Our kettlebell class has gotten pretty simple for me. We used to stall and hem and haw over clarifications. But over time, I’ve found that whatever answer you did not want – that’s the answer.
15 snatches total or 15 each hand?
5 reps or 5 sets?
It kind of isn’t even fun anymore as a stalling technique, but it has helped to shape my mentality. Or at least, my mental model of class.
Over the weekend, when we were doing our 1000 swings, we were talking about goals for the class. Jumping rope came up with Catherine. She guessed she could probably do 60 to 100 right now. So I suggested that her goal be 1000. She got upset with me. She criticized me for 10x goals and felt I was being unreasonable. Told me to go do 10k swings. She thought I was crazy and pushing her too hard and not loving her enough in the right ways. There were many words said – but the attitude told the whole story. Know how I think sometimes that Catherine talks like Woodstock and how Woodstalk talks in exclamation points? Well sometimes an exclamation point is just an exclamation point…
Anyway, we solved it, or at least, we temporarily soothed things by saying we’d go to Harinder (our kettlebell instructor) and ask him what a reasonable goal was. We had a little energy left, so we argued about the different ways of phrasing the question, but in the end, I wasn’t that nervous cause I’ve learned the way he answers questions like these.
It is never what you want to hear.
So Catherine asked him tonight. I didn’t hear the exact phrasing she chose cause I was off a ways trying to catch my breath…but I’m sure she tried to lead him as much as possible to her desired answer. “I can barely maybe do 60 right now if I tried really hard…what should my goal be?”
His answer?
2000.
High five!
And again, given the way that he works, do I even need to ask if 2k is my goal now too?
I’ve learned to skip the wussy question. Skip right to the high five!
(Our anniversary gifts to each other were new jump ropes…)