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Feats of Strength: Strength Is Ephemeral
I’m a strong guy. It’s one of my vanities. In a profession of strong men, I was considered strong. The Army is big on running. One-third of one’s fitness evaluation is a two-mile run. Because combat so often requires a long-distance, totally linear run for 10-15 minutes at a time.
I figured out pretty quick that, amongst the wolf pack in which I ran, I’d always be mediocre — maybe high mediocre, if I worked my tail off — when it came to running. But strength? I can do high-end strength. Took me a while to learn, though. For too many years, I followed the insane advice of magazines like Muscle & Fitness, which extols the workouts of pharmaceutically enhanced bodybuilders who were chasing hypertrophy, not strength. Eventually, I figured out that fighters back in the day had a vested interest in building real-world strength (because otherwise they’d, uh, die) and consciously eschewed any workout that wasn’t at least a couple hundred years old. This led me to bodyweight exercises, kettlebells, and clubs and maces.
The best description of strength training I’ve heard is that it is a “grind.” Whether volume or intensity, you grind it out. No shortcuts. No “hacks.” Just time and effort and will.
Just as I began to get stronger, I also started going full obsession into martial arts. While I’ve got some ability at various striking arts, I loved/love grappling — judo, jujutsu, jiu-jitsu. And I learned a whole new dimension of strength. Strength not focused and applied efficiently and effectively is wasted effort. It is inelegant. Strength focused, and applied with the surgical accuracy of a clinician, is a thing of beauty. It is art. I can’t do any better at describing it than @danhanson did in his post.
A pretty strong guy who was also a fair dinkum martial artist was a cat named Miyamoto Musashi. He said, “from one thing, learn 10,000.” My dad gave me a copy of The Book of Five Rings when I was a kid, and that line always stuck with me. If what you learn in the gym stays in the gym when you walk out the door, you’re wasting your time. Doubly so with the dojo.
We should all dedicate ourselves to expanding and building and improving strength. Strength is the attribute from which all virtues flow.
And in the end, it means nothing. Strength will leave you. It is ephemeral. Should you live long enough, you will be weak. And frail. And vulnerable. Yuck.
But, it’s worth it. The human continuum consists of body, mind, and spirit. If you’ve trained your physical strength correctly, as your body fails the strength you’ve built of mind and spirit will compensate. You just can’t throw people through the ceiling anymore. <sigh>
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And that is why I try to stay on your good side.
In some cases, strength lasts longer into old age then you might expect. 5 or 6 years ago, my Dad fell in the driveway. He was 87 or 88 at that time; I was with him. He wanted me to help him get up, but I knew that I couldn’t do it on my own, so I pulled out the cell phone and called 911: he wasn’t hurt, and my assumption was that he would stay where he was until help arrived. I made the mistake of turning away from him while talking to 911; when I turned back to look at him, he was standing there with his walker, smiling at me. He had used his walker to pull himself up off the ground; he was obviously fine, so I canceled the 911 call.
He is 93 now; he can’t do that anymore, but it’s amazing how long physical strength can last, not to mention mental determination :)
Amen, Boss! Vulnerability can be a strength, too. Allowing oneself to be a recipient of others’ care/love/compassion, as required, in this time and place, is an act of will and self-emptying, no? Paradoxically powerful…HooWah, dear brother!
Sistah Nanda, I’m hearing it, but not believing it. Okay. Maybe believing it (a little), but not liking it. Not that the universe ever checked with me on whether I like something or not…Stupid universe…
God bless that guy. His heaven’s going to look a lot like Valhalla.
You do know how to keep people’s attention and find their laughter, my friend.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under March’s theme of Feats of Strength. We still have openings on March 23rd and 24th. Or, if you have a time machine, you could sign up for March 9th or March 12th. If you have a tale of strength in any form, why not sign up today?
The best thing, of course, is to exercise all three in every way you can for as long as you can.
One of my friends in college was this guy who was really incredibly strong; everyone in his high school knew this, because he was into art and drama, but whenever the other guys would give him a hard time about it, he would pummel them. And he pummeled pretty much all of them, at one point or another. So, he developed a reputation, and one day, the principle called my friend down to the office and basically drafted him onto the football team. You know this happened a long time ago, because he didn’t get into trouble for beating people up, and he didn’t feel that he could say no to the principle’s request that he join the football team. He made all kinds of excuses for why he couldn’t: he told the principle that he lived on a farm, which he did, and that he was needed on the farm after school. The principle called his father, and his father immediately agreed to having his son drafted onto the football team, and assured the principle that the farm could get by without his help.
So, he got drafted into football. The reason he had to be drafted was that he could not run to save his life, and he knew it. He didn’t want to admit that, but there was no denying it when they tried to make him a quarterback: he spent a few weeks just being tackled, over and over and over again, until finally they let him go. So funny.
One guy I knew who was really good at football was a gay guy who loved to cross dress; he was totally out at a very young age, and everybody knew he was a drag queen. But he was very good at football; I think he gave some of the other guys a complex by being better at it than they were.
I’ve been training my weight. It protects me from ceiling-throwing.
Are you sure that isn’t “gaining” rather than “training?”
You say it how you like and I’ll say it my way.
Hey, @bossmongo, regarding your exchange with dear @nandapanjandrum, I think it means having maximum versatility: to be vulnerable in the moment it’s called for and to be powerful and strong when that is called for. Not saying I’ve mastered either, but I figure it’s a lifelong practice!
It’s easier to hit new personal records that way too. The down side though is when you achieve complete immunity from the ceiling throw gravity goes and pins you to your own bed.
Hey Boss, saw a cigarette in your hand in a previous post. If you want to stay strong and vital get rid of them yesterday. My dad was hugely strong for his size. He died a horrible death at 68 because of cigarettes. Your not a kid anymore. Show those cigarettes how strong you are. How’s that for a lecture?
But MO-om…
Duly noted. The smoking is recent and not long for the repertoire.
My 93 year old father used to smoke 3 packs a day, but he quit over 30 years ago: he has always been very laid back, but OMG he was a beast for a month or two after he quit. But he is still with us today and doing well, thank God. I say this as I puff away on a cigarette, but I figure, I’m not 60 yet, so it’s ok, right?
I quit in 2014. This is my new persona. How do you like it?
Does your armor smell better now that it isn’t filled with cigarette smoke? Considering how much you wear it, that’s at least an open question.
Thanks, SQ! Boss and I share a spiritual heritage/language. He was picking up what I was laying down; but conveying that following the path of vulnerability can be a real bear: Something about which he and I completely agree. :-)
Amen, and sobering.
Through a confluence of pressures — of work and childraising and whatnot — I took a decade-long break from the gym. I returned to it in my late 40s, and reached my peak of physical strength at 53. Then I made one of the rare truly mature decisions of my life, and decided to stop trying for personal records in the weightlifting department, on the theory that a rotator cuff, etc., injury at my age would be something from which I’d never wholly recover. Now I work to maintain.
I haven’t regretted it. Like you, I remain exceptionally strong (though not, I suspect, in the kind of territory you enjoy); at 57, the quotidian aches and pains remain manageable.
Shoes and ships and ceiling whacks . . .
You had me at Musashi Miyamoto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8jZLIHnEWg&index=1&list=PLwHnsJcsai1TOxSA2JgvuD9BN_qSiaPSO) . As performed by the mighty Toshiro Mifune.
I enjoyed this, very much. Thanks.
I’m finally noticing my physical decline .. so far in pretty minor ways. It’s hard to accept. Concurrently, which makes the first harder, I’m also watching my dad, once a physical specimen (albeit average-sized), waste away at 91. “This, too, shall pass.” (I do count my blessings: my health all these years; a healthy father for most of a century. Miracles.)
Good piece; food for thought.
I’ve seen this time and time again at work. Young guys with ripped gym bodies making it half a day getting worked into the ground by 120 lb Hispanic guys or 65 yr old black guys etc, then slinking off to find an easier job. In one specific case I watched a young man struggling to keep up with guys 1/2 his size pumping and raking concrete on a slab. At lunch he came up to me and said “Bossman, this is way harder than I thought it would be. I don’t think this is for me.” He left and never even claimed his half day pay. lol
I read there’s another advantage to staying strong: compressed morbidity.
When you start to die, you’ll go fast, not suffer a slow excruciating agon.
Like Yeats’ Irish Airman says:
“…I balanced all, brought all to mind
The years ahead seemed waste of breath
A waste of breath the years behind
When balanced with this life, this death.”
I can quit any time I want! .. yea …. any ….. time …
[“Editor’s” note: Questioning Boss Mongo’s capability for self-discipline could result in finding oneself one-floor-up without resort to the use of stairs]
It’s easy to quit. I did it five times.
I took up smoking about a year ago when, for complicated medical reasons I had to give up beer, but was able to still imbibe whisky. I’m not yet tough enough to drink whisky and dip Copenhagen, so the smokes were a simple means of getting nicotine on board while having a wee dram. Sure, I could’ve just slapped on a nicotine patch, but that seems like a kind of rooty poot half measure. (Except for St. Patrick’s day) I gave up alcohol for Lent, and the smoking has fallen off precipitously. Now, Quitting dipping, that’ll be a challenge…
I quit smoking in 1997 and have been addicted to nicotine gum ever since. They’ll pry it from my cold, dead fingers. I almost always have some in my mouth. I’m sure there are people who think I talk with a lisp because of it. It’s way better than smoking because you can do it in the movies! And in bed! I love it so much. The patch is too passive. I need something to take out, unwrap, put in my mouth, etc. It’s the ritual of it.