The first few weeks football players look at you like you are

Hear, O seekers of strength and discipline, the words of Ato Boldon, a champion sprinter turned teacher, who spoke of his work with athletes: “The first few weeks football players look at you like you are speaking a foreign language. My job is to get them to trust me, trust the system. I ask them to run in a way that makes no sense to them.” In these words lies not only the wisdom of sport, but the wisdom of life itself: that growth often begins in confusion, that mastery begins with trust, and that what seems senseless in the moment may one day reveal itself as the foundation of victory.

For when a sprinter like Boldon comes to train football players, he asks them to unlearn what they thought they knew. Their bodies, accustomed to one rhythm, must be reshaped for another. Their instincts, formed in battle on the field, must yield to new patterns of movement. At first it feels alien, like a foreign language, for greatness often speaks in terms we do not yet understand. But here lies the key: they must first trust the teacher before they can see the fruit of his teaching.

This is the ancient way of apprenticeship. The blacksmith’s apprentice does not understand why he must hammer endlessly on iron scraps before shaping a blade. The young scribe does not know why he must copy meaningless phrases before being entrusted with sacred texts. The soldier does not see why he must march in drills before facing the battlefield. Yet through obedience, through trust, the seemingly senseless becomes clear, and the student rises into mastery. So too do Boldon’s athletes learn that what feels strange at first becomes the very motion that propels them to greatness.

History offers many examples of this truth. Consider Miyamoto Musashi, the great samurai of Japan. His students once questioned why he made them repeat simple stances day after day, long before teaching them the art of combat. To them, it seemed to make no sense. Yet in time they discovered that these stances were the very root of strength and balance, and that without them, no higher skill could endure. The same lesson echoes in Boldon’s words: what appears foolish today becomes wisdom tomorrow.

But the deeper message is this: trust is the soil in which growth is planted. Without trust, no student can endure confusion long enough to see the harvest. Without trust, the teacher’s wisdom falls on deaf ears. Boldon knows that before skill is built, faith must be established—faith in the guide, faith in the system, faith that the strange new way leads to greatness. And once that trust is forged, transformation follows.

O children of tomorrow, take this lesson into your lives: do not reject what feels strange too quickly. The paths of growth often appear illogical at first. The mentor who challenges you, the practice that seems dull, the instruction that feels foreign—these may be the very steps that lead you to mastery. To grow, you must yield, you must trust, you must endure the season of confusion until clarity dawns.

Practical is this wisdom: when you begin something new, give it time. When learning from another, do not measure with your own limited sense alone, but consider that they see what you do not. Be patient with discomfort, for discomfort is the furnace in which transformation is forged. And above all, choose your teachers wisely, and then give them your trust, for it is through such trust that their wisdom becomes your strength.

Thus let Boldon’s words be remembered: what begins as a foreign language, what makes no sense, may become the very key to victory. But only if you endure, only if you trust, only if you walk through the strangeness with faith. For in the end, the language of greatness is always strange at first—until it becomes your own.