Way of the Warrior Kid

YES!!!!!!!!!

I DID IT! Finally, after eighteen days of training, TODAY I DID MY FIRST PULL-UP. BY MYSELF!!!

It was pretty easy, too. I did some push-ups at the beginning of the workout, and I actually got my record there, too, with twenty-two. Then I did some sit-ups and a few squats.

Then it was time to do pull-ups.

So I went and got the big box that Uncle Jake built for me to jump off of when I do pull-ups. But when I slid it underneath the pull-up bar, Uncle Jake said, “No.”

I was puzzled. “Why? You don’t want me to do pull-ups today?”

“Quite the opposite, Marc,” he answered. “You are ready to do an actual pull-up today.”

Oh no! I thought to myself. For the previous three weeks, all of my “pull-up” workouts haven’t included any actual pull-ups. I have only been doing something called “negatives,” where I jump up off the big box so I can get my chin over the bar. Once I got up there, I would try to hold it as long as I could. Then I would slowly come down, lowering myself as slowly as possible, fighting it the whole way down. Once I was at the bottom, I would jump up and get my chin over the bar again. So although this was a “pull-up workout,” I wasn’t actually doing any pull-ups.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready yet,” I told Uncle Jake.

“Oh, you’re ready. And even if you aren’t, you need to try. We have to assess your progress.”

“Well, I am definitely holding myself up there for a longer time now,” I told him. “When I started, I was only able to hold myself up for a couple of seconds. Now I can hold myself up for over thirty seconds.”

“Well, that’s good progress,” Uncle Jake said, “but your goal isn’t holding yourself up. Your goal is to do an actual pull-up. So let’s see what you’ve got.”

Uncle Jake pulled away the tall box that allowed me to jump my chin up over the bar and replaced it with the short box that made it so I could barely even reach the bar.

“There you go,” he said. “Giddyup.”

I was filled with fear. Every time I had tried in the past, no matter how hard I pulled, I could never get my chin over the bar. Now, with Uncle Jake standing right here, after all the work he has done with me, I just didn’t think I would be able to do it. I stood there looking at the bar.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

I slowly stepped up on the box and reached up for the bar. The bar was cool in my hands, and I noticed something that I hadn’t thought about: my grip. In the past, my grip always felt like it was going to slip off the bar. My grip felt different now. It felt strong.

I concentrated, and then, after taking a big breath, I pulled. And I went up. And up!

And up! And soon my chin cleared the top of the bar! YES! I HAD DONE IT!

I let myself down slowly and dropped off the bar. I looked at my uncle. He had a big smile on his face. A BIG smile! He was happy! And I was even happier. It felt so good.

I looked at Uncle Jake and yelled, “YEAH!!!!” as I curled both of my fists toward my shoulders like I had seen weight lifters do in magazines. And I could actually tell that, for the first time in my life, I was starting to get some muscles. Nothing huge, but they were certainly there. “MUSCLEMAN MARC!” I shouted, as proud as I could be.

Then I saw Uncle Jake’s smile disappear.

“Hold on there, Muscleman,” said Uncle Jake. I didn’t know what was wrong, but something was.

“I think it’s a bit early for a celebration.”

“Early? I just did the first pull-up of my life! I think it is the perfect time for a celebration!” I told Uncle Jake.

“That’s a problem.”

“A problem? Why is a pull-up a problem?”

“Not the pull-up, Marc. The celebration. It is way too early for you to be celebrating.”

“But I just did my first pull-up. EVER!”

“But your goal isn’t one pull-up. It is ten pull-ups. You did one. Sure, you have a reason to be happy—one pull-up is better than zero. But it is a long way from ten. No matter what you are doing in life, you can’t take your eyes off the long-term goal—especially to celebrate. You can assess. You can try to figure out some lessons learned from what you did right and what you did wrong. You can even do a little celebrating for the small victories. But don’t go overboard. You need to keep your head in the game. So come over here, give me a high five, and then get back over there and start doing more work on the pull-up bar. This is only the beginning.”

I walked over to Uncle Jake, who brought his hand up in the air.

I slapped it hard, and he said, “Solid work. Now get back over there and get after it.”

“Yes, sir,” I told him.

I walked back over to the bar and actually did three more individual pull-ups before I needed to get the bigger box to jump up with. Then I did a bunch of the negative work, coming down as slow as I could. Knowing that I had already made some real progress made me focus even more. Ten pull-ups is a long way away. But I started to think I might just get there.