Having a Vision

Have you been watching the Olympics? The one time every 4 years where you become an expert in table tennis or kayaking for 2 weeks. I love it.

I never worked with an Olympian, but I’ve been lucky enough to be in the room with some people who have been within touching distance of the games. Some of them are incredible and some pretty average in the gym, and it’s only when you see them doing their sport that you go, “Oh, so this is what makes them special.” The level of skill in some of these events is incomprehensible to me. I saw the archery the other day, and the camera panned back to show the actual distance to the target. Let’s just say I’d have trouble seeing it, never mind hitting it.

In any case I wanted to talk about Rhys McLenaghan, the gymnast on everyone’s lips. I watched him win his gold with my daughter, who loves her gymnastics class. He was interviewed afterwards and spoke about having a dream and chasing it, enjoying the journey.

So something I say to my young competitors in the gym is about showing ambition. You can call it having a dream, or having a vision. Why not make that the biggest vision it can be? I’ll summarise below, but this is a longer story.

When you’re 35, and you’ve been training and competing for 15 or 20 years, and you’re slowing down, your knees are gone, your back is sore all the time, and there’s something going on with your elbow in the morning, what will you say?

One time, I won a medal, in Blanchardstown….

Because (old man newsflash!), your knees and your back and that elbow are going to be sore anyway. Even if you didn’t give it a right go. But maybe you can look back and say…

I went to California, I went to New York, Lisbon, Paris, Abu Dhabi, Copenhagen, Tokyo… I won some and I lost some, but I went after it and I had one hell of a time.

And maybe you won’t be the winner you dream you’ll be, but the guy who doesn’t try will still have those shitty knees, but he’ll have them because he sat on his backside. What will he say after 15 years?

Well, I watched Breaking Bad, all the seasons of Game of Thrones, I got a free meal from Uber Eats from being such a good customer…

My point is that you should be asking “ Why not me?” Jiu Jitsu in particular is a skill based sport with weight classes and lots of different ways to make it succeed for you. You don’t have to have the fast twitch fibres that all sprinters need, or to have the long limbs of a swimmer. You can make it work for you.

Okay, I’m off to train.

See you on the mat,

Barry