Pursue Progress, Not Perfection

Plenty of not perfect reps happened here.  But serious progress was
made 

Here at CrossFit Tulare, we are sticklers for form, and efficient technique, this coupled with the fact that we do complex movements that are very difficult to master can make for a very frustrating day on occasion. 

Sometimes, it is a matter of needing more practice and enduring a few hundred hours of frustration. ( doubleunders anyone?) other times we are working on a movement that has so many parts it seems impossible to learn ( Squat Snatch ? ) . In these instances it is often our attitude and our goals that will determine our success. Let me explain, 

When learning a squat snatch if your goal is to perform a perfect rep ( or 30)  at a new max, and you are still a CrossFit Newbie then you are going to have a bad time. There is so much going on in a snatch and so many thing that have to go right that a PERFECT snatch is darn near impossible at PR weight. If you are still in the learning process and do not have those motor patterns completely ingrained it will be hit and miss even at light and moderate weight.  This can be very frustrating especially  if your goal is to have perfect technique on every rep. 

When our goal is perfection all of our faults seem to add up to an impossible obstacle that will prevent us from ever learning and performing an adequate rep. This can be discouraging and squash motivation and destroy the satisfaction we should get from CrossFit. 

If we change our goals when performing these complex movements, mastery of a movement will become an attainable goal. Instead of pursuing perfection today, you should be focused on progress over time. Yes, as a coach I can name off 10 things you did wrong  on the last snatch attempt, however if you try to fix 10 things at once you will probably just create  more problems. Instead we try to focus on one thing at a time; maybe you are shooting your hips up faster than your shoulders, pulling early with your arms,landing on your toes, and pressing the bar out on your snatch. Instead of focusing on fixing all of those things, we will simply work on keeping your hips and shoulders rising at the same rate from the floor. Then we can consider it a successful day if we make progress in this one part of the movement.

Learning an OHS can be difficult but
fixing the small things can go a long way 

 Notice my choice of words the day is successful if we make PROGRESS in ONE AREA. This is the type of attitude that motivates and delivers improvement and eventually mastery. Our focus here at CrossFit Tulare is not Perfection but Progress. Every day you should be able to say you are better than the day before. Daily you should be focused not on how far you have to go but instead on how far you have come. Focus on the improvements not the flaws, celebrate the small steps instead of worrying about your perceived faults. 

IF we can take this approach and begin to praise and celebrate progress in ourselves and others. A funny thing starts to happen all those fault and mistakes start to topple like dominoes. Usually as we make progress in one area others start to correct them selves and other faults become easier and easier to fix. 

So next time we work on snatching ( or whatever else it may be ) Focus your efforts on Progress, not perfection.
Celebrate your improvements no matter how small and then come back to do it again the next day.