Overvaluing the "Struggle"

Doing a handstand is one of the rare athletic skills I have been blessed with. I pop up on the wall and hold my ground.  Others struggle- really struggle.  For some reason, both the yoga and CrossFit worlds in my life have decided the ability to do a handstand is of the upmost importance.  Of course, they take completely different approaches. I have been observing the advice they each give and how successful they are at getting people into a handstand.

At CrossFit there is only one step to doing a handstand: Get on the wall-Now!  Can't throw yourself up on the wall? Climb up the wall with your feet. Do it- Now!  Keep doing it until you get on the wall.

Yoga's approach is very gentle and there are multiple paths.  You can start with a familiar pose like down dog or dolphin and try to climb youself up a wall. You can move from goddess to crow to the beginnings of handstand. You can pair up with someone and take turns helping each other into handstand. I watched an instructor lead a class through 10 minutes of preliminary poses to the handstand.  By the time is was time for the big finale of attempting handstand, everyone looked worn out? I didn't know handstand could be turned it into a 27 step process?

So which method is more successful? Based on my (limited) observations, the CrossFit method gets more people in handstand and gets them there faster. I think this comes from the assumption behind the instructions. CrossFit treats handstand like a skill you need to do,so just do it already. Yoga marinates in the the "struggle" of getting to handstand.

I had a eight month "struggle" with box jumps. My CrossFit trainers repeated the same two part instructions over and over- look beyond the box and jump.    I couldn't get myself to jump on the 20 inch wooden box. So I got the mini-boxes and jumped on one, then stacked on another mini-box and jumped on two. I slowly built my confidence to 4 boxes, which was slightly higher than 20 inches.  I knew I could clear 20 inches, but I still couldn't jump on the wooden box.  So I focused on my feelings. I screamed and had melt downs in WODs, trying to get myself up on the box.  Eventually, I realized "struggling" was getting me no where. I forced myself on top of the box over and over until there was no more struggle, only success.

It is true, you can learn alot about yourself in the "struggle."  However, at some point, focusing on the struggle impedes progress.  You can only learn so much from your failures, evenutally, you need a success. Sometimes you have to stop investing in the struggle and leap onto the box or plant your hands on the ground and kick yourself up onto that wall.