Baseball Lessons

There are a couple of things I love about baseball. One, I love spending the time with my son at the field, watching him do something in which he excels. It's wonderful to see him work hard, focus and overcome challenges to be a leader on the team.

Gabe pitching.

On a greater scale, the other thing I love about baseball (and this really goes for all team sports) are the life lessons that the kids learn through the process. I'm sure they won't even appreciate the lessons they're learning every practice, every game, but it is exciting to see them put them into practice.

Talking to the kids before the game.

When you're dealing with a group of young boys who are moving into young men, there is an opportunity there to set expectations higher and in the right direction. Children want to be grown-ups so badly, they just want to know how.

So, we spend a lot of time talking about personal responsibility. For example, younger, immature players, when the make an error, will whine and complain about how it wasn't there fault, there was this reason and that reason and blah, blah, blah. We've explained to our team of 13 year olds that young men, responsible men, take responsibility for their actions. If you make an error, admit to it, own it, and let your team you know won't make the mistake again. It's okay, you're going to make mistakes, it's how you react to those mistakes which shows your character.

Chatting with players in between innings.

We also talk about criticism. We explain that there are two types of criticism, the truth and someone who just doesn't get it. If it's the truth, no matter how that information is delivered, it's still the truth and the player knows it as such. So, if it comes from a coach yelling during a game or a fellow player trying to help out, the truth doesn't change just because you don't want to hear it. Be open to it, accept it and learn from it.

If criticism is from someone who just doesn't get it, and you don't recognize it as the truth, then thank them and ignore it. It's that simple. Don't fight it, don't get into an argument about it. Just move on.

Another lesson we talk about is controlling your anger. We tell the kids, that baseball is a game of failure. People who go to the hall of fame fail 7 out of 10 times. You have to be able to control your response to failure. You're allowed to feel any emotion you want, however you are not allowed to express it any way you want. That's called sportsmanship.

And, of course, the concept of teamwork. As part of a team, they realize that if they make a mistake, they all suffer. If they make a great play, they all succeed. If you help someone make a great play, we all succeed. If you sacrifice for the team, they all succeed.

And, finally, we talk about raising their expectations about themselves, about not wasting time in practice and about enjoying the game of baseball for what it is... a game.

The fruits of our labor,
Gabe hits an in-the-park home run.

I love watching these young men grow and improve as both players and people. It is the greatest gift of coaching... not the trophies or wins, though they are nice, but the time with these kids, watching them move from childhood to adulthood.

P90X

Back in the day, about 20 years ago, I used to work out a lot. I'd go to the gym five days a week, working out about three hours each day. I was trying to be a working actor at the time. My body was my product. My acting talent the other. So, like any other businessman, I spent a lot of time making my product the best it could be.

While spending so many hours in the gym, I was fortunate to have met and learned from a lot of professional body builders. Some of them where on steroids, while others were not. You could tell the difference. It wasn't subtle. However, they all had insight into proper work out techniques... not only in what exercises to work on, but in what order. The goal was to create muscle confusion.

What is muscle confusion? Well, God has made us with exceptional adaptive skills. It's what has allowed our species to have survived all this time. The more we do something with our body, the more the body becomes accustomed to it. We become more efficient, the work less stressful. Our muscles first grow, then adapt.

This is problematic when you're trying to get in shape or build muscle mass. You eventually reach this plateau where you no longer see results.


Overcoming this standard problem is the genius behind P90X. Tony Horton has put together a wonderful, tough and comprehensive workout program that does a few things very well...

First, it breaks down the exercises into bite sized morsels. Each exercise usually lasts under one minute. As he says in the exercise program, "You can do anything for 60 seconds!"

Second, it's always challenging. He shows you numerous ways to do the same exercise, depending on your strength level. So, no matter where you are strength wise, it remains applicable. And that goes the other way too... after finishing the 90 day plan, I still couldn't do what the advanced people could do.

Third, the DVDs are very well designed. You can use the same DVDs in various ways... with Tony talking you through it, with music and pointers only, with music only, with nothing. So, you don't get bored with the DVD because you've heard the same thing over and over again. After a few weeks, you'll use the music with pointers option the most. Keeps it fresh.

Fourth, Tony's entertaining. You'd think that it would be difficult to listen to the same guy say basically the same thing day after day, but Tony is an entertaining guy. And he pushes you to do better, but never more than you are capable. His phrase "do your best and forget the rest" is a welcomed reminder as the workouts push you.

Fifth, it's brilliantly designed. The workout DVDs are broken up into specific sections (Chest & Back one day, Plyometrics the next, Shoulders & Arms the next, etc.). You're always working more than one muscle group and you'll switch between the two. On Chest & Back, for example, you'll do mostly push-ups and pull-ups. But there are about 10 different types of push-ups and about six different types of pull-ups, and he mixes them up so you're not doing only push-ups and then only pull-ups.

You do a series of DVDs covering your entire body for three weeks, then you have a rest week where you do non-impact/non-heavy lifting exercises like kick boxing or stretching. The second month you start an entirely different set of DVDs which work the same areas, but in different combinations and using different exercises... which is what keeps your muscles confused, so you never reach the plateau.

After another rest week, on the last month you do a combination of all of the DVDs in different orders again. Again, to keep your muscles from getting complacent.

The results have been great. It was the only exercise program my wife has ever completed. Six days a week for three months, she and I did the exercises. In order to make sure we never gave up, we promised to do at least one rep of every exercise, no matter how tired.

It is amazing how much stronger and healthier we are. We've both lost inches and gained muscle. I've lost about three inches in my waist, my wife much more.

After a break where we had to deal with the air-condition being replaced, collapsing bathroom walls and the start of baseball, we've worked P90X back into our schedule. This time the kids are involved to...

I never thought I'd see my wife and kids working out with me at the same time, all lifting weights, all doing push-ups, all doing kick boxing. It's a very cool thing.

Granted, after two surgeries and 20 years, I'll never have the body I had when I was an actor, but I have not felt this healthy in over a decade. P90X is one of the most amazing workout programs I've ever done. It does all the right exercises in the right form in the right combination in a way that makes you want to complete it. As we like to say in our house, it is evil genius. Genius in it's design, evil in the amount of work it expects you to complete.

We've now made it part of our daily lives. We want to keep what we've built up and perhaps even get stronger and healthier. At this point in our lives, waiting to start tomorrow isn't really an option. We're not going to be any healthier tomorrow than we are today.

Thankfully, Dea saw the infomercial and was inspired to buy the program. It has changed all of our lives for the better.

The Home Stretch

Well, I'm at it again. The writing is on the wall... or the blog, one might say. We're now in the final stretch of this blog. I've been using it for the past few years as a way to document our lives and converting them into books as keepsakes for my kids.

I'm sure, when they look back, they'll enjoy reading the events and the challenges facing us. I think they'll find funny the things that were on the top of our minds and the old fashioned thing called a Blog.

I'm not giving up blogging (see Sonlight Pictures Blog), but I am going to give up this blog. We're sharing our stories, pictures, videos on things like Facebook. The technology has evolved and that is where it should be exchanged.

The value of this blog from a personal life interaction with family members role, it has obviously diminished. And that's okay.

Change isn't necessarily bad, it's just different.

So, I'll close down this blog at the end of the year. Only 107 days away.

I'll try to update this more in order to finish with a bang. But it's time to move on. However, you can keep up visiting us over at the Sonlight Pictures Blog to see the challenges we're facing as we try to live our faith through film.