it got stoled!
it got nabbered!
ransacked!
disappeared!
Perhaps an enterprising raccoon purloined it and will fashion it into a motor vehicle--not unlike a worm driving an apple car.
The teams have separated themselves into three brackets that I will go over without revealing scores or placings. Teams are listed in alphabetical order in their respective groups.
THE PODIUM CONTENDERS!
Not Too Shabby Slabby Crabs- No one should be surprised to see that the Funny Animal Name Team is once again vying for a podium spot. Obviously they’d like to get second. Last night it seemed like my sister Erin, for the second week in a row, was going to run out of time to finish a green V4 before Rocky Top closed but she mustered the will (mustard the Will?)--she MUSTERED THE WILL to top it out with the support of her crustaceous teammates. They’re having fun. They’re sending hard. It’s what League is all about.
Melissa & the Danimals- No one should be surprised that a team of Rocky Top employees is once again vying for a podium spot. They work here. It’s like it’s their job or something. Climbing League is first and foremost about the people BUT it’s also about establishing and reinforcing power structures. Remember, kids: The House Always Wins.
MidLife Cruxes- No one should be surprised that the reigning champions of Climbing League are once again vying for a podium spot. A key element to the success of the MidLife Cruxes is strategy. Captain Mike isn’t just trying out climbs willy-nilly and hoping for the best. No. He’s gathering intel. He’s surveying the scene. He’s relaying information and beta to his fellow Cruxes. Climbing League isn’t a game of checkers. It’s that other scary game where all the pieces do different things and they get mad if you call the horse a horse and the castle a castle. The MidLife Cruxes are thinking two moves ahead and that’s what Climbing League is all about.
Papa’s Climberia: Set Fire to the Seventh Plate- The Sequel: ENDGAME- No one should be surprised that the team with the longest name in all the land is once again vying for a podium spot. You should see this team when the chips are down and it’s time to lay it all on the line. They’re fiery and gritty. More than any other team they’re willing to power up and eat an inordinate amount of red meat to fuel themselves to victory. The Papas have Passion and that’s what Climbing League is all about.
Plate Lickers- No one should be surprised that a team as strong as the Plate Lickers are once again vying for a podium spot. Last night, during Shadow Council time, a member of the Plate Lickers came to me and said, “I’ve done the hardest climbs available to me on these sets and some of them are below my base grade.” And maybe some sort of Strawman League Commissioner would have said, “Too bad! That’s what you get for being strong!” But not me. I don’t think you should be penalized if there just aren’t enough climbs available to you. I said four weeks ago that I’d make deals to those who offered them. And that’s what League is all about.
The Space Dolphins- You should be surprised that the Space Dolphins are vying for a podium spot. I mean, they came out of nowhere. They could rival the debut season of PBR. A dark horse from nowhere that stuns the field?? That’s what Climbing League is all about.
in a Werner Herzog mode
The rain that fell today was like a punishment. The sky knows that we have basked in the light for too long. Bow your heads. It is time to begin the return to the Earth. The time of dying. I live surrounded by a parking lot. Crumbling patches of tar that keep the rain from the ground and shunt it to sewage. Even still, on my walk I saw weeds and happy small plants bursting through the edges of buildings. Life is irrepressible. A man will come with fire and poison to kill these plants. Perhaps the property managers fear that if we don't kill all the plants the people will forget we don't actually live in this hell they've made. Can you imagine a land of eternal damnation where devils and demons run around constantly trying to stomp out the paradise they've built over that keeps finding ways to break through?
It is a comedy. It is my favorite comedy. The comedy of two people who openly hate each other and yet are bound by some force to continue to interact. It is unthinkable to not engage. Jerry and Newman from Seinfeld. Or, from my own life, growing up we had a toy called Bop It Extreme where a man would scream directions threw a poor quality speaker and after a period of neglect he would loudly declare, "I'M GOING TO SLEEP" and I will never forget the time that he yelled this and my mother replied, "yes bop-it go to sleep!"
Sometime vaguely in the 19th century after Lewis and Clark hitchhiked their way across the 'Land Pond' as they say in jolly ol' England, America decided that it was so bursting with flavor that it needed to take over the world. To this end, the geniuses in Marketing invented the Cowboy.
Here was a rough and tumble sack of trouble with scruff and brawn that would tame the vast plains and prairies in spite of people already living there in a thriving ecosystem.
Yes, the cowboy. A man with the freedom to die for anything and by anything. Shooting his gun. Pew Pew. Get the bad guy and then I'm your huckleberry. His powers were many. Horse, gun, hat, lasso, spurs, bandanna, The West Texas Town of El Paso, and the Town of Agua Fria. But like any good historian, we must ask the question: "what puts the cow in cowboy?"
The cow in cowboy comes from the cows. If you can believe it, cows can't just be fine on their own. You've gotta get a feller on his horse to run around and say "HYAH!" and "GET ALONG" and just run em around and kick up a big cloud of dust. It soothes them so. Probably makes the meat taste better too I guess. Cowboys don't work with dairy cows. That's the for softies up in New England. Western cowboys are only interested in thick slabs of beef and making a bunch of cattle stand in a space as if to say, "Yep. That's mine right there. You stay where you are, Kemosabe."
But between running the cows around, the cowboys would also have to sneak around and have adventures and keep their rodeo counts up. Cowboys hated having a low rodeo count so much that they popularized the phrase, "it's not my first rodeo". But really, rodeos were just to hang out with clowns. The whole endeavor was quickly discovered to be ridiculous but by then they were all too invested and embarrassed so they kept doing it for decades until the resale value on their britches and boots went up enough.
At its core, the only profitable venture for Cowboys was the Pony Express. They successfully delivered all of America's mail until the invention of email. Only the fastest horses could compete with the speeds of early Internet connections. Sadly, horses could not get any faster because Henry Ford invented the Model T which put a stop to making horses faster despite all automobiles depending on their power.
Today all cowboys have moved on to crypto. Many are calling it the Wild West of the World Wibe Western Web. or WWWWW for short. People said 'wub wub wub wub wub' so much that it invented the genre of dubstep which later evolved into its perfect evolution: grime step.
a million dollars John, I told you, a million dollars, John!
However, even the internet has made everything bad, an unlikely corner of society has continued on the tradition of the bond between horse and human: horse girls. This powerful faction has taken up the mantle and may one day complete the promise of cowboys by creating functional Centaurs that live in the magic wood and give advice to destined teenagers and single mothers who have lost their way.
Dang I keep forgetting to check when my car inspection is due. I think it's this month but maybe it's October.
Oh nice it is October.
I hope you learned a lot. Be sure to read Crab's revisionist history of the Cowboys in the comments. He'll probably go in on my careless omission of the Dallas Cowboys. Try to claim that everything we know about Cowboys is just lore made up by the football team. It's like that scene in Goodwill Hunting. You know the one.
Overall: Pretty Good
Highlights:
-good programming for the competition team. Came up with a good power endurance workout. Ran 2 good end-of-practice workout. Supported the kids well.
-did a fun icebreaker activity with the training team. good one-on-one interactions.
-confronted a club kid who was teasing some of the other kids. handled it well
-did a good job being flexible with different club groups and changing the schedule to keep them engaged
Improvements:
-woke up feeling low energy today. had some trouble feeling "on" at practice. If I want to be a great coach I should aim to be more inspired at practice and have something important to share. It wasn't a failure of a day but I didn't find my own programming that fun for club. Feels like I'm still trying to get a handle on a lot of the club groups.
-With the Training Team and Comp Team it feels like I can give more and there's more back-and-forth. Largely because they're older and I've known them for longer and they can do more with their climbing but I really want to make Club as good as possible. They're the future.
-I felt like I had a good streak of fun club practices going and this one was a little below the mark so I'll use that as motivation to make something good for next week.
