The Rudiments of Running

This past weekend I was able to attend the Concordia University Day of Percussion. I haven't had the opportunity to be at this event since high school when I went every year, and so it was a blast into the past. Oddly enough, I was an all-state musician in high school and for quite some time I wanted to be a music major in college. When the decision was presented to me that I had to choose between athletics and music, it was a very tough process of priorities in which I eventually chose athletics. While that decision has turned out to be a good one for me personally, I still miss the days of concerts and playing and listening to some incredibly beautiful music.

Anyway- this Day of Percussion, as always, featured some of the greatest musicians in the world, and one of them was named Alex Acuna. Acuna is a famous drummer who currently is a studio musician in Los Angeles and just finished playing the drums for the soundtrack for the new 'Jurassic World' movie. He was giving clinics on the drumset and Latin instruments for this event, and some of things he said I found to be not only really important but also relevant to just about anything, including running.

The first thing I'd like to bring up was his insistence on rudiments. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with percussion (specifically drumming), rudiments are the basic elements found in every kind of playing on a drum. The ones he pointed to were the single-stroke, double-stroke roll, the buzz roll, the flam, and the paradiddle. Now, I'm not going into wha those are exactly, but the point is that anything you play on the drum will come from that list- no matter what. You can try to do something different, but it will fit on that list anyway. He also spent quite a bit of time lamenting the fact that drumset players these days focus too much on being loud and fast and less time focusing on the techniques, such as being well coordinated between your hands and feet.

I agreed with everything that he said. It kind of fit the narrative of our generation: eager to get results immediately without as much work (whether that stereotype is true or not is another debate). But my question is this: isn't running much the same? Runners know how to push themselves- they've likely been doing it for years. They know how to sacrifice to log in big miles or do incredibly difficult workouts- but what about our rudiments? What about those essential tools that everything we do is made up of? People debate whether dynamic or static stretching is the more useful tool, but don't we all agree that stretching of some kind is necessary? What about core and light weights work? What about proper warm-up and cooldown? What about nutrition and getting enough sleep? What about wearing the right kind of shoes and knowing when to switch shoes?

I spend way too much time reading about elite athletes, watching videos of them, and learning about how they became as good as they are. One thing almost all of them have in common is a hardcore focus on the fundamentals- eating right, sleeping enough, stretching, getting proper treatment, working the right muscles, ...the list goes on. It's completely obvious that this approach to training is beneficial. As I've stated in previous posts, injuries are actually good for you in a sense, because it forces you to take a step back and re-focus on the fundamentals- the rudiments of running.

Consider a concert or performance to be much like a race- anybody can play fast or loud, just like anybody can run to the front of a race by sprinting the start. However, the truly talented musicians that stun crowds are the one who are technically sound and rudimentally smart. So the question becomes this: are you rudimentally smart with your running?

The second (and final because I don't want this post to be as long as I probably could make it!) thing that Alex Acuna told us was about how much he loves music. He told us that at that moment he had tendinitis in his arm (a crucial injury for a percussionist), and he was stressed out and tired from only getting a couple hours of sleep on the flight the night before. However, he told us that when he sat down and played music, his pain disappeared and his worries were no more. He talked about how his love for music runs so deep that he can turn away from the complaints and worries of the world and instead be absorbed by the beauty of music.

To me this sounds a lot like running. I could be having a pretty crappy day, but once I throw on the shoes and go out for a run, my thoughts slowly drift away from those things and towards the running. I can finish a run feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off of my chest. And while it may be true that the weights of the world are still waiting for me when I get back, at least for that short time I can have some peace.

And to finish up my post I'd like to mention what he said to me after the clinic. I was actually washing my hands in the bathroom and he came in to wash his. I mentioned to him how much I had enjoyed his performance and I how I had taken to heart what he had told us about his passion for music. I told him that I felt the same way about running- having that passion that leads to worries just disappearing. He told me this: "ah, but that's the difference between passion and love- passions can go up and down and go away and come back, but love is forever. I love music".

Don't we all?

Have a Great Day!