Learning to Access Your Potential

Compare the foundations of the "Old Fitness Pyramid" tm and "New Fitness Pyramid."ttm  In the former the foundation is goal setting in the latter the base that supports the pyramid is potential.  Lets examine both concepts.  First, what is goal setting?  Where does adherence to this concept lead?



Goal:

1. The result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end

While no one would deny the value of setting goals, when a goal becomes our core concept everything else is measured by that concept.  It's an end without a process, straining toward a goal, using effort to make up for lack of skill.  The result is failure and injury, while bypassing the learning process.  This is called the "quick fix"  approach.  But there is another way.

Potential has two important aspects:

1. Capable of being but not yet in existence'; latent
2.  The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.

• Latent;  present and capable of emerging or developing but not now visible

Potential is what is possible or capable of existing within each individual.  We all have vast amounts of potential, untapped possibilities.  Aspect #2 implies possessing the capacity for growth.  When we look at potential we are embracing individuality and the learning and growth process.  The "quick fix" approach allows only success or failure.  When we embrace life as a process of learning toward potential, there is no failure.  All learning involves experience, error, and recalibration.  The quick fix cannot match the combination of self knowledge and commitment to growth and development.  To discover your potential, embrace your weakness.

Find your true weakness and surrender to it, therein lies the path to genius.  Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses.  Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don't divide themselves, those people are very rare.  In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation." -Moshe Feldenkrais

Embracing his weakness, Jim Ryun, a world record holder in the mile, discovered his immense talent and dedicated himself to developing it.

"I attempted as many little boys do, to excel in sports, but had no success.  In junior high I was cut from the basketball team and all of the other teams that were available, so I finally went out  for the track team.  We were having an orientation assembly and the football and cross country coaches were making presentations for their sports.  At the time I was 6'2" and 140 pounds, and I knew that once I got hit by a football player, that'd be the end of it.  So I chose to go out for cross-country, not knowing what it was."  As the weeks passed Ryun slowly came to realize that his running ability had only begun to be tapped (http://famteam.com/sampleAAchapter.htm)

George Forman recaptured the World Heavyweight Boxing title at 45 and held it till he was almost 47.  He was a very powerful puncher, but relying on power made him vulnerable to fatigue.  George was famous for losing the title to Mohammed Ali, falling victim to Ali's "rope a dope" strategy.  Foremen learned to let the opponent come to him using his energy more efficiently, combining his strengths and weaknesses.

Do you want your health and activity to last into old age?  Helen Kelin, famed ultra runner, in her seventies, inspired her teammates to finish an Eco-challenge.  In her eighties she set a world marathon age record because she said she learned to "run within herself."

Are you injured?  The solution is to learn exactly what you are doing and how you are doing it.  Learning is the gift of life, a special kind of learning, that of knowing oneself. People learn to know "how they are acting and thus are able to do what they want. . . the intense living of their unavowed and sometime declared dreams." (Moshe Feldenkrais)