Does Julian keep the whips with the skipping ropes?
It’s probably not fair to say that that CrossFit was created for S&M fanatics who’ve reached that age where PVC makes you look more sad than sexy. For a start, S&M is a lot kinder on your knees! And you can end the pain with just one word whereas here nothing short of: “call 911” stops it once it’s started.
I was mulling this over during today’s warm-up. Julian stretches us on the floor; presumably because he can’t fit a rack in through the door, although I believe the basic principles he applies have remained unchanged since the days of the inquisition.
I’d smell the burn if I wasn’t breathing through my mouth
All that warm-up squatting made me think back to giving birth; which I did without any pain relief. Now I take part of the credit for being able to channel the pain using only Jedi mind control. The rest of the credit goes to my midwife who; even when I was consumed by so much pain that the world ignited, the colours exploding and shattering against my eyes as my brain splintered; kept shouting that I could do this thing if I just pressed on a little further. She believed I would do it long after I stopped believing I could.
It’s a lot like that in a CrossFit class where the coaches take you way beyond the limits of pain and exhaustion and then bring you back home, sore but safe, again. Even if that means chasing you down the road - thanks Lisa - or yelling at you while waving a can of spraypaint. (No, I don’t know why Julian was brandishing that can like a cultural weapon, but the very fact that he seemed to think it was a perfectly normal thing to do made me run faster … on the other side of the street.)
I love you guys. No, I REALLY love you guys. I mean, I LOVE you guys
It’s not just the coaches who help you to be better than your best; it’s the people you train with too. When you’re running with someone you go faster and further because if they can do it, then you can too. Plus, you feel as if they genuinely want to see you succeed.
That’s the way it works here. Your heart will skip a beat because someone PRd her deadlift. It will sink when someone missed finishing his WOD by 30 seconds. You feel excited when you see the flushed faces of people who’ve done their first class.
It’s hard to explain; it’s like we all train alone, but none of us do. Does that make sense? If it doesn’t then you’ve got to get your ass off the circuit machines and train with us at CrossFit Platinum next week.
Like walking on the moon
So with a lot of pushing and pulling I did some things today I’ve never done before. They’re small steps for womankind but frikking huge ones for me. I ran close to 2 kms which is almost 2 km more than my record to date. I did bear crawls, which ended up just being crawls when my legs decided to stop playing nicely with the rest of my body. I got picked up by a small - albeit strong - girl without crushing her like an empty Coke can. (Ok, that was her triumph not mine, but I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing.)
Maybe even more amazing is that I even made conversation with really friendly real live people. Pretty good since I usually prefer my people in pixels!
Crawling towards my moment in time
When my son finally popped out into the world 11 years ago, I had Witney Huston playing in my head. I’d planned for it to be Moby’s “we are all made of stars”, but I’d forgotten the CD, what with having said goodbye to my brain around 8 months back. In the first precious seconds of this new life, I realised that this was truly the first “moment in time, when I’m all that I thought I could be, when all of my dreams are a heartbeat away, and the answers are all up to me.” At that moment I knew that if my body could create this life, it was more powerful, more magical, and infinitely more wonderous than my tiny mind could conceive.
I think that’s one of the reasons people keep coming back to CrossFit week after week. Because somewhere in every workout you have a moment; a moment when you realise you aren’t allowing yourself to be defined by your weaknesses, but that you’re empowered by your strengths. A moment when you see in yourself power and possibilities you’ve never seen before. When you realise you’re in a room full of people and everyone is on your side.
It’s like that for me. Every week I feel like I’m being reborn just a little. And like any birth, the pain is just part of the process. So I’m embracing it, and while I’m doing that, practicing using my Jedi mind power to make Julian drop the warm-up run. Hey, this could be the moment that it happens.
PS: click the link, just a reminder from Moby that "nothing can stop us now; we are all made of stars"
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