Hardening

When I was a sophmore in undergrad, there was this senior who was going into the Marines after he graduated. He was an athletic trainer like me and I was placed with him in the same rotation: softball. It was a pretty low key sport and by no means needed two student athletic trainers. However, I did learn a lot from this senior. Because he was goig into the Marines he had already started going to to training. And sometimes he would tell me about it.

He told me about this one training tactic that I thought was pretty genius and yet twisted at the same time. He and the other guys (I don't know if there were girls now that I think about it) would sit in a room and hit their forearms with an object. I forget the exact object they used it could have been a ruler. The point was that they would desensitize their top layer of skin so that minor scrapes and bruises wouldn't bother them as much. April (the head AT) and I would take turns trying to give him Indian burns (is that a politically correct term anymore?) but it would not bother him.

I haven't thought about this for a while hence the details being fuzzy. But I was telling this kid about it because he had an annoying bruise on his forearm that we kept padding during practice so it would not hurt as much. I told him he should do that and in essence harden his skin. I was completely kidding and he did not take me seriously but it got me thinking.

I think this concept could be applied to somethig bigger.

The coaches at my school like to give the kids a hard time when they're hurt. They call them soft or just sigh heavily when they're talkig to them. It bothers me. A lot. But there is literally nothing I can do about it. It is the culture in this town and really it is done to give the kid a hard time and not necessarily done in an abusive way.

So I realize I needed to harden my feelings towards all comments made by the coaches. I am someone who thrives on positive encouragement. This is evidenced by the fact that my favorite coach here is the one who has said I was doing a good job.

But when the head coach is riding the kid who just sprained his ankle during a game, I really need to let it go. I need to talk to the kid myself and say 'I don't care what he says, you are not playing because I do not want you to injure yourself worse.' And then I need to systematically desensitize my self towards anything any of the coaches say.

In essence, harden myself.