Warping the Mind One Swing at a Time

So I play golf. Play is sometimes a debatable word as sometimes I forget that it's a game and I take it seriously. Luckily these instances are few and far between as if they weren't, well let's just say some municipal courses wouldn't let me back on to play.

Also, I have a personal trainer. I'd like to say we play around but he is definitely working, as he has to not only put up with my charming personality when I'm comfortable, but he has to put up with it when I'm uncomfortable, hot, tired, pissed off, in pain, dreading the results of the workout, or my favorite part, trying to will myself to understand just what it is that he wants me to do.

I bring up both of these topics as they frequently involve me trying to grasp some concepts that force my mind to have to adjust to some new paradigm of thinking that other people would look at and say "no problem."

Now, it's not that I'm slow in the head - well, comparatively - it's just that I don't understand certain things like other people do.

For instance, my trainer, Colin, introduced me to the fun of deadlifts. And it really was an introduction - the weights weren't all the way on the floor, there wasn't much weight, and he really wasn't asking me to do anything that, spoken aloud, doesn't make sense:

"Step into the hex deadlift bar, squat down with the proper squat form, pick it up, set it down."

My brain, on the other hand, heard approximately this:

"Step into this metal cage with weight, squat down while not falling over which you can barely do anyhow, then actually pick the damn thing up again without falling over while being mindful of your back posture and making sure to not throw out your back, then set it back down again while not screwing up your back, missing the platform built out of weights that you can't see because you're supposed to look at the ceiling, oh and don't make a lot of noise or draw attention to yourself because you will undoubtedly become even more self conscious, get distracted, and kill three small children and your trainer, not to mention your dog that you had when you were 7."

In other words, my brain gets in the way. A lot. Wrapping my head around things...is rather difficult. Not really because I don't understand them, as for the instance above I get what's going on and what my trainer wants to accomplish. I've got a working knowledge of the human body that skirts close to borderline inappropriate for a non-medical professional, and my understanding of kinesiology would be better suited towards getting a degree in the field versus my nerdtastic need to understand how things work.

But the brain frequently gets in the way.

I keep driving that point home because I've run into the same issue this morning during a golf lesson. For about 35 minutes a golf pro yelled at me to stop moving my wrists during my swing. Now I understood exactly what he wanted. But translating that from words to applying it was tricky. I was forced under the gun to stop an action that I had drilled my brain into believing was good and change the habit. On the spot.

In other words, I had to warp my fragile little mind and fast, as wasting time with a golf pro is a pricey matter.

I came to the realization that when put on the spot, the mind can warp itself to the occasion if you just get out of its way. Maybe it might take some practice, but forcing the mind to adjust to new situations frequently might be a good workout for it to learn to warp faster.

So, I'm going to challenge myself - and you the reader - to warp your minds a couple of times each week. Learn something new, and learn it fast. I'd suggest golf as it's highly complex (take stick, hit ball...no wait that baseball...), or perhaps baseball, or cooking a new dish on the spot for a loved one, anything to cause you to think fast and accept a new concept.

Warp your mind, and the rest will follow.

Eye See What You Did There

As the first post of this little experiment of mine, I thought I would explain a few things.

One, this is a blog that is dedicated to a single goal: I shall step out of the comfort zone, abandon the norm, and explore that which is unknown.

This particular goal for me is very tricky. I've already jumped straight out of my nice, normal, comfortable box and straight into a new lifestyle. This thing called "eating healthy, being healthy, thinking healthy" is about as 180 degrees as you could get from what I was doing before hand. So I've taken a vow of strict diets, working out, annoying friends by bailing on them when it looks like we might be heading somewhere where I could easily break said vows, and in general avoiding places that might be unhealthy. Bars that allow smoking and fast food restaurants are prime examples of places that I avoid like the plague.

Two, the name, Eating the Eye. Recently I shared another fine dinner with a friend of mine at Craigie on Main in Boston in which we were lucky enough to reserve a pigs head - well, half of one at least. And my dining partner, Julie, was kind enough to allow me the pleasure of eating the eye.

Again.

You see, during an initial pilgrimage to this fine establishment in October 2010, I had the opportunity to eat the eye. As Julie can attest, eating the eye was an event unto itself, and a major stepping stone in my life.

So, eye number two is a special mark. You see, I ate this one knowing full well what would happen, the textures I would feel, the delicious pork flavors that would come out at varying strengths. Though this time I did cut it in half as an entire eye at once can be...overwhelming, as I had found out in October.

So eating the eye is what I have termed the of boldly going where one has not gone before, daring to do something that mentally may be challenging, and yet, clearly, will not kill you.

Well, actually there might be a bit of potential death, but I like to chalk that all up to calculated risk. See: foie gras, skydiving, Brussels sprouts sauteed in duck fat, anything cooked in duck fat for that matter, road racing, arguments about politics and finance with energetic folks I know, etc.

Third, I do plan on using the blog as a bit of a pedestal to express life lessons as I learn them, and I already have a prime example of a life lesson.

Again, in Boston, this time back in October, I had the chance to explore the city at my whim. One day I traveled on foot around downtown Boston taking in the sights and sounds, exploring the cultures and histories that have been mashed together in such comfortable quarters, and ended the day on top of the Marriott Custom House hotel, which has an observation deck above the clock tower. It's about 26 stories up, if that gives you an idea of the height. It was there, in the relative peace and quiet of a bustling city far below me, with the pain in my feet from walking all day without proper arch support, a steady wind blowing that was fresh and clear from the cool Atlantic, that I learned a lesson.

If you take a moment to sit back and examine the chaos that is life, you might spot a pattern that you didn't know existed, one that intrigues you and might even make you want to take a few more moments to examine more of that chaos. Eventually, it might even become an insatiable desire to know the world around you beyond the covers presented to the public, and to dive in and scream "give me all you've got, I can take it. But I may need to cut it in half first."

That unyielding need to examine that chaos and all of its facets while crying out for more is just the first step to eating the eye.