Follow Me

I’d just completed another training session with my friend, Te Huia. I was about to leave, and I was exhausted again. I knew why. It was because of the way Te Huia learns. He has learning difficulties, which means verbal instructions like “engage your core” or “exhale when you flex” are not going to register at all. No, for Te Huia, clever phrases and verbal cues are not going to work. Which means the best way is to show him good form that he can copy. Like all good imitators, the more he copies the better he gets, to the point where the student becomes the master. In fact his imitation is so good, I often see him repeating actions that I didn’t even know I had included. For instance, every time he completes his set of “Deadbugs” with the Swiss ball he will knee the ball over his head and say, “good lad, well done”. Similarly, when he finishes a crunch exercise with the foam roller that I called Banana Ball (which he misheard as Banana Boat, so that’s what we now call it) he always slams the foam roller down on the mat and shouts “done”.

To be honest, it can be a bit disconcerting when you see your actions and hear your words coming from someone else. Especially when you consider that the mimicry is so good that it often picks up my English accent as well. So “done” is pronounced “dun” and “boat” is “bowt”. If I think about it, it’s actually a real compliment. He follows my actions with complete trust. He wants to get it right and he can see when he has. We both get a great amount of pleasure from those moments when it all clicks into place and his form on a particular exercise suddenly improves.

I smile to myself, at this thought.

Tired but happy, I waved goodbye to Te Huia and tell him that he did really well. He replies, as always, “awesome Jon, thank you for coming”. He will have picked that particular phrase up from his mother. Of that I was pretty certain.

This made me think of my own mother.

Growing up, my mother was my father figure. A Christian woman but not a preacher in any sense of the word. Very rarely did she tell us, directly, how to conduct ourselves. We just picked it up from her example. Now being boys, we didn’t always pick it up the first time, or even the second time, to be honest. However, she continued to lead by example. She demonstrated humility and resilience, and she modelled selfless behaviour and charity every day. She had a truly Christian heart. As boys we probably didn’t comprehend the value of the values we were being shown, but as we matured into adulthood and became exposed to more of the world, we began to see the wisdom of her quiet instruction.

My mother passed away many years ago now, but her actions and conduct live on in my memory, and hopefully in my behaviour too. Her steadfastness is definitely a trait that I try to emulate in my running and in my life. I think it is part of human nature to model our behaviour on others. Perhaps the biggest choice we face…..……………… is who.

I would be very surprised if you knew my mother, but we can all know the One she was modelling her life on.

Mat 16: 24  Then Jesus said to his disciples “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up the cross, and follow Me”.