Empty Your Cup!

 
To "empty your cup" means that, before you go into any seminar, martial art school, etc., you must empty your cup of knowledge and be open minded to whatever is to be taught.  If you think you know everything there is to know, or even if you are comfortable with what you do know, you will never progress.  Your arrogance and ignorance will hinder both your growth and that of anybody you choose to teach (if you're an instructor).   
 
I personally have learned the importance of emptying my cup through Sensei Eckman's school.  I have always been open to new things, especially because of how young I am and the more I learn the more I realize how little I truly know, but the martial artists under whom I am now training have more reason to gloat, boast, and NOT empty their cups than any other martial artists I have previously met, and yet they are more humble than any of them.  
 
I have been much better about emptying my cup with martial arts than with fitness.  I am very stubborn when it comes to what works and what doesn't in the world of fitness.  A lot of it comes from my experience as a powerlifter and personal trainer.  However, when it comes to personal trainers, fitness enthusiasts, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and wannabes you'll find one thing in common:  EVERYONE IS AN AUTHORITY.  It's quite laughable, really.  
 
The problem is that I'm not immune to it.  I am biased when it comes to several things in fitness.  For example, weight machines.  I loathe, hate, and despise them except under three conditions:  most women, the elderly, and the injured.  Weight machines ARE better for your joints, but they give your muscles a false sense of reality.  They take out the balancing aspect, which is extremely important, that free weights offer.  Why do you lift weights?  To get stronger and get better able to live life and lift things with greater ease, from opening your car door to pushing it out of the mud when it's stuck.  Life IS NOT good on the joints, therefore all of these exercise machines that promote "joint support" just baby your joints and ill prepare them for the real world.   
 
I don't want to hijack the original point of the article (too much) by ranting about what works and what doesn't in fitness.  However, I do want to point out that, even though that is something about which I feel very strongly, I should not close my mind to it.  I have found exceptions.  The elliptical machine, for example, is a good machine that I recommend to even athletes.  I haven't found many exceptions, but the point is that I had to empty a large and biased cup in order to learn that the elliptical IS a good exercise machine.  If I didn't empty my cup I most certainly wouldn't have learned.
 
I had a good experience yesterday.  I usually hate commercial gyms and get annoyed easily by the kind of people that go to them.  Here are a few reasons I hate commercial gyms:
 
1.  The "Don't drop the weights" signs.
 
2.  The outrageously large amount of skinny men who say things like "I don't wanna get big, I just want to get toned.  Big muscles are gross."  Yeah, right.  If they had to choose between a David Letterman body and a Ronnie Coleman body, inwardly they really would choose the latter.  Every guy really does want to be big and buff, whether or not they are willing to admit it.  I don't like being around their complex and listening to their insecurities.  
 
3.  Superficial and plastic people.  
 
4.  Overly nice, touchy-feely, snot nosed, and overly friendly people who are clearly not there to build up their physiques but rather to become someone #1 they're not and #2 they really shouldn't want to be.
 
5.  "No chalk" signs.  So stupid.
 
I could go on and on and on.  
 
Yesterday, I HAD to go to a commercial gym because I am currently out of town and away from my private gym.  That's one thing I hate about traveling...I have to workout in a commercial gym.  Well, I guess I don't HAVE to, I could just do nothing.  Perhaps doing nothing would make me a happier person because I wouldn't be complaining so much.  Thank the heavens you are not my wife ;-)
 
You probably know more about me than you perhaps wanted to, and I most likely have come across as rather unpleasant, but I'm here to say that I had a good experience at a commercial gym!  
 
Well, it started off just like always.  All those 5 things were very, VERY manifest.  But then, out of nowhere, a forty year old dude with tattoos all over was stacking some more weights on the incline bench.  I noticed earlier his trouble with what he had on the bar, and that he had no spotter, so, against my code of gym etiquette, I went to the other side and helped him lift the bar to a higher level on the bench pillars.  
 
He politely thanked me and asked if I could spot him.  I did.  It was clear that nobody else was interested in spotting, lifting, or talking to this guy because superficially he didn't fit in.  Oh by the way, the city I'm visiting is not the nicest when it comes to accepting, tolerating, and befriending someone that looks different.  Sad, but true. 
 
Anyway, after he lifted the weights I asked if I could have a turn.  I ended up lifting with him the rest of the time.  Between sets I learned that he was in the joint the past six years and just got his parole a few weeks ago.  He lives in a halfway house and is struggling to adapt.  It seems like he liked prison more than the outside world.  I don't blame him.  I think I'd rather live in prison than in this town.  
 
He was about as strong as me, about as big as me, and about as knowledgeable as me.  I chose not to give him my resume.  In fact, I found myself asking him questions.  I did exactly what he did.  I asked him why he was doing what he was doing.  In our conversation I learned that he lifted with some big boys in the joint.  He learned some really effective things from them, things that you'd think I would've already known.  Earth to Patrick!  So I emptied my cup and I learned probably more yesterday about effective lifting and new ways to use free weights than in the last 5 years.  
 
If I had only humbled myself, opened my mind, and emptied my cup more often then perhaps I would have learned so much more by now.  Well, I have learned my lesson.  I am so sore today!  I haven't been sore in a long time.  I'll be lifting weights a little differently from now on...Thanks Kevin!!!!!!
 
Patrick