Quiet, Please!

Wow. Seems like ages since I blogged. I haven't been posting my training logs because they've been sporadic, at best, but I've still been keeping track in my notebooks. However pitiful it may be! Even shitty training is a teaching tool, after all.
If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that we never stop learning about what we're doing. I've learned I have almost no patience, that's for certain, least of all with myself. There are days when I'd like to smack myself to get myself going. I've learned I'm oftentimes too hard on myself and I've actually improved that a wee bit and learned to ease up and cut myself some slack. Right now, it's still a minute amount of slack, but it's there, I promise.
A bigger, more important epiphany I've had is that I do much better training either totally alone or with someone who doesn't want to talk. I detest distraction and breaks to my concentration. I hate them so much mainly because I know myself, and I know it's hard enough for me to concentrate period, let alone with people chit-chatting, or a 7 year old dancing around me, or a dog gnawing on his toenails. I enjoyed the gym and the comrade of people there, but it always bothered me how many people were there purely to socialize (or so it seemed). How you can be putting in 110% effort when you haven't stopped talking since you walked through the door? I haven't been able to figure that out yet. I enjoyed being in a room with a few other people who were straining, striving, sweating and exceeding. No talk needed aside from an occasional sentence or two. 
I started working out a couple of years after my daughter was born. I made a stand and decided that an hour in the basement, alone, was not too much to ask for myself. So every night, or most nights, anyhow, I'd saunter off to the cellar, put on my tunes and sweat. It was nothing fantastic, I had nothing but a pair of 10lb dumbbells and an elliptical trainer but it got me going and it worked! i could lose myself in the struggle and I could let the beat of the music carry me over the hurdles. It's near to impossible to be lifted beyond yourself if you can't concentrate on yourself. When weather permitted, I'd run hills in the cemetery - alone. Nothing but the sound of heavy, quick footsteps on the cracked asphalt and the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Even after I moved into my mom's house, most training was done outside in the garage or in my room. Most times alone. 
So now, now I train much better by myself. That's not to say that I don't watching my daughter mess around with weights or that I hate my dog. I love those things! What I'm saying is that for me, serious training where I push beyond my limits has to be done in a certain environment. No chit-chatting about the day. No dodging child and pet. NO MONKEY BUSINESS! Frank won't mind. He performs better that way as well. We can be there to spot and encourage each other in quiet fortitude. We're not the yelling and shouting type. 
That means strict house rules for our gym and you can bet your bippy I'm making a poster and putting it on the door. My training time is my daughter's homework time. Period. No exceptions. And If I have to, I'll lock the door to keep poor old Butch from sneaking in and licking my face while I bench. If I'm down there moving the bar and in my world, it's for your own safety that you remain quiet. Trust me. Sssshhhhhh, someone's making gains, people. My weight always moved better with a quiet resolve anyhow.