The Art of Surrender

Where have I been? In the lab cooking. Training and working is all I've been doing. Training is going very well, it's a constant battle between Coach G. and I everyday to see who comes out on top. He's managed to win a couple of days but I've won the rest. Coach is happy with the progress he is seeing and I'm excited with my progress thus far especially at this point in the season. I'm better in all aspects that coach has tested up to this point then I was at any point last season. I'm grateful for having a wonderful group of people that take care of my body as I push the limits everyday. They are keeping me injury free but more importantly they are allowing me not just survive the week of practice but to excel from week to week. We just finished our max testing in the weight room, I improved in 3 of the major lifts so now all I have to do is convert that weight room strength to my jumps.
The other aspect of my training that I've been focusing on is the mental part. Seeing my progress physically is easy but seeing my progress mentally only comes when I get to test it. I feel that I've made a lot of progress with the different mental aspects I want to prepare myself for this year. One of the biggest one was the fear of injury. After I fractured my tibia, it's been a constant battle to stay healthy so I can understood why I was cautious when I was jumping. I wanted to overcome that cautiousness because anyone that has triple jumped before knows you can't jump with caution. Triple jump takes guts and so I've been trying to block out my fear which in turn made me cautious. I've been practicing the "The art of surrender". I'm not afraid to admit that surrendering control is something that doesn't come easy for me. So because of my desire to be in control, I was trying to fix what I thought was broken with me, I was trying to control not thinking about re-injuring myself, control how I jumped so I can have less pain, basically anything I felt that could be controlled I tried to control it. Well as you can imagine that does not work very well. I'm sure we've all gone through a point where you avoid, ignore or run away from an issue only to find that it will not go away. The more you try  to push or block it out the more it seems to grow and gain mind share, it's a force that just won't go away.
Carl Jung explained this phenomenon when he said "What you resists persists". So the more I tried to fight thinking about my injury the more I thought about it, the more I tried to control everything the less control I had. So I've been practicing the art of surrender everyday. At practice I'm no longer trying to make the jump happen, I'm letting it happen. I'm no longer trying to ignore the fact that I could re-injure myself, I surrender to the fact that injury can happen so I stop wasting brain matter thinking I can control it. Knowing this and doing is it are completely different things, that is why I say I'm practicing the art of surrender, it has no finish line, it's put to the test everyday. I believe I've gotten the hang of it at least when it comes to athletics(I still need to work on giving up control in my personal life), don't resist just surrender. After I've surrender I just embrace what I was trying to resists and guess what,  it just disappears. It no longer occupies mental space in my head, so with all that extra space I'm able to fill my mind with positive images and thoughts.
I received external validation that this new mantra was working from my coach. Last week Coach asked me how work has been going and I told him same as usual, he responded by saying that he noticed a difference in my aura during evening sessions. I asked him what he meant and he explained that he could always tell whenever I've had a tough day at work because he could see my brain working all throughout practice, but lately he has not been able to tell, so he thought it might be because I was working less. I was happy to inform him that I wasn't getting lazy on him, I was still working the same schedule, but I've been practicing that art of surrender. After I explained what I meant he told me to keep it up. So I'm excited not only with my athletic progress but also my mental progress. The final phase to test the art of surrender is in competition. Things speed up at meets and you have less time to stop and fix what issues, so often time you revert to your comfort zone when things are going well. I haven't started competition yet  but I can't wait to test myself.  Not only that it will also give me a small break from weekend workouts :) Until then I will continue my practice of "The Art of Surrender", time to surrender to some sleep.