Today wasn’t a particularly good day. I got invited to go to a Non-NPC contest up north by my good friend, Tony Ruggiero. He had an extra ticket. I’ll do free any day. So I said I’d go. I’m thinking prejudging starts around 10 am like normal NPC shows, but noooo…this thing starts at 8:30 am. Now mind you, I live in Tacoma. The contest was waaaay up in Marysville at the casino. Tony lives in Everett. Herein lies the first problem.
Normally I wake up at the crack-of-when-I-feel-like-it as I’m ‘retired’ and just enjoying life. I usually jump on cardio for 30-45 minutes, but with the “Be Perfect Today” series, and the fact that this whole blog thing started because I was texting my competition team every morning to be perfect, I’d made the commitment to be perfect with them. That meant increasing my cardio to at least 60 minutes a day, and last week I increased to 75 straight minutes as I no longer have double cardio in this body due to double hip replacements and bad knees.
Heading up to Tony’s place threw me off-schedule. First, I didn’t get my cardio in. Second, I actually had to set an alarm clock to get up at 6 am to be out the door by 6:30 to be up there by 7:45 to drive to the casino and arrive by 8:15. I did that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know…”Oh poor DaviePoo…waking up at 6 am. I’ve been up since 4 am, banged out my first session, washed a load of clothes, got the kids up, made the hubby breakfast, and now I’m cleaning the house.” All I can say to that is, “Mad props to ya! I ain’t doin’ it…”
N-E-Whooo…there were the typical competitors in this show. A few looked outstanding, many looked okay, and a few looked like they never should have stepped onstage. But hey, I don’t know their story, so kudo’s to them for getting up there. My hope is that they’ll see where they need help and seek it to look better next time.
The biggest problem I had with this organization was how they ran their pre-judging. Way. Too. Long. It could’ve been shortened up by at least 2 hours if the head judge would’ve done one simple thing. Reduce the number of ‘looks’ he gave the competitors. I mean, c’mon…how many times does one have to quarter-turn? How many times does one have to hit a pose? I understand what they (meaning the organization) wants to do in giving the competitors more stage time AND audience more viewing time, but trust me…running a class through 8-10 times on quarter-turns and having competitors hit the same poses up to 6 times was tedious, time-consuming, and, for me, flat-out boring. And, in my opinion, it’s simply a waste of time when you’ve only got 3 in a class and it’s SOOO obvious who’s in first, who’s in second, and who’s in third. And I truly believe that all competitors get tired by the 4th or 5th go-round and just want to be done with it. Now before all of you Non-NPC competitors rip into me, understand that I know why they do it – I just don’t like it. And you won’t change my mind on it. So there’s no need to say anything. Moving on…
I took all my food with me as I tell my people to do. I’d packed everything up the night before. Two food meals, a protein bar, and a couple of cookies. Y’can’t be perfect without your food, right? By 1 pm both meals were down. Pre-judging didn’t end until 2:30. Good thing I had an extra bar and cookies in my car. I needed em on the way home.
I went back to Tony’s house and kicked it with him for about an hour. Then I left. The drive home was a nightmare…took over two hours to get back. I hate Seattle. I mean, I truly hate Seattle with all their traffic. If I could never go to or through Seattle again the rest of my life, I’d be happy. But I finally got past Southcenter Mall, and from there it was smooth sailing.
Here’s where it gets fun. Right before I left Tony’s house, I said, “Well, looks like I’m gonna have to bag cardio today. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to write a blog. I’m exhausted.” He looked at me. “Is that what you’d tell your competitors, Patterson? You don’t have to do cardio because you’re tired? And you promised to write a blog every single day through the Cup, so I wanna hear that you did cardio and I wanna read your blog tonight!”
I could’ve kicked his lil’ munchkin butt, but he was right. Being perfect isn’t about making perfection work when it fits my schedule. Being perfect is simply about being perfect, REGARDLESS of my schedule.
I got home at 5:45 pm. At 5:55 I jumped on cardio. 75 minutes straight. Full sweats. Drank a half-gallon of water during my session – I do that every day. Then a shower, a meal, and now the blog. One more meal and it’s time for bed around 11. Oh, and Tony? Yup…you guessed it. I texted that lil’ munchkin and said…well…I can’t tell you what I said, but it was good, trust me!
Moral of the story? Doesn’t matter what’s happening in your life. You made a commitment to do a show. You have 3 weeks to go. If you haven’t been perfect up to this point, I want one thing from you…perfection for the next three weeks. Give me that and I promise you’ll be pleased and proud of yourself. Because after all, this is YOUR journey, correct? It’s 9:15 pm and everything I was supposed to do today I did. Some of you won’t read this until Sunday morning. After you’re done, be perfect the rest of the day. Peace…
Doc
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