Gray Cook is just full of wisdom, and one of many things he said to me the other day that stuck was "Own your movements."  In other words, pay attention to what you're doing.  Practice complex moves that you think you 'can't do' until you can. 

The yoga sun salutation, which, to my pleasant surprise, Cook ticked off as one of his favorite moves for improving function ("It's a catch-all"), is a complex maneuver, consisting of about 10 different asanas (positions), and if you take yoga classes regularly, you will do the sun salutation and its variations multiple times each workout. 

If you 'can't do it' the first time, and say as much to the teacher, they'll probably just smile at you and have you do it again...and again...and again.  It's a beneficial movement pattern; the lesson--the learning, the key to improvement and correction--is in doing it.  Not in talking about it, not in reading about it, and certainly not in filing it away under "things I can't do."  It's in the practice. Instruction is important and useful, but no one can do the movement for you.

For awhile I studied Muay Thai under a guy who could only speak two words of English:  This one.  "This one," he would say, and demonstrate a kick.  I'd kick the bag a few times.  He'd show me again.  "This one," he'd say, pointing emphatically to his foot.  I understood, and I'd kick the bag again with the new, better foot position.  "Ahh!" he'd say, and walk to the next student, leaving me on my own to kick...and kick...and kick.

He was a great teacher.

Somehow yogis and martial artists and practitioners of other Eastern arts 'get this' more than we round-eyes.  They understand that a movement pattern is a living textbook, continually instructive. Picture those huge fields of Chinese men and women doing the same t'ai chi sequence at exactly the same time:  those folks know a thing or two about refining movement. 

For Westerners--like my client who has a mortal terror of looking "awkward," and therefore resists doing any movement she can't immediately master--an exercise is a means to an end:  shaplier shoulders, a trimmer waist, more strength and speed.  In t'ai chi, yoga, and other practices, the movement is an end in itself, a kind of physical version of a prayer or mantra. 

I'm not especially religious, but I don't imagine a good Catholic would ever say "Oh, I already said the Ave Maria.  What else ya got?"

Cook said to me, "Can't do a movement?  Do it!  Until you've done 300 sun salutations on each side, I'm not really interested in talking to you about your problems with it."

I was browsing T-Nation the other day and came across this photo:

I don't know who this guy is, but the first thing I noticed was, look at that squat:  back ramrod-straight, eyes pointing ahead, head in line with the spine, no strain on the back of the neck, heels on the floor (in weightlifting shoes, making it even tougher!), thighs well below parallel to the floor.  The fact that he's doing all that with weight--any weight--is all the more laudable. 

Whatever you may think of this bodybuilder's presumed style of training, he knows that movement pattern.  He's a master of it.  He owns it. 

And you should do the same:  with the squat, the deadlift, the lunge, the row, the press, the chinup, the clean and jerk--any exercise worthy of including in your workout is one worth refining.

Learning to stay present with all your movements in the gym will make each training session that much more rewarding, regardless of how close you are to your current aesthetic goals.  Your workouts can become, in Cook's words "A tuning, not just a training."  

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Like everyone else I was amazed by the story of the airplane crash in the Hudson river, mostly because it was a bright spot of good news amongst all the dire stuff we've been hearing these days.  Want to increase you chances of surviving a crash?  According to this article, reading those little cards and paying attention to the safety instructions just might save your life.  So put down the Soduku and have a listen to the flight attendent there, genius.