Monday Bacon: Eye Of The Tiger

Posted on November 4, 2013 by tosabarbell

This has always been one of my favorite Rocky scenes. It reinforces the need of an athlete to step it up when it’s time. It fits my competitive personality and also made poor Rock a little more human…after all, if the Rocky gets off track, it’s ok when I do. But when we’re looking a goal in the face, get your shit in gear.

THERE IS NO TOMORROW!

We cannot keep pushing off hard work for the next session, the next block, the next contest, etc. The time is now. Whether your next event is in the next two weeks, or the next two months, get your head straight now. Make a plan. Execute it.

It’s one of the hardest things to coach at times, the Eye of the Tiger. You know, that intangible element we each bring to the mat/platform/trig/whatever. That extra 10% we can count on kicking in to give us a boost on our attempts. Taking those competition nerves and learning how to channel them to bring out the best in each event instead of letting it shut us down.

We see it all over the strength sports world. Numbers hit in training that feels light and solid suddenly have become the impossible on game day. As others are warming up and feeling the weight, we hang back, unsure of how this is going to go. Thinking in our head that it should be fine, hopefully, ya, it should hopefully be fine.

No. No! No! No! That is not the way we approach competition. Step up, no hanging back, bring it. ALL of it. Eye of the Tiger. Not only do you “got this”, you got this and anything else game day brings your way.

Last Friday, I woke up to an e-mail that started like this…

Congratulations!!!

You have been selected to compete at the Arnold Classic Sports Festival 2014 Highland Games!!!

Lots of thoughts immediately ran through my head. Joy, thankfulness, relief, pride, nervousness, holy crap!, ya know, the usual. I knew I’d have to plan out my training and throwing to (hopefully) be able to hit big throws the first weekend in March. Uhhhh, but it’s snowing this winter in Wisconsin, how do I throw? Well jules, you’ll probably be throwing in cold and maybe snow at The Arnold, you’ll have plenty of practice. Yeah me. So we shall throw in the snow. (Very 300 eh?) Eye on the prize.

I’ve set up my training to come in a bit leaner, stronger, and with more throwing skills than I had this past season. I’ll do everything I can to remain healthy and injury free. Good food; good living; getting a sports massage from Jake down at The Brickyard at least once every 2 weeks; good sleep; stretching and training myself as hard as I possibly can. Eye of the Tiger. Whatever I can do now to find success down the line. Knowing I have plenty of time, but not wasting it. I’m focused, realistic. My eye is on this next week, the first of high volume training. But I know each week brings me closer to game day and I’m on it.

Eye of the Tiger…I haz it.

You’re gonna eat lightnin’ and you’re gonna crap thunder!

Mickey

Training Log

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Friday Jams

Posted on November 1, 2013 by tosabarbell

When we went to FInland last March and were picked up at the local airport by Champions League co-founder and promoter, Ilkka, we jumped into his stylish zoom zoom and took off for the 20 minute trek to the mountainside resort, Ruka. It was a beautiful spring day with a light dusting of snow and even more snow coming off the cars in front of us. Between Ilkka’s lead foot; his texting and Facebooking; talking with Bigg about stuff and the loud radio, it was quite a ride. Macklemore’s Thrift Shop came on the radio, clearly a favorite of Ilkka’s because the already loud radio got turned up to a respectable shake the windows level. From that moment on, anytime I hear that song, I think of Ilkka and that drive.

Fast forward to Lithuania, Our driver was one of the young men who work at Z’s gym complex and had minimal English. VERY minimal! When we jumped into his car, Roar by Katy Perry was playing on the radio. Now, I’d heard this song of course on this side of the world and thought it was stupid. “Roarrrrrr,er,er,er,er,er’r’r!” SRSLY? This is the shite on our radio. But I guess this is the shite on everyone’s radio. When the radio announcers said the song was sung by Katy Perry, I said I hadn’t even known she sang that song. Then I said it was a stupid song. Which I immediately felt bad about because that’s one word of English our escort recognized and he turned the station. I felt bad. Fucking rude Americans. But now when I hear this song…I think of Lithuania…before I turn it off.

And talking about interesting young people in Lituania (that’s called a segue;) I had previously mentioned our hostess for the Strongman weekend, Vaida.

Vaida works for Z and is one the most delightful; smart; gorgeous; stylish; witty; slings the fun teasing she got from the big boys right back at ’em; high heel wearing young lady’s I’ve ever met. Her English was very good and she even helped me find some prizes for the kids back home.

Vaida was in charge of making sure all these Strongman were bussed, fed, accounted for, teased, and even went above and beyond the call of duty as she was sent to Svend’s room to get him going Sunday morning. He didn’t answer her knocks…he regretted that later;) Just LOOK at her! She is really one of the tiniest people I’ve ever been around, when you hug her, she disappears. The restaurant that fed us Saturday and Sunday was in a mall across the way from the Arena. It was a nice little walk, nothing too much for tired big guys. But those 5″ heels of hers! How in the hellz did she walk for two days straight in those heels going back and forth and even having to RUN back on Sunday to grab the locker room key that Z had back at the restaurant. When I asked her how she walked in those shoes she said she has to wear them or she becomes invisible (a fact that is actually untrue since we saw her Monday morning in jeans and no heeled boots and she still manages to turn every head in the room.)

She was a delight and kept everyone in check (a ginormous task with these guys;) and smiled the entire weekend. She also has prizes going her way from Wisconsin. I have no idea how old Vaida is, I’m guessing mid 20’s. She’d lived in Belgium for a year and came back home to be close to her family. This is something I love about Europeans, moving to another country so young is no big deal. Give it a try, it may work out, it may not. Learn to speak Dutchie, no problem. They’re awfully cool. Vaida was our hostess with the mostess and made the entire weekend fun and completely stress free (well, for me anyway, I wasn’t competing;) Heeeheeeee.

Enjoy the weekend.

Few enjoy noisy, overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them.

Fannie Hurst

Training Log

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Favorite

Posted on October 31, 2013 by tosabarbell

It’s the day we’ve been waiting for all year, Halloween! My favorite. I already bitched last year about the bizarre trick or treat “scheduling” of Milwaukee and surrounding areas which gives the impression that the actual Halloween DAY is passed over with nary a BOO!

But this year we get to share it with Bigg’s sister and her family up the road. It seems the children of Brookfield are able to handle the task of trick or treating on a school night, unlike the fragile children of ‘Tosa. Rain is in the forecast, I don’t care. It’s Halloween and it’s the best day ever.

One of my favorite Halloween’s was when I was probably around six or seven. It was the night before, late the night before the big day. So late that as we walked INTO Zayer’s Shoppers City they were making the announcement that the store would close in “X” number of minutes. We had to be quick in our costume picks. My older brother chose something like the above. A very scary, hot, plastic mask and a type of overlay covered smock for the costume. I chose a princess with an awesome crowned mask and baby blue dress. And a wand. I think I had a wand. Why do princesses carry wands?

Because we were so late we split up the team to ensure that we got everything. Girls went flying towards the girl section, Dad and Jerry went flying towards the boys. We met up at the cash registers as lights were literally starting to be turned off when my Mom realized they had forgot the candy which was way in the back of the store.

I can still see the determined look of Pastor John (dad) as he yelled to my mom, ‘Stall!’ and sprint off for candy. The poor check out lady (no way in those days did they trust a till with teenagers) repeatedly was telling my mom to get going. To her credit, my mom kept digging through her ginormous mom purse saying she couldn’t find her wallet until dad ran up with about 10 bags of candy. We NEVER bought that much candy!! Score one for Dad!

I don’t remember the weather the next day; the obvious boatload of candy we received; I assume I was awesome in my princess mask but I don’t remember; all I remember is my dad pulling out an Usain Bolt like sprint to get the candy.

That’s fun. Happy Halloween, may it be memorable…in a good way.

Hobgoblins know the proper way to dance:
Arms akimbo, loopy legs askew,
Leaping into darkness with delight,
Lusting for the ecstasy of fright,
Open to the charm of horrors new….

Nicholas Gordon

Training Log

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

In The Suck

Posted on October 29, 2013 by tosabarbell

Goalie and her dog

I mentioned in yesterday’s post an assistant football coach of Oz’s that walked off the field during their last practice in frustration and took all of the gear, leaving his kid. It’s very Godfather…leave the kid, take the cannoli (I mean gear.) Well, what I didn’t get into was the minor e-mail shit storm that happened afterwards. There seems to be a need for some damage control when a coach loses his cool during a practice.

A few parents weren’t as Caribbean (relax mon, it’s all good) about the whole situation as we were over here. And I quickly realized why. History. Some parents have history with this guy in other coaching situations. It quickly brought me back to being a sport parent in small town Minnesota while my twins were child athletes in the intense, D1 Scout’s crowding the bleachers sports such as indoor soccer; volleyball; outdoor soccer (which only lasted one season as Za took an ice cold ball to the face and declared her soccer career officially over.) Not all walks down memory lane are pleasant. This one is the hardest.

This is the story I want to tell these parent’s whose frustration have bubbled up enough to walk into each season on edge in the knowledge that only a few (few being a couple handfuls of dads) folks run the show of youth sports to stick close to their own kids. Yes, these people give their time and energy to coach and that should always be appreciated. But there’s a reason why Minneapolis and surrounding hockey associations have the rule in place that parents can not coach their own child’s team. It’s called nepotism and in many cases, rules small town or association athletics until these dad’s need to release their kids into the High School sports.

In Hutchinson, there seemed to be a hierarchy in place. There were the dads with money who coached. They were the cool guys (remember, many of these dads were born and raised in Hutchinson. Never left. If they were cool in High School, they were still cool. If they weren’t, well just move cuz you’ll never be…unless you have big money or a big title.) The next layer of  guys were those that could socialize with the cool guys at sports functions but not outside of them.

Then there was the 3rd layer, in my opinion, the worst. The outliers. Those who so wanted to be part of the cool group that they would do anything; say anything; sell shit on anyone to be taken into the cool group just for a moment or two. These were the assistant coaches. Didn’t quite hold enough power for a head coach position, but willing to do the grunt work to be a part of it. It was high school. And I hated high school.

But this story is about my failure, not theirs. The problem with living in a town 2.5 miles long in the middle of corn fields is that your world becomes very small. Politics in youth sports took on too much meaning, making me miserable and therefore my children miserable. I was hard on them. So hard on them. Be the perfect athlete. Not the best, but the most perfect. See, we weren’t even on the radar of the layers of cool to dud’s, we were outsider’s. Newbies. So work the hardest, absolutely no goofing off, just fucking work and shut up about it. Or something to that affect. Don’t give any of these cool guys any ammunition as to why they won’t play you.

It was a mess. I basically stole, little by little, as much fun from youth sports as I possibly could. My Zac, who was dribbling a basketball before he could walk; is still one of the most athletic people I know and who will excel at anything he tries, slowly lost his love for sports. I did that. Me. I let the cool guys come into our home and make sports miserable. My thinking was the more I fought the cool guys, the more reason would be used and EVERYONE would have a fair shot at playing. But the cool guys ruled, actually probably still do and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

So I learned. But I took down my Zs in the process. Unacceptable. Yes, I’ve apologized. Yes, they’ve moved on. But it’s a mark on my heart. Probably always will be.

So now I see these sets of parents and their mounting frustration at this coach’s ability to continue to behave badly in youth sports and I just want to say, let it go. Back off and let it go. Stay out of it. Your kid is fine, stay out of it. Make this stuff fun, don’t get so far in the suck that you lose sight of the fact that the purpose of youth sports is to make friends; learn some skills; and enjoy the post game treats. If they’re not having fun and it’s because the coach isn’t playing them, do your best to find help. If one coach won’t answer your e-mails, go to another one. But stay out of the suck. It frustrates you and ultimately may take some joy out of this sport thing for your kid. Look around, are there other kids not playing? Talk to their parent’s, not in a bitching way but in a ‘is there some other help we can get so our boys improve’ way?

And if it’s bad enough that you absolutely can’t stay quiet, send a well written, non emotional letter stating your concerns to the board or the A.D. THEN let it go. We recognize that youth sports must balance learning AND winning. We want to win, we want our kids to win, coaches want a winning record. That’s ok. It’s ok to want to win. As parents we want our kid to be part of that win, yes? That’s fair and when that doesn’t happen, it makes us look for answers. That’s fair also. But when growing frustration begins to chip away at the fun kids are having, we’re too far in the suck. Back away. Keep it fun.

We obviously had expectations for Oz this year. Work hard, pay attention, be a good teammate. With coach Courtright’s help, he met those terms. Reasonable, I’ve become reasonable in my elder age. I wish I would have found that 15 years ago.

Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.

Mike Singletary

Training Log

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment