty in mountains that is sorely lacking in the sunshine state.

We settled into a daily routine of sorts with the boys. We would traverse the steep and winding switchbacks of the mountain roads each morning, trying to appreciate that aforementioned majesty while also fighting back motion sickness (especially for El Duderino and my wife) each day brought a new hike, waterfall, or state park and a small mountain town to explore.

Ana Ruby Falls, Helton Creek Falls, Rocco’s Swinging Bridge

The boys loved it. There is something magical about the mountains, the outdoors, new places, and the synergy of all three for little boys. My two Florida babies where totally unencumbered by the low temperatures and their embarrassingly bulky winter clothes. The Buffalo native in me would be unable to resist poking fun at the collective family’s attire if my thinned out Florida blood could stop shivering long enough to do it.

I loved it too. I cherished it. It was a special time and place to share with family, but it was also a reset for me. Reflecting back on the month of December and the posts I wrote, there is a sense of melancholy. There is pride, and accomplishment, and desire, but it is somewhat tainted by that nagging feeling that all of these things did not awaken in me a sense of joy or fulfillment that I had hoped they would.

That is not to say that the time or activities from December were without value, or that melancholy is negative in it’s entirety. But, it made me appreciate the reset in the mountains that much more.

This study from Japan, shows significant decreases in oxidative stress, pro-inflammatory markers, and serum cortisol levels (a stress hormone) from a cohort who engaged in “forest bathing”

This study from a University of Utah professor shows an increase in problem solving, creativity, and other prefrontal cortex mediated executive processes, after spending a prolonged time in nature, both hiking as well as disengaging from multi media technology.

There was no shortage of cell phone usage, Disney shows, or championship football (how bout them Bills) while we were in the mountains, but the rejuvenation I know I felt, and I believe my family shared in, was tangible.

I have talked in previous posts about the almost temple like sanctity of a wrestling or jui jitsu mat, or a frisbee field. There can be a special feeling crossing the threshold, like the baseball players from Field of Dreams, nothing exists there but the purity of the game. Everything else melts away. Serenity, even if only for the briefest of moments.

The mountains gifted me that same sensation. Sometimes in small doses, and sometimes in heaping truckloads. It was a much needed and very welcome reset. One I am delighted to have shared with my family, and in some small part with you, the reader, as well.

The kettlebells made the trip to the mountains too

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

Rendezvous

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about the building blocks of those truly special moments in our lives. What is it that makes those particular encounters stick out and remain in the ever present collection and archival of our memories?

It think one of the most important building blocks in making memories is you. By that I mean, who you are on that day, in that time, and the context of your own personal journey that you bring to the excursion. Your mental, emotional, and physical state, and your ability and willingness to embrace the experience at hand all shape the memory.

Scampering up to double arch as a family

I have a very distinct recollection of a conversation with a young lady at a bar (in my single days of course) where I was instantly put off from any further interaction. She was lamenting the lack of things to do in Melbourne FL as compared to NYC.

She insisted that without the plethora of new restaurants and activities the city had to offer, she was doomed to a life of boredom. I tried to persuade her that new experiences were just as much about your mindset and approach as they were about the venue itself. Needless to say she was not persuaded and we went our separate ways.

I was training for Ironman FL at the time, and covering the same miles, finding the familiar cracks in the pavement and passing by the same landmarks each training session was still new, in spite of the familiarity and repetition, because I was a different person than I was the day before.

I think the next building block of those special memories are the people that are with you. There are some things that must be accomplished and experienced alone, and these become a part of who we are, but by and large we are social animals, who share experiences.

I relish in my individual athletic pursuits of triathlon and grappling, and I very much appreciate my solo time on layovers (especially since having children), but one my most powerful memories is the Canadian Schoolboys regatta in 2003. I believe it is so powerful because it was a collaborative effort with my best friends in highschool.

The five of us crossed the finish line in St. Catherine’s exhausted and anxiously awaiting the results, as the crew from E.L. Crossley had closed the gap in the closing meters of the race. In our depleted state we misread or misunderstood the results illuminated on the LED screen on the tower above us, and lamented our loss in the home stretch after having led most of the race. Our despair was short lived as our coach shouted from the overlooking cliff “(friend’s last name) you idiot, you won”. That collective reversal of despair to elation, shared amongst friends and brothers in competition, etched in my mind a memory that is powerfully potent all these years later.

Arduous sunrise trek up to delicate arch

One of the final building blocks of those raw and visceral memories is the what/where factor. There are some places and events that have a special effect on us. Scarcity has always been a driving force in value, thus remarkable landmarks or events that are one of a kind, or happen infrequently become inherently more valuable.

This past week my brother and I set out with my mom on an adventure for her birthday. We covered some 900 odd miles of driving, 15+ miles of hiking, and 6+ miles of paddling across the American southwest in three days, during a record heatwave.

Brotherly competition knows no age limits

The special combination of beautiful landscape, present company, and my own mental/emotional headspace made for a trip I will always remember, and be forever grateful for.

Being with my mother and brother, sharing in the picturesque natural phenomena, and momentarily suspending the rigors of work and the demands of being a father and a husband, created a consumate canvas on which to make a masterpiece memory.

Thank you both for the remarkable rendezvous.

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