II. The Upper-Left Hand Brick

In the first essay, I told you about the fear, and I told you about the strategy I'm using to travel back in time to fix everything: the upper-left hand brick.

The upper-left hand brick strategy comes from Prisig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In the book, a student is asked to write a paper about a street. She is an intelligent student — certainly intelligent enough to finish the assignment — but she can't. In an effort to help the student, she is told to simplify her story and start with the upper-left hand brick of a specific building on the street.

For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see. She really wasn't looking and yet somehow didn't understand this.

He told her angrily, ‘Narrow it down to the front of one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper-left hand brick.'

When you try to think of a lot, you end up thinking of nothing. That's the root of the fear.

Let's fix it.

Our upper-left hand brick

The upper-left hand brick in the physical training world is answering this question: what, fully, do you want to accomplish? Most start with one of two things (maybe two of two, as both sorta get crammed together into one goal):  (a) lose fat or (b) gain muscle.

This place is about both of those things and more. We'll get into what specifically this place is about next essay, but the fact that I'm stumbling on explaining it is a great expression of the fear I talked about before.

I’m not a one trick pony. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be Goku. Really. That's what I spent my time doing — watching Dragon Ball Z. I didn't play any high school sports.

I wanted to have a good body and also be capable of some cool skills. In a completely random event, I was introduced to Jujimufu and Tricks Tutorials, and the sport of tricking. We'll uncover why this is important later, but let's talk about your situation first.

Your upper-left hand brick

Once you really find out what you want from all of this in a broad sense—maybe a certain kind of look, strength, ability—start with the upper-left hand brick and ask yourself, “Is there any piece of this that I know how to do?”

This is important: understanding where you are.

So let’s look at the holy grail of the body composition world: the recomposition. Recomposition is generally the term used for both losing fat and gaining muscle simultaneously. (Ironically enough, by some sort of physiological madness, beginners are the best at doing this, but it’s only a short term thing. [I try to exploit this with skinny-fat dudes, as there’s nothing better than besting skinny-fatness by losing fat and building muscle at the same time.])

The recomp is what most people want to do, but let's go with the upper-left hand brick strategy.

• Do you (a) know how to lose fat?
• Have you proven it to yourself?
• Do you (b) know how to gain muscle?
• Have you proven it to yourself?

In other words, if you have no clue (foods, amounts) what will tip the scale higher than normal or lower than normal, how do you expect to do both simultaneously?

That's like a carpenter saying they want to build a house and tear it down at the same time, and then adding on the fact that the carpenter just calls himself a carpenter and has never built (or torn down) anything in his life.

Instead of going for the whole shebang and paralyzing yourself, you should start with the upper-left hand brick. If you can't handle that, then nothing else matters.

If you can’t do a full squat with correct form, why even think about a barbell squat? If you can't stop eating Twinkies by the dozens, what use is thinking about recomposition?

The fear of adding confusion

In the first essay, I said that my fear was that I was adding more confusion to the mix rather than clarity. For example, for week's now, I had this article drafted called The Gokugenic Diet, which was basically my adventures in eating only one meal per day, eating lots of white rice, and gaining ten pounds of muscle over the course of the year doing it.

But I never published it because it's like the bottom-right hand brick on the building.

Goku trained with his grandpa Gohan, before he trained with Master Roshi before he train with King Kai, and I’m sure you get the idea. There’s a certain growth and development process that you have to respect.

My fear? That people that are just starting their journey are acting and training at the Kai level.

And even further of a fear? That I'm encouraging it to happen.

Not everything is right for you

There are lots of bricks out there — lots of things that work. And truly, finding something that works isn't the most important thing (although it is important, especially in a world where you're often lied to). What's important is finding something that (a) works for you and (b) suits where you currently are.

There are a lot of things that are Plato Good and Pirsig Quality, but their Goodness and Quality depend on where and who you are. In other words, Goku learned the spirit bomb . . . after he trained with grandpa Gohan and Master Roshi.

And although finding Good and Quality stuff is important, what’s even more important is applying it to your Journey the right way.

Or, perhaps, not applying it at all.

Gohan could never spirit bomb and he killed Cell. Han Solo couldn't use the Force, but he still knew how to kill stormtroopers. Just because something is Good and Quality doesn’t mean it has to play a role in your Journey.

It's all about timing and you — understanding who you are.

Finding the point of stuckness

For whatever reason, people can accept sequential development in some areas of life. You wouldn't expect someone to run before they could crawl. Acrobatic training is a great example, too. You wouldn't expect someone to aerial (no handed cartwheel) before two-handed cartwheeling. There's an accepted structure of advancement. Start here, end there — but only after you do the work along the way.

This is easy, I think, because it's very clear on where you get stuck. There's tangible feedback. Can't two handed cartwheel? Oh, well then you need to do that first. That's where you're stuck. Measuring improvement from that point of stuckness is then easy.

With the body, though, there's no visual or tangible feedback. You chew stuff, swallow the stuff, and your guts do stuff with the stuff. If it doesn't work, there's no immediate feedback. You don't fall on your face and you aren't met with the don't-d0-that-again pain. Could be the same story with training, which makes for a frustrating experience.

But stuckness isn't optional. It's necessary, and it shouldn't be shunned.

You'll find out why in the next essay.

 

+++++

Photo credit: castle