The Power of the Mind

This is a story that happened early in my Powerlifting journey and showed me the Power of the Mind or in reality the Power of FEAR!!! 

It's Tuesday and that means its DEADLIFT DAY!!  I get to Bradshaw's Gym down in Corpus Christi and start stretching out and getting everything set up for training when I see my training partners Rodney and Dan come in with this absolute look of terror on both of their faces and before I could ask why... THE WHY came barreling through the door in the form of bigger than life itself... it's Paul Barbee and he's blowing a damn whistle as hard as he possible... why is he blowing a whistle?! 

Everyone is looking at him and clearing the hell out of his way and he's headed straight for the platform where Rodney, Dan and myself were warming up and he bellows out ....

"Rick sent me to make sure you fucking pussies are training hard!!"   

We get warmed up and stretched out (YES even in 1985 we started out our training by warming up and getting stretched and for all of you pseudo experts we were static stretching and moving more weight that any of you can even imagine ). 

The start of our training session is light squats and Thank the Good Lord ole Paul gets distracted and disappears so we think that we are in clear but as soon as we drop that bar on the platform to begin our Deadlifts we can feel Paul coming over before we hear his whistle and yelling ....

"Put some weight on the fucking bar you pussies!!" 

I thought he was gonna have an aneurysm his face was so red while he yelled instructions and for us to work harder.  Once we are done Deadlifting we moved to rack pulls from below the knee.  We load the bar to 100 pounds over what we deadlifted and we can use training straps.  I tell Rodney that not only have I never done this exercise before I've never used training straps either!!   So when it was my turn Rodney showed me how to wrap them around the bar and was telling me what to do and all I can see is Paul pacing like a Silverback Gorilla in his cage and getting frustrated that we were taking so long...  I set up and pull hard ... nothing happens the bar just sits there on the pins mocking me ... I try again with the same results.  I looked at Rodney and whispered "I can't do this"  when Paul comes roaring towards me yelling

"What... motherfucker what did you say... can't... what the fuck is that you pussy" 

All of the sudden I got this boost of strength and BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM... 5 reps done!!!  Paul wraps his huge arm around my shoulder and tells me

"Don't you ever fucking doubt yourself again, you hear me?"

It was an impactful lesson that day back in 1984 and one that I still carry with me today and close to my heart with my memories of Paul.  

Stories I've lived and lessons taught to me by the Iron Gods and the Men that I was blessed to have shared the platform with ... these are some of the most valuable lessons I have learned in my life and I carry them all in my heart.

Until next time...