Empathy pangs

Today, I'm sore.

Abs wince when I laugh or cough. Back tightens when I sit against the car seat. Shoulders tender from spotting children/saving a few lives.

Two emotions simultaneously:

1. I feel out of shape;
2. I like the hurt; I feel like I'm doing something good for myself.

By Wednesday, the gymnasts complain, "I'm sore." They still have two more days of conditioning and practice to push through.

"I couldn't walk down the stairs this morning," Jamie says dramatically (but her presence at practices proves that she found a way, apparently).

"My back is killing me."

"My legs are soooooooo tired."

And so on.

Sympathy says, "Aw, that's too bad." Empathy says, "I know exactly how you feel."

I think that as coaches, we need to maintain empathy as we push the athletes. We want them to become stronger, faster, more flexible, more capable of enduring floor routines and bar routines. But we also have to remember what it feels like.

The fatigue. The feeling of, "There's no way I can do one more." The "my legs might fall off of me when I walk down the stairs." The "let me check how many muscles hurt before I try to get out of bed."

We cannot become so far removed from our own experiences, so satisfied with our methods, that we forget.

Physiologically speaking

As I pranced around the gym this evening, my left foot rolled and I fell to the floor.

Then I rolled around, getting the sting out, moving quickly so nobody would see my face. I knew immediately: not so bad. My ankle wouldn't swell and if I gave it a moment or two, I'd be able to run around again.

I broke my foot about four years ago. Landed a Tsuk on my side and groaned. One of the doctors said he was impressed that I didn't break my ankle -- which would have made the recovery much longer.

Compare this to one of my friends. One morning practice back in the day, we were sashaying about the floor to warm up. She was smiling and laughing even though it was 8 am. In the next instant, she was on the floor crying. Rolled ankle. Out for two months. She could never stop spraining or breaking her ankles. At the beginning of practice, she laced up her braces the way basketball players prepare for the game.

Some of my gymnasts are this way, too. Amy rolls her ankle and it immediately swells purple and blue. Brittany spends about half of every practice icing.

It seems that despite preventative measures and conditioning, at the end of the day, it's all about how you were born. There's only so much you can do to change your natural construction.

Can you hear me?

I've spent my mornings teaching writing and the afternoons coaching, and I've come to observe a similar phenomenon.

Talk talk talk and the kids slump, stick their feet out, gaze at some point behind me. For the young writers, it's the window. For the gymnasts, it's the pit.

"What did I just say?" I say.

They repeat it verbatim without making eye contact.

Maybe it's a specific task. Or maybe it's one of those talks about hard work and diligence, about attitude. The kind of talks where the kids give you an attitude without saying a word or showing that they're paying attention.

Yet the next day, or the next event, or the next writing task, it's these kids who have snapped in. They ask, "Can I try one more time?" when you tell them to get a drink. They bust out a poem when you think they've fallen asleep.

It all sinks in.