Well, everyone is out training at the moment. It’s the middle of the Australian frisbee season, State Champs this month, Nationals in April. Concurrently the national teams have been picked and for those players it’s the long charge to the World Champs in September. Everyone is out there running. For years I’ve had a mental image that has returned and returned to me about training. It’s a long clear path that leads out in front and slowly makes its way up and around a staggering peak. Sometime I see it in map view and can trace the path as it wraps around and around this mighty mountain all the way to the summit. Sometimes I see the path like I’m in it and the track leads away from my charging feet and steadily, relentlessly up and around the hill, up and around. Every gym session is a few strides, every skills clinic takes a player further up and around, every run moves you up towards the summit. At the end of the path is of course, perfect athletic preparation. When I get there I’ll be the best possible player and competitor that I can be. The only issue is, will I get there in time or will the tournament arrive before I’ve climbed the mountain? The nuance in this visual training analogy which has made it stick over the years is that it’s not just about doing enough sessions, enough time on the path. It’s actually about what you do when your on the path. Often when I’m out running the path rears up in my mind’s eye, I can see it curving and climbing towards my goal. However it is not the only path. At every moment of my training there is also a path that just goes around the mountain, around and around instead of up and around. There is also a path that goes down and around. Every time before I start a sprint at training the choice has to be made again, the path up and around, or just around. Each morning when the program says “gym”, the multiple paths lay splitting off across and down the mountain. The thing about it is no one else knows if you’re making the up and around, or just the around choice (until the tournament of course - then it’s pretty clear), but before that it’s just you, the path and the choice. For me, the only way to get near the best possible preparation for the tournament/race/interview/recital is to hang onto the path that climbs for as long as possible. It’s choosing over and over again, every session and more than once each session to lean over and go up and around, up and around. For those interested, the path featured above was from a mountain in Switzerland that Colony went to in 2014 on the way to World Clubs. We climbed all the way to finish 4th in the world at that tournament. I sometimes wonder if we could have done better. Thousands of small choices.
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AuthorHigh school teacher Archives
September 2023
CategoriesThemes |