04/22/08
Ounces
An athlete asked about the following comments:
Some comments on Discipline followed...
The pain of discipline weighs ounces -- the pain of regret weighs tons.
Some comments on Discipline followed...
Category: Inner
Posted by: Vinnie
One thing about triathlon/Ironman that I really love is the sport's (actually, any sport's) ability to teach us so much about life. I wrote in my comments to Wesley's last blog that life is an iterative process -- so too is training, racing, the repetitive pattern of another season, a race revisited. The discipline of training (if done with a broader, more objective perspective and detached presence) is (in a physical sense) no less than what a young Buddhist monk is required to experience when he chooses his path and makes the choice to subject his body and mind to years of self-imposed regimes of training. Done with the right intention, our choice to train can take us on an incredible journey by virtue of our discipline.
As athletes, we submit ourselves to a "routine" with a higher ambition as the "goal" - and it is our discipline that teaches us that we can achieve our aims or at least make progress on the journey even through the roughest, stormiest moments. Many people have very little aspects of their life in which they are required to be disciplined by choice. Going to work, feeding the kids - these things are in a sense "choice", but choosing to undergo "pain and suffering" in our leisure time is another kind of regime altogether. It is a discipline we impose on ourselves in order to break free of ourselves -- to reach for something "more."
I'm not saying discipline makes us special, just that the degree to which you must be disciplined in order to do well at Ironman (for example) is a very useful activity in life and can be applied to so much more than just a race result. It can be part of a greater, more spiritual journey too -- and not in the sense of the words we read at ironmanlive.com or hear at an Ironman finish line. I mean a true "going into oneself", of seeing the calm that underlies the storm. My "easiest' race ever was my final Ironman, Embrunman 2003. I felt like hell, blew up twice on the bike, recovered, had the trots throughout the run, absolute physical horror show -- but inwardly, it didn't affect me one bit. Cake Walk in the Park all day -- that to me was in a bigger picture my most successful race!
There was Kona 2000, too - a career ending death march of sorts. I carried on, finished and it destroyed my ambition to pursue the sport at those levels anymore. But -- I carried on. I gave it a shot. That counts for...something. :-) It taught me that my goals had less to do with finishing at the top of the Ironman game than using Ironman to discover something more profound, to peel away the layers using...
...discipline! That is the beauty of it: What we are truly doing and accomplishing here we only realize fully in hindsight. The sport is very arduous, the learning curve for most very long (Mark Allen, ten Kona's before the first victory; Norman Stadler, 17 years in triathlon before the first victory; etc.) Discipline, choosing to subject ourselves to an arduous process...reveals us to ourselves. We get the opportunity to make changes, to adjust, to respond and to shift and to refocus, using the finishing line as a "pretext" or goal -- this listening to ourselves, resigning ourselves, giving up what we thought we knew, letting go of what's holding us back in order to achieve something more...these are what discipline requires us to do.
That this sport is so complex and difficult is precisely what makes it so powerful a vehicle to surmount ourselves: If we do not have a natural bent towards success in this sort of endeavor (few do), we are forced to examine ourselves (and not just our physical selves) and ask: What is lacking? What is there in excess? What must be left behind on this journey? What needs to be taken on board?
Discipline teaches us to humble ourselves. It teaches us to swallow our pride. It brings us in front of the mirror and forces us to answer honestly very important questions -- and the answers we hear give us the keys we need to take it one step farther on the journey, to take it to another level, to overcome ourselves just one little bit more. Or, equally valid: To stop. To change direction. To focus elsewhere.
We assume discipline to cast off the old, to shed what's holding us back in our journey of becoming. If done right, then in the end all we are really using discipline for is to shed hardness, to unblock and to release, to arrive at the point where...we don't really need discipline anymore.
As athletes, we submit ourselves to a "routine" with a higher ambition as the "goal" - and it is our discipline that teaches us that we can achieve our aims or at least make progress on the journey even through the roughest, stormiest moments. Many people have very little aspects of their life in which they are required to be disciplined by choice. Going to work, feeding the kids - these things are in a sense "choice", but choosing to undergo "pain and suffering" in our leisure time is another kind of regime altogether. It is a discipline we impose on ourselves in order to break free of ourselves -- to reach for something "more."
I'm not saying discipline makes us special, just that the degree to which you must be disciplined in order to do well at Ironman (for example) is a very useful activity in life and can be applied to so much more than just a race result. It can be part of a greater, more spiritual journey too -- and not in the sense of the words we read at ironmanlive.com or hear at an Ironman finish line. I mean a true "going into oneself", of seeing the calm that underlies the storm. My "easiest' race ever was my final Ironman, Embrunman 2003. I felt like hell, blew up twice on the bike, recovered, had the trots throughout the run, absolute physical horror show -- but inwardly, it didn't affect me one bit. Cake Walk in the Park all day -- that to me was in a bigger picture my most successful race!
There was Kona 2000, too - a career ending death march of sorts. I carried on, finished and it destroyed my ambition to pursue the sport at those levels anymore. But -- I carried on. I gave it a shot. That counts for...something. :-) It taught me that my goals had less to do with finishing at the top of the Ironman game than using Ironman to discover something more profound, to peel away the layers using...
...discipline! That is the beauty of it: What we are truly doing and accomplishing here we only realize fully in hindsight. The sport is very arduous, the learning curve for most very long (Mark Allen, ten Kona's before the first victory; Norman Stadler, 17 years in triathlon before the first victory; etc.) Discipline, choosing to subject ourselves to an arduous process...reveals us to ourselves. We get the opportunity to make changes, to adjust, to respond and to shift and to refocus, using the finishing line as a "pretext" or goal -- this listening to ourselves, resigning ourselves, giving up what we thought we knew, letting go of what's holding us back in order to achieve something more...these are what discipline requires us to do.
That this sport is so complex and difficult is precisely what makes it so powerful a vehicle to surmount ourselves: If we do not have a natural bent towards success in this sort of endeavor (few do), we are forced to examine ourselves (and not just our physical selves) and ask: What is lacking? What is there in excess? What must be left behind on this journey? What needs to be taken on board?
Discipline teaches us to humble ourselves. It teaches us to swallow our pride. It brings us in front of the mirror and forces us to answer honestly very important questions -- and the answers we hear give us the keys we need to take it one step farther on the journey, to take it to another level, to overcome ourselves just one little bit more. Or, equally valid: To stop. To change direction. To focus elsewhere.
We assume discipline to cast off the old, to shed what's holding us back in our journey of becoming. If done right, then in the end all we are really using discipline for is to shed hardness, to unblock and to release, to arrive at the point where...we don't really need discipline anymore.