About 99% of the time, I train by myself everywhere I go and when it's nice out, I'm either at a park, the lake or at the house. It's my "therapy session" or my time to do what I love and make the most of it. Seriously from my experiences it's the best therapy and it's FREE!! Now when people come up to me, it can vary on the mood I'm in.
When you train out in the open, there's a chance some shmuck or kid or whoever might come up to you. In roughly 18 years of doing this (god damn, I'm getting old), I've had maybe less than 10 people ever come up to me. I do my best to be polite to that person but I'm not going to stop what I'm doing and if they find it rude, that's their problem. We are a curious bunch, I get it and I'm guilty of doing it myself. I even went up to an elderly lady at a park one time in Pleasanton, CA who was doing some form of Tai Chi Walking or Crawling and barely spoke any english (or at least pretended to not know at all) I asked her if she could show me what the method was. She politely shrugged me off and I was ok with that, it's her thing and didn't want to keep bugging her.
In the last few years, I've only had less than what you can count on one hand come up to me about anything. I did get a little peeved when one guy looking for "buried treasure" got in my way of filming a pull-up video and had to restart the video again. That was pretty rude and should've said something but it is what it is. One guy came up to me after a set of Hammer Strikes on my tire and told me he thought the half tire was part of the park and it was a good little laugh and said something like "nope just mine having fun with the hammer." My favorite is when these two mormon kids going on their "route" to preach and saw me hitting the tire with the 25 lb beast of a hammer I have. They were being kind of rude so instead of telling them to fuck off, I messed with them and had them try out the hammers, neither one of them would touch Big Bertha (my 73 lb hammer) and the look on their faces when I swung that sum bitch was priceless. They did their bit and I shrugged them off.
Another time was this past summer, I was playing Basketball, just shooting around and this 15 year old kid and his girlfriend came up to me and wanted to play me. Now you need to remember, I'm old enough to be this kid's dad, so he thought I was just another guy in his mid 20's just shooting around. The kid tried to play me and got a bit of an awakening. I was outshooting both him and his girlfriend (whom was already a bit reluctant to even try playing) and this kid was like "what the hell, how are you shooting like that?" It was fun and introduced one another and went our separate ways. This really is a nice neighborhood and many people are friendly. Do I wish it was more diverse and not so Vanilla, hell yeah. If it had as many races and cultures from where I've been and was as friendly as this place is, the world would be very different.
I understand that when it comes to training, it's your time and you do what you need to do. The problem is, you don't own the park or the lake or wherever it is you train at unless it's at home so you have to be aware of people coming around and being curious. Some might try to tell you what you're doing wrong, others may want to join you, be rude and possibly mormon or just curious as to what you're doing. You can tell them to fuck off or be a complete ass to them because they're in your space but you never know what you're going to get with people. You can't completely control the space you're training in so you learn to adapt and be aware of what is possible in that moment and do what you need to do and let others know without needing to say much. If you're going to get that pissed off and have some kind of meltdown, you're not in the right mind because for one, you chose to go to a place where other people will be and two, it's really unlikely tons of people will come up to you anyway unless you go to some major place like central park or a big park in Asia or India where hundreds may be around but you also got to roll with the punches.
Training is about adapting, it's about learning the environment around you, where you choose to go and what the workout will entail. You can't control what people do, most of the time if people see me train, they're either minding their own business or might mimic me from a far and never actually come up to me. Believe me, not everyone is going to come up to you if you're training with a sledgehammer or moving like a wild animal, that's not in their interests and frequently, they find me odd and just move along. That's my intent to have people distance themselves from me because unless you plan on getting your ass kicked training with me, you might want to step back and go about your business because I'm not going to stop and show you the ropes, keep up or walk away, those are your only options.
Be resourceful but also be firm and remember people are curious. Many can be unpredictable so expect the unexpected and do your training the way you need to do it. It's not about catering to people, it's about letting them know you're there for a reason without needing to say much. For the most part, if you're doing things that they most likely cannot even fathom, they'll figure it out pretty quickly and move along. Train with intent, be firm with people and keep being amazingly awesome.
Lost Empire Herb Of The Day: Maca Powder
