Have you ever played Suduko?  If so, you know how moving to another box makes the one you were stuck on a LOT easier...  In some weird way, thats what I'm trying to explain here.

Taking a break.

Clearing your mind and coming back to something.  Artists do this a lot.  "Getting a fresh perspective," I think its called...?

Sometimes things are more the same than you think.  Even though it's "cross training" some stuff is transferable skill-wise, thought-wise, and a whole bunch of other things-wise.

Football players and ballet.  Have you ever heard of this?  I remember when I was a kid, I heard football players were taking ballet classes to keep them light on their feet.

There was this poster I saw at Hartmeyer Ice Rink.

A few years ago, I stopped in to Hartmeyer Ice Rink to take a look around and see how to sign up.  As I was looking around, a poster caught my eye...  It was up on the wall by the bathrooms and had a player and some words on it.  The part that stood out, was something along the lines of playing multiple sports... Not just hockey.  It took me a second to think about it, because I was in the ice rink, looking to sign up for hockey, but the poster was saying don't just do that...

I don't know if that sparked something, but I think about it from time to time, and think the message was something along the lines of doing multiple sports to be a  good athlete.

Lemme' know if you've seen this, and what you'd take from it.

If its still up, which I doubt it is... I'll try to take a picture of it to post on here.

Eh, so I went to look for it... Its not up, anymore...

There was this other time in my life.  I was doing Jiu-Jitsu for a long time.  Being a smaller dude, going against a lot bigger opponents, I was getting smashed a lot.  I think it started to weigh on me.  My body seemed crumpled up for too long and I thought about doing something that stretches you out.

Thats when I went to a climbing gym and checked out climbing.  It felt really good to hang on holds, reach far for stuff, and just all around stretch out.

When working out... It's good to counteract a movement.  If you pull... Its good to push.  I'm forgetting the term for it, but it helps with recovery (I think).

I'm getting my climbing adventures mixed up...  But while trying the via feratta, they mentioned to not hook your arm from the top down when bracing yourself... You could slip, fall, and easily do some damage (levering your arm and falling on it).  

When lead climbing, at the top, I did that, and thought... "Oh, yeah... Hook from the bottom up..."

So, although that wasn't "cross training," it was loosely related and fed into another type of climbing.

The picture in this post is from playing hockey.  Our coach made these sweet jersey's.  I'm trying to connect how this has helped with ropes and rigging... I'll give it some time, and see what I come up with.