When the Method Doesn't Match the Mind
By Richard Marshall
Nobody Puts Baby In a Corner
It Happened Today in the Gym.
My wife and I pay a monthly subscription to KY Fit, which is a personal training app hosted by Iñaky García. He does daily workouts with a really well thought-through plan so you don't get injured, and Monica loves it, absolutely loves it.
She'll come downstairs after a session, face flushed, endorphins doing their thing, telling me how brilliant it was, how Iñaky pushed her just the right amount, how she feels stronger already.
And I want to love it too, I really do, because on paper it's perfect for me. There's a plan, a structure, it takes away the need to count in your head when you're doing the reps, or think about what you need to do tomorrow, which muscle groups need resting and which don't. For someone with ADHD, that should be gold, no decisions to make, no overwhelm, just follow the instructions, lift the weights, job done.
Plus, the guy's speaking Spanish the whole way through, so I'm even habit-stacking my exercise regime with some intense listening practice, killing two birds, as they say. And of course, if you're paying a monthly subscription and you can stream the sessions across multiple devices at once, why not? Get involved. You're paying anyway.
The Method Everyone Swore By
And yet, despite all of that, there's something about it that doesn't quite fit.
Maybe it's his music choice, that generic, relentless Chundachunda that sounds like every gym playlist ever made, all pounding bass and motivational build-ups that go nowhere, the kind of music that's supposed to make you feel pumped but instead just drills into your skull like a woodpecker on acid.
Or maybe it's his constant need to talk to Mariano, the guy operating the livestream feed and putting the text on screen telling you what to do next: "¿Cómo vas, Mariano? ¿Qué tal tu finde? ¿Estás caliente, tío?" And I'm there mid-lunge thinking, I don't give a shit about Mariano, I'm trying to hold this brutally painful position, and you conversing with your little invisible 'off-camera' amigo is driving me insane.
Or maybe, and this is probably it, it's the fact that (Mariano banter aside) Iñaky just doesn't shut up, not even for a second. He's narrating every single thing he's doing, encouraging you through every rep, telling you you're doing great even though he can't see you, reminding you to breathe, to push, to feel it in your core, and I'm there thinking, "tío, I know I need to breathe, I've been doing it for forty-eight bastard years, can you just give me ten seconds of silence so I can think?"
And I know this all sounds like I'm incredibly ungrateful, but I just can't stand him, so what's wrong with me?
The Morning I Just Couldn't
But this morning, I woke up and the thought of spending another minute with Iñaky (albeit through a screen) was genuinely unbearable. All I could think about was staying in bed, or skipping the gym altogether and grabbing a coffee whilst catching up on some writing on my phone, anything but pressing play on that app and hearing his voice again.
And yet I went anyway, dragged myself out of bed while it was still dark, drove through the rainy rush hour traffic, got to the gym (which is usually the hardest part, let's be honest), and stood there in the changing room feeling quite proud of myself for actually showing up, I opened my phone, ready to fire up the app, and then... I just didn't, I couldn't.
Instead I opened iTunes and opted to do my workout without the company of Iñaky.
What Happened When I Stopped Following the Plan
I started with some cardio, the treadmill, fast walking with some occasional weights to get back into the rhythm after my indulgent Christmas of turrón and roscón de reyes. It's been a while, so Iñaky's intensity could even have done me some damage anyway. Going it alone today was the right call from the start.
I put on my music (not Iñaky's, but mine, the stuff I actually want to listen to, Arctic Monkeys, Oasis, songs I've been into for years, tunes that make me feel like myself) and I just moved, at my pace, no one telling me when to start or stop, no countdown timer, no motivational shouting, just me and the treadmill and the weights and the quiet hum of the gym in the morning when hardly anyone's around yet.
I switched muscle groups when it felt right, did some weight-lifting, a bit more cardio to get the heart pumping. Tomorrow I'll do something similar with a different muscle group, maybe start on the cross-trainer at home that's been gathering dust for six months.
I feel like I've unlocked something today, something small but significant. Because it was my idea, it suited me, I took ownership of it, and it felt effortless, enjoyable even. And I can't wait to go back.
When I was tied into the KY Fitness app, all I felt was dread. That low-level resistance that builds up over time until you start finding reasons not to do the thing you're supposed to be doing, the thing that's good for you, the thing everyone else seems to love.
And as I was thinking about this earlier, driving home from the gym, still a bit sweaty, feeling good in a way I haven't felt in a while, I thought about the movie Dirty Dancing, that part when Patrick Swayze's character says, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." And that line stayed with me until I got home and opened my laptop.
Because it's true, isn't it? When people put you in a corner and force you to do things their way, on their terms, with their rhythm, there's a friction that exists that's difficult to name, but it's there, and it's hard to ignore. And more often than not, that friction is what stops you from taking action. It's not about the difficulty of the task, or your lack of discipline, or motivation, or whatever other bullshit excuse you tell yourself. It's about the fact that the system doesn't fit the way your brain works, and so you resist, sometimes without even realising it, because your body knows, your nervous system knows, and it finds ways to protect you from the thing that doesn't feel right, even when that thing is objectively good for you.
We All Have Our Own Iñaky
Because we all have our own Iñaky when we learn a language. And for a lot of professionals I work with, that friction isn't just about the gym, it's about every English class they ever sat through, every method that didn't fit, every moment they froze when speaking English because the way they'd been taught had nothing to do with the way their brain actually works.
The teacher who corrected you mid-sentence until you stopped speaking altogether, the app that made you feel like a failure, the method everyone swears by that just makes you want to throw your phone out the window. None of that is a reflection of your ability to speak English confidently. It's a reflection of the method, not the mind.
And that's why good coaches don't give advice, they don't hand you a one-size-fits-all plan and tell you to stick with it no matter what, they do a proper assessment of you, your likes, dislikes, what makes you tick, how you think, how you learn, and when they understand that fully (when you understand that fully), together you can co-create a learning plan that works with your nervous system, not against it. The best language learning method isn't the most popular one or the most structured one. It's the one that fits your brain. And that, in my humble opinion, is how not to put Baby in a corner.
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If this resonates, I've been exploring how language, mindset and identity shape the way we speak English on my podcast, From Lost to the River. You can listen at procoachenglish.com/podcast (by CLICKING HERE) and on all major streaming services as well as YouTube.
And to learn more about working together, you'll find everything HERE.
