One Trick Pony: Training Involution #105

Our focuses this month are Wrestling and The Hourglass.

  • Bad Karma calisthenics session.  Set timer for 12 minutes.  Finish as many sets as you can in 12 minutes of 8 each: Back Neck Bridges, Get-ups, Squats, and Sit-out Push-ups (a.k.a. “Barrel Roll Push-ups”).  
  • One trick pony a weak spot.  What's the weakest part of your Wrestling game?  Is your Sit-out washed up?  Is your Shrimp dead in the water?  Is your scrambling game hard-boiled, or is it not what it's cracked up to be?  Whatever your weakest move is, set a timer for 10 to 20 minutes and do nothing but that one move for the entire duration.  Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
  • Start memorizing the Emerald Tablet.  The Emerald Tablet just may be the world's first piece of interfaith literature -- revered by the wise and educated of every nation across the ancient world from its first appearance in 8th century Persia to the desk of Isaac Newton all the way down to today.  Do yourself a favor and memorize it (it's required of all Cabal Fang distance learning students by the way).  Full text below.  If you memorize this bit of wisdom literature it will pay dividends as long as you live.

The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus

True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing. 

And as all things were by contemplation of one, so all things arose from this one thing by a single act of adaptation. 

The father thereof is the Sun, its mother the Moon.

The wind carried it in its womb, the earth is the nurse thereof.

It is the father of all works of wonder throughout the whole world.

The power thereof is perfect.

If it be cast on to earth, it will separate the element of earth from that of fire, the subtle from the gross.

With great sagacity it doth ascend gently from earth to heaven.

Again it doth descend to earth, and uniteth in itself the force from things superior and things inferior.

Thus thou wilt possess the glory of the brightness of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly far from thee.

This thing is the strong fortitude of all strength, for it overcometh every subtle thing and doth penetrate every solid substance.

Thus was this world created. Hence will there be marvelous adaptations achieved, of which the manner is this.

For this reason I am called Hermes Trismegistus, because I hold three parts of the wisdom of the whole world.

That which I had to say about the operation of Sol is completed.

(Steele and Singer translation, 1927)