What are you saying to yourself when you are training and practicing?

“I’m too fat.”

“I’ve got no muscle.”

“My cardio sucks.”

“This hurts so much.”

“I can’t catch my breath.”

“This sucks.”

“Why is this so hard?”

“Why am I doing this?”

When you show up to class with your instructor, he or she will teach you how to perform a certain skill and explain to you why they are teaching it, and why you are learning it, in the context of the class that day and in your overall journey.

They will first, verbalize the phases of the Set-up, Execution, and Points of Performance for you to hear, then demonstrate them visually for you to see. Once you have heard and seen the Standards, then the instructor will lead you through your own demonstration of the Set-up, Execution, and Points of Performance of the skill to him or her.

The instructor will with their eyes see what and how you are moving in each phase of the skill, and correct you in what you are doing, to help you perform the skill to the Standards. A way of helping you learn and perform the skill well is by teaching you Progressions of the skill, which helps the instructor make a seemingly complicated skill much more easy to learn, step-by-step.

When you are led through the phases of the skill, and the progressions of learning the skill, the instructor has a multitude of cues to use for you to understand how to execute the skill to the standards. These cues will be oftentimes used when correcting you when you are performing the skill you are learning. These cues can be verbal, visual, and/or tactile. If you are able to execute the technique of that skill to the standards after hearing the initial verbal instructions, then the instructor has done exceptionally well, and he or she won’t need to use any further visual or even tactile cues to help correct you. If you are not able to execute the technique of that skill to the standards after hearing the initial verbal instructions, then it is the instructor’s role to correct, and help you, by the use of more verbal cues, or even visual cues at this point. He or she will demonstrate the skill for you to see, and then have you replicate it. Once you have performed the skill to the standards, then the instructor will lead you further to the other phases or progressions of the skill. However, if you still have not executed the technique of the skill after he or she has demonstrated it to you, then they can, and will use a tactile cue relying on physical contact or guides to correct you to the standards. Once you have performed the skill to the standards after you received the tactile cue, then the instructor can, and will lead you further to the other phases or progressions of the skill.

We learn all kinds of skills this way. One skill for example, is the air squat. If what is programmed for the class to do one day is to perform 20 air squats in a row, as fast as possible, then the instructor should teach the air squat first. He or she will explain, demonstrate, and then lead you through how to correctly perform the air squat through drills on the Set-up, Execution, and the Points of Performance. You’ll receive cues to correct the faults you are showing in the air squat until you can perform the air squat to the standards; those cues, along with the instruction you heard and saw, you will use and think about when performing the air squat. By following the charter of Mechanics first, Consistency, then Intensity, the instructor should allow you to perform more or even faster subsequent repetitions of the air squat, if and only if you are executing the technique of the air squat to the standards.

When it is time to perform those 20 air squats in a row as fast as possible, the only thoughts running through your mind should only be those cues and the instructions that you initially heard and saw. If the instructor coached you well enough, he or she would have found the optimal air squat for you to learn and perform that day, for you to experience the intended stimulus of the training in class. The instructor will monitor your execution of your technique of the air squat throughout those 20 repetitions, to either let you perform it faster, or slow you down. Along the way he or she is giving you cues, to help you perform the air squat to the standards and avoid the faults that you should be feeling when they happen.

Knowing what you should be thinking about when performing those air squats, for example, there should be no reason for you to say to yourself, “I’m too fat,” or “I’ve got no muscle,” or “my cardio sucks.” The instructor has set up the conditions well enough for you to concentrate on the task at hand, to perform your own air squats that day. Saying to yourself “this hurts so much,” or “I can’t catch my breath,” or “this sucks,” should not enter your thought processes either, since the instructor is there to monitor your progress through your air squats, to let you know when to speed up, or slow down. If you remember why you are doing these air squats in class that day, and why you are doing this particular training session for your overall fitness and health in the greater context, then questions like “why is this so hard,” or “why am I doing this” will not enter your thought processes, as well.

Coming to class with this knowledge of how the teaching, learning, and applying is happening, you will value the time, effort, and resources you are investing in your fitness and health journey here. Your experience might be even better in working on improving all the movements we’re doing here. Your training and practice sessions, and even competition days here in class might be more fruitful, with your use of better thought processes, and how you are talking to yourself.

See you in class.

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