Category Archives: Sports

Stop Making Excuses And Do It: Lessons From Doctor Do It

Why don’t we exercise? Why don’t we get out into Nature? Why don’t we connect with God and Christ? Why don’t we feed our spirits? Why don’t we nourish our souls? Why don’t we stretch our minds?

Why don’t we?

Why do we atrophy, whether physically, spiritually, emotionally, socially, or mentally? Why do we let ourselves just waste away, in any one – or all – of these areas? Why do we deny ourselves a better life?

What “Doctor Do It” Says

The other day I was talking to a childhood friend about this very trait we humans have: To stop doing. In fact, he’d just written his Doctoral dissertation* about this subject from a physical perspective.

To understand the depth of his concern, you must know him as I have. From our childhood, he was always the most in-shape, active person I ever knew. An early fan of Bruce Lee, he studied and practiced martial arts. He told me (paraphrasing Bruce Lee) that “When you put limits on yourself, you hold yourself back.” He also believes in the concept attributed to the Navy Seals but used throughout the military: “When you reach where your mind says is your limit, you have only approached 40% of your capability in whatever it is you are doing.”

He ran track, played hoops, and was involved in all sorts of sports on a personal and team level. As a result, his body, his physical presence, was the envy of everyone who knew him.

And it didn’t stop as he grew older. In college at BYU, he was on the university’s track team. He played hoops there, too, and almost any other sport he could think of. He wasn’t a star athlete, but he was in shape, and being in shape was important to him.

This kept up as he got older. After college, he made a career out of the Army, where he was a Ranger. In fact, we’d always kid him about jumping out of perfectly good airplanes just for fun.

Being Active When You Are Older

Most of us, sometime around our 30s or 40s, put away our sports dreams. We start to sit around more and more. Maybe we get out and do things outdoors, or play rec soccer or pickleball. But it becomes easier and easier to just … sit.

Not so my friend. After the Army, he started a cross-fit gym just outside of Denver. And this is where he started formulating his thesis for his Doctorate paper. He told me: “I see people come into the gym all the time who should know better. Doctors. Former trainers. Former athletes. And every one of them starts to go downhill the minute they say: “I can’t do that” or “I don’t want to do that” or “That would not be good for me because of XYZ reason.” And they start to atrophy.”

He is a big fan of this line from a movie:  “Don’t use all of your muscles (brain cells, talents, etc.), only the ones you want to keep.”

He told me: “Our society tells us that at certain ages we have to change or stop doing things. This is so ingrained into our psyche that we almost automatically stop doing things. It takes a leap of faith to try to do them again.”

Eating His Own Dogfood

Interestingly, it was while he was working on his Doctoral thesis that he experienced the most profound insights into just how easy it is to fall into that “Do Nothing” trap. At almost the same time as he started putting in extra hours studying and writing, he got Covid. Bad. It laid him up for weeks. He could barely do more than study and work on his thesis.

When he recovered from Covid, he found himself making excuses to not go work out as much as he used to. “I’m still sick” he’d tell himself. “I need to work on this dissertation.” “There are other things I need to do.”

He felt himself spiraling downward, not only physically, but emotionally and mentally as well.

That’s when it hit him: Even when you don’t WANT to do something, get out and do it. In fact, he said that he discovered the best way to know you need to do something, is when you don’t want to do it.

Do it anyway.

He shared this “aha” moment with me: “Be positive. Avoid talking or thinking negatively about yourself in anything. Our church leaders have continually urged us to be positive. Even when we’re injured or spiritually or emotionally down, we have to be positive, we have to take that first step, no matter how small. That is progress.”

Everything Is Interconnected

At this point in our discussion, I realized I’d had the same epiphany the day before, about getting out and being in Nature, connecting to God and Christ in Nature, finding peace “out there”, and grounding and recharging.

I’d been feeling disconnected, out of sorts. There was a lack of peace in my life, and I felt like I was wandering and floundering, and not in a good way. I knew what the solution was. In fact, my wife wrote a book about finding peace in Nature and connecting with God and Christ. It outlines how we can find and connect with our core sacred selves, and how we can feel the message of love, peace, and joy that The Creator sends out through His Creations in Nature.

Every time I felt the urge to go out in the woods, to go down by the creek, to do something on our property, to “get my hands dirty”, I would find some excuse to stay indoors, to not do what I needed to do to reconnect. “I have to clean. I have to plan. I have to do laundry.” Or, even worse, “It’s too hot. It’s too bright. It’s too cold. It’s too windy. Not now, I have a headache.”

Doing Brings Healing

As my friend and I discussed his dissertation, and our mutual experiences, we realized that the problems were all interconnected. If you feel bad physically, you are off-center spiritually. If you’re disconnected emotionally, you don’t feel good physically or mentally. And on and on it goes.

But the solution is simple: Do it. Whatever it is that is holding you back, do it. No excuses. No logically reasoning. Just do it. If you’re hurting and feeling sluggish physically, go do something physical. Feeling “bleh” mentally? Challenge yourself by writing something, or solving a problem, or working on a mental task. Emotionally and socially disconnected? One of my favorite solutions is going out and doing karaoke, or going to a comedy club and laughing it up with others.

Disconnected from God? Study His Word. Listen to uplifting talks about Him. Pray. Ungrounded and disconnected from life? Get out into Nature. Touch a plant. Take photos of birds, flowers, bugs. Stare at the stars. Howl at the moon. Wave good morning to the sunrise. (In fact, this is on my mind so much recently that I wrote a blog about it a few days ago! https://spirittreefarms.com/when-natures-peace-isnt-working/ )

As my friend discovered, and as others have known for years, whatever the disconnect is, the solution, the healing, is found in doing the thing which seems so difficult. He points out that “When you stop doing things, they appear more difficult than they are, your confidence fails and you end up avoiding the thing you should be doing.”

In the opposite vein, when we start doing things, they become easier because our ability to do them increases, we gain confidence, and we end up doing the thing we should be doing.

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

In fact, as I’m writing this piece, I’m thinking I should call my friend by a new name: Doctor Do It.

Who Says What To Do?

As Dr. Do It and I discussed this, I realized something vital: While we may turn to others for help and advice in what to do and how to do it, ultimately, we have to decide, ourselves, what we are going to do.

In part, Dr. Do It gave me the inspiration for this. What I realized is that, in his gym, people come in seeking answers. They want him to tell them: “Do 50 of these, then 20 of these, then 100 of these, then repeat.” And for some people, that works.

Often, though, he works with them to help them decide and discover what THEY think they can do. And when they say they can’t do anything, then he encourages them by telling them to just do something.

Connecting With Nature Should NOT Be Just Another Bucket List Item

We have the same response when we at Spirit Tree Farms encourage people to get out into Nature, to find God and Christ’s peace in Nature. We often hear: “Oh, we don’t live out in the woods like you do. It’s too hard to get out and connect like you can.”

Someone recently told me that. My response? “Do you have a balcony? Go out and look at the sky. Do you have a front door? Step outside and feel the sun on your face. Is there a tree, a bush, a flower, a plant nearby? Maybe you even have one inside. Look at it. Examine it. Discover the wonder of that small bit of Nature.”

We hear too many people say: “Oh, I love going to the beach, to the woods, to the mountains. I love getting away from it all, and getting recharged. But I don’t do it enough.”

While bucket list trips are great, if that’s the only time we’re connecting with God and Christ in Nature, we’re missing the boat. Literally. Mother Nature is fantastic, whether on thousands of acres in Northwest Georgia, or hundreds of thousands of square miles in southern Utah, or a balcony view in Seattle, or rooftop garden in Harlem, or a small birdfeeder in Milwaukee.

After all, it’s not a contest to see how much, how big, you can experience Nature. Feeling God and Christ’s peace in Nature can be as wide as looking out over the Grand Canyon at sunset, or as small as seeing a blue wasp on a native wildflower. It can be as planned out as taking a long-awaited trip to the coast, or as spontaneous as waving at a flock of migrating geese honking wildly as they fly in their moving V over your back yard (can you tell what just happened to me?)

In much of the Northern Hemisphere right now, it’s autumn. Pick up a colored leaf, or watch it fall and float on the air, or tumble down the street. Feel the change in seasons. Smell the new scents. Taste the richness of the Earth.

Remember What Doctor Do It Says

Ok, I got sidetracked into Nature a bit. So that’s an example (Oh, look! A new type of native bee just landed on my deck railing!) No matter what it is that you’re feeling stuck with, and no matter how you feel, and no matter what your excuses are, the bottom line is to remember what my friend, Dr. Do It, says:

“Do something. Anything. Do it. And then do it some more. And then do more. And then find other things to do, and do them.”

Because, if you don’t do something, anything, you not only die.

You fail to live.

*Dr. Do It’s Dissertation can be found here:  https://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:31300247

It is titled:

“PERCEPTIONS OF CROSSFIT PARTICIPANTS AGED 50-65 ABOUT HOW THEY MOTIVATE THEMSELVES TO ENGAGE IN INTENSE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY”

By MICHAEL J. VOGL, COL (Retired) US Army

Owner/Coach CrossFit Evergreen, Personal Defense Readiness Coach

University of Arizona Global Campus for DOCTOR OF PSYCHOLOGY

(“Bear Down”)

Seattle Sounders – A New Flag To Fly

Seattle Sounders have enthusiastic backers, known for flying Sounders supporters flags, especially in the Emerald City Supporters’ (ECS) section. I’ve been to dozens of games at the Seattle stadium (CLink or whatever it might be called) and with ECS in Salt Lake City, Philly, New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere. #EBFG #SoundersTilIDie.

Recently, there has been a big discussion about if the “Iron Front” flag, from the Weimar Republic (pre-World War II) era in Germany, can be waved during the Sounders’ game. Although some say it is a symbol of anti-fascism, others — including Major League Soccer and the Seattle Sounders front office — are trying to keep politics and sport separated. When an ECS member flew the Iron Front flag recently in the general admission section at a Sounders’ game — in definance of MLS and the Seattle Sounders — they were asked to take it down. When the person responsible didn’t comply, they were removed from the game. As a show of solidarity, hundreds of ECS members left the game. Www.WeAreECS.com has a discussion about the event on their website.

You can read a conservative view of it from Jason Rantz, a Seattle-area radio talk show host and #SoundersFan. Yesterday, I wrote and posted a sonnet expressing my feelings about the flags I fly at my house.

As you can read, MLS and the Sounders basically gave in to demands and are letting the #IronFront flag fly at Sounders games. It will be interesting to see if everyone can now fly political flags. For example, #RSL (Real Salt Lake) supporters recently had to take down a “Betsy Ross” (13 Stars Revolutionary War) flag. #PortlandTimbers fans had to take down a “Trump 2020” banner. But if the Iron Front flag can fly, can’t those?

I’ve said all along that Seattle Sounders fans are among the most creative in the #MLS, and that they certainly can find other ways to say “Anti-Fascist. Anti-Racist. Always Seattle.” (Which I think is a great slogan.) Personally, I think they should stick 100% to supporting the #SeattleSounders #SSFC.

Trump Minnesota non-political Seattle Sounders banner.
Double Trump: Beat Minnesota Oct. 6th, secure 2nd place.

With that in mind, I created a new slogan and banner that combines a winning (All In) poker hand with the admonition to beat the opponent, and is 100% Non-Political!
(Note: The bottom part of the banner can be changed, depending on the opponent.)

#ComeOnSeattle #EBFG #NoPoliticsInSoccer #SoundersTilIDie #CFCOwner

Come On, Seattle! TRUMP your opponent!
Non-Political Seattle Sounders Banner #EBFG

Did You Have Fun? Soccer Haibun and Haiku

Soccer. Fussball. Futbol. The beautiful game. I started playing it my sophomore year in Nicolet High School, as a club sport, in gym and intramurals. I was on the BYU “C” team (you know: A, B, C) … or maybe the “Z” team … my freshman year, the same year a team I player/coached were crowned intramural champs.

In 1981 I started assisting coaching soccer in the Fond du Lac soccer league. With a few breaks, I continued assistant coaching nearly every year, especially in the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association. I also became a referee, as did my two oldest kids. I also played in the Eastside adult “Co-Wreck” league.

da Blues LWYSA girls youth soccer team, Kirkland, WA Sept 1999, Coach KuhnsEventually, I became a head coach of several recreational teams, especially of da Blues girls team and the Tarantulas boys team. Sometime around 2005 or so, I stopped coaching, as my youngest grew into Select and Premier soccer, but I always went to their games, including their high school games.

In about 2010 a group of guys I’d coached since they were little came up to me and asked me to coach them one last time, the fall season of their senior year, in recreational soccer. They said, basically, “soccer has gotten too intense. We’re not going to play in college. We just want to have fun again.”

It was rewarding they’d learned at least one lesson from me. After every game, win, lose or draw, I would always ask the kids I coached the same question:
“Did you have FUN?” They would (almost always) smile and say “Yes.” Then I’d tell them how proud I was of them, we’d do some goofy cheer, and we’d go get snacks.

The Next Generation of Soccer Parents

I haven’t coached for a few years, although I still go watch on occassion (#CFC #ChattanoogaFC #EBFG #SeattleSounders #BYUCougars)  and I own one share of the #ChattanoogaFootballClub (#CFCowner). Now I see the next generation of soccer parents (and, really, all sports parents) coming along. These are kids of the same generation that I coached. Just like I was, they are all so earnest and excited. They all want their kids to do well. So, even though they are not asking me, I want to share a major lesson I learned from all those years coaching soccer:

“Did your child have fun?”

Here’s the haiku to go along with it.

One truth all soccer/
parents must grasp: Playing is/
never disaster.

My Immortal Cal Iron Man Ripken Story: The Night I Snuck Into Camden Yards — Revolutionary Email Prose

The Night I Snuck into Camden Yards and Watched Iron Man Ripken Break Gehrig’s Record

A friend of mine, a baseball nut, was exchanging e-mails with me about the All-Star game I went to in Seattle (where Ripken hit a home run and was named MVP). I happened to mention that, if you look really hard above the “3” in a picture of Cal Ripken, Jr., trotting around the bases in the 4th Inning against the Angels on September 6, 1995 (when Iron Man Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played, 2131), you’ll see me or at least where I was! NOTE: It says 2130 because it’s in the early part of the game, and it’s not in the 5th inning yet, when it becomes an official game. Anyway, my friend says: “WHAT were you doing in Baltimore?!?”
So I wrote him back:

Oh, my heck. I never told you my Immortal Cal story?

I was in Baltimore for a conference I’d put together. About a month before I left for the conference, I started noticing that people were writing about the first part of September, in Baltimore, would be when/where Iron Man Ripken would break “the Streak” record.

I got there, and one of my speakers and I thought… well, let’s head over to Camden Yards, just to hang out around the outside and be part of the crowd. My speaker was about 48 or so, big BoSox fan, so we just wandered around. Met Bud Selig (baseball commissioner) as he was walking outside the stadium. etc. etc. So we’re walking around, and this guy from Boston says: “Look at this security guard here, she’s not paying much attention” (it was in the store area of Camden Yards, actually in the B&O Warehouse next to Camden Yards), so while she’s talking to a bunch of college kids who are trying to sneak in, this guy and I just go behind her, say “excuse us”, and go in like we owned the place. We immediately head for the elevator to “The Camden Club”, the club on the top of the B&O Warehouse, just beyond the right field wall.

Right as the door is about to close, a teenage kid busts in. Next floor, security gets on, and immediately escorts the kid off … but ignores us! We go to the top floor, get off at the Camden Club, just as the Maitre d’ LEAVES his post … so we just walked into the bar, sat down, and ordered, oh, I dunno, orange juice. Milk. Or something. We talked to some people, then the game started, and we watched out the warehouse windows. When Ripken hit his homer that night, I was right above the “3” sign in the warehouse!

The funniest thing happened after I went to the restroom. I’m washing my hands, and look over by the urinal (there’s nobody else there) and there’s this window, OPEN, right over right center field. So I lean out and am looking around. This kid comes in, and this other guy, and we’re all leaning out the 2 windows, looking around, waving at the crowd, when BANG the door FLIES OPEN and this secret service guy runs in and yells “GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!!” And he comes in and shuts the 2 windows. And I leave and go back to my seat in the bar area. I’m thinking later: “Hmmm…. President Clinton in the Press Box. I’m in Center Field, in a 5th Story window in an old brick building with an unguarded, OPEN window. MAN! How did they miss THAT ONE!?!?!”

Anyway. So, we watch Cal’s home run in the 4th Inning, then when 5 1/2 innings are over and they stop the game, we’re up there yelling and waving through the CLOSED window when they unfurl the 2131 sign (we didn’t know what was going on at the time… I was wondering why everyone was looking at us!).

Actually IN Camden Yards at the End of Iron Man Ripken’s Game

Then, about the 7th inning, we’re getting bored, so we leave. When we get down to the stadium level, I turn to the BoSox guy and say “Hey, let’s just see if we can get INTO the game”. So we walk up to this old security guard, and start to walk past him, and he says “can I see your tickets?”, and I say “we were just up in the Camden Club” and he says “It doesn’t matter, you have to have a ticket to get in here.” I’m bummed.

The BoSox guy says “Hey, look, all the phonies are leaving. The President’s left. How about just letting us go in. We’ll just find some empty seats, and not be any trouble”. And the old guy looks at us and says “Yeah, okay, what the heck” and lets us in. We go find some 16th row seats just inside of the right field foul pole and watch the game. Get our picture taken with the scoreboard by some local guy who later sends us both prints of us and the scoreboard. I ask them how much the tickets were, and they say “Oh, these are just regular season ticket seats, $18 each, but I could have gotten a lot more scalping them”.

Iron Man Ripken Takes A Victory Lap

Then DiMaggio, Murphy, everyone else comes out, the owner, Peter A., gives a LONG BORING talk, and blah blah blah. Then Ripken takes his trot around the bases. I’ll never forget THAT. He’s kind of tentative, waving, but not really getting into the crowd. But he reaches 1st base (about) and all of a sudden you can see it on his face, he just puts away his “game” face and starts connecting with the crowded, touching, shaking as many hands as he could. I don’t know if, until that moment, he really realized how much those fans loved him. I was sitting next to some big tough dock workers or freight workers or AFL-CIO union guys, and they were all bawling their eyes out. It was incredible. And we stayed and listened to all the speeches, and cheered, and saw history being made at Camden Yards

THEN, the next night, we’re walking around the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, and we see a bunch of people gathered on one of the wharves, looking about 50 feet away, to another wharf, where a BUNCH of white linen tables (and people) are … and a stage with a bunch of rappers (YUCK). And then they leave, and the guy comes on and says “and now what you’ve been waiting for” and everyone goes nuts, and I’m going “huh?”. And this large black woman walks out and yells “How y’all doin!!!” and everyone yells and then the music starts and she sings “Whatchu Want!? Baby I got it!” and I CAN”T BELIEVE IT! I’m 75 feet away from The Queen of Soul! FOR FREE!!!

Needless to say, I loved Baltimore!

And this is the first time I’ve ever written out my story of my Visit to Camden Yards.

Being Honest About Iron Man Ripken’s Game: It’s Not Stealing

Oh, yes, there is another part to it. I get home and am telling my family about sneaking into Camden Yards, and my son Kristian looks at me (he’s about 13) and says “But, isn’t that stealing?” Ummmm. SO I write Peter Angelos (Baltimore Orioles owner) a letter and tell him about the entire thing, and how I’m sorry and since the ticket was $18, here’s a check for $18 and if he wants to donate it to the Ripken/Gehrig Fund at Johns Hopkins, that’s fine, or whatever he wants to do with it. About 3 weeks later I get a letter on Baltimore Orioles/Peter Angelos stationary, with his handwritten signature, telling me “Thank you for being so honest. I’ve donated the money to the Ripken/Gehrig Fund. Now you can tell your son and everyone else that you were at Camden Yards the night Cal Ripken made history. Best Wishes, Peter Angelos.”

So now I’m telling you.

Soccer Come To Meeting Call: Revolutionary Email Poem

In 1999 I coached two soccer teams: The Tarantulas (boys) and da Blues. This poem, found recently, was on my email inviting the parents and kids to a pre-season meeting.

What’s the word?!?
Haven’t you heard?
Spring’s in the air!
There’s mud everywhere!
So heed the call
to kick the ball.

(This is my greetin’
to invite you to a meetin’).