Training - will I ever be able to do any of this?

[Nick Murray]

Here is a wonderful blog post from the circus world, describing the stages of excitement and frustration with training.

http://www.laurawitwer.com/2017/09/14/just-far-go-circus-reality-hits-hard

I think there are (loose) parallels with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief.

1. Denial – You  wonder why you can't perform [element] though you think you've trained hard enough. Or that you've just had an injury.
2. Anger – You berate yourself for not being flexible enough, strong enough, for not having enough endurance.
3. Bargaining – You trade off training sessions, do one more set, one more rep,and think if I can just do more of [thing], then I'll be more flexible/stronger/thinner/less injured
4. Depression – You think you'll never be any good nor make any progress. Especially when other people seem to be making more progress, more quickly.
5. Acceptance – You acknowledge training is a process, not an end in itself. Hopefully, all the stress you've previously had then goes into your training.

I've had all 5 stages within a single rep of one of the straddle planche  strength elements sometimes. It's almost funny to observe.

Some people will just get the work done without thinking about any of this. Respect!  For those of you (and myself) who do overthink things, I hope you get something from Laura's post.

 

 

 

[Oussama KHELLADI]

^{thanks for sharing}