Measuring What Matters
Savage / Zen Newsletter | No. 76
"The neurotic... is not the voluntary happy seeker of truth, but the forced, unhappy finder of it."
~ Otto Rank
“The only growth that comes from removing something without understanding its root is an opportunity for the next vice to take its place. And so the cycle repeats (ref.).”
It has occurred to me that there are even more charlatans, zealots, and hucksters in the “health” space than either fitness or martial arts. Never has there been more “noise” and infighting.
At least fitness is more immediately quantifiable — you won the race, or lifted the weight, or you didn’t. This is, of course, in contrast to a lifetime of ironically bickering about “longevity.”
It’s not the first era of my life where, upon awareness of my hero worship, I’ve subsequently burned the altar. It’s difficult to say whether or where I became any better or wiser for either the burning or the worshiping.
Without intention or intervention people tend to carry the same shitty attitudes with them regardless of their current or past lifestyle, signaled virtue, or noble intentions — vegan, carnivore, CrossFit, liberal, conservative, queer, straight, climate-activist, life coach, etc.
What is your confidence in your identity, your “truth”, concealing for you? What purpose is your pathology serving? I assure you it is not a coincidence.
The sign outside my therapy office reads:
The mind is secondary »- <3 —>
The obvious omission implies that something, other than the mind, is primary. Most people, both in the fitness and psychology spaces, jump immediately to “the body” being the answer.
The fitness folks likely need a stronger dose of poison than their vapid goals and placid achievements have provided. The psychology-minded folks, if they’re smart, reference the landmark book on trauma “The Body Keeps the Score.”
A great book, but not what I’m getting at. The included heart graphic is intentional. The heart is primary.
“Heart” is not an obsession, the zeal that’s so often characteristic of both the fraudulent and cognitively dissonant. “Heart” is the pain that comes with clarity and going onward anyway. Similarly, faith is not belief, it is what you have when there is nothing left to believe in.
Desperate and insecure people will search endlessly to deceive themselves and justify their cause. Wouldn’t it be easy if the be-all-end-all answer really was “just do X?” Only lift. Do / don’t eat animals. Never-ever-carb. Moderation is key. Eat less, move more. Repent. Easy, right?
Lying, to yourself or someone else, at least takes effort; though it’s an inefficient investment as you’ll invariably be reduced back to your foundation; hopefully sooner rather than later and of your own accord. Immolation is optional, but potent.
If you’ve found all the answers, you’ve been asking boring questions. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The heart is primary because, if you can’t, or won’t, do it with heart, why fucking bother?
What’s New:
TL;DR: Stop wearing a god-forsaken “altitude mask” during hard training sessions and start wearing it while you’re driving or walking around the house… or just breathe through your nose.
Further Reading: Restricted Breathing by NonProphet (2021)
I was recently a guest on my friends’ podcast talking briefly about fitness, nutrition, and jiu jitsu; nothing too serious, just a good time, laughs, and a bit about training and coaching.
Book Club:
Opening Closed Guard isn’t exactly a “history of submission grappling”, though it certainly has many of those facets that were the reason I bought and read the book. It’s more of a behind-the-scenes disclosure of the author’s process — which is transparently disclosed. It is still a great read from a historical perspective to see just how much there is to the world of grappling; much beyond a single family, country, or continent.
Drysdale has polished this up more to a proper historical accounting, which I have not read, titled The Rise and Evolution of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.