Chumbawamba

My shoulders just wouldn't open, I am a mobility nightmare. The heels of my feet refused to stay on the ground... I am convinced I had magnets surgically inserted into my toes at birth. My mind is right, but my body refuses to comprehend and cooperate with me. It seems as though this problem is not being resolved, no matter how much I work on it. Failed attempts, over and over, and over again.

Then I recall just a few days ago watching my coach hit a 235# snatch with ease, as if the movement is innate to him. DAFUQ?! I understand he's been training for longer than I have and is a great athlete, but why the FUCK can't I mimic his technique with not even half of that goddamn weight?!

Maybe there is a God and he's finally decided to punish me for all the times I took his name in vain. Has karma finally decided to come into my life and bite me in the ass? Is this why it burns when I pee? Oops, there I go again... alright, back on the topic of me being terrible.

WHY AM I SUCH A LITTLE BITCH, KENDRICK?!

The snatch is an extremely intricate and technically challenging movement. Unlike other lifts, it has the unique ability to humble an ego and make grown men feel like little bitches. It is one of my many GOATS, a movement I try my best to avoid because I'm outright terrible at it.

So naturally, the first workout for the 2013 Granite Games is a goddamn snatch ladder. Christ on a corn dog, who do I have to sleep with to get a fucking break for once?

Although our first workout may not go as planned and although we may be behind the 8-ball going into the second day of competition, I'm looking forward to it. Does that make me a masochist? Well no, not technically. You see, masochism is the sexual gratification from experiencing emotional or physical pain and I don't plan on competing with a boner, but hey, no guarantees.

Back to me looking forward to hating my life but welcoming it with open arms... masochist, hardly, but that probably makes me a little crazy... which, in my humble opinion, is the secret ingredient required to achieve success at the highest level at anything in life.

So often we want things to change from what they are to our perfect dream scenario without us putting in any real work. We want that 6 pack abs and perfect ass, but we don't want to follow a strict diet or get to the gym every day. We want the dream job and CEO title without having to flip burgers for a few years or take multiple unpaid internships. We want all the accolades but without putting in any time or effort, without going through any hardships or being forced to sacrifice what we do have.

So we settle; we make excuses so we don't feel bad about giving up. "Who cares about looking good, it's what inside that matters most"... "The CEO has a son working for the company, he'll get the position over me automatically anyways"... "Who cares about practicing my snatch, I'll just make up for it in the other workouts!"... that's it, lets reason with our shortcomings!

50 Shades of Christmas? YES PLEASE.

But then we're reminded of Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule", which states that success in any endeavor, to a large extent, does not come until we've devoted at least 10,000 hours of practice to it. And although practice doesn't always make "perfect", it can certainly make us very, very good. However, the one thing they fail to mention is that you have to be bat shit fucking insane to practice anything for 10,000 total hours.

And there I find myself, practice after practice doing the things I hate... the things I suck at. Which isn't necessarily crazy, except when it's on a voluntary basis. Why practice snatching when my hands are torn to pieces, my hip bones hurt from constant contact with the barbell and my shoulders are as sore as a Penn State... never mind, you get the picture. THIS ISN'T GETTING ANY MORE FUN. But I'm getting better... slowly.

Time always seems to fly by when you're having fun and always seems to move slower than an elderly couple having sex in a pool of molasses when you're not. And when I sit back and think about it, I'm already light years ahead of when I first started trying to master the technique... that was MAYBE a total of 10 hours ago, but probably not even half that. So if I've already vastly improved my technique in such a short amount of time, why get too discouraged? And, on top of that, why think it's going to be amazing anytime soon? 

YouTube the song "Sex Syrup"... YOU'RE WELCOME.

That doesn't mean I'm against all of a sudden having a moment of clarity and finally having something click to the point that my technique improves drastically after getting that "cue", but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But that's the beauty of it all, you're probably gonna have to fuck up thousands of times before shit starts to click. Just like the baby that touches the hot stove, it's gonna take a lot of tears before your brain registers that you need to stop doing that so you stop getting boo-boos. And once it clicks, all of those misfortunes more often than not seem completely worth it in the end.

So if you have yet to land that dream job, keep searching for it. Keep sending in applications and working two jobs to get by, there's no such thing as being too resilient. If you're sad your body doesn't look like the models in the magazines, first and foremost read a fucking book on nutrition and realize your body doesn't just lose a high percentage of body fat over night, then open your eyes and realize most of those images are actually airbrushed and photoshopped, THEN start getting to the gym and eating right. And if your snatch happens to suck like mine, put on your wrist wraps, lace up your shoes and get back under the barbell.