22 miles per hour.
That is the speed that the average barbell travels when you drop it.
That is about 30 feet per second. Generously you have about a third of a second of airtime when you drop your weight.
That is not a lot of time. And that is a lot of time.
If you are reading this then you have heard of the word “OM.”
You may not know what it means or much about it at all.
That is okay.
It is a sacred word in the spiritual traditions of the Indian subcontinent and the spiritual traditions that spring from there.
Whether you meditate or not “OM” has entered the lexicon as a “spiritual” word. Some may mock it or repurpose it – but it is a word that is out there.
OM is also a mantra that many people have meditated upon.
Mantra based meditation has the practitioner take a sound or a syllable (sometimes a word) into their mind and then actively repeat that sound for a period of time and then let go of the activity of repetition and then just follow the sound in mind…and that is mantra based meditation in a nut shell.
In the “rev up” period at the beginning (called japa in Sanskrit) the idea is to create some energy, vigor, and volume so that there is a temporary clearing in the mind. That clearing allows some space for the mantra to do its work on purifying the mind and heart over time. But the intense effort of the active repetition of the mantra has to be released because, at best, we only can exert temporary control of the mantra.
The cessation of the active repetition of the mantra isn’t just a license to start wandering off into circling mental chatter-land. There is a type of open attention that the meditator must sit with that the mantra operates within (sometimes). We need both aspects in meditation. The active directed aspect and the mysterious open aspect.
If you are a Crossfit athlete of any level then you have dropped a barbell.
When we lift a barbell we impose force on it for one rep or many reps strung together. This is a type of japa. An intentional act of repetition. It is work. That work builds a type of strength. And then we have to let go of the barbell.
Sometimes we control the weight and gently let it down – I’m all for that.
But Crossfitters drop weight – I’m all for that.
When a barbell drops it usually out of exhaustion or being done or rushing to the next exercise.
The next time you have a barbell in your hands and let go of it you have less than a third of a second to pay attention as it falls.
When it hits the ground it is like a gentle chime going off at the end of meditation.
No need to try to find or invent some sort of profound thing that can happen in that third of a second.
But what does happen in that space we drop the weight intentionally and keep our attention there as an act in and of itself.
Dropping the bar is integral to the act of weightlifting. We put a tremendous amount of attention, care, and time to lifting a bar and yet is our time away from the bar that actually allows the strength to develop. Let dropping the weight have as much attention and care as lifting the bar and report back what you find.