Yaaaaaaaaaaa rest day. That will work out great see'n how I have church tomorrow and will be playing and everything.

I Hate Rest Days!

Do some push-ups! :)

Great video, and great cert, Thanks Coach B.

Everyone should read the greats. .. i dont care how pompous people may find those who promote it. Its a new, true arrogance that feels the classics are somehow unfashionable.

50 push presses 45#
40 pull-ups
30 deadlifts 75#
20 KTE
10 Burpees
400m run
10 burpees
20 KTE
30 deadlifts 75#
40 pull-ups
50 push presses 45#
2k row

39:00

Sweet VIDEO,

Great still photo. I am going straight to the journal to watch the entire video.

Yeah, Hoo Yah, Coach Burgener!
You are the BEST!
This is an awesome photo of a great man.

I still can't believe that I had a slot to attend that Oly Cert and the opportunity to meet Coach B, only to find out later that night (after paying the security deposit online and all) that we had my wife's best friends wedding that weekend in Cancun, Mexico which I completely forgot!!! I would have given my left arm to be there. Gonna say a few prayer tonight before bed that another Oly cert comes again to a town nearby.

Coach B is the man!

yaaaaaay.... my body hurts

Cant wait to go to the Oly Cert in Feb.

#9 Steve,

You are truly the MAN.

I heard you on CF Radio last weekend. You are inspiring. It still boggles my mind that you actually pick up all the kids and then drop them off after the workouts. You have my utmost admiration. I'd love to meet you one day.

Everyone, if you haven't visited Steve's website, I would highly recommend doing so. The Paleo kits are an great idea! I have been recommending them to my own clients.

Re: Learning for Everyone

As a student of literature and theory, I sincerely appreciate Coach's nod to this article. My greatest disappointment with my particular college's literature program was the lack of emphasis on the Canon in addition to an often hasty jump into literary and textual theory. Now, that isn't to say that I dislike theory. On the contrary, I love it. But without a foundation in canonical works, especially in undergraduate work, we run the risk of trailing off into the often overused and jargon-ridden excuses for pop theory that the author cites at the end.

Perhaps one day...Read Anna Karenina for time.

For once....... I need this rest!!!! The last two days have been brutal. Thanks for the challenging set of workouts.

TRAINING QUESTION

My newest client is incredibly tall and lanky. His squats are okay, but his knees come farther in front of his feet than it seems they should. He also has a lot of trouble keeping his upper back from rising before the rest of his body on pushups.

Has anybody had similar problems with lanky clients? Any tips or tricks?

Coach B - thanks for all that you do for our community. Fantastic video! Hard F'ing work... every day. Funny how the people that work the hardest have all the best damn luck!

I haven't read all or probably even a fraction of "The Great Books" but I know this. Literature is an art. Art is not to be ranked, it is something to be appreciated. I will not take any list of books that is claimed to be all I will ever need to read seriously. Neither should anyone else. No list of books will ever make us fully educated. There is no such thing. If you live by this philosophy "Never stop learning until you die" you will probably tear through that list of books and never realize you were "supposed" to read them. I could go on and on about this. But I will close with this. Education is not something you have, it is something you do.

We should never cease being readers; pure readers, who read for reading's sake, not to instruct ourselves or as a job done.

Coach B is truly inspirational. This guy is built like a tank and has a heart of gold. Freaking bad ass!

This video alone is worth a 25$ journal subscription. what an inspiration!

Can't afford a rest day, but thanks for the offer coach! Naw, I'm starting on two a days because I've noticed that my slacking lately has been putting me behind the curve. I'm not getting where I need to be, even though I feel like I'm putting forward more work than normal. The only way to combat this is to work harder, right? I definitely don't believe in pussing out or anything of the sort. Once I feel like I'm at where I want to be I'll go back down to one a day.
Today I did four rounds of:
20 back extensions
10 "suitcase deadlifts" or something like that with 35# dumb bells.
15 pushups

Took me about 15 minutes, and that was with me trying to explain to this one chick that I didn't want to rotate with the GHD because it's timed. She worked herself in anyway, probably because she's ranked higher than myself. OH well.

Tonight I'm just going to do some jumproping and maybe some burpees, cuz I hate them so much. If you hate it, force it.

Grab the Kool Aid and GET SOME!

Wow, sometimes these Rest Day posts are weird...

Especially since I'm a working on my M.A. from St. John's right now...never would have expected to see a plug for us on Crossfit.com, pretty honored by that.

There's a great quote from Stringfellow Barr (that I'm going to mangle), which roughly says:

"We read these 'Great Books' not out of pretense or some hero worship of the scholars that have gone before us. Nor do we study them for their insight into society, politics, or religion...because they are not about any of those things. These books, dear reader, are about you."

Thanks Coach.

#21 Sailor Erin,

Your determination is admirable, but I caution you against overtraining (especially if you're a novice athlete). If I may paraphrase Brian McKenzie, "more is not always better, rest/recovery is the reason you get fitter". Working out twice a day can be too demanding unless your body has already adapted to it and you are paying close attention to your nutrition and rest/sleep. In fact, lack of progress is a sign of overtraining. If you are not showing progress training once a day, you may make it worse by going twice a day. Just my two cents.

I have seen the list and read many of the books on the Great Books of the Western World list and understand why academics have moved away from them. Sure many of these books are well written I will not doubt that, but they all come from one dominant perspective that of the "dead white guy."
In a pluralistic society like America, there is a value intrinsic in understanding other perspectives and the fact that there is not a single African-American and maybe only one-woman writer on Britannica's list is ridiculous. I would not suggest they substitute great books with ones that obviously do not stack up but simply add great books from a diverse group of authors. Books such as Achebe’s Thing Fall Apart, Angelou’s I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, and many others.

Well said Byron. I'm not getting involved in debates though! Take it to the forum!

any suggestions to stop calluses getting ripped off while doing pull-ups? The bar I use is outdoors and pretty wide, so standard gloves make it almost impossible to grip. Any thoughts?

Thanks

One of the virtues of the GBWW set is that its constituent volumes are often available at library sales. (In fact, sometimes the whole thing is available.) True, the pages aren't very fun to read (given the small type and cramped columns), and almost every work is better served in another edition or translation. But there are still a few gems out there: Volumes 8 and 9 are good for a near-complete set of Aristotle, based on the original Oxford translation and including legit, harder-to-find works like the Categories and De Interpretatione; Volume 11 is good for anyone wanting a cheap, complete Euclid without Heath's fulsome commentary; Volume 17 gets you the weird Enneads of Plotinus, in MacKenna's translation (which George Steiner called a "solitary, prodigious, grimly unremunerative labour constitut[ing] one of the masterpieces of the modern English prose and formal sensibility"); Volume 30 is a good chunk of Sir Francis Bacon, including the cool and hard-to-find Advancement of Learning; Volume 43 has a solid little collection of American state papers; Volume 46 has two Hegel books in the (still-respected, I think, and certainly still in print) Knox translations; and Volume 54, in a somewhat funny show of 1950s enthusiasm for things psychoanalytic, is a huge slab of Freud. Also, the "Syntopicon" volumes are treasures to all who love orgiastic displays of learning lacking any obvious "practical" application.

Anyway, check 'em out. Look for the shiny spines and low, low prices.

finally......i need it!! rest :D

we all know anything really hard is totally worth doing, right? so is reading some of the great series. Bill Bennett has compiled a list of must read books that is a bit less cumbersome, but totally relevant to anyone desiring to know more than just how to deeply analyze eminem and desperate housewives. I'm gonna read a lot of them with/to my kids.

we all know anything hard is totally worth doing right? So is reading the great series. Bill Bennett has compiled a list of must reads that anyone desiring to know more than how to deeply analyze eminem and desperate housewives should read.

sorry double, now triple post. I havent been here in a while and I am soooooooooo glad to be back to crossfit. my how you have grown in one year!!

Just a quick testimonial. About a year ago I was having some pretty bad pain in my back. With some basic exercises I was able to strengthen it, but from time to time I would still have 1-3 day long episodes where my back would cramp up making it difficult to do much of anything. I have been sipping the cool-aid for about two months, and yesterday I let my form slide on one of the SDHPs and was sure I would feel it today in my back. Well it looks like my body’s recovery rate has improved because I woke up this morning with no pain at all. Thanks for the great work outs coach!

-Jeremy

RE: Learning for Everyone.

Sometimes, it is just nice to think

#21 - Sailor Erin,

I completely agree with Byron's advice regarding overtraining. The line between hard work and over training is a very thin one. Typically if your gains start to suffer it's a clear sign that you need to #1) Take a hard look at your diet and #2) Get more rest. When you address those two issues and see your WOD's improving you'll know you've found the right balance.

As Eva T. once said in a video (paraphrasing), go after the WOD's with as much intensity as you can muster and rest. A lot of people dilute the intensity of their workouts by adding in a bunch of other stuff without carefully considering the overall effect. Think quality of work instead of quantity of work.

Remember, you're not exactly getting stronger from the workout itself. You get stronger when your body recovers and adapts to the stress put on your body during the workout.

No recovery = no adaptation = no gains.

Rest Day...

As Rx'd...

nt

Well crap! I just really read the FGB workout. I thought it was five minutes work followed by one minute rest! No wonder I never could make it through more than one round. I don't feel so bad with my 311 score. Now I can't wait to try it again....faster.

#26 epw

File them down with a nail filer. If they are too thick and too big they end up ripping of, and from my experience, tear a whole bunch of good skin along with it, which REALLY $ucks! File em down, it works for me. Chalk.

You all want to see something hilarious, click on my name and scroll down to yesterdays post and look at Jeannie and I attempting two person burpees...yes, one on top of the other~! What a flippin riot! I am so posting the full video on youtube!

~J~

love coach b! if you havent been to an oly cert - you are missing out, bigtime!

# 5 Everyone should read the greats. .. i dont care how pompous people may find those who promote it. Its a new, true arrogance that feels the classics are somehow unfashionable.

You are correct. A more than 2,000 year old extant text says it explicitly...
"That which has been is what will be. That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? It has already been in ancient times before us.'" Ecclesiastes 1:9 - 10

Crossfit is an excellent program, but yet it is not new. The techniques have been around for a long time. The only thing that really changes is when a person makes the decision to get off their derriere and do it.

Blessings Coach. Thanks for everything.

Dave

Im kind of getting bored with the Crossfit warm-up and wanted to change it up a little bit... any advice?

"JT"

21 - 15 - 9

Handstand pushup
ring dip
push up

8:17

Huge pump!!

Does anyone know what one has to do to meet Coach? I have been a avid crossfiter for years, embracing the knowledge to fellow athletes at College, and was wondering how a lot of you guys are lucky enough to meet him? Thanks for the help, keep up the good work!

Hey everyone, happy rest day! I was tempted to go out to the old garage gym this morning and crank out a random WOD, but I'm beginning to realize the importance of rest...yes, I am a slow learner.

I recently took a week off from training after about 3 months of just going after it. I can't tell you how much of a difference it made. I raced in a duathlon soon after my rest period and felt like a million bucks.

That's my two cents, peace out.

All

Any one sharing their favorite book would certainly help me grow. Not on the same level of the books we are discussing but I always find myself wondering "Who is John Galt?" that question definitely changed me.

Thank you, Coach Burgener! You're the best!

That was a great video, Jon & Patrick.

A Globo Gym first (for me)...

For planning purposes, I run a day behind the WOD schedule. Yesterday at the local Y I did a modified WOD of pullups and burpees (30-25-20-15-10-5, there is no way the Y would have let me do inverted burpees). I was about halfway through (and breathing pretty hard at that point) when one of the staff came up to me and asked if I could refrain from grunting, as I was disturbing some of the other people "working out". I couldn't believe it! Forgive me if I was the only one in the place to get my heart rate above 100bpm!

On a side note, also during my WOD some guy asked me what I was training for, and I told him "Nothing particular". He responded with "That is some dedication". Also, when I was lying on the floor afterward another guy came up to me and said "Crossfit?", and I said "Yup", with which he answered "Gotta love it". Later on it looked like he was doing some of the movements of FGB, but not the actual WOD. It was good to see another person who was even familiar with CF.

I can't wait to install my pullup bar in my garage, then I can kip (and grunt) all I want without "disturbing" anyone.

I just want to say how much I appreciated all the trainers' efforts at the Level I Cert in Leavenworth this past weekend. Adrian, Tony, EC, Joe, Jon, and Bobbi were extremely helpful to me and I really enjoyed working with everyone the entire weekend. Thanks again!

Sincerely,
Rory O'Connor

#40 tonycaps - check out either the Burgener Warm-up or Greg A.'s warm-up. Both linked below:

http://journal.crossfit.com/2007/01/the-burgener-warmup-mike-burge.tpl

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/cfj-nov-05/burgener-warm-up.wmv

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_GregAWarmup.wmv

Also, feel free to play around with your warm-up to find something that works really well for you. Everyone is different, so there's no reason to feel like you HAVE to do a particular sequence of exercises.

So happy for a day off.

I had taken off the last few days from CF for real shoveling, protein dragging and snowmobiling. I did FGB today, posted 325 for yesterday's WOD.

Since we have so many off topic posts and freindly responses today I thought I might add to the mix.

I have a question for some of you who have been 'doing CF' for a while now.

I am currently working 13-15 hour days Monday through Friday and 8 hour days on Friday and Saturdays, (and have a wife and kids) which means I get one truely good night sleep per week followed by one good day off.

Since I'm lacking in sleep I tend to get through one CF cycle of three days on and one off but I feel completely waisted for the next cycle. I'm unable to work out again until after my Sunday off. So no matter what I try I seem to only get 3 workouts in per week.

So if you are still reading this...

Do you think it is possible to adapt to less sleep and my body will begin to recover better over time or am I just stuck with 3 per week until I can hire an employee and get some sleep?

"Tabata Something Else"

Done just for fun this morning.

#42: Try making a pilgrimage to Prescott. Then do Fran outside his house. See what happens.

Some old books are great and should be read by all. Some are worthless garbage not worth the paper they were printed on. Most make major mistakes that modern writers know not to, but in their defense the world didn't have enough writing experience at the time. (Saddly modern writers often make the some mistake - they should have no excuse)

The hard part is figuring out which is which. I've thrown down books in disgust for how worthless they are, only to have someone latter start telling me how wonderful it was and how it changed his life.

Missed out last four days, so doing FGB to start out the week....

#51: spend time with your wife and kid. Do very short WOD's that just keep you in a minimum of shape. One I've been doing is variations on the 1 pullup first minute, 2 the second, etc. I have a 2 pood kettlebell, and if I do 1 snatch each hand the first minute, two each hand the second, it gives my body about 3 minutes to wake up. This means your warmup is in the workout. You get to where you fail, rest a minute, then repeat that round. If you're inclined, rest another minute then repeat it again. This is a 10-15 workout, start to finish, including warmup.

You will never get that time with your kid back, and wives have a tendency to drift away invisibly from invisible husbands. Once a big gap forms, it takes an ENORMOUS amount of work to close it. First things first. My two cents.

With respect to the topic of the day, this is a good one for me, but I'm busy. One quick cut and paste from my notes:

There are both active and passive indoctrination. Passive is where you fail to teach things that enable cultural coherence. Where you fail to teach the books upon which our civilization—and the political structures which emerged from it—is based. Where you fail to teach history, philosophy, critical thinking. Where you fail to teach self restraint, discipline, loyalty, patriotism.

No rest today. Long day yesterday, needed a workout today...or two....ahem...

Was looking over all of the girls WOD's and took peices from a whole bunch of them and made them into a workout. It $ucked....not $ucked $ucked....just a moderate constant $ucktitude!

50 pullups
50 ghd
50 squats
400m run
21 DL (light weight, only 95lb ...65lb Jeannie)
15 hspu
9 clean (all same weight)
15 thrusters
12 hang power clean and jerk
500m row
50 wall balls (20 lb)
1 round max rep pullups (pullups count as long as you don't let go of the bar. I got 26)

21:23

I don't know why it seemed so hard. I could not breathe to save my life during the bloody thing! We are going to have to put some through it tonight and see whether I was just being a wuss$suckbag today or not.
Jeannie hurt her shoulder on the hpc and jerk and had to stop early. That threw my time off a bit, and I didn't push as hard as I would have if she was beside me digging in. She has such dilectable energy!

Alright, that 's all I have for now!

Anyone know of a secret to quell a hormonally enraged pregnant woman?? Ahem...other than 100% complete subserviance and submission to all barks, growls and down right spaz attacks that happen? (I can handle 5 "Frans" back to back easier than this.....HELP!)

~J~
Train Hard and Push Through "IT"! (maybe THAT is the only advise that can be given)

tauger, #15

For the squats, make sure he's keeping his weight back on his heels. Also, check the width of his stance, the feet may need to be placed or angled wider. Of course, there is also the possibility that his proportions are playing tricks on you.

For the pushups, any exercise that focuses on midline stabilization will help. Some good ones are overhead squats and ghd situps. Also, I'm a big fan of plank progressions.

coach b is the shiznit! great video patrick and jon!

eric b #46-

as a fellow globo gym-er i can relate. i'm a loud worker-outer (is that even a word?!) especially if it's a heavy metcon day. keep doing what you are doing and eff them. maybe you will get kicked out or convert them. when i first started doing cf at my gym i was on the verge of getting kicked out, 2.5 years later and i am a trainer there, training my clients all crossfit style. good luck and keep doing what you are doing!

#48 Alex, thanks for the links

M/58/175
WOD
Raked 1 Acre
Split 2 cord of wood with maul
5 mile hike with dogs

M/19/163 lbs

Got thrown off by missing the weekend workouts.

Did:

5 Rounds
25 Pull-Ups
30 Pushups

Cool-Down:
Weighted Pull-Ups
1-1-1-1-1

#51 PXT Cody

That is a grueling work schedule. My first instinct is to say can you find a way to work smarter instead of harder, ie spend less time working. If this is a business start up I'd say I agree with Barry, keep the wods to short yet intense ones, dial in your nutrition as much as possible, and get that employee asap. You aren't doing yourself or family any good working 6-7 days/week. Maybe you'd be better served going 2on-2off or every other day to allow adequate recovery since I bet your Adrenal Stress Index is already through the roof.
If this is a semi-permanent/permanent situation, well, I'll tell you like Dad tells me, "ya make time for what's important to ya". For me it's, God, Family, Fitness/Health, work ;in that order. If I could rec a book by Stephen Covey, "First Things First", I read it about 8yr ago and still to this day use its principles to guide my priorities and time management. Good Luck and God Bless. I hope this encourages you in some way.

Finally did the inverted burpee WOD...just under an hour. I got my wind back before the pull-ups and standard burpees because the inverted ones took so long as I kept misfiring. Good stuff.

#51 I concur w/#56.

I have 4 kids & a great wife. If your job/career is not energizing you and enabling you to spend more time w/your family....quit. Find something else. Learn to live more frugally. Take a step back and look at what's important.

#57. Had 4 kids & the wife nursed them all. So for about 6 - 7 years she was either pregnant or nursing. After a quick trip to the doctors, we are done having babies and my wife is coming back to herself. Now all I have to do is come home to a wife who's just mad at the kids and not just hormonal. Your subervience should pay off.

Good luck

Dave

PXTCody #51:

Barry #56 has gifted you with a gem. Prioritize, and put wife first, then kids, then you. He is entirely correct, and his advice is equally valid from both sides of the marriage "window", inside and outside.

How about every other day with your work-outs tailored to your specific fitness needs. Work off a CF schedule already posted (say last month) and simply do the WOD's in the order posted if classic general fitness is your goal.

Nice post, Barry.

Ok so maybe I should clarify.

First, thank you to Barry and the rest of you for your input. I hear you loud and clear.

Second, I am in my first year running my own training center after being fired from a globo gym for caring more for clients than corporation. (Was fired the day before Thanksgiving last year)

My wife is also a trainer so we get to work together 3 or 4 days per week and the kids (we have 3) come in for our saturday boxing circuits. Sunday is ALWAYS family day. I seem to be able to make time for everything but sleep of which I got 4 hours last night.

The plan- build up our client base to support another trainer and have the new trainer work evenings. Become a Crossfit affiliate. Grow to a bigger box...and on and on...

Thanks so much for the input, if anyone else has some thoughts that would be cool. (original post #51)

f/39/5'7/154

'fight gone bad' as Rxd
wall ball-32, 25, 26
75# SDLHP-14, 15, 15
box jump-22, 25, 25
75# push press-10, 10, 10
row (calories)-4, 3, 3 (not a C2 rower)
total-239 PR, beat last total of 216 on 10 sep 08

Hey, I just joined a G.B. group at my local public library. It's one night a month for 9 months from 7:00p - and we usually have to be forcibly removed from library b/c no one wants the great conversations to end. Yes, I found some hardcore nerds. Here's a list of the short stories we are reading (for time):

1. Meno - Plato
2. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
3. Life of Nicias - Plutarch
4. The Chilean Earthquake - H von Kleist
5. Major Barbara - G. B. Shaw
6. Pragmatism: New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking - W. James
7. First Snow on Mt Fuji - Y. Kawabata
8. The Darling - Anton Chekov
9. Selected Poems: Joy, Power of Music to Disturb, Immortality - Lisel Mueller

It's been roughly 4 months since my pilgimage to the Crossfit Games and I'm still having spontaneous memories arise. One of them came watching the Coach B video. I had the good fortune to meet Coach B. at the Games and chat for a little bit. A Notre Dame guy, too, huh?

Coach B. is one more reason to hang out here at the CF table.

great video, he seems like a genuinely nice bloke.
can we have a fran or a dianne soon please?

Thank you Byron and Johnny Utah. I do agree with you guys, but I guess I'm trying to lose that little extra fat, so I'm just using the second workout to I suppose give myself that extra push. I'm not ever going to be a tiny girl by any means, but there's this stubborn layer of fat around my abdomen that I haven't been able to get rid of for the life of me. I follow all the advice (i.e. 6 small meals a day, i'm doing my best to zone on this ship, hydrate, all that CHT) and yeah... it's just never worked for me. I do one pretty hardcore WOD and then the next one is a light little jumproping or working on something I'm not good at (i.e. burpees) but I don't really do it for time. If I'm still not seeing results from it in a while then I'll cut it back down and assume you guys are right. Thanks for the help, though, I appreciate it :).

Fran

3min 04 secs......best form i've done!

I lost it in the head today though, I could have gone sub 3.... PB 2mins 47secs however my form was no way near as good then as it was today

Bingo,

Thanks!! Haven't watched the video, but it's worth pointing out--if it's not on there--that Coach B. was on a National Championship winning Notre Dame football team.

Cody,

Shared misery can be a great thing, too. Just watch your stress levels. When you are really tired, you can find yourself arguing about things you won't even remember in the morning. When you get tired, be extra nice to everybody, especially your kids. Do it on principle, not because you feel like it, since unless you're a saint, you won't always feel like it. Kids especially will wear you out, just being who they are.

Best of luck. I'm sure you're doing the best you can, and sometimes straight uphill is the only option. Just watch yourself. Be self aware. And keep in mind too that while you should trust primarily in persistence and work, there is almost always a smarter way to do everything.

John,

That's a great reading list. I'm reading Pragmatism next. The more I read about James, the greater a crime I think has been committed not teaching him in schools. He fell afoul, in my opinion, of what amounted to early 20th Century Political Correctness. He is fully the equal of Thoreau and Emerson.

50 Pullups
50 Box Jumps (24")
50 Pushups
50 Back Ext
50 Situps (unanchored)
50 Squats

12 minutes and change

So on a nutritional note I have added meat to my diet again after a year and a half as a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. I am on a course right now away from home for the next 4 months and not able to prepare my own meals and the mess hall is not the most vegetarian friendly, especially not for doing the zone. My first thoughts are: WOW, doing the zone with meat is sooooooo easy. If you are a meat eater and ever feel like the zone is so hard to stay in when you eat just try doing a vegetarian zone for a couple of months, then go back and you'll see just how easy and varied it is. Perhaps now I should change my name to JC Meaty, but I suppose I'll just keep it the same for consistency:)

Yes, Barry, despite it's obsurity, I'm looking forward to reading that text also.

from the intro to the text: "one brother (Henry) wrote fiction as though it were philosophy and the other (William) wrote philosophy as though it were fiction.

obscurity

No rest today - RUGBY !

One step closer to a full match. Came on as sub at 20 minutes, and lasted the remaining 60 minutes.

Lump on my head, nosebleed, scraped shins, bruises all over the shop, and tired little leggies. Fabulous. And all this Crossfit stuff has meant that I am outlasting younger players, and outwrestling bigger blokes. Not too shabby for a training regime, I'd say.

On the great books and learning theme....

You should be guided by such lists; try it, choose what suits you, and ditch what doesn't. Go to a library, try some of the books in the list, and if you don't like 'em, at least you know what to avoid next time. Slavishly following any list, lifestyle or dogma, or indeed, slavishly ignoring them leads to a lesser you. If you had slavishly stuck to bodybuilding weights and a treadmill.......

Beasty, A happy Prop Forward

40/5' 11"/250lb/M

At this point I have to jump in and say that W. James is absolutely my favorite philosopher (yes, I was a philo major in college, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth). Reduce an idea to its practical implications and you have exhausted the content of the idea. His philosophy in a nutshell, a wonderful antidote to the French and German thinkers who were more famous and more widely read. I've always thought that captures the way a scientist thinks, and might even venture, the way an American thinks. James also basically invented the concept of a "stream of consciousness." You might try C.S. Pierce, James's precursor, a little bit wilder and woolier but good fun. Reportedly he once threw a brick at his mistress's head on the streets of Baltimore, and had to leave Johns Hopkins University as a result (it turned out okay - he ended up teaching at Harvard). For some reason I've always loved that story.

I'm rambling here, lost in nostalgia. I've always felt the "Great Books" can and should be a lot of fun. Guess it's a different kind of fun, like crossfit. I do miss the days when I would stay up all night thinking and talking about that CHT.

Anyway, I didn't rest today, did heavy DLs, squats, and presses, inspired by the Starr article in the Journal. Good stuff!

Decided to punish myself today due to my poor performance the past 2 WODs.

I did some interval running.

30 sec @ 17.2kmh (10.7mph)
45 sec @ 12.0kmh (7.5mph)
45 sec @ 17.2kmh
45 sec @ 12.0kmh
60 sec @ 17.2kmh
45 sec @ 12.0kmh
90 sec @ 17.2kmh
45 sec @ 12.0kmh
60 sec @ 17.2kmh
45 sec @ 12.0kmh
45 sec @ 17.2kmh
45 sec @ 12.0kmh
30 sec @ 17.2kmh
3 minutes @ 9.0kmh (5.6mph)

Then I did 2 hours of raking leaves (alot of shoulder work and squats) Annnnddddd I'm DONE!!!

Jumprope 100-80-60-40-20
Situps 50-40-30-20-10
12:52

Thank you AllisonNYC! I stole your WOD; had to take some of the weight down a touch on the deadlift because of my gyms weights and because, well, you're a total badass and I'm still working on it.

(Weights in Paren's done by M/6'2/220ish Workout Partner)

50 push presses 45# (90#)
40 pull-ups
30 deadlifts 70# (135#)
20 KTE
10 Burpees
400m run
10 burpees
20 KTE
30 deadlifts 70# (135#)
40 pull-ups...I had some band assistance on half of these
50 push presses 45# (90#)
2k row

54:00 (Partner Time: 59:04)

My workout partner and I werre working in a lot on pull-ups and kte, but I still have no idea at all how you did that in under 40 minutes. By the time I got to the rowing I cruised at around 2:20/500, and couldn't have gotten under a 2 minute 500 km if my life depended on it, so that was 9 or 10 minutes just at the end. Anyway, thanks for a great workout! Cheers.

missed the workout for sunday due to going to the texas ren-fest so did the clean work i missed
warm up 95-7, 115-5
135-1 10-handstand pushups between sets
145-1
145-1
145-1
135-1
135-1
4 rounds of
L-pullups x6
v-sits
ob-crunches right and left
5 minutes of handstand work
5 minutes of roundoffs/front hand springs

fun and done

Coach and Lauren-
I teach high school and am a devoted Crossfitter -- like everyone else, I have to "make" myself rest because frankly, there are so many WODs, so little time :) I LOVE Crossfit and cannot imagine my life without it (29 NOV will be my 2 year Crossfit anniversary).

Like everyone else here at the table, Crossfit has changed the way I view the world. When I'm at school, there are many days when I wonder, "Can I box jump on top of that desk/table?", and my classroom is a Crossfit Classroom, where I take the "Crossfit methodology" and apply it to algebra.

I teach 9th grade algebra (most people MOAN when I say that, followed by, "I couldn't ever do that!"). In my class, the warm up activity is called the "WOD". We have benchmarks too - math skills that we drill over and over - that now have names like FRAN (9x9 multiplication table), GRACE (12x12 multiplication table), JOSH (that's sort of like CFT), and a few others. I have a white board in class that the best times and scores are posted on, and the really cool thing now is students are bringing their friends by to show them "Look, I made it on to the white board!" Each student also has a PR chart where they can track their benchmark times, and with improving times, they can see for themselves that they are learning and getting better skilled at algebra. We also have “tabata class” some days – I teach for 10 minutes, they get a two minute break, repeat 8 times – those days are pretty fun.

The students I have are well below grade level - some are on 3rd grade math level, some may be as high as 6th grade math level. These are the kids that believe they "are not good at math" and started the school year hating math to its core. We are 12 weeks into the school year, and these kids are EXCITED about math! They did our FRAN (9x9 multiplication table) at the beginning of the school year, and it took them 6-9 minutes. Now, they can knock FRAN out in 2-3 minutes or less!

We have another benchmark called "TAM" - it's 10 equations, solve for “x”. We did that one last week for the first time, and one student finished in 58 seconds! It was SO EXCITING! I was watching her go, and in my head, I was cheering for her to hurry because I wanted to see if she finished in under a minute. As soon as she yelled, "TIME!", and I told her it was 58 seconds, another student stopped and yelled, "OH MY GOD! Do you realize what you just did! You made history!" He was so excited for her! She has a new nickname - I call her "Speal" because her name is on every benchmark on the whiteboard, and she shattered "TAM" in 58 seconds.

Here's the really cool part - you know it's easy to spot a Crossfitter amongst a crowd of people - aside from the obvious that they are in Crossfit shape - but how Crossfitters carry themselves with confidence, knowing they can accomplish just about anything (and in record time!)? I see that happening in my students! Where they walked into class the first day of school (and high school no less) afraid, they now carry themselves with pride and confidence. That confidence has also carried over into their other classes, where these kids believe they are smart and can do any school work you lay in front of them. Their grades are great, they are attending class, etc. And, they BELIEVE they are good at math and are learning to LOVE it. They told me at the beginning of the year they were math haters…I assured them with some time, they would change their minds. They didn’t believe me at first, but now, they have a desire to get better and better at algebra. It's all because they have a Crossfit mentality.

Coach and Lauren, I wanted to tell you both THANK YOU on behalf of my students! I know how much I LOVE Crossfit and how it’s changed my life – anyone else that posts will say the same. What I love more and more is watching how “Crossfit mentality” is changing the lives of my students and influencing them on a daily basis. It’s nothing short of spectacular. THANK YOU!
-Amie

First time for FGB.

After 4 months away from the gym I got 347 as required.

I am eagerly awaiting tomorrow's post workout evidence!

Karl

-#84

That's truly the best post I've ever read.

You can have a 500lb bench, 800lb squat, and sub 2 Fran time, and that's great for you, but how are you helping others get stronger?

Similarly, it's great if you know all these philosophers and ideals and can recite Thoreau on a whim, but how are you affecting other people's lives?

Taking whatever you have and making others better is what we should all strive for. Aims, great job doing just that. I want to go back to high school algebra and get some of that Kool-Aid!

I'm going to throw my two cents at this GB discussion. As a senior philosophy/greek major, I definitely have a tendency towards convincing people to read the 'great writers'. But I believe there is a difference in how you define reading. One shouldn't read these books just to have read them, but, as Nietzsche has said, "take careful notice in understanding them." It is one thing to read these great books, it is another thing to understand the cultural setting, the depth of the writing, and the thoughts behind them. If the reader doesn't do this, there can be a great intellectual risk (especially with characters like Hume, Nietzsche, Sartre, Kafka...nihilists/existentialists).

Anyway, I guess my two cents is that the great books need to be read, but if delving into philosophy one should be a bit careful with who/what they read, it is easy to lose your identity and become unnecessarily confused in your own beliefs because of the way an argument is presented.

That being said, I believe Homer and Plato should be on everyone's reading list :)

38/M/180/6'

FGB (make-up from yesterday)

367 (pr)

whats a tabata squat? hows it different than a regular squat? is it just the tabate protocol with squats?

Fight Gone Bad and the previous Burpee/Pull-Up workout kicked my butt and today is a much needed rest day. My neck, traps, shoulders, and entire back are thrashed.

I'm having a "Fight Gone Bad Party" at my garage gym tonight. I'm totally psyched. This small event started with 3 people and has ballooned into a 10 person team-event with prizes. Heh heh heh. I'm considering video-taping the event and making a vid to put on YouTube. If I do, I'll post here. It should be a great time had by all!

M/31/5'4"/149lbs
Just did "Annie" today. Finished in 7:24.

BEST post I have ever read as well...

Aims, you inspire me!!

M/48/153/1-1-06

Crossfit Strength Experiment Round 2 Week 5

W/U = Buy-in
3x
Run 200M/10 reps 45# OHS

WOD
AMRAP 15 Min.
190M Run
10 Push Press 115#
10 PU

4 Rounds even

Cash-out
25 Toes to Bar
25 Sit-up
25 Back Ext

Total Time in Gym 40 min.

Amie #84:

Thank you for that! Very, VERY nice post. My early CF Anniversary congrats to you, and a hearty welcome to each of your students. There's a place for them at the Crossfit table.

Aims (comment #84):
Wow, that gave me chills and put a big goofy smile on my face. You're awesome!

No rest today as I took some last weekend.

AM:
Stretch + 400m jog to warmup

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 situps (all kind of abs work)

20 mins / 16 rounds

PM:

90 mins hockey game at the U of Ottawa.

#86 LT and #93 Melissa-
You both are very sweet -thank you!

LT - I never thought of them "drinking the koolaid" - LOVE IT! I should get shirts made that say "I drank the koolaid in Algebra class" - hehe...I don't think our principal would dig those; the kids would love it. I have told them, "Our work is the other class's warmup" :)

I have a student this year who I had last year - last year, he skipped all of his classes, never turned in his work, etc., so he got to repeat 9th grade. The first six weeks in my class last year, his average was a 14 (no lie). This year, his average the first six weeks was an 83 (and he legitimately earned that). He's got B's and C's in ALL of his classes and is doing SO WELL. He's completely drank the koolaid - I'll have to remember to tell him that! I certainly do not take credit for his success - he has worked hard this semester. He told me at the beginning of the year that this year, he was going to be different. I only told him, "Ok. PROVE IT." And he has.

It's funny because I never really thought in depth about the "Crossfit mentality" in our class until we celebrated the 58 seconds - it literally was like the end of every FRAN video you see here - the kids were hooping and hollering, and as soon as I saw it, I recognized it as pure "Crossfit" - it was AWESOME.

Today in class, they weren't overly motivated to talk about functions/domain/range, and we had a discussion on why weak people suck. I told them there was no room for weakness in our class, that they had to be tough mentally and physically - they understood that and got some work done!

I keep forgetting - Coach Burgener's video is AWESOME! He's a good dude, and I'm hopeful to get to the oly cert this spring when he heads this way!

Bingo and Ev-
THANK YOU! :)

I want Murph.....I want Murph......I want Murph...

Can't workout tomorrow so I did this today:

3 rounds for time:

50 box jumps
185 lb. deadlift- 7 reps.
5 pull-ups

Seemed simple enough but still took me 7:55. Probably should've done 5 rounds but I'm still a little sluggish from the burpee-fest on Monday!

So I've been resting for two months because I dislocated my shoulder again (while on upper body only due to a hip injury). It was really stupid. I know I'm prone to it, its happened enough that I know how to reduce it myself and what PT to do. Yes, I did it during a wod. I know what I can and can't do but because I have been pushing the limit wrt kipping and full extension and getting away with it, I got cocky and not even crossfit could prevent the injury. So I'm a little embarrassed and out of shape now. Is it significant that I turn 40 next month?

Having said that. I did 50 pull-ups today, 200 squats and 100 push-ups yesterday and 25 pull-ups and 2 hours of surfing on Monday. I'm calling myself ready to go for wods again after a rest day tomorrow. I might even jump in tomorrow if its oly lifting or something heavy.

I'm so excited to be back.

Thanks for the inspiring post Amie. My 2 year crossfit anniversary is about a week after my birthday. I feel exactly the same way you describe (although now I accept that I will never be able to do wide-grip kipping or jumping full extension pull-ups).

-JP

29/f/115

21-15-9

BW back squat
BW Front Squat

20:22

was gonna do 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 but legs were shot on the 15 rep round. that was tough.

I had the pleasure of meeting Coach Burgener last week. He`s the best, coolest guy ever!

20/m/6'2"/195 lbs

Today's random ass kicking:
4 rounds of:
5 muscle ups
15 OHS @ 95 lbs

Didn't time it, but it sure killed the legs after Fight Gone Bad yesterday. Hoping tomorrow is an upper body workout.

Just wondering if anyone can give me an answer... Feb 19th-20th, Level 1 Cert RCMP GRC. Are the RCMP being trained to do Crossfit at DEPOT??

15:52

my first ever Diane and my first ever HSPU's!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its been one year in the making, but I got em done

Joseph 87 - There's no need to be careful about what you read provided you read widely enough. I appreciate you point, however, and think that if you engage with your great books to the point where you risk losing your identity, you stand a good chance of finding your identity improved when you come out the other end.

Ross Naugton 28

What's a bibliophile like yourself doing on a website like this? Let's not forget the GB's provide all of Gibbon's Decline and Fall as well several other unabridged versions of texts that are now relatively hard to find. To my mind, an updated version should include a list of suggested or comparable texts corresponding to the one's chosen by the GBW editors where these exist.

At an auction my father paid $1 for a boxed job-lot of mystery stuff, and to his surprise the box contained 52 of the the 54 GB volumes. At that price how can you say a single negative thing about them?

I have a question about the applications for the kipping vs "butterfly" kipping. I know from experience that on wod's where the pullup numbers are relatively low (ex Fran, Helen etc) that the butterfly is a faster way to get there. But I'm curious about peoples experience with high rep sets of pullups. The butterfly kip falls out of rythym for me and actually takes a little more energy to execute. That may just be a technique issue of mine nut I've heard this from a few people. Curious about anyone who's experimented with high rep butterfly kipping sets vs regular kip and what seems to last longer and conserve energy better. I am in the hunt for 50 continous pullups and am interested in how others are getting there. Any insight would be much appreciated.

Good evening all,

performed CFB WOD of Cleans

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

first 3 185, second 3 195 third 3 200 and pr'd with 205 for last lift.

Semper fidelis and God Bless

Amie/Aims,

Very nice. You know, as strange as it sounds, I think most people (kids and adults) have a hunger to have demands placed on them. In fact, I would go so far as to say that NOT placing demands on people capable of meeting them amounts to an abuse by neglect.

You are acting as more than a teacher. You are a leader, and you are earning respect. To demand more of people is a mutual respect. Treating them as helpless, and somehow needing to be molly-coddled, that breeds a relationship of invader/victim. It breeds resentment. And it breeds failure.

One of the beauties of this community that has assembled here, is that whatever the political or social beliefs of individuals here, each of us can have a reasonable faith as to the relative resiliency of the people with whom we are talking. We don't attract--and certainly don't retain--whiners.

For this reason, I for one feel a greater sense of trust in the response of the community when I am emotionally honest. I don't want or need a group therapy session, or to get things "off my chest".

At the same time, it is comforting to know there are other people out there fighting the good fight, however they conceive it. Many of the folks are quite literally fighting, and watching and processing the death that results.

You are the sort of person we will need to survive the next fifty years. You have my honest respect and gratitude.

Aims,

I have to say that is probably the most inspiring thing i have read in a long time. You are truely helping these kids discover their potential and prove to themselves that they are worth something. I have to say keep up the good work, you are truely a teacher that every kid should experience...especially to make something so boring into something exciting...sorry i hate math!

109 Prole:

I'm not necessarily espousing the view that one shouldn't read certain writers because of this danger, I believe that everyone should question their views and test them against argument--so I agree that if you read widely enough, you can come out better for it. But I believe there are two different ways of losing an identity, the healthy way--that is, being forced to re-evaluate view points and test what you really think--and then the destructive way--when everything you once believed comes crashing down, and you indoctrinate yourself to a certain thinker because of this (I have seen this happen many times with Nietzsche).

To some degree with philosophy there is an inherent intellectual risk involved for someone that has a strong set of beliefs (i.e. a devout religious person), and I have seen plenty of people go through crises of faith/identity because they only see one side of the argument.

Read widely, read well, but always remember that there is a counter argument that should be given its due.

One might suggest Mr Beam could have produced a more interesting "survey of the Great Books movement if he had read the books. Who's to say he hasn't. The Great Books collection wasn't meant simply for reading anyway, that is, if the st Johns founders of the New Program met the conceived intentions of Adler and Hutchins. These works are to be consumed, digested and in the end discovering yourself in them. In our modern pluralistic world there isn't any room for reading GB when we are supposed to embrace multiculturalism and diversity.

They stand silent as binding, paper and ink collecting dust on bookshelves in forgotten places. The GB collection is just a collection of works by dead white guys without a treatment given them by very few besides St Johns. Lets not forget, sandwiched between Homer and Freud are Euclid, Copernicus, Newton and Maxwell to name a few. I find the clamor of pluralism, just that, a faint din in the symphony of these giants.

I may have some bias, with two children attending St Johns and fresh from a visit there myself, spending several days experiencing the GB program first hand, auditing classes and meeting students in different stages of the process. The icons of unreadability coming alive all around me. For most people the Great Books are like Crossfit, some just don't get it and some just get some.

#115 As a St Johns Alum I have to say that you are setting up another of the false dichotomies the board wallers in often- particularly as it pertains to the old style/substance saw.

There is nothing to inhibit embracing the Great Books and an appreciation of diversity and multi culturalism. Notice the generalist nature of the progam, and the equal attention to the way in which you read and discuss the books. It is UNIQUELY suited towards multi cultral competence in that it teaches you where you come from so that you can identify and distinguish yourself when you study or work in other cultures.

When you read from the list - you quickly see that western civilisation is multi cultural -and the discussions teach you to reach for ideas through a process of inquiry based on respect from different standpoints. And most importantly- the books unearth the root of some of your basic assumtpions in the context of their original opposition.

It's interesting to spend a year reading Ptolemy proving the earth is the center of the universe. In the process you learn the basis of trigonometry and realize the best methods can still lead to false conclusions.
Or to read Kepler- and come to learn that his methods were faulty (fudged data!) and he got it right.

You may remember that St Johns considered cobbling together a similar program for the Aisan classice- with Mandarin and Sanskrit as the languages and the music tutorials working with representative works etc .

The Great Books, St Johns and Crossfit- no surprise to me at all that the board landed on the topic- all examples of how generalist approaches lead to greater success in pursuit of specialtization.

The poster who mentioned "Things fall Apart" as being inelgible- not true- most people could read that novel and easily make the list- it just have a huge impact over a long time. No one in the GB culture disses books like that.

No, the culprits arent ideas in the forms of "isms" or political parties- just, as #114 points out- - folks not giving "the other" proper place in their own thinking.

Why are these books called the “Great Books”? What makes a Classic a Classic?

I have been at St. Johns College for a year and a half now consuming and digesting ideas presented by Aristotle, Thucydides, Homer and Plato, etc. I’ve found a friend in Socrates when he told me that “the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.” When he told me to “know thyself.”

Aristotle told me that “All men desire to know” and I believe him. I desire to know. Reading “widely” and testing our ideas in discussion and dialogue; why would we do this? There is a persisting question of human existence. Who of us hasn’t stopped at some point and asked “Why am I?” Facing this question, my intuition leads me to start at the beginning of the history of this question, with Homer, then Plato, then Aristotle, and onto the Bible, Epictetus, Tacitus then on and on. I will make my journey forward, digging through the conversation that is the exchange and development of ideas responding to this inherent nagging question.

These books are by no means the only way to explore this question, but they are tools in that when you read them, you enter a conversation with them, testing your ideas and thoughts against theirs. Someone had to start somewhere. Similarly, being attentive and thoughtful, we can explore this question using what we have: our experience and our sense for humanity.

The books are not Great because one time Britannica made a “series” in the 1950s’, they are Great because they have been tested by time, they transcend the particulars and speak to something universal inside us all. Crossfit forces you to find your limits and transcend them, causing us to grow. May this sort of growth pour into the rest of your life, that when you think you you know, you would know better. “Who am I? And why am I here?” –Admiral Stockdale.

Sincerely,
Acacia Pappas

http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/about/dialogue.shtml

Agreed. Appreciation for the GB should not be at the expense of diversity and multiculturalism, however the GB shouldn't be excluded in the name of the later, as they often are these days. In addition, without this body of work there would be no multiculturalism and people would still be regionalized and writing Sanskrit and Mandarin with ink and quill. fwiw

Besides the crux of Crossfit – a novel regimen of short workouts of complex high exertion – the program brought the scientific principles of measurement, competition, progress, and rapid reinforcement to fitness. Bravo to Amie (AIMS #84) for recognizing and adapting CrossFit for its pedagogy.

Coach might win a prize for a revolution in human performance brought about as a side effect of his CrossFit package.

"FGB" this AM, missed it yesterday.
First time doing this WOD and it owned me!

WB-12-10-12
SDHP-15-12-10
BXJ-35-20-20
PP-15-13-15
Row-9-10-9

Total-217
I've never done box jumps or Wall balls and they both fatigued me really fast. Oh well, I can only improve that number next time!

Multiculturalists seem to believe that our political system appeared from nowhere, and that the ideas-and men who thought them--upon which it is based are irrelevant. They act as if this system will run itself forever flawlessly, if we just trust the "people", with the people understood as everyone but white males.

This is, in my view, a form of bigotry. It shows a profound lack of gratitude and appreciation both for the work and sacrifice that went into forming our system, and the on-going sacrifices of those who continue to believe in it.

A Constitutional Republic is like a complex machine, full of gears and levers, steam boilers, and gauges. The operating manual is contained in foundational works, all of which were written by dead white men. The possibility of uttering that phrase with contempt began with those very same men.

This Republic need not last forever. At the rate we are decaying morally and intellectually, I honestly doubt we will last another 50 years. Even that is almost certainly a stretch. If I were our enemy, I would have a 10 and 20 year plan. If it were me in the drivers seat, I think I could pull it off.

I have never been as pessimistic about the future of our country as I have been these past weeks. I don't have a problem that we elected a black man for President. Race doesn't matter to me.

What bothers me is we elected Obama BECAUSE he is a black man. He is not even remotely qualified for the office. Not even close. The biggest organization he's ever run is a Senate subcommittee, and he hasn't spent much time at that.

Even if he isn't a radical, there were half a dozen red flags that should have been presented by the media. For example, the career of Obama's political Godfather, Saul Alinsky.

The only virtue that is taught in our schools is tolerance. But tolerance is not a virtue that enables societies to survive.

The best way to put this is if I parachute a group of people with limited supplies onto a desert island, and tell them to survive for 20 years, and build a community, tolerance will not be the top on the list of virtues. Work ethic, persistence, ingenuity, discipline--those top the list. Tolerance helps to grease the wheels, but it won't feed anybody. If somebody wants to go sit on a stump somewhere and be tolerant, he will die of hunger.

And I think it is misusing the term to say that tolerance implies blanket acceptance of all behaviors of certain groups simply because of their minority status. Tolerance is looking individuals in the eyes, and seeing who they really are. Seeing them as fellow human beings, with all the problems, uncertainties, doubts, and hopes as anyone else.

Being color blind, in other words.

This is the sort of activity, the sort of thinking, that studying the liberal traditions of our culture leads to.

Nothing in Locke, or Hamilton, or Jefferson, or Madison, or Adams--etc.--is intended to support cultural suicide.

That impulse comes from the radical Left. The divergence of my own views from those of many of the people around me has never been more stark to me. It is almost like half of the people around me suddenly disappeared mentally into the Twilight Zone. Very few people seem to realize the profound moral danger we are in, which will not change even if Obama turns out to be a decent, moderate President.

Our culture is collapsing, and it is collapsing because we stopped feeding it 30-40 years ago. We did this to improve the world, but unless I am sorely mistaken, it will end--absent a successful counteroffensive by those who still believe there is a difference between right and wrong, and that the question is not a trick question--with more misery than all but a few of you can imagine.

These Great Books would be an antidote, but what schools are going to pick them up?

One idea I had that I will pass along to avoid ending in abject bleakness, is what I propose to call Patriot Clubs. This would be a debating society that gets together once a month or so, in which members read two books on a topic, one by a liberal, and one by a conservative. They then debate them, and the group discussed the debate in a structured way afterwards.

As a conservative, I can imagine no better way to convert people than placing them in the position of defending their own views. I can also imagine no better way of coming to understand your enemy than by taking his place in the order of rhetorical battle.

I don't fear alternative views, for the simple reason that I have exposed my own to constant and withering contempt and ridicule for a number of years now, and they have held their ground admirably.

That's enough for now. It's interesting to me that the St. John's crowd speaks English and is capable of thinking in paragraphs devoid of slogans. If only Harvard and Yale could produce people like that.

This is taking this further off topic, but this link is worth reading in it's entirety. I will note it was written in 2003, and likely described well the election we just went through, with depressing accuracy:

http://www.tysknews.com/Articles/dnc_corruption.htm

I am not a Christian, but I do not believe the word Satanic is overblown when it comes to the modern Left.

People don't know about, or have chosen to forgets that the radicals in the Sixties were fully sympathetic with Communist reeducation camps, and the slaughter of dissidents. Bill Ayers group figured they would need to kill 25 million Americans to realize their socialist "utopia".

When values are attacked, the goal is not the implementation of better values. The goal is power, pure and simple, for the sake of power.

This is why the rejection of the Western Canon has been so necessary for achieving their goals. Those books teach enduring values, which are not mutable according to the whims of the moment. They teach critical, rational thinking. They teach valuing ideological diversity. They teach history, and an understanding that autocracies are the norm in human history, not the exception.

We are an island of utopian history, in an ocean of political violence. But no one remembers, and seemingly no one cares.

I don't see political arrests in our immediate future, but my gut tells me that there is a plan in the works, that is intended to rectify the supposed crimes of our history. It will take some more time to consolidate the indoctrination and alienation of our young, but that is the goal. By the time today's 25 year olds are old enough to hold elected office, the stage will be set.

Barry,

Do you really consider liberals to be your enemies? Would you be more optimistic about our future if Sarah Palin was our Vice President? If leadership is a qualification for President, how do you rate McCain's over the last 18 months? Was Bush being tolerant when he looked in Putin's eyes and got a sense of his soul?

Joe

Joe,

I think Bush called it right. Do you think the Iranian missile test is unconnected with Medvedev's threat to redeploy missiles in Europe if we continue with our proposed missile shield?

Now that I think about it, though, it was interesting that the news reports on the Iranian missile test said it was capable of reaching Europe. What it did not mention was that made it also capable of reaching Israel.

We can expect our enemies to begin moving with much more boldness in the coming months. We can expect a lot more suicide bombings, the Iranian nuke program to go back to full steam, and the Russians to start thinking about where they want to go next.

For the record, I like the word liberal. The current crop of Democrats are not liberal though. They are extremely intolerant of divergent views.

Read the link I posted. You read the Alinsky script, and compare it to a typical blog, and you will see virtually perfect congruence.

The Democrats created a permanent African American underclass by systematically destroying nuclear families, and encouraging generational dependence on the government, for purely partisan purposes. The data is abolutely incontravertible, in my view.

Yes, I consider the Left wing of the Democratic Party to be not just my enemy, but principled enemies of personal liberty. I can back with so many cases it would make my stomach turn to review them.

If they cared about the poor, they would enact programs that work. As it is, with the growing ranks of properly indocrinated children coming of age, we will continue doing more of what got us where we are.

We will get Change, though. I believe that.

Oh, and with respect to Sarah Palin, I would be more optimistic--much more optimistic--if she were our President.

Give me someone with common sense over an overeducated ideologue eight days a week.

We'll see what happens. My hope is that Obama is just a typical Democrat. That is the best we can hope for now.

Oh, and did you all see that Bill Ayers is now saying he and Obama were "neighbors and family friends", and that he's going to be on national TV, Good Morning America, I think it is?

Things usually work out somewhere between the worst you can imagine and the best. If that's the case, this turn may be what was needed to get what I will agree with Sarah Palin in calling the "Real" America awake, and back at the wheel.

THANK YOU to all who posted such kind words in response to my students - I really do appreciate it!!

Kim Peek loves to visit the magnificent Salt Lake City Public Library, where, according to his story, he has read over 9,000 books. In eight to ten seconds, he simultaneously reads two pages, the left page with his left eye and the right with his right, a consequence of having no corpus callosum. His retention is near perfect, and permanent. But because of the same defect, he can't tell you what the book was about, and he can't judge or compare sources. So he likes to read zip codes and telephone books. But for the sake of argument, let's suppose among his 9,000 volumes he has read all 443 of the Great Books of the Western World, and throw in the few papers outlining how those books qualified for the list.

The University of Chicago provides the initial five-prong test for Greatness. http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/ideas4.html dating from 1937. In 1988, Mortimer Adler added four more. http://www.indiana.edu/~econed/pdffiles/spring01/hartley.pdf. Reading through these criteria, one wonders why the King James Bible is not on the list. Why are the discredited Marx, Freud, and Keynes on the list? If the Communist Manifesto, why not Mein Kampf? The test is obviously defective.

Adler explains:

>>It is the set of great ideas that determines the choice of the great books.

>>In other words, we chose the great books on the basis of their relevance to at least 25 of the 102 great ideas.>>

See the Great Books Index at http://books.mirror.org/gb.sel1990.html#back2, reprinting a letter by Mortimer Adler, then at the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas:

The 102 Great Ideas appear in Adler's index to the Great Books, which he called the Syntopicon. It is not available online, but Wikipedia provides the contents:

>> Volume I: Angel, Animal, Aristocracy, Art, Astronomy, Beauty, Being, Cause, Chance, Change, Citizen, Constitution, Courage, Custom and Convention, Definition, Democracy, Desire, Dialectic, Duty, Education, Element, Emotion, Eternity, Evolution, Experience, Family, Fate, Form, God, Good and Evil, Government, Habit, Happiness, History, Honor, Hypothesis, Idea, Immortality, Induction, Infinity, Judgment, Justice, Knowledge, Labor, Language, Law, Liberty, Life and Death, Logic, and Love

>>Volume II: Man, Mathematics, Matter, Mechanics, Medicine, Memory and Imagination, Metaphysics, Mind, Monarchy, Nature, Necessity and Contingency, Oligarchy, One and Many, Opinion, Opposition, Philosophy, Physics, Pleasure and Pain, Poetry, Principle, Progress, Prophecy, Prudence, Punishment, Quality, Quantity, Reasoning, Relation, Religion, Revolution, Rhetoric, Same and Other, Science, Sense, Sign and Symbol, Sin, Slavery, Soul, Space, State, Temperance, Theology, Time, Truth, Tyranny, Universal and Particular, Virtue and Vice, War and Peace, Wealth, Will, Wisdom, and World

This list is profoundly confused, unstructured, disorganized, uneven, unintuitive, incoherent, and rambling. Adler admitted it was arbitrary. It lacks semantics and taxonomy, as topics and as attributes. Some topics include opposites (e.g., Virtue and Vice), other opposites are omitted (e.g., anti-Opposition, anti-Progress, anti-Slavery, anti-Truth). Why are Sin and Vice separate? Some topics include others (e.g., God in Religion; Induction, Relation, Same and Other, Universal and Particular, all in Logic; Beauty, Happiness, and Love in Emotion; Astronomy, Evolution, and Physics in Science). Is World the Universe or Earth or both? Philosophy, Dialectic, Reasoning and Rhetoric are separate.

Does self belong in Being? Should Constitution be distinct from Government, and why is Government separate from Democracy, Liberty, Oligarchy and Tyranny. Where are organization and structure? Superstition and belief? Is alchemy in Religion, Science, or Medicine, and why is Medicine separate from Science? If Medicine is a technology, where are the great ideas of technology or machines? Under Mechanics or Physics? Pain is in contrast to Pleasure, an Emotion, and not in Medicine. Physiology must be under Science, but Medicine is not. Health and sickness? Money in Wealth? Where is Poverty? Adler regretted not having a category of Equality. Why? He had Justice and Same. Where are society, ethics? Are tact and Judgment what distinguishes Wisdom from Knowledge? Where are motives, and isn't Will one? Sense and State are included, but in what sense? Where are heaven and hell, as long as there are Angel, God, and Religion?

This list is Addled. God, Liberty, and Democracy seem well placed on the list. But Change, Sense, and Tyranny were Great Ideas? How is naming a simple fact or classification of them a Great Idea? The notion of invisibles like the atom or the germ are profound creations of the human mind. The latter lead to Jenner's creation of the vaccination, which belongs near the top of the list. So, too are the Scientific Method, Newton's laws and his notions of forces and momentum, Einstein's e = mc^2, the transistor, the printing press, the light bulb.

So regardless of the art in the writings, and the status of the Great Books as masterpieces of the liberal arts, and regardless of their influence on history, the list is arbitrary. Adler said of the list,

>>There is much more error in the great books than there is truth. By anyone's criteria of what is true or false, the great books will be found to contain some truths, but many more mistakes and errors.>>

Kim Peek is unable to discern meaning in what he has memorized. The typical liberal art student in a Great Books curriculum is hardly better off. He is saturated with reading and struggling with memorization, while he has had no training, or encouragement, by which he can separate fact from fiction in what he is reading. No cause lies here for nostalgia. Liberal arts education has substituted Great Books indoctrination with liberal politics.

We might instead yearn for a time when Liberal Arts emphasizes critical analysis of our intellectual heritage, one book at a time. And when debate resumes its place as the highest academic standard.

The second to last paragraph-

"He is saturated with reading and struggling with memorization, while he has had no training, or encouragement, by which he can separate fact from fiction in what he is reading. No cause lies here for nostalgia. Liberal arts education has substituted Great Books indoctrination with liberal politics."

Do you have concrete examples to support this? Or is this just a general rant to bolster your oft repeated disdain for Liberal Arts?
It certainly doesnt reflect the GB program I was a part of- though it could describe other liberal arts programs based in GB. I did observe classes at world college west- which support your general veiw - but I think the spectrum of how those books are taught might be broader than youll admit.

The program I went to did read the King James bible- Also, for the New Testament we used the koine greek translations. The King James bible is a good translation- one could argue that the New English is equally good

I couldnt access your second link- I would assume that Mein Kampf didnt make the list because it's influence was brief and possibly because the people making the list saw it as being poorly written- or maybe there were a bunch of Jews who naturally wouldnt give it up for the guy with the funny mustache. A fair question.

Most of the catagories in your list - both the ones you find misnamed or erroneously left out easily arise from the list as it is presented - In general (and it has been awhile for me I admit) many issues that initially seem peripheral to the discussions of a work ended up as central themes- so while your questions are valid- I can also see that in a course of study you or someone likeminded would have no problem interjecting these in a tutorial- and it would garner appropriate attention- particularly if your starting point was grounded in the reading at hand.
For example: pain/pleasure not being in medicine- phsyiology being science and medicine not- I can see from a historical perspective why the placement of these broad catagories starts where they do instead of where you would suggest- but perhaps at one time pain and pleasure were treated as emotions and medicine wasnt always scientific- whereas physiology was by nature scientific- so you treat these things in terms of how they evolved in human endeavor rather than in terms of what they evolved into. The context is helpful in understanding ideas historically- but also in understanding how humans conceive, embrace and reject ideas- which is obviously a useful method- it liberates you from less valid conclusions- like yours about Obama being given a pass on everything because of his skin "tint". Which was in essence a knee jerk assumption which ignored several pertinent facts on the ground- but no doubt felt like a good strong assertion to make- at the time because it was emotionally satisfying and had a lot traction among people inclined towards simple bigotry.
Context is king for the GB crowd.

During your several invectives against the liberal arts I notice a starry eyed love of 'science'. I think that a historical view of science might yeild more similarities in the arbitrariness of it all human inquiry- not to say that we dont reach firm ,useful or true conclusions- but that even the most solid methods of inquiry can lead to places that are ultimately untenable.

Your last line- about debate- is to me very interesting- in St Johns the debaters - holding and defending positions werent the stars- it was the people who could find the uncertainty in any position who moved the conversation forward.

Jeff,

The organization of the Synopticon is alphabetical.

The books among the editors' selections offer answers to all of your questions:

"Does self belong in Being? Should Constitution be distinct from Government, and why is Government separate from Democracy, Liberty, Oligarchy and Tyranny. Where are organization and structure? Superstition and belief? Is alchemy in Religion, Science, or Medicine, and why is Medicine separate from Science? If Medicine is a technology, where are the great ideas of technology or machines? Under Mechanics or Physics? Pain is in contrast to Pleasure, an Emotion, and not in Medicine. Physiology must be under Science, but Medicine is not. Health and sickness? Money in Wealth? Where is Poverty? Adler regretted not having a category of Equality. Why? He had Justice and Same. Where are society, ethics? Are tact and Judgment what distinguishes Wisdom from Knowledge? Where are motives, and isn't Will one? Sense and State are included, but in what sense? Where are heaven and hell, as long as there are Angel, God, and Religion?"

- but of course the answers are in the books themselves, not in the index or the apparatus! I don't think the editors ever expected to be critiqued on the basis of whether their index offered explanations of the interrlatedness (or not) of these many concepts and phenomena.

And, a great book is not made simply by the ideas it expresses, it is the manner in which it expresses, its impact.

I spent an hour or so looking at my Dad's collection of these books at thanksgiving (Canadian) (he's never opened a single volume) and noticed what I thought to be some "over-representations", i.e., Freud. But the set was initially put together after the War, and Freud, and Keynes, and others you or I or subsequent history may not value (until some new "great" thinker rehabilitates their reputations - after all, without eloquent rehabilitation many of the present authors would not be included) were important then. The list will change (and could have been different).

We all need to make our own lists, or as Voltaire said: "we must cultivate our garden." These editors offered us what they thought of as a cultivated garden. They didn't do bad in the post WWII intellectual anxiety in which they lived. At least they included a lot of ancient authors who, simply by their distance and their immediacy offer us insights into our own situation that the thoroughly ideology-ized from Hobbes to Freud cannot (without some heavy labour of historical contextualizing).

Argumentum ad Hominem

The subtitle should have read, Every Negative Fact and Innuendo I Could Dredge Up

Although he was not particularly unkind to me in the book, I found virtually every page to be a smart-alecky and snide diatribe of the worst order against the Great Books, Adler, Hutchins, et al. Plus the book is replete with errors of commission and omission.

As an effective antidote, I prescribe Robert Hutchins' pithy essay, The Great Conversation.

If the Great Books crusade is as bleak as Beam purports, then happily, not many will read his invective book.

Max Weismann,
President and co-founder with Mortimer Adler, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
Chairman, The Great Books Academy