Antionio Banderas in the movie “Take the Lead” has given bright inner city students who are great dancers of hip hop the assignment of learning their least favorite dance, ballroom dancing. When the students are forced to make a difficult decision, he says:
“you have nothing to lose Except everything you’ve achieved so far.”
In the end they combined both types of dance by thinking outside the box and SPOILER ALERT: They end up as the winning team! Isn’t that what advancing knowledge means? Think about this:
Continue to add and collect knowledge and techniques. And…
- the more we collect,
- the more options we have,
- and the better we can be,
- and the more people we can help.
It requires us to put our ego in our pockets. That is something that is not easy for many (and something I personally had to deal with in the 1st half of my career). I can’t stress this enough: CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR AND PLACE IT WHERE IT CAN HELP YOUSTEP INTO WHATEVER YOU DO FREEING YOU TO BE YOUR BEST.
Life has an interesting way of humbling us, it did for me. Ego when it comes to weight training and exercise is a huge topic for another day. For now I leave you with this: Is there ego in your exercise?
About from the Bullpen
FROM THE BULLPEN is Dr. Jack Mantione’s corner on the web where he shares important issues in sports, exercise and weight training facing our youth, adults, amateur and professional athletes. “I understand your pain, injuries and frustrations because I have been in the same place with many of the same pains and nagging injuries. I had to conquer my own chronic pains and injuries in both sports and exercise in order to help others conquer theirs.” Dr. Jack will share his "outside the box" thinking and solutions on avoiding the "at risk" positions in weight training and exercise and the injury-free alternatives, how to train around injury as well as sports therapies that can assist in reversing today’s pain and injury epidemic. Contribute in your own way by sharing FROM THE BULLPEN, sending in questions and creating helpful information too… "Prevention is the GYM we must train in and the FIELD we must play on." -JM