COOL MOSS

COOL MOSS

by David Bluefield

I must say I almost quit and snuck back to my room as the nearly 2000 people from around the world were moving briskly in the  Maui nite sky towards The Firewalk , the grand finale of the week long empowerment seminar.  

Over and over I repeated it. My assigned Buddy was doing his job of lifting me up and reminding me to keep saying it again. Over and over the phrase "cool moss", perhaps 7 thousand times since early this morning, when we began preparing for the barefoot 50' walk across hot burning coals.

The morning started easy enough at 9 am-this after a week's worth of world-famous speakers touting their expertise on overcoming fears and being the best you can be. But today I realized the entire week was to prepare all 2000 of us mentally for the 5-second fear-facing event. 

So, what is this "cool"  "moss"? To me, it was tricking the brain to imagine the cool wonderfully soothing feeling of squishing moss on the bottom of the feet
that would repel the reality of searing heat 
and perhaps this would be enough of a buffer to prevent severe burning. 
I get it, the classic case of mind over matter and the power of positive yearning. 

But would it? There had to more. There was. 

You invented very own personal Ninja warrior that would appear at the instant of great peril and would deflect any adversary. Mine came right out of a Bruce Lee movie and I felt invincible as I imagined myself as a Ninja master preparing for the battle of feet versus flame. Then, we selected our buddies from among our own team of 50. Mine was Haas from Austria- he spoke very broken English and during the week leading up to the "walk" our team had several activities and Haas and I became quick friends and he always made me laugh with the way he would turn a phrase completely on it's head.

The buddies were supposed to pump each other up and say things like "you can do it" . Haas would sound positively Swartzeneggerian with "you con doowit"  
Really, are you kidding? 
Is this a leap of faith I need to make 
to realize it is ok to take 
a risk despite the potentially disastrous consequences? Some people did burn their feet you know. Would I be one of them? Could I even go through with this?

So, I seriously considered 
dropping back and out of sight 
in the black Hawaiian night 
with the blazing bonfire and the wild conga drums creating a building frenzy of mad desire. 
Surely I would not be missed. Cool moss cool moss. 

But then there I was next in line and before I could even think to bolt there I went speeding up… cool moss cool moss cool moss cool moss….very fast, very straight, head up, no stopping, no tripping ...cool moss cool moss!!!!!!

I did it ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!

and so did Haas and it was so empowering 
and everybody felt fantastic 
and we all went to bed that night feeling quite triumphant. 

Until the next day, our last day our final meal 
with our new fantastic friends our teammates from around the world talking about the Firewalk, proudly displaying our new big 6" 'round red button saying in big bold black letters  "I did it"  and we all did it -how good it felt and then Haas asked an innocent question:
 …."Vat is dis kullmahs?" 
apparently not understanding "cool" or "moss" 
or the critical connection between the two - not one bit.
and yet -he "did it" too. 

Maybe it was his Ninja warrior that got him through