Coffee R10, Hugs for Free at CrossFit Bryanston

OMG! I’m not even out of the parking lot at CrossFit Bryanston and the coach is already shouting at me! I’m standing in the pouring rain, flustered from being lost in peak hour traffic for an hour, trying to jam my cellphone in my handbag while a river of jo’burg’s sludgy rains soaks my inov-8s. I’m trying to maintain a sense of humour by contemplating whether I should have packed my ark when a voice from above yells at me to hurry up. I find myself slightly relieved – as I always am – to find that the voice isn’t in my head; it’s David Ayres.

Who moved my cupcake?

A Dave by any name would be just as sweet but to me he’ll always be Dave Stri-ped. That’s because the first few times I saw him he was never without a pair of striped socks. And of course his OUTSIDE voice (as Barney would call it – as opposed to his inside voice.) And so in one of those moments just after the barbell hit my chin so hard I went blank for a few second while my brain rebooted, I thought to myself that while the rest of us are bipeds, Dave with his stripes is a stri-ped. It  just seemed like he needed a bigger, bolder name  than "Dave" because everything about him seems supersized. Especially his hugs! Of which he owes me many and is now working off on a credit system in exchange for crushing the cupcakes I was about to surrender to after months of paleo pastry depravation.

 

But I digress from the purpose of this which was to tell you about my visit to CrossFit Bryanston. Probably because Dave is such a bad influence!

Just me and my PVC

 So here I am at CF Bryanston which is thoughtfully situated in the same centre as KFC and a Luv Land Adult Shop. What a happy coincidence for all us energetic CrossFitters that only one of those is paleo-friendly!

By the time I get upstairs people have already paired up with PVC pipes. Some are even warming up with them. Most are clinging to them like security blankets. I’m one of the most. I’m also magnificently resisting the urge to poke people with mine for the simple pleasure of watching them jump. You find strange ways to occupy yourself when you’re nervous. And I’m only here for the free hugs anyway.

And then, score my first hug! Thank you Albert van Zyl.

 Hanging loose

 So let me tell you about the first time I met Albert. He was hanging out watching the final Open WOD at CrossFit Platinum and he was chatting animatedly to a total stranger. As luck would gave it that stranger was me. I was exceptionally polite to him because I was training with his aunt. Turns out I shouldn’t have bothered because I actually wasn’t and in fact I don’t even know anyone in his family. (I’ll say it again: too much chalkdust to the brain!)

 The 2^nd time I met him was at a rowing seminar. While everyone else did insane things in between bouts of rowing – like for example, rest -  Albert played on the pullup bars. I remember thinking that if there as an ADHD Barbie, Albert would have been her Perpetual Motion Ken. Now that I think about it, every time I’ve seen Albert in a box somewhere he’s been swinging on, over or through something with the exuberance of a kid on a jungle gym.

 So you can understand why I was so excited at the chance to train with both Ken and Stri-ped?

 Why did I wear my good shoes?

 Yes a class with Dave and Albert! Only wait, no, apparently the coach is this guy who just arrived. Josh. Josh looks sweet. But then, so do puffer fish. He’s going on about not writing the reps for the WOD on the board but rather shouting them out as we go along. Outside the thunder crashes and the lightning flashes ominously and in here the theme song from Jaws is playing in my head.  

 I ask Gail how long the WOD will last because I’m hearing instructions about overhead squats and sprawl burpees but without reassuring words like “time cap”. When she stops laughing she says “until you puke on your shoes.” I was starting to get the feeling I should have stayed lost in the Jo’burg traffic.

 Getting all misty eyed

What follows is insane! At some point I give up trying to clean the mist off my glasses and satisfy myself with a blurred view of the world and the understanding that I don’t need to see the bar to lift the bar. It’s probably better this way anyway because now I won’t have to go through the agony of trying to figure out if I’m doing burpees in someone else’s puddle of sweat or my own.

I’m thinking I should have hung onto my PVC pipe because if I poke Josh hard enough maybe he’ll throw me out of the class. Luckily I don’t have to resort to violence because just like that I’ve done my last 20 Goblet Squats. I’d given up the bar for the bell a few rounds back at around the same time as the bare barbell started weighing roughly the same as a circus elephant and was somehow moving around up there with the same grace and enthusiasm. If you’ve been there you’re know: the pain of collapsing forward and smashing a barbell into your ankles with enough force to splice metal into bone is nothing compared to  the humiliation of telling people that yes, the bar you dropped wasn’t even loaded.

So I’m happy. I have the feeling that if I could see through my glasses I’d see light at the end of the tunnel. But no! Turns out there is another whole other part of the WOD that includes scurrying around like a crab trying to swat people’s hands. Bonus! At least the floor will be close enough to me not to draw blood if I collapse.

Hardcore but with hugs

So I can now tick “CrossFit Bryanston” off my to-do list. I ended up scoring too many hugs from too many people to name. Sweaty people! In fact I think my shirt actually dried off a little in the drizzle as I walked to the car.

 The vibe was phenomenal. The people were amazing. The WOD was ... frikking ... awesome! (I'm running out of adjectives here.) Their Cobra Kai T-shirts are kick ass. (I promise to wax on, wax off my car 100 times tonight as penance for betraying Mr Miyagi.) And I won’t even hold the sad lack of cupcakes against them.

And as I left I cast a glance over at Luv Land and wonderered if they’re telling customers who ask about S&M that they should rather enquire next door at CrossFit Bryanston. They really should. .

Watch Me Snatch This Fountain Pen

It occurs to me that I’d be better at CrossFit if I spent more time doing it and less time writing about it.

 
It’s been a year since I signed up and I still can’t do a pullup. I still can’t hold a handstand. (At least not without crying.) I can’t even name all the people who placed in the top 3 at the 2012 Games. Although truth be told that might be because I can’t find a good reason to check out any of the Games’ athletes other than Kris Clever.

So here I sit looking at my Clever pics - wondering if the whole heart-skipping-a-beat thing can be considered cardio - with a body that’s still nestled in the soft and squishy side of things.

It’s true. I gave CrossFit 12 months of my life and in return it gave me not a six pack but a clothing account. My old pants don’t fit over my new apple shaped butt!

Writers are basically strippers

Of course that’s not all CrossFit gave me. Yes all those hours gave me good biceps, better health and the ability to clean my overloaded  Woolies shopping basket onto the counter. But it also gave me something else; it gave me something to write about.

So here’s the thing with writers; when we’re paid to write we know we’re good. My commissioned writing is my pole-dancing work. If I do it well clients will keep coming back and they’ll keep tucking money in my polka dot Iron Fist panties. (What? You’d like to try doing a 20 hour article in a g-string?) The paid work is the product of our most fantastic minds. When it comes to our private work, the work that comes from our hearts, the words we bleed out from the soft hidden folds of souls, that work we get very nervous about. Showing it to people (showing this to you) is like standing naked in front of the world. Which is why, until last year, my personal work had stayed just that – personal.

Go ahead, laugh at me. Please!

But then I got to CrossFit and suddenly I was with a group of people who saw me at my rawest and most exposed every other day from 5.30 to 6.30. What can I say? You don’t think straight when you’re sweating from your eyeballs and inhaling chalkdust like cocaine. So one night in a manic post-WOD state I did something I never thought possible: I got blogging.

Not only that; I got funny. Or I hoped I was. My idea of a good joke is that mushrooms make you laugh because they’re fungis. (Yes I’m aware of the single/plural error but that’s as good as it gets for me.)

 I wrote. I posted. I shared. I waited. And OMG! The CrossFit Platinum girls laughed! They replied. They posted. They shared.

I’ve won awards for my writing. I’ve supported myself with my writing. I’ve published locally and abroad. But I’ve never done anything that made me as proud as those first few CrossFit blogs.

 Pass the chalk please

From there everything exploded like a kicked chalk bucket. My coach Julian passed my name to the Imtiaz, the Media Director for our region and I went from blogging about CrossFit to writing for CrossFit HQ. I’ve had the privilege of interviewing every one of our South African 2012 individual and group Games athletes. (Thank you Rika for playing so hard to get that I was considering trapping you in a toilet cubicle at the airport just to get my interview before New Year. No not really. Ok maybe.)

And here I am, a year later, still typing away furiously at 4 in the morning while other people are putting on their inov-8s and heading to the box.

Ok so maybe I’m more of a CrossFit writer than a CrossFit athlete. I probably work up callouses on my fingertips faster than my hands. On the up side, hours of finger work mean I’ve got the grip strength to squeeze blood from a barbell. (See, that right there was poetic licence. We all know barbells can’t bleed. Unlike CrossFitters. Who have an endless supply of blood. And tears. And skin.)

 CrossFit gave me more of me

Do I feel vaguely cheated that after a year I don’t look like that Fouche girl? You know the one who sometimes poses with Kristan Clever? Am I disappointed that I still can’t snatch my body weight? Or even half my body weight? Or actually even 1/3 of my body weight? Maybe a little. But not all that much.

 Because CrossFit has given me so much more than I could even have conceived going in. I think that’s true for most of us. It gave me a new way to explore the most magical part of myself; my creativity. It gave me the courage to try writing things that made people laugh instead of things that make them cry, something I always believed was beyond me. And my community gave me the support to keep doing it.

 Maybe next year this time I’ll be doing butterfly pullups like Spieler. Or box jumping small buildings in a single bound. Maybe. It doesn’t seem all that important. Because I’ve realised that there’s something I love a lot more than doing CrossFit and that’s writing about CrossFit. And I already feel like I’m solid gold at that.  

We don’t DO CrossFit; we ARE CrossFit

Smells like CrossFit

I wish we had a secret handshake. All the great and enduring cults – no of course I mean “groups” – in history have one. And we qualify as such a “group” right?

Let’s go through the checklist I found online shall we?

• The group displays excessively zealous commitment to its leader. Check.
• Mind-altering practices push the body to the extreme. Pukey says “check”
• The group is elitist. Check. Unless we’re forging pedestrian fitness now.
• The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality. Check. Unlikely to change unless we bring Zumba into our warmups.
• ‪The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. Check. Tia and I are considering printing little leaflets saying “Have you Found CrossFit?” and handing them out at Virgin Active.
• Members devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. Check; I’m writing this in between practicing pull-ups from my security door. 
• Exclusive rites and ceremonies. Check. We like to call  ours “burpees”

I’m joking of course. Cult members don’t eat as much cream as we do. (Paleo; I love you.) And they don’t have our killer T-shirts.

Nope, we don’t have a secret handshake. Possibly because no one wants your bleeding palms covered in sticky Friar’s Balsam touching them. What we do have however are T-shirts. And we wear them wherever, whenever we get together with other zealots, whether in our box or not.

Why? Because CrossFit isn’t only about the WODs, it’s about the people, about our attitude, about the big values we embrace and the small things only other CrossFitters understand.

The 5 min flash lunchtime CrossFit workout

Last week someone told me she was doing CrossFit. I mean, “CrossFit”. She described her non-certified trainer and non-affiliated gym with enthusiasm while hobbling like someone who got a little extra loving from Fran. It made me angry. And sad. Angry because her coach is robbing our community. Sad because he’s robbing her of the full, true CrossFit experience.

It’s like this: you can take antioxidant pills, but you can’t duplicate the lip-puckering tartness of fresh berries staining your fingers with their sweet-sour deliciousness. You can WOD anywhere, but you can only feel the heartbeat of CrossFit in our boxes.

It is impossible till it’s not

My new CrossFit shirt arrived yesterday; it’s the ones Rika Diedericks had made when she went to the Games. In the accompanying letter she says: “CrossFit is about community and I definitely experienced this in a big way at the Regionals where it literally felt like I was being lifted through the rings by the amazing support of the CrossFitters in the arena.”

We all know what she means right? How we prove to ourselves, again and again, that we’re better and stronger than we think we are; not because we believe it but because our fellow CrossFitters do.

 Maybe T-Shirts are better than a secret handshake after all because, let’s be honest, none of us are particularly secretive about this beautiful thing we’ve discovered. This thing that’s not a sport. It’s not an exercise. It’s not even a cult. In fact it’s not something you can pin down with words. It’s something you feel. Like love. Like happiness. Like power. It’s infectious and it binds all of us with our individual lives and hangups and aspirations into one magnificent community.

 And it’s never, ever just something you do. It’s something you are. Something we all are.

 

 

 

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?

Duck, dive, roll; like no one’s watching

Hey Mom; watch me fly

The kids have gone circus freak on the trampoline. Using the special skills mothers acquire naturally and other people join to CIA to learn; I manage to keep both eyes on my cell phone and on my ninja acrobats and on the rusted metal frame peeping out from under the trampoline’s safety padding.

My son does a somersault with the skill of a bowling pin. Then an Arab spring; body rigid and poised as a beanbag. He beams. I’m sure he hears applause in his head. I know he can’t hear my loud exhale every time he rebounds and I don’t see blood.

But do I stop him? Do I point out the indemnity sign? Do I tell him to put his cycling helmet on? Do I, at the very least, sneak my laptop bag over a rusty corner? No, I do not! And do you know why? Because I’m a good mother!

Play with me

My son is 11, meaning he hasn’t reached that age where he starts treating me like a rash. Right now he still loves when I jump on the trampoline with him. He likes me to swim with him. To chase him. To cycle with him. To climb rocks with him. He has no concept of the fact that his 11 year old body is a pleasure seeking machine whereas my 38 year old one is just holding out for sleep most of the time.

I watch him and his cousin bounce into handstands and collapse on their backs only to arch up onto their feet like street dancers, and I wonder when it all changed.

I wonder when I lost the simple delight of moving my body; windmilling my limbs; rushing around as the wind ruffled my hair? When were those sweet, spontaneous, easy joys replaced by the more contrived and orchestrated pleasures of drink and food and TV and all the other things I occupy my body with?

Maybe it happened when my body became something I had to consciously manage and improve. When it stopped working perfectly on its own and when I started having to work to make it perfect.

Maybe it happened when my body got too heavy to run with. Too weak to climb with. Too tired to swim and swing and jump with.  

I don’t know when it started, but I do know that there was a time in my life when the thing I loved most about my body was my body. I want that time back!

I want my body back

I also realise that at some point I gave my body away. I gave it to pizza and crisps and coffee and when my colon rebelled I gave it to doctors and pills. I gave it to my laptop for 15 hours a day and when I ended every day feeling like the Sandman was threading needles through my shoulders and woke up each morning feeling like they’d made their way to my brain, I gave my body to more pills and more doctors. I gave it to diet shakes. I gave it to a personal trainer. I gave it to the TV.

In the end, my body was simply an aching, heavy load I dragged around. And the burden of maintaining this body far outweighed the joy!

Then something happened

CrossFit happened! Sure, the actual workouts happened, and along with them the fat started vanishing and muscles started appearing. And that’s great, but it’s not the best part of reclaiming my body.

The best part comes with rediscovering the tummy-tilting thrill of something as simple as swinging on a bar (like I did on the jungle gym) and the giddy excitement of trying to tip upside down and get my toes up where my hands are.

It comes from running and hating it and running and hating it and then one evening realising that for a few perfect seconds I feel weightless, blissfully suspended in the amber light of the autumn sun as it drips off the leaves.

The best part comes when you realise that this is what our body was born to do. It was born to run. Born to play. Born to feel beautiful and magical and powerful.

Yes; the best part of Leoni running or doing weights or Michelle training with the Mistress of Pain or me doing CrossFit is that we’re reclaiming our bodies and with that, the birthright we gave up without even knowing it, years ago.

Your body remembers

The beautiful thing, I discovered, is that my body remembers. It remembers when every cell vibrated with energy and vitality. It remembers when that little pot of a tummy didn’t matter because my muscles exploded with power when I climbed trees and rocks and jungle gyms. My body remembers!

And I’m feeling it all coming back to me. Suddenly my body is behaving like a 5 year old; it just wants to play. If there’s a horizontal bar – say the top of my security gate – I want to jump for it. When I’m climbing stairs I want to box-jump them. I’m proud that I have calluses on my hands instead of carpal tunnel. That the ache that nestled behind my kneecap for 16 years is gone and instead my knees are bruised and my shins are scraped.

We all deserve this; this feeling of being so spectacularly alive, not of simply existing.

Most of us gave our bodies away too easily, too long ago. It’s time to get them back! One step, handstand or somersault at a time.