I love to learn new things, but what I really love is becoming more competent.
I remember the first time I truly met the bar at my hip in the snatch, and then snapped under it.
“oh, that’s completely different”
You know that buzz you get when you finally make it feel like how you think it should look.
I remember that moment clearly because it was taught to me by a well-known weightlifting coach from the US, Rudy Nielson. I was lucky enough to get an afternoon with him many moons ago and he gave me one quick drill which changed everything. All of a sudden, the movement I had been watching and trying to piece together for months just clicked into place.
I also remember thinking “why has nobody told me this sooner?”
As a coach, I still get those moments with people who I‘ve been coaching for many years. I can see them looking at me thinking “you could have mentioned this back in 2016”.
But the truth is, a lot of learning breakthroughs happen this way. You need to struggle with something for a period of time. It’s where you get to fine-tune the components and become a more competent mover. Then the right person with the right configuration of words/practice will get right to the heart of it for you, help you connect the dots.
So my advice this week is to stay in the “struggle”. Every rowing stroke, every back squat, every kip swing. Keep on refining. It’s the process of figuring it out for yourself. At some point a coach will come along and say the right thing at the right time, and it will mature into your next big achievement. But make no mistake, the majority of the work will already be done at that point. And done by you.