Embrace the suckiness!

From a bar to a pipe

In 1 week my overhead squat’s gone from 30kg to 3kg. No, that’s not exactly right. You’ll forgive me if the emotion of the week has left me a little prone to exaggeration. The truth is that my OHS is hovering at around 300g, what with my having swapped a metal barbell for a length of PVC pipe.

This seemingly unfortunate situation is the result of an injury. Unfortunately not the kettlebell-to-the-head kind that leave you with a scar to brag about and a story people will buy you shooters to hear. No, it follows a severe injury to my pride when I visited CrossFit Jozi and realised I wasn’t anywhere near as competent as I imagined I might be.

And so I’ve been temporarily banned form the barbell and relegated to the PVC pipe because I’m embracing my suckiness on the way to discovering my awesomeness.

Too old to be new

So here I am at the start of the CrossFit Jozi onramp classes. Not significant in and of itself, because all the new people start out here. Except that for me “new” means “done CrossFit for 7 months”. The 2 girls I’m starting out with haven’t even stepped into a box before. This means they have no idea that their nail files are going to be reassigned as callous files. It means they still harbour the notion that throwing up during a WOD is bad. It means they don’t know that when you watch the beautiful Chris Spealler doing pull ups on YouTube it’s not because you have any desire to learn about pull ups.

Of course I know these things. But that doesn’t mean I know anything; I’m starting off exactly where they are. And before you ask, no I don’t think I’m fitter or stronger or better than them - I came 2^nd last on our baseline fitness test - but it’s disheartening. After 7 months of training at CrossFit 3 times a week and at Virgin on my off days; 7 months of practicing pull ups on the security gate in  the passage; 7 months of watching my weights get heavier, my runs get further and pusups get better, I’m here learning how to tell a burpee from a box jump.

I wouldn’t say my ego is bruised. More like crushed under hundreds of kgs of weights. You know; the weights I’m not lifting any more.

I don’t know squat

Ok, I’m not stupid (although my mom might mention several exs as proof to the contrary) I know there’s a lot I don’t know. But I didn’t realise just how much!

My first class starts with squats. I’ve done thousands over the past months so I’ll be – failing brilliance – competent in these. Except that coach Andre belly-button-to-bar Gadney doesn’t think so. He thinks my knees aren’t wide enough. And my chest isn’t sufficiently upright. And my feet are too far apart. And my butt isn’t down far enough. I want to point out to Andre that my legs couldn’t even stretch open this far when I was hovering in a birthing pool with the midwife yelling “push!”. But when I try to speak, the soliloquy running in my head comes out as: “arrghhhssghhhh.”

I trust Andre though, so if he’s saying it I’m trying it. He’s the perfect coach for new people. No, not because his incredible physique (the reason he can shoot up way beyond CrossFit’s chest-to-bar requirements on the pull up bar) is an example of what the new guys could look like and the girls can look forward to looking at. He’s perfect because he has a warm gentleness; perfect for handling bruised egos and tender newbies.

Butt out, elbows up

Back at the onramp class it’s not just my legs that are letting me down; my arms seem to be frozen in what I’m telling myself is the winter cold, but is probably fear. It’s because I know Coach Imtiaz Desai is prowling behind me just out of view. Do you remember those games you played as a kid, where you sat in a circle while one person skipped around the back singing “I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it” and if you were the one they dropped it at you had to chase them. Do you remember how the hair at the back of your neck bristled in nervous anticipation? I’m feeling like that. And then I feel cold iron fingers twisting my elbows up and bam, I’m “it”. In a moment of clarity I realise that (a) his sports science degree have given Imtiaz a distorted knowledge of anatomy because only someone made of pipecleaners can bend this way and (b) this is why  they get you to sign an indemnity form before starting.

I’m hurting, especially my inner thighs. And now my ego is aching worse than ever.

Hey look, I still have all my pieces

So here I am; feeling like I’ve been cast as an extra in an S&M film. My arms are up and braced against the pipe, by butt’s traveling back, my knees are going where no knees have gone before, and at the height of my discomfort Andre says: “squat deeper”. You’re frikking kidding me! If I do my bones are going to explode out of their joints like popcorn.

But wait … 

Who would have thought?  Instead of my body parts parting way with my body, they’re sliding and folding like a Transformer robot. Look, here I am hovering above the ground and I’m working that pipe; not exactly with ease, but hopefully with a modicum of grace. Humm, maybe my coaches don’t get kickbacks from the Linksfield Clinic.

My body feels balanced; it feel poised; it feels beautiful.

A life like CrossFit

No matter how brilliant you are, life will find a way to, “hand you your ass”, as Imtiaz would say. You lose your job, you change careers, you get dumped, and what hurts the most is that you’re left trying to work out where you went wrong, how you’re going to pick up the pieces and dreading having to start all over again. You’re back to square 1. This isn’t the way life’s mean to work! Even if you put on a brave face your inner child is throwing its toys because it’s gone from running right back to crawling. And it didn’t ask for a do over dammit.

But as they say in the X Box classics: RESPAWN! It’s not game over; it’s your chance to come back with renewed vigour, a fresh supply of ammunition and a kick-ass new game plan. It’s your chance to rediscover all the things you can do instead of dwelling on all the things you can’t. A chance to prove to prove to yourself that, as Christopher Robin said to Pooh Bear: “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

And in my case, it’s a chance to fall in love with CrossFit and everything that comes with it all over again. Who knew 300 grams of plastic could make me feel so strong?

                                                                                                                            - Jolene Raison

Real Women Shave Their Palms

Rowing like I never did at Zoo Lake

The Fittest Woman in Africa doesn’t seem to have fussed with her hair or makeup this morning. Yet here she is looking gorgeous. CrossFit girls are annoying that way.

But I’m not here to hang out and curse my luck at not being built like an Amazon; I’m here to get rowing training from one. By the end of today I’ll be rowing like a Greek warrior.

The magic words

I’m expecting Rika Diedericks to plunge right in with advice on how weight training and a thousand hours of practice can get me comfortable with a rowing machine. Or at the very least get my arms and shoulders looking like hers. But no, there’s nothing about wods or lifts at the start of the workshop, the magic formula she opens with is a quote. Yes, really.

The key to rowing, she tells us, is this: rhythm, harmony and balance.

Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, she stresses. Not just in rowing, but in CrossFit in general. Not just in CrossFit, but in life.

Ahh, and there it is, the moment when the lessons we learn in the box become lessons to use in life. And those lessons do come, as surely and frequently as CrossFit boys train without their shirts on.

The rhythm of life

Throughout the workshop she keeps coming back to this one thing. And it’s this word that’s been rumbling around on in my brain since the weekend. Rhythm!

I’ve been thinking how hard it can be to find that rhythm. It’s like sitting on the rowing machine, sometimes you move in stops and starts, sometimes you settle into a rhythm but it’s all wrong for you and your body feels awkward and slow. You need to find that rhythm that’s uniquely yours.  

And I’ve been thinking of the rhythm of my life: a good morning kiss while I’m still fuzzy with sleep, school lunch tucked in a pocket and a shy “I love you mom”, the aroma of coffee enveloping my desk, a few stolen seconds looking skywards and falling up into the stars when I close the blinds, snug pugs grunting goodnight.

They’re important these small moments that give my life some sort of pattern, stop the Technicolor fabric of my world from simply fraying and fading into the blank nothingness of time.

Can you feel the flow?

It’s that rhythm in your life that helps you keep you moving forward, albeit imperceptibly, even when you feel like the world’s dragging you backwards. Like the beating of your heart, the pulsing of your blood, the ticking of a clock, it’s there like a chanted mantra that “every day in every way it’s getting better and better”. 

And when you’re exhausted and life isn’t playing nice and you can’t see exactly where you’re going, you just keep rowing, you just keep going at your own pace knowing that every rhythmic breath carries to a little closer to your goal.

 
These people, they make music

 And the CrossFitters who are at the workshop, all crowded eagerly around the rowing machines? I realise that I’ve always felt so alone here at CFJ but that somehow during the past few weeks they’ve started paddling right here alongside me. There’s team McCabe are on the far end; they’re going to be married for the next 50 years if their marriage is as strong as their pullups. Neil and Ruby are rowing as if the very future of CrossFit depends on them while Imtiaz is cruising so gracefully I can almost hear oars slice the water. Then there’s Tia, looking beautiful but wearing her pain face and Zu and Annemarie bundled up in what seems to be the entire the CrossFit winter catalogue.

And me? For once I feel like I’m not sinking, and right now that’s enough.

Rhythm, harmony and balance

So after a morning in a freezing cold box soaking up Rika’s words, I came away with these key points: I need rhythm, I need firm abs and good posture and I most definitely need a cheap little orange razor. The razor; for those of you who like me suspected it must have something to do with minimising the drag on your leg hairs; is actually for shaving your calluses with.

And with that I have a neat bundle of instructions that works just as well for life: I’ve got to keep moving forward at my own, regular pace; keep my body strong and standing tall; and get rid of all the dead weight and the people or things that bring me nothing but pain.

Ok, so I may not have Olympic shoulders, but I am working on having an Olympic mind set. In my own time. All in my own time.

                                                                                                          - Jolene Raison

“Harmony, balance, rhythm. There you have it. That’s what life is all about.” – George Pocock

Live Like an Animal

Oink oink oink

The basics of weight management aren’t that hard to figure out: eat like a pig; live like a pig; look like a pig.

And despite what diet pill manufacturers will have you believe, there’s no way anyone’s going from hog to hot while they’re lounging around stuffing their faces with garbage.

No big surprise. No giant secret. Most people are fat and lazy because; well; they’re fat and lazy.

Running with dinosaurs

Of course, our bodies weren’t made to look or feel that way.

Millions of years back when we walked out of the Garden of Eden or crawled out of the primordial ooze (depending on which side of the Big Bang Theory you come down on) couches and TV remote controls weren’t around. Our bodies were made to either chase down or flee from the mass of creeping, crawling, swarming, swimming, flying life that filled the planet.

We were made to climb up after fruit; to dig down after roots; to run for our meat and to eat it all more or less as we found it. Back then our food didn’t have a longer shelf life than we did.

That’s because there was a time when we adapted to suit our environment. Now that we’re clever enough to adapt our environment to suit our desires; “hunting” means an online search for the nearest Mr Delivery, we can’t run without gym-provided hamster wheels, and “natural flavours” come in bottles.

Beat that body into submission

So here we are with bodies that are broken. Bodies that are bloated and sluggish and diseased. And what do we do? We damage them even more … on purpose!

We take pills to stop our bodies digesting fat, to stop us feeling hungry. We starve our bodies of healthy food, feed them nothing but juice. We pump them full of hormones. We medicate them into submission.

Birds do it, bees do it

Of course there is a secret to looking and feeling incredible. One that diet pill manufacturers will be keeping to themselves because secrets are only worth sharing if you can put a price on them.

The secret is this: let your body live like nature designed it to live.

Don’t gorge as if you’re Pharaoh planning for 7 years of famine. Don’t pay for pills or programmes that help you starve. (Millions of people up in Africa are doing it right now for free.) And stop wearing a couch on your ass.

Let your body live a little! Let it feast on whole foods. Let it run fast and lift heavy stuff. Let it play outside in the sun. Let yourself fall in love with being healthy and fit and not with being skinny.

 

Yes, it’s simple and it’s common sense. But isn’t it odd how something we’ve known at a cellular level for millions of years is suddenly humankind’s best kept secret?