{"id":387,"date":"2013-01-25T18:34:04","date_gmt":"2013-01-26T00:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/?p=387"},"modified":"2013-01-25T18:34:04","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T00:34:04","slug":"the-easy-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/2013\/01\/25\/the-easy-way\/","title":{"rendered":"The Easy Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My Christmas present this year is a gym membership and several months worth of sessions with a personal trainer. [My other present is a telescope which will be unlimbered this weekend as the the night-time temps are in the 60s already.]<\/p>\n<p>One of the great things about having the trainer is that she knows what to look for and is helping me correct flaws.\u00a0 For example, I have a very strong chest, but weak back muscles.\u00a0 It makes me walked and sit hunched over.\u00a0 The training to correct these types of things is exceedingly difficult.\u00a0 I&#8217;m having to force weak muscles to perform actions that they just don&#8217;t want to and force the strong muscles that want to help to not help.<\/p>\n<p>The rough part is that the success of this retraining isn&#8217;t obvious.\u00a0 In fact, there&#8217;s very little obvious benefit&#8230; and a fair amount of pain.\u00a0 But this process is extremely important.\u00a0 The saying practice makes perfect is wrong.\u00a0 Perfect practice makes perfect.\u00a0 Imperfect practice makes wrong.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not cool.\u00a0 My muscles are not expanding.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t look sleeker.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t seem to have more endurance.\u00a0 My trainer assures me I&#8217;m making excellent progress.\u00a0 She also reminds me that until I get these fundamentals down, anything else I do in the gym will most likely be wrong and only emphasize the problems (making my chest muscles stronger, while ignoring the back for example).<\/p>\n<p>I know this is required, but it&#8217;s really hard.\u00a0 I want to go pump iron and run until I can bench press a small truck and leap small buildings.\u00a0 Instead I&#8217;m learning how to sit down with 20 pounds of weights hanging from my hands.<\/p>\n<p>Intellectually, I know this is the right way.\u00a0 But, I&#8217;m reminded of Ed Gruberman.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Frantics - Boot to the Head - 16. Ti Kwan Leep\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z8VD4JXUozM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As I was laying on the gym floor, moaning, I reflected on how this is also like critical thinking and any knowledge.\u00a0 It feels good to learn something cool and learn it quick, but is it actual knowledge or is it just something that feels good?\u00a0 If you choose to learn something quickly, but superficially, then you are much like Ed Gruberman.\u00a0 You may have some knowledge, but you lack the ability synthesize new knowledge and critically examine how that knowledge is acquired.<\/p>\n<p>If instead, you work at acquiring the basics before leaping to the really cool, but really difficult stuff, then you will be able to synthesize new information.\u00a0 You can critically examine others&#8217; new ideas for flaws or exciting potential.\u00a0 It&#8217;s harder, it&#8217;s longer, and it may not be as satisfying&#8230; at first.\u00a0 But your work will pay off, when you get asked to be a part of something really great, because you are good at what you do and you have that knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t come easy, but when it came, it was right and worth something.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t a superficial and useful bit of information that you don&#8217;t know how to use properly.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m now going to go reflect on this in a really hot bath.<\/p>\n<p>Have a good weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My Christmas present this year is a gym membership and several months worth of sessions with a personal trainer. [My&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,46,12,36,86,45],"tags":[260,262,261],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-education","category-humor","category-life","category-philosophy","category-society","tag-boot-to-the-head","tag-gym","tag-superficial-knowledge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}