Settle in folks: this is going to be a long one and an excessively nerdy one, because I had this rambling thought enter my brain at about 0450 this morning after a poor night of sleep due to getting up to take care of our new puppy at 0200 (he’s an adorable male pug named “Luigi”, continuing with my nerdiness). In fact, in the process of writing this, I realized there’s no way I could contain it within one post that anyone would actually READ in any one sitting, so I’ll chunk it out and give you a chance to marinade on it once a week, similar to John McCallum’s “Keys to Progress” series.
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| Based on this artwork, at least SOMEONE over at Wizards of the Coast is a fan of being jacked |
Once again,
it turns out that ALL games play by the same rules and, fundamentally, physical
transformation IS just one of many games we play in life. In turn, allow me to walk you through how the
journey of physical transformation mirrors the game “Magic the Gathering”,
first by giving you a crash course in some pre-2000s MtG (because I’m old
school like that and don’t like learning new rules) and then bloviating on all
the parallels that exist between the two.
For those of you well versed in the gameplay, I apologize for how my
brief oversite is going to butcher something you’ve most likely wasted FAR too
much time and money on (I know I sure did: this was like heroin for middle
schoolers), and for those of you NOT familiar with the game, I apologize for
making you read about how to play Magic the Gathering, much like I’m sure I
annoyed my father for years trying to explain to him how cool the newest card
in my collection was. So go ahead and
grab your PBJs with the crust loving cut off by your mom and your favorite
flavor of Capri Sun, because we’re going back to the 90s to learn how the nerds
actually figured out how to get jacked WITHOUT relying on science, but,
instead, on magic.
Ok, my
attempt at the briefest of overviews here.
A MtG match is supposed to be a fight between two wizards that are
casting spells at each other. The deck
of cards is effectively a spellbook: you start off with 7 cards in your hand
and draw a card each turn. Within this
deck, you have land cards: these are the source of your power, referred to as
“mana”. Without lands, you can’t cast
any spells: you need mana to cast spells.
You get to play 1 land per turn, meaning that, at the start of the game,
you don’t have much power, but as the game goes on, your power increases IF you
keep drawing enough lands to be able to play 1 each turn. Consequently, low power spells require small
amounts of mana, and bigger spells require more mana. To obtain the mana from your lands, you “tap”
them (literally turn them sideways), indicating that they have been used, and,
in turn, cannot be used again until the next turn, when you get to “untap”
them. Spells themselves range from
summon spells (creatures that will fight for you), enchantments (spells that
have impacts that last the entire time they are present), and
sorceries/instants (spells that have impacts that only last for that
turn/moment in time). Each turn, a
player can cast a spell like those listed and/or use some of those summoned
creatures to attack the other player/their creatures. Players each have a total of 20 life to start
with, and the game is won when one player either runs out of life or runs out
of cards in their deck. Yes: there is
MUCH more to it than that, but that’s enough for now.
I can feel it through the screen
Ok, so now
the parallels. The deck of Magic the
Gathering is a representation of genetics AND lifestyle. We quite literally have to “play the hand we
are dealt” in life: that’s genetics.
Sometimes, we draw a great hand and are afforded advantages the other
player can’t fathom, and sometimes, we draw a terrible hand and know, from the
get-go: it’s going to be a rough game.
We can’t change our genetics, but we CAN set ourselves up to MAXIMIZE
our genetics to the greatest extent possible.
In MtG, this is “deckbuilding”.
Because, yes, you CAN just play a random deck slapped together with just
the most basic of essentials (reference my post on “starter decks”), but you
can ALSO take the time to plan out a deck, select cards that work best with
your playstyle, ensure you a solid ratio of lands to spells in order to not
find yourself in a situation where you have too much land and not enough spells
or vice versa, and ultimately have some sort of logical strategy to win. For those of us in the physical transformation
game, this means things like taking nutrition seriously, our early adolescent
athletic history (did you play World of Warcraft until you were 18 or did you
actually play some sports?) figuring out the movements that work for our
physiology (a 7’2 basketball player probably doesn’t need to squat to
powerlifting legal depth), getting adequate sleep, regular sunlight exposure,
reduced life stress, regular low intensity activity, etc. Quite literally, we “stack the deck” such
that we can realize the maximum potential of our genetics, so that, even as we
play the hand we are dealt, we put ourselves in a situation such that the odds
are we’ll have at least a DECENT hand to play.
Some folks are blessed with incredible genetics yet do so little to
maximize them that they’re just flashes in the pan: rising to the top of the
sport for a year or 2 before crashing HARD and completely fading from
existence, while others may not have the best cards but are so talented at
managing them that they can play a LONG time among the top of their peer
groups. And some folks are able to pull
off both and just absolutely curb stomp the world for an ungodly amount of
time.
Let’s dive
further now. As I wrote earlier, you
start off with 7 cards in your hand, representing effectively how the interplay
of genetics and proper prior planning have you set you up for your own personal
“ground zero” before you start your physical training journey. From here, we get to play our first land and
quite possibly cast our first spell, representing our first foray into
training. Well, as discussed, these
first few spells are going to be VERY basic spells, as that’s what a small
amount of mana will afford you. This is
going to be a basic goblin with power and toughness of 1 (it can give and take
1 damage), or a simple spell that does 3 damage to the other wizard, or little
things along those lines. This
represents those VERY basic and fundamental workouts we do at the start of our
journey. Why? Because they’re enough! You don’t NEED more than that at the start of
the game, because, quite frankly, if you DID get more than that, the game
wouldn’t last very long, and it wouldn’t be very fun. Yes, there ARE some folks out there painfully
looking for ways to win MtG in one turn, just like the dudes that are out there
searching the internet for THE most optimal training and nutrition program out
there before they even START training…but neither of those dudes will ever
actually be able to have the FUN of “playing the game”. And, in that regard, they won’t get the
benefits OF playing the game: fun, or, in the case of physical transformation:
results. We need to settle in for a few
turns to be able to accumulate some more mana to cast some bigger spells.
The irony that this dude was researching the optimal way to gain weight
Alrighty folks, there's a LOT more discussion to be had here, so stay tuned for next week.
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