Unleash the Monkey Army

Before I really became a student of this training stuff, I used to just dive in. I hated warming-up. All the stretching and holding didn't sit comfortably and the just running was dull. I wanted to get stuck in. Some of my fondest playing memories are from matches where, for one reason or another, we just got on with it. Obviously these images will have been enhanced with preservation in my mind but why is it they worked for me? I think the practice of what I do now before sessions and what I have my trainees do has echoes in these roots, albeit coloured by the training and research since. First question (and this is a pretty standard opening for me): what are you warming up for? More exactly at this stage, what is the point of the warm-up? Well, to borrow from Verkoshanksy, it's more about "pre-activity preparation" than it is about warming-up per se. You are getting yourself ready for what's ahead physically and mentally. Some of the reasons those examples I all...

The difference between being a champion and being a nearly man is in your view of the past. The real victor is able to look back on their achievements, they can talk about them but they do not have to because they don't have to prove anything. The also-ran will talk about them as though something is missing. The difference before the fact is in your head and in your heart. To give yourself to the pursuit of your goal, without reservation, is a remarkable thing and, frankly, beyond the ken of many. Looking back and wondering what might been is tragic. If you gave it everything, with every ounce of your being then there is nothing to regret. Sure it would be good to say you had done better - and nothing should stop you striving to obtain that better outcome - but to give it your all is to have flown your colours at full mast and to have stood proud in the teeth of the gale. There is no real question because you did everything you could. We know this. In our inner most being, we all k...

I’m going home. But it’s not really home, and has not been for 13 years. Or more if you count the fact that it was home between protracted absences for a couple if years before that. Over the course of the journey I find myself getting wistful for some things. I really appreciated being by the water and the view. I’d always enjoyed the scenery and the view but I’d never realised that it was special. Remembering some of the things I used to get up to, in a more vivid form than some of the conversations I have had since, I realise that I’ve become urban. Not in a hip-hop, “d’ya feel me, bruv” kind of way but definitely more town than country. I have changed. Things here, not surprisingly, have too. Some of the old faces have gone. Most of the remaining faces have changed a little – none so dramatically remodelled as mine – and some have hardly changed at all. The scenery too has shifted in places, but not, save for the infringement of nature, moved at all in others. The first thing that ...