Bent Nails

 

When I was 11, I decided that I wanted to build a treehouse. I was fascinated by them (still am). We had a tree that would sort of work so I started a project that would end up being a lesson.

My Dad was forced into early retirement because of health issues.  Back then, medical care for heart patients consisted of Coumadin and do nothing. He was not even supposed to lift his hands over his head.

We dried clothes on a clothesline (ask an old person). My Mom worked and since my Dad couldn’t reach up, it fell to me.   I started doing that at an age when I couldn’t even reach the clothesline.  I built a wooden step to be able to reach it. 

Buying building supplies for the treehouse was out of the question so the first order of business was to find materials for it.  A neighbor had replaced their front porch so I was able to salvage a bunch of boards from that.

A nearby business had replaced their shelves and had piled what they replaced out back.  I asked for it and they were glad to get it hauled off.

And nails.  My Dad didn’t believe in throwing away anything, so, he had a big bucket of bent nails.  More on that in a minute.

He made the first motorized ice cream maker anyone had ever seen out of salvaged parts.  When I was 8, he built me a go-kart out of odds and ends that he had collected. Somebody had given him a small engine that didn’t work when he got it and although it was hard to start, he got it to work. Brakes were putting your foot out.

But this treehouse wasn’t my Dad’s project—this was mine. And his medical restrictions wouldn’t let him help anyway. He would sit at the bottom of the tree in one of those old webbed lawn chairs, teaching and coaching me all along the way.

He insisted that it be done right. No shortcuts were allowed. 

Before I could start, I had to straighten a bucket of bent nails. The thought of buying new nails for this project was preposterous.  My Dad had a small anvil and with hammer in hand, I pounded out the nails for my treehouse.

If you’ve ever built anything, you know that it can be a difficult task to hammer all the nails in straight. And once a nail starts to bend, it is going to keep bending. You can either pound it in half way and bent, or you can pull it out, straighten it, and try again.

Guess which way my Dad insisted that I do it?  Yep, pull it out. Do it right.

He always insisted that I pay attention to the small things. Don’t half-way do anything. One of his favorite sayings was “if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”

Same thing in sports. Same thing in life. If you do all the little things right, the big things get somehow easier.

Build that (tree)house well, doing it right from the first nail. That gives you a much better foundation on which to build the rest of your structure. Or your life.

If you don’t do the little things well, then everything else will be done poorly. It’s all in the small things. Straighten those nails.

Sleep better

 

My wife tells me I have already written this column before.  Maybe more than once.  After 40 years of writing in this space, I hope I can be forgiven for repeating myself.  But if the message is still important, then it surely bears repeating.

Let me explain. One night last week, I lay in bed reading. That’s my regular routine. Like many folks, I used to finish my night by checking my phone for the latest messages/weather update/game scores before setting my alarm, signing off, and calling it a night.

But not long ago I had heard that the quality of our sleep was enhanced if we stayed off of our electronic devices at bedtime. Phones, computers, television…anything like that.

I’ve always been a reader (still am). Beside my recliner you will find several books and on a stand just an arm’s reach away, several more. I love books. I’ve tried to read on my Kindle (I do have one) but that’s just not for me.

Just like a real printed newspaper, I want to hold words in my hands, whether it is newsprint or a book. Not long ago, I gathered up all the John Grisham novels I have. Being a huge fan, I had collected hardback copies of his books. I believe I have most of them.

It was amazing not only how many I had, but also how prolific John Grisham is as a writer. I tend to collect those. I find an author and want to read everything they’ve published. James Lee Burke. Ken Follett. 

On this particular night, as I lay reading, I realized something—I have been sleeping under an old-fashioned, pieced quilt my entire life. As in, since I was a baby. Hand-stitched in somebody’s home.

For many years, it was made by my grandmother. I still have quilts she made. 

Anyway, it’s time to get around to the point of all this.  One of the most under-appreciated components of sports performance is sleep. You don’t have to take my word for it—the body of knowledge about sleep quality is huge and conclusive.

A good night’s sleep is absolutely essential to consistently high performance in our athletic endeavors.  It is a foregone conclusion that quality practice is necessary. Most athletes also know of the importance of regular strength training.

A few understand how important flexibility is and a few even realize how important the nutritional component of physical performance can be. Rare is the person that understands the value of sleep. 

There isn’t a formula for how much sleep is enough. Everyone is different.  It’s just sort of safe to say that you probably aren’t getting enough. There is a lot of evidence that you should go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time. That’s hard to do.

My advice is to shoot for 8 hours a night, don’t watch television (or any kind of electronic device) in bed, and avoid things like caffeine that can interfere with the quality of your sleep.

If you’re tired in the afternoon, it is likely either sleep or nutrition. Take care of the nutrition side and if you’re still sluggish in the afternoon, turn your attention to what you can do to have a better night’s sleep.

I Wish...

 

One of my grandchildren asked me recently “what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

Huh-uh. Not answering that one. There would be too much implied endorsement for similar behavior out of him. Maybe it’s safer to tell him what I wish I had done.

I wish I had played other sports. I played football from the 3^rd grade on and loved basketball but I didn’t stick with the basketball. I wish I had. I didn’t go out for the track team until I was a high school senior and that was just to do the shot put.

There weren’t a lot of options in my hometown but I didn’t take advantage of all of what we did have.

I played a lot of tennis but I wish we had appealed to the high school to start a tennis team.  We had the makings of a team, despite not having any public courts.  Ronnie McNabb, Teddy Randolph, Tony Woody, Bill Miller…we could have been pretty good.

We didn’t have a public pool either but everybody could swim. I learned in a hotel pool in Kentucky when I was probably 4. Most of us spent a lot of time at the Springbrook pool in Lenoir City and several of us took lifesaving courses there or worked as lifeguards. Different era, I guess.

I wish I had worked harder at football. I was what we called “country strong.” That comes from bales of hay and shoveling grain and working hard. My school had a weight machine and free weights but I never really took advantage of them. I built a bench press out of wood and had a weight set for it but I’m pretty sure all I had was a total of 110 pounds. Not much to be gained from that.

My wife’s uncle, Jack Nichols, was one of the greatest football players to ever come out of my high school. Jack’s work ethic was legendary. He would take off and run to the next city, then turn around and run back. He would challenge anybody to a foot race. Even those that were 80 pounds lighter than him.

I wish I had that kind of drive back then. I did find it later but it would have been cool to have discovered it in when I was young.

I wish I had applied myself better in school. Oh, I did pretty well—straight A’s throughout my school years, but it didn’t take much effort to get A’s.  I did enter the Southeastern Science Fair one time but I was in way over my head. 

I was editor of the school newspaper and did some crazy things in that role. Keep in mind that it was the end of the 60’s and Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience was in my nightstand. I even got arrested (sort of) in college for protesting the damming of the Little Tennessee River. That’s another story.

Our journalism teacher in high school was a kind but naïve lady named Miss Mize. We would write, print, and distribute the school newspaper without letting her see it. That wasn’t real nice of us.

I broke my jaw one time. We had snuck into the pool at night but then we thought the police had arrived. In jumping off the top of the fence to escape, I hit my chin on my knee. Knowing what I know now, I definitely broke my jaw. I haven’t told anybody until today.

I wish I had started a business in high school. I mowed several yards and “hauled hay” for several farmers. Often, those farmers would depend on me to find a crew for them. If I had any business savvy at all, I would have charged a fee and had crews for each task.

I wish I hadn’t been so shy around girls. In junior high, I didn’t really have a girlfriend because I couldn’t talk to them. A steady girlfriend in high school helped with that but it was many years later when I had any confidence at all in talking to girls.

I wish. I wish. Yeah, buddy, I did some crazy stuff and made some mistakes that maybe I wish I hadn’t made, but it’s been a heck of a ride. Still is.

Yoga for everyone

 

I do yoga. Or “practice” yoga, if I use the proper nomenclature.  I take a class once or twice a week but incorporate a lot of the positions and moves into my daily exercise regimen. 

But let me address the elephant in the room. A lot of people object to the practice of yoga, misunderstanding the spiritual nature of yoga. If there is a spiritual side, it is connecting the mind and body. 

Yes, yoga is a part of the Hindu religion, but for millions of people around the world, yoga is simply a form of exercise. 

Amanda Hatcher is my yoga instructor.  She owns Yoga Mix on Sanderson Street. Until her retirement from teaching, I took yoga for several years from Amanda Myers and, before that, from Vanessa Ledbetter.

Yoga uses a variety of positions and postures to promote strength, flexibility, and control.  Movements are made slowly and deliberately. Yoga helps posture, balance, and body awareness. 

Breathing control is a big part of yoga practice, as is focus on controlling your body’s response to stress.  It has been shown to reduce blood pressure and control headaches.

I have to admit that there are very few men in the classes I take.  There might be one or two. Most of the people in the class are women in their 30’s and 40’s. Did I mention that I’m often not only the only man but also among the oldest in the class?

That’s OK because the true purpose of yoga practice is to improve physical health. And if you know anything about me at all, you know I’m focused on improving the physical health for both of us. 

I’m not sure why more older people don’t do yoga. It seems to me that it would be more important for older folks to do yoga than the younger folks. Maybe it’s the same reason older folks don’t hit the gym as often as young folks—it’s just outside their comfort zone. 

Maybe it’s just because they don’t understand it. But young and old, men and women, can all benefit from practicing yoga. We don’t realize what a profound connection that we have between our mind and our body, but a lot of physical ailments are when those two are disconnected.

Falls among older folks is one of the biggest health risks that they/we have.  About 27% of people that fall and break a hip will die within a year. There is no doubt that we lose what we know as “proprioception,” or joint sense, as we age and our joints degenerate. 

For that and other reasons, our balance also suffers, particularly as we age. It just makes good sense that we should do what we can to improve our balance. Yoga can do that. Maintaining core strength and flexibility also helps with that.

Athletes can also benefit from yoga.  I remember a championship football team around here several years ago that had several of its stars in a yoga class every Saturday morning.  Balance and body control are important in athletics. Yoga does that.

I’m not sure why there aren’t more men in yoga classes either. There’s nothing gender-specific about it. Gym shorts and t-shirts are fine. I once saw a guy in an airport in yoga pants but you won’t catch me in those and you definitely don’t need them to participate.

Put most simply, yoga can be a form of exercise with a wide range of health benefits. I don’t think it’s the only thing you should do, but it can be an important part of your overall health and wellbeing.