Blair Morrison has a quote on his blog: “If you’re not on the edge, you’re just taking up space.” I’m not sure I had seen it before today or not. I know I’ve used the phrase “If you’re not on the edge of your ability, you can’t improve” in a previous post. I actually like my version, because not everybody wants to be on the edge all the time, and some people perhaps never. And I’m not the one to pass judgement on their desires or abilities.
A couple of years back Morrison posted a blog titled “Fitness Is…Potential” dated September 2010. I just saw it today. It’s meant (I think) to be inspirational. Mostly it is. It does betray a certain bias towards survival of the fittest, which I suppose comes with the Crossfit territory. I once saw a tee shirt that read “stronger people are generally more useful, and harder to kill” which I thought was pretty funny.
In any case I do think that the hardest lesson in Crossfit, or I suppose any really, really hard thing, is to learn not to give up too early. I confess I am afraid of failure. Or I used to be. Now I’m on somewhat more friendly terms with failure. Or more accurately stated, I’m learning how failure can be accomplished in a controlled environment.
Learning how to reach the current potential and getting beyond it requires a certain attitude about fear. I’m learning how to not fear the weight, just to fear doing a poorly executed lift (which will cause injury, which I should avoid).
If you want to get past your current ability, sooner or later you have to get to the edge.
Cheers.
