Barbie on Crack.
8 box jumps
8 10 kg kettlebell sumo dead lift high pull
8 walking lunge with kettle bell (10 kg).
AMRAP 8 mins.
I was no barbie. Let me rephrase that. I was NO barbie. And I definitely needed more crack. This was my tired rant after last Saturday's WOD.
I scored 4. As in four pathetic reps in the 8 minutes.
And it seemed not a part of my body was not shaking right after.
A day after, my right arm ached. Two days after the left arm ached. Ached as in thank God for warm compresses and lacrosse ball massages and good old Salonpas (Methyl Salicylate l-Menthol Tocopherol acetate dl-camphor) patches. The cashier at the convenience store asked, "Unsa na ang naa sa imong bukton, ma'am?" (What's that thing on your arm?) I whispered, "I'm not 18 anymore. And this is what happens when you push your 33 year old body to do things you wished you would have done when you were 18." The cashier laughed. I laughed too.
Because laughter is the best medicine. For bodily aches and psychological aches a.k.a pride.
And why was I at the convenience store? Apart from doing mama duties buying supplies for the boys, I was hoarding additional Salon pas patches. I am laughing as I am typing this.
It's Thursday now. No workouts since Saturday's WOD. Because I needed to recover. Because the body needs time to bounce back. Because there is a time for pushing oneself to the limits and a time for resting. Because one needs to reflect, to mull over, to simmer. Because one needs to be able to pull back, step outside the picture so one can see better. With fresh new eyes. With a renewed sense of determination. A clearer perspective. Because one needs to breathe in all that is good and bad and painful and let out one deep breath to expel all as well. So that one can be reminded of what is important. What is real. What is not. Sift. Re-sift. And grasp only what matters.
I admit. When the pain in both my arms still didn't subside three days after, I was scared. Scared that my body just gave up. And that that was it. Scared that I wasn't made for this. But it did yesterday. My body just needed time.
There is a time for everything. No need to rush. All things come when one is ready.
There is beauty in the breaking, in the undoing, in the mending. All the more in the waiting.
Immerse. Pull back. Sift. Re-sift. Repeat.
When does it stop? It doesn't. That's the beauty of all of it.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
In the Aching
June 11, 2014
"Be a celebration unto yourself." - Osho
My personal coach a.k.a dear husband was easy on me today. 7 kettle bell swings eye level and 7 rings to chest. As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 7 minutes. I scored 8 plus 2 rounds.
"Not bad again", he remarked to me. The "again" referring to the Monday "WOD" where I thought I would die in the first rep alone. Blame it on the burpees.
Today was a good workout. Considering I was emotionally drained from the work at the Center. New muscle aches will come tomorrow, for sure. And I find myself looking forward to it.
I am learning that it is in the aching where the healing begins.
And I am learning to celebrate myself. The little victories, progressions and most of all the various kinds of pains, aches of the heart, mind and body.
"Be a celebration unto yourself." - Osho
My personal coach a.k.a dear husband was easy on me today. 7 kettle bell swings eye level and 7 rings to chest. As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 7 minutes. I scored 8 plus 2 rounds.
"Not bad again", he remarked to me. The "again" referring to the Monday "WOD" where I thought I would die in the first rep alone. Blame it on the burpees.
Today was a good workout. Considering I was emotionally drained from the work at the Center. New muscle aches will come tomorrow, for sure. And I find myself looking forward to it.
I am learning that it is in the aching where the healing begins.
And I am learning to celebrate myself. The little victories, progressions and most of all the various kinds of pains, aches of the heart, mind and body.
Formidable
Nemesis. \'ne-me-ses\
noun
Def. A formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent.
We all have one. We all meet one. Sooner or later.
Of all the "monsters" I have had to face in my life. I think I may have finally encountered my very own formidable opponent. It wasn't the agonizing labor of my first-born, and the eventual caesarian section and the succeeding searing pain in the scar as it healed slowly nor the subsequent c.s. section of my second-born either. Nor was it the molar extraction I recently had. Nor was it the engraving of my boys' name on the flesh of my ribcage.
Two words. BUR-PEES.
Seemingly harmless, even comic word/s. Don't be fooled. It will wear you down like a mule. It will parch you dry as dry as the most arid of deserts. Not that I've been to one. It will create warring voices in your head that spins your left and right hemispheres out of control that make you cry out in exhaustion. No, not cry out as in "AAAAAH". I mean weep. Like fighting for every ounce of your strength weep.
But this afternoon at 5:30 p.m. I confronted the damn monster. For the very first time. And I tell you it certainly wasn't love at first sight.
If the internal reprimand on myself that went, "Why are you punishing yourself? Why the hell? What the hell?" is any indication of how the "first encounter" went, then you would know the entire story.
7 Wall Balls. 5 Burpees. As many reps as possible within 7 minutes. The seven minutes seemed like an eternity. But come to pass it did. And no, I did not pass out. I almost passed out.
Three days ago, an acquaintance asked me how the husband convinced me to do Crossfit. For those of you who may not be informed, suffice it to say that the husband is the outdoor, athletic one. Me? The total opposite of him. This was my answer to the question: "With everything that has happened, Yolanda and all else, I think everything just fell into place, meaning, I realized that I cannot afford to be weak when our boys need me to be at my best all the time. It's not enough that I am not unhealthy. I have to be better than healthy, stronger, more efficient, better than who I was before. If we can live forever for our boys, we will. But we know we can't. So this is our gift to both of them.
But, man, while I was doing the second rep of burpees, I could almost hear myself saying to my boys, "Can I give you another gift instead?"
The truth is, while I'm doing the WOD'S that Andro prepares for me, I cannot even think of my boys. Because with every 10th sumo dead lift high pull, every 5th burpee (I know, pathetic), I am at war with myself. The heaving and gasps of breath and sweat running down every nook and cranny of my body doesn't even come close to explicitly expound the battle I have in my head. Voices in varying decibels, the sharp and not at all considerate kind screaming at me I cannot even hear One Republic and Bono blaring, cheering me on in the background.
When I finish the workout, that's when I can think of my boys. My Garret and Morgan. I look at them playing with the water hose in our garage. Yes they play in front of me as I work out. And I don't know why but even as I collapse from sheer exhaustion, when I see Garret's eyes crinkling in delight, when I see Morgan's cheeks happily puffed up pink, I still manage to smile in spite of the battle I just fought with myself. And a gentle and crystal clear voice inside my head resounds, "This is the answer to your why."
And this is when I am reminded that the pain I allow myself to go through with every WOD, is nothing, NOTHING compared to the struggle that my boys deal with with the world every single day. "Wa ra ni sa kiting", we say in our language.
This is what drew me to Crossfit. The breaking of one's ego. The purposeful breakdown of one's bravado. Because at the end of every workout, you literally fall on your knees. Weeping. Puking. Weeping. And once you're broken for the day, you see light. You gain insight. You are reminded of what is really important in life. You find out your why.
And then you retrace your steps and start all over again the next day for a different set of body breaking, ego-stripping exercises.
With every set, you get stronger. Better. Sharper. Humbler. More graceful. More discerning. Perhaps you may even be as formidable than your opponent. Maybe even more victorious.
My WOD score: 5 Rounds + 2 Wall Balls. Within 7 minutes. Not bad, my husband says. "Really." I reply, part disbelief, part wanting to believe. But, belief won over. For self-preservation's sake, whatever ego I have left. (Wink!)
So to you, Burpee(s) (yes, it's actually just one word), you may have broken me today. You may have earned the title of "nemesis" in my dictionary today. But tomorrow and the days after that, I'll be the one to hold that title. Four words.
FOR.MI.DA.BLE.
"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - John Keating quoting Henry David Thoreau in Dead Poet's Society
noun
Def. A formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent.
We all have one. We all meet one. Sooner or later.
Of all the "monsters" I have had to face in my life. I think I may have finally encountered my very own formidable opponent. It wasn't the agonizing labor of my first-born, and the eventual caesarian section and the succeeding searing pain in the scar as it healed slowly nor the subsequent c.s. section of my second-born either. Nor was it the molar extraction I recently had. Nor was it the engraving of my boys' name on the flesh of my ribcage.
Two words. BUR-PEES.
Seemingly harmless, even comic word/s. Don't be fooled. It will wear you down like a mule. It will parch you dry as dry as the most arid of deserts. Not that I've been to one. It will create warring voices in your head that spins your left and right hemispheres out of control that make you cry out in exhaustion. No, not cry out as in "AAAAAH". I mean weep. Like fighting for every ounce of your strength weep.
But this afternoon at 5:30 p.m. I confronted the damn monster. For the very first time. And I tell you it certainly wasn't love at first sight.
If the internal reprimand on myself that went, "Why are you punishing yourself? Why the hell? What the hell?" is any indication of how the "first encounter" went, then you would know the entire story.
7 Wall Balls. 5 Burpees. As many reps as possible within 7 minutes. The seven minutes seemed like an eternity. But come to pass it did. And no, I did not pass out. I almost passed out.
Three days ago, an acquaintance asked me how the husband convinced me to do Crossfit. For those of you who may not be informed, suffice it to say that the husband is the outdoor, athletic one. Me? The total opposite of him. This was my answer to the question: "With everything that has happened, Yolanda and all else, I think everything just fell into place, meaning, I realized that I cannot afford to be weak when our boys need me to be at my best all the time. It's not enough that I am not unhealthy. I have to be better than healthy, stronger, more efficient, better than who I was before. If we can live forever for our boys, we will. But we know we can't. So this is our gift to both of them.
But, man, while I was doing the second rep of burpees, I could almost hear myself saying to my boys, "Can I give you another gift instead?"
The truth is, while I'm doing the WOD'S that Andro prepares for me, I cannot even think of my boys. Because with every 10th sumo dead lift high pull, every 5th burpee (I know, pathetic), I am at war with myself. The heaving and gasps of breath and sweat running down every nook and cranny of my body doesn't even come close to explicitly expound the battle I have in my head. Voices in varying decibels, the sharp and not at all considerate kind screaming at me I cannot even hear One Republic and Bono blaring, cheering me on in the background.
When I finish the workout, that's when I can think of my boys. My Garret and Morgan. I look at them playing with the water hose in our garage. Yes they play in front of me as I work out. And I don't know why but even as I collapse from sheer exhaustion, when I see Garret's eyes crinkling in delight, when I see Morgan's cheeks happily puffed up pink, I still manage to smile in spite of the battle I just fought with myself. And a gentle and crystal clear voice inside my head resounds, "This is the answer to your why."
And this is when I am reminded that the pain I allow myself to go through with every WOD, is nothing, NOTHING compared to the struggle that my boys deal with with the world every single day. "Wa ra ni sa kiting", we say in our language.
This is what drew me to Crossfit. The breaking of one's ego. The purposeful breakdown of one's bravado. Because at the end of every workout, you literally fall on your knees. Weeping. Puking. Weeping. And once you're broken for the day, you see light. You gain insight. You are reminded of what is really important in life. You find out your why.
And then you retrace your steps and start all over again the next day for a different set of body breaking, ego-stripping exercises.
With every set, you get stronger. Better. Sharper. Humbler. More graceful. More discerning. Perhaps you may even be as formidable than your opponent. Maybe even more victorious.
My WOD score: 5 Rounds + 2 Wall Balls. Within 7 minutes. Not bad, my husband says. "Really." I reply, part disbelief, part wanting to believe. But, belief won over. For self-preservation's sake, whatever ego I have left. (Wink!)
So to you, Burpee(s) (yes, it's actually just one word), you may have broken me today. You may have earned the title of "nemesis" in my dictionary today. But tomorrow and the days after that, I'll be the one to hold that title. Four words.
FOR.MI.DA.BLE.
"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - John Keating quoting Henry David Thoreau in Dead Poet's Society
To Becoming Human. To Soreness.
"Be a human being. Celebrate your soreness." -Kelly Starrett
If my heaving, groans and gasps of exhaustion are any indication that I worked my severely out-of-shape ass off this afternoon, then I could be almost a quarter of what Kelly Starrett spoke of-- becoming a human being. As to celebrating soreness, I certainly am learning how to. With every 20th push-up, every 30th sit-up, every 10th pull-up and every 40th air squat. And clearly more of these and who knows what else in the coming days.
This soreness, this pain that I allow myself to experience adamantly reminds my lungs how they like the sweet taste of air, compels me to embrace life in every muscle stretched, in every joint and ligament awakened, to find and grasp with a vise grip that last ounce of strength down to the deepest most cellular core even when my body is screaming, "No more! No more!" To know life in every breath. To. Be. Alive.
If my heaving, groans and gasps of exhaustion are any indication that I worked my severely out-of-shape ass off this afternoon, then I could be almost a quarter of what Kelly Starrett spoke of-- becoming a human being. As to celebrating soreness, I certainly am learning how to. With every 20th push-up, every 30th sit-up, every 10th pull-up and every 40th air squat. And clearly more of these and who knows what else in the coming days.
This soreness, this pain that I allow myself to experience adamantly reminds my lungs how they like the sweet taste of air, compels me to embrace life in every muscle stretched, in every joint and ligament awakened, to find and grasp with a vise grip that last ounce of strength down to the deepest most cellular core even when my body is screaming, "No more! No more!" To know life in every breath. To. Be. Alive.
To New Adventures. To Second Chances. To Life.
November 11, 2013. Three days after Yolanda, we evacuated to
Cebu as our house was ripped apart and the living conditions in our city
proved to be impossible for our two boys. In the days that followed, our lives changed dramatically, abruptly, tremendously.
The overwhelming weight of the reality of it all was too much to bear. But we bore it. With the love and kindness of family and friends. With the humanity of strangers from foreign lands, we were able to bear it. One day at a time. We began to rebuild our lives, our house, everything that nature took its wrath upon.
Rebuild. To build again. To pick up the pieces and put them back together. To discard useless shards of whatever. To carry only what matters.
How does one start rebuilding? How does one begin the mending? The healing? I have no answers. All I know is that six months have passed and we are here now.
And all I know is that we survived Yolanda, Haiyan, a rose by any other name. And the days that followed.
If there is one singular lesson I have learned from everything we have been through, it is this: To remember what is important.
What is important? What is my greatest truth? My boys. Garret and Morgan.
To survive the typhoon is to realize that I have been given a second chance at being the mother my boys deserve. To know I have been given the opportunity to do what I have been procrastinating to do for so long-- to make life an adventure, to make life a work of art, to live my life as a work of art. To be art. To be alive.
So yes, I've been attempting to work on my physical strength and stamina. Call it staying fit. Building strength. Recreating, reinventing my body. Crossfit. Something that is way out of my league, out of my comfort zone. I am not athletic by any means. But I have an able body. And muscles. Somewhere. (Haha.) And I have two boys who depend on me. Who will grow up to be bigger than me. Who will need me to be very much alive and, forgive the cliche, kicking. So I'll take any pain thrown at me to be the mama my boys deserve. And when the pain gets too be too much that it'll make me want to give up, I'll remind myself that today I am stronger than yesterday. And today was the yesterday I was afraid of, I was uncertain of. But today I am alive. And the kicking will come real soon.
So to the pathetic 22-pound kettle bell, to the sore muscles I did not know existed, to the joints and ligaments lying dormant for so long now awakened and stretched like hell, I will see you again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the next and the next. And I will work my butt off to do another 3 reps of ten lifts of you, darn you, with 3 reps of ten air squats and lunges, pull-ups and box jumps, even if it takes three shirts soaking wet and my breath going in and out hard and fast like I have never breathed before.
How does the rebuilding begin? How does one start the mending? The healing?
Could it be in the sweet delicious ache in every part of my body? That pain and that moment where my body is screaming "no more, no more!" Perhaps, this is where the healing begins.
So here's to new adventures. To second chances. To living my life as a work of art.
Here's to life.
The overwhelming weight of the reality of it all was too much to bear. But we bore it. With the love and kindness of family and friends. With the humanity of strangers from foreign lands, we were able to bear it. One day at a time. We began to rebuild our lives, our house, everything that nature took its wrath upon.
Rebuild. To build again. To pick up the pieces and put them back together. To discard useless shards of whatever. To carry only what matters.
How does one start rebuilding? How does one begin the mending? The healing? I have no answers. All I know is that six months have passed and we are here now.
And all I know is that we survived Yolanda, Haiyan, a rose by any other name. And the days that followed.
If there is one singular lesson I have learned from everything we have been through, it is this: To remember what is important.
What is important? What is my greatest truth? My boys. Garret and Morgan.
To survive the typhoon is to realize that I have been given a second chance at being the mother my boys deserve. To know I have been given the opportunity to do what I have been procrastinating to do for so long-- to make life an adventure, to make life a work of art, to live my life as a work of art. To be art. To be alive.
So yes, I've been attempting to work on my physical strength and stamina. Call it staying fit. Building strength. Recreating, reinventing my body. Crossfit. Something that is way out of my league, out of my comfort zone. I am not athletic by any means. But I have an able body. And muscles. Somewhere. (Haha.) And I have two boys who depend on me. Who will grow up to be bigger than me. Who will need me to be very much alive and, forgive the cliche, kicking. So I'll take any pain thrown at me to be the mama my boys deserve. And when the pain gets too be too much that it'll make me want to give up, I'll remind myself that today I am stronger than yesterday. And today was the yesterday I was afraid of, I was uncertain of. But today I am alive. And the kicking will come real soon.
So to the pathetic 22-pound kettle bell, to the sore muscles I did not know existed, to the joints and ligaments lying dormant for so long now awakened and stretched like hell, I will see you again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the next and the next. And I will work my butt off to do another 3 reps of ten lifts of you, darn you, with 3 reps of ten air squats and lunges, pull-ups and box jumps, even if it takes three shirts soaking wet and my breath going in and out hard and fast like I have never breathed before.
How does the rebuilding begin? How does one start the mending? The healing?
Could it be in the sweet delicious ache in every part of my body? That pain and that moment where my body is screaming "no more, no more!" Perhaps, this is where the healing begins.
So here's to new adventures. To second chances. To living my life as a work of art.
Here's to life.
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