“What??!!” I yelled. This was not cool. AT ALL. I had made it over, but I definitely didn’t think I would be able to make it back! Not by myself.
“I said you would be fine—and you are. Now just swim back over here to me.”
I was torn between looking like a WIMP and possibly drowning. I decided to go with looking like a WIMP!
“Actually, Uncle Jake, I would be A LOT more comfortable if you could swim over here so you can swim back with me. PLEASE!” I hoped his understanding of how scared I was would shine through! But it didn’t.
“Nope. I’m not coming over. You made it there. You can make it back. Trust me.”
Wait! Isn’t Trust me something that people say when they aren’t telling you the truth?? And besides, he had already told me he was going to stay close to me. How could I trust him!!! Finally, I just said, “Well, I don’t think this is a very good idea. Maybe you could just please come over here and—”
Uncle Jake cut me off. “This is a VERY good idea. You know how to swim. You made it there. You can make it back. Now on the count of three, GO. One. Two. Three. GO!”
For some reason, which I may never understand, when he got to three and said, “Go,” I made an instant decision. I pushed off the bank and started to swim. I felt scared and alone at first, but I just focused on the other side and kept swimming. Each stroke brought me closer and closer to Uncle Jake and the sandy little beach on the other side. Then, just when I really felt comfortable with it, I felt my foot touch the bottom. I. HAD. MADE. IT. YEESSSSSSSSS!
Uncle Jake smiled again and said, “Okay, you can hoot now.…”
With that, I let out the biggest I had ever yelled in my life. I looked at Uncle Jake and said, “I’m like a fish in the water!” I waited for him to yell.
“Well, Fish in the Water,” he said, “just remember, you still owe me a jump off that bridge.”
I sat there in silence. But the message was clear: I still have a lot to prove. And as I looked up to the top of the bridge, I knew I wasn’t quite ready for that yet.
CHAPTER 18: CHASING RECORDS AND BREAKING PLATEAUS
Just when you think you know what pain is—there is more!
This week I learned about pain.
Everything had been going along smoothly, and I felt like I was doing pretty good work and making some real improvements. I was up to thirty-five push-ups, and I was doing nine repetitions of a new exercise Uncle Jake had taught me called dips. My swimming was coming along. So I was getting better and was feeling pretty strong in just about everything—except the most important thing: PULL-UPS.
That’s right. Despite all the hard work I had put myself through over the last month, I was stuck on pull-ups. The most I had gotten in a row was four. And I seemed stuck there. Each workout, I would do a few more push-ups, a few more dips, a few more squats, a few more sit-ups than the last time. But for the last few workouts, I had been stuck at four pull-ups, and I didn’t know what to do.
“I’m stuck, Uncle Jake. I can’t get past four pull-ups. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Well. You’ve been following the workout. You’ve improved what you have been eating. So. This must be a plateau.”
“What’s a plateau?” I asked.
“It’s when you reach a level that you aren’t breaking through. You’re not improving the way you should be. Sometimes the body just adapts to the stress you’re putting on it and stops improving.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “That’s horrible. Does this mean I won’t be able to get to ten pull-ups? Or even five?” I asked.
Uncle Jake shook his head. “No,” he said, “it doesn’t mean that at all. It just means we need to break through the plateau.”
“How do we do that?” I wondered.
“Well, you know how I said your body has adapted to the stress put on it from working out?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I was pretty sure I understood this.
“Well, here is what is happening: You make the body work hard—or you ‘stress’ the body—and then, in order to deal with that stress, the body builds muscle and gets stronger—or it ‘adapts’ to that stress.”
“So my body has adapted a little?” I asked.
“Actually, your body has adapted a lot. You have gotten better in every exercise. You are just stuck. But we will get you through that.”
“How?” I asked.
“Simple. More stress.”
“More stress?” I didn’t like the sound of that. AT ALL!
“Yes. More stress. We are going to push you harder—the hardest you’ve been pushed in your workouts—and we will do a workout specifically based on stressing your pull-up muscles to smash this plateau and get your pull-up numbers increasing. Be ready for a good workout tomorrow morning.”
“Good? What do you mean by good?” I asked, worried that Uncle Jake’s definition of the word good might be a little different than mine.
“I guess I mean pain. Be ready for some pain in the morning.”
That’s EXACTLY what I was afraid of!
The next morning, the workout was PSYCHO!
It started off pretty normally. We did some push-ups, then some sit-ups, then some squats. Then we got to pull-ups, and Uncle Jake said, “Today you are going to do one hundred.”
“Pull-ups?” I asked in shock.
“Yes. Pull-ups. You are going to do one hundred.”
“Maybe you are forgetting, but I can only do FOUR PULL-UPS, UNCLE JAKE! HOW THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO ONE HUNDRED?????” I asked.
“However you can,” Uncle Jake answered. “However you can. Now get up there and get started.”
I stepped up on the box, reached for the bar, and did my first set of four. “Good,” Uncle Jake said. “Now do it again.” I grabbed the bar and did another four. “That’s eight,” Uncle Jake said. “Keep going.” I took a little rest, then reached up to the bar and did another three. “And that is eleven. Eighty-nine to go.”
So that is what he meant. I was going to do a hundred pull-ups. But not in a row, in sets. Since I could only do four at the most, it was going to be A LOT OF SETS!
But I kept going. And going. And going. I was able to do sets of three for a while, but then around fifty, I could only do sets of two. When I got to eighty, I could only get one pull-up at a time.
Right in the middle of number eighty-seven, I felt a pain in my hand. When I got off the bar, I looked down at my right hand. One of the calluses had been ripped off. There was a trickle of blood coming out.
“I think I’m done,” I said to Uncle Jake, showing him my hand.
“Thirteen more,” Uncle Jake said.
“But my hand. It hurts,” I told him, hoping he would have mercy on me.
“Thirteen more,” Uncle Jake said again.
I stepped up onto the box and grabbed the bar. I did another one. It hurt. Then I did another one. Then I adjusted my grip a little so I was holding on with just my fingers, and I found that hurt a little less. I did another and another and then a few more.
Then, finally, I finished. ONE HUNDRED PULL-UPS.
My hands were sore and bloody. I had blood on my shirt. I was sweating. But I had done it.
“Good job, Marc,” Uncle Jake said. Then, in a very serious tone, he added, “We don’t quit. Ever.”
I nodded. And I felt good. Really good.
The next day, Uncle Jake told me not to work out at all. And that night he took me to a movie and to the Classic Malt Shoppe for a double cheeseburger!
Three days later, I got up on the bar, and I did six pull-ups. I was on my way; the plateau had been broken—but I hadn’t been.
CHAPTER 19: PRESIDENTS, CAPITALS, AND GETTYSBURG
If you thought for a minute that mastering the times tables would be enough for me to learn during the summer—think again. My uncle Jake had other ideas. He wanted me to learn a bunch of other stuff, too. Once I got the times tables in less than three minutes, he made me make flash cards for every state in Amer
ica and the capital of the state. Next he wanted me to learn the name of EVERY PRESIDENT WE HAVE EVER HAD. I had no idea how I was going to do that!
So Uncle Jake sat me down. He told me to write down every single president on a piece of paper. “Like flash cards?” I asked.
“No. Not this time. Just write them down on a piece of paper. In a row or two.”
“Okay.” Uncle Jake walked out of the room, and I pulled out a book from school about all the presidents. Then I wrote them all down in two rows, like he said.
Washington
Harrison
Adams
Cleveland
Jefferson
McKinley
Madison
Roosevelt
Monroe
Taft
Adams
Wilson
Jackson
Harding
Van Buren
Coolidge
Harrison
Hoover
Tyler
Roosevelt
Polk
Truman
Taylor
Eisenhower
Fillmore
Kennedy
Pierce
Johnson
Buchanan
Nixon
Lincoln
Ford
Johnson
Carter
Grant
Reagan
Hayes
Bush
Garfield
Clinton
Arthur
Bush
Cleveland
Obama
Trump
Just as I finished up, Uncle Jake came back into my room. I showed him the list.
“Good,” he said. “Now let’s trailblaze.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It is another way to memorize things. Things that are longer and not direct question-and-answer. Like the presidents or the Gettysburg Address.”
“What’s the Gettysburg Address?” I asked.
“What’s the Gettysburg Address? Really? All right, we’ll get to that later. Right now, let’s focus on the presidents. Look at them and memorize the first ten. I’ll give you five minutes.” With that, Uncle Jake walked out the door.
NOW WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO? How could I ever memorize these in five minutes????
I looked down at the paper: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler. I read through them again: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler. And I did it again. And again.
Then Uncle Jake came back in. “You got them memorized yet?” he asked. I thought he might be kidding. But he wasn’t.
“No,” I said. “Not even close.”
“That’s okay. No one can memorize that fast. But you can definitely memorize this easily. Now. Take one last look at those first ten. But focus on the first four.”
I looked down at the paper again, looking at the first four: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison. Again: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison.
“Okay,” Uncle Jake said as he snatched the paper away from me. “Go.”
“Washington. Adams. Jefferson. Mmmmm … mmmmm…” I knew the next one began with an M, but I just couldn’t remember the rest of it.
“Mad…” Uncle Jake gave me a hint.
“Madison?”
“Yes. Now. Look at the paper. And then start over again at the beginning, down the trail you already made. But try to go just a little farther down the trail each time.”
I looked at the paper and saw Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, MONROE.
Uncle Jake flipped the paper over. I started again. “Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe?”
“Yes,” Uncle Jake said, “and who is after Monroe?”
“I actually have no idea.”
“That’s okay. Look at the paper again.” I looked down and saw that after Monroe was ADAMS. I thought to myself: Monroe, ADAMS, Monroe, Adams. Monroe, Adams.
“You ready?” Uncle Jake asked.
“I guess so,” I replied.
“Go. From the beginning.”
“Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe … Adams.”
“Yes!” Uncle Jake said. “That’s it. Each time you get stumped, you stop, take a look, think about how it ties into what you know, and then go back to the beginning of whatever you are trying to memorize—the beginning of the trail. I just want you to finish the first ten tonight. I will test you on them in the morning.”
And that was it. It was a simple system. AND IT WORKED! I kept repeating the presidents I knew, and then when I got stumped, I would check the paper, look at it and try to memorize the next one, and then put the paper down and go back to the beginning. I didn’t always get it right. And I got stumped a few times really bad. I had to go back and look at the paper six times for Van Buren. What kind of name is Van Buren anyway? But I got them memorized.
The next morning, as soon as I rolled out of bed, Uncle Jake was there. “Go,” he said.
“Go? Go where?” I asked, still a little groggy.
“The presidents! Let’s hear the first ten.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. Those. Here we go:
Uncle Jake got a smile out of that! “Good job, Marc,” he said. “Good job.”
“Thanks, Uncle Jake.”
We headed down for the morning workout.
“So. For the next four nights, you can keep working on memorizing the presidents. Once you have those, you can move on to the Gettysburg Address.”
“You still haven’t even told me what that is, Uncle Jake.”
“Well, first you have to know about the Battle of Gettysburg…,” Uncle Jake said. Then he told me all about it. It was a brutal battle in the Civil War near the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Almost fifty thousand men were killed or wounded in three days of fighting. After the battle was over, President Lincoln came to the site and gave a speech called the Gettysburg Address. Although the speech was only ten sentences long and President Lincoln spoke for only two minutes, my uncle Jake says it is one of the best speeches ever. I copied it out of a history book:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Uncle Jake said everyone should memorize that speech. I agree with him, and I will.
CHAPTER 20: MARC VERSUS GOLIATH ON THE MAT
MY WHOLE WORLD CHANGED TODAY!
I went to jiu-jitsu class this afternoon. When I walked onto the mat, there was a new kid there. He looked about my age, maybe a year older, but he was much, much bigger than me. In fact, he was as big if not BIGGER than Kenny Williamson. REALLY BIG.
Just like other day
s when new kids show up to class, the instructor pulled the new kid aside and taught him the basics of jiu-jitsu while we were warming up and doing our basic drills for the day. The new kid’s name was Jimmy. After warm-up, the instructor sat us down to go over some new moves. We spent some more time drilling those moves, and then, finally, it was time to roll.
I did a round against the usual kids that train all the time. A round with Jeff, a round with Craig, a round with Andy, a round with Nora, and then Dean. Some of them beat me, and I beat some of them. It basically boils down to who has been training the longest or the most. The kid with the most experience will win.
The whole time I was sparring with the other students, Jimmy was standing on the side, watching. Then, after one of the rounds, the instructor said, “Marc, come over here and train with Jimmy, okay?”
I walked over to Jimmy. Now that I was standing near him, I realized how ABSOLUTELY HUGE HE WAS. He was definitely bigger than Kenny Williamson. I held out my hand. Jimmy grabbed my hand and squeezed—not crazy hard like he wanted to hurt me—but he gave it a squeeze, and I could feel how insanely strong he was. I started to get nervous. What if this big monster goes crazy and tries to hurt me? What if he doesn’t know his own strength and ends up breaking my arm or my leg or my SPINE?!
My nervousness quickly turned to FEAR. I was afraid. I looked at the instructor and said, “Sir, he is A LOT bigger than me. Maybe Jimmy should go with one of the bigger kids?”
The instructor smiled and said, “You’ll be fine. Now go ahead and train.”
I squared off with Jimmy, we slapped hands, and it was go time.
Way of the Warrior Kid--From Wimpy to Warrior the Navy SEAL Way Page 6