Tag Archives: kettlebell

Keep Fighting

I seriously am having a case of nerves every time I update this blog lately due to the amount of people I know personally who are reading it.

I’m a tough girl. I lift kettlebells and hike giant hills, I would rather punch someone in the mouth than put up with bullshit, but when it comes to updating this blog I am lately going, “Eeee!” like a little pansy. And it’s just some words from my brain we’re dealing with here.

I had this problem a few months back when I was doing kettlebell competitions and writing about the competitions I was going to—how kettlebell relates to writing, etc–which made my readership expand for a period of time. A lot of my fellow trainees started reading my blog, and then I’d have to see them in training, where they would ask me questions about what I wrote on the blog and I would be like, “Um, can we like, type about this or something? The face to face discussion of my blog topics is a little awkward.”

I do admit, I like to spend a lot of time alone, although I am social 50% of the time. But. There’s this crazy need in me to always speak my mind no matter what the consequences. I say things here, people read them, things happen as a result of me saying things here and I freak out and think a lot of things about those things I said and ask, “Who am I?” “Why must I be so vocal?” In the end, I leave my opinions up, my real friends stick around, and all the drive-by judgers go on drive-by judging me and the guy who hands them coffee in the morning and their own girlfriends/boyfriends and the raccoon trying to steal food from their garbage can at night like they always do.

Mostly lately I am just trying to stay strong in my own orbit and really go after my desires (the ones that aren’t completely crazy), like music and of course, writing. This blog is supposed to talk about music, art, writing, and generally give you all a pep talk or morale boost through my own myopic perspective of the world, my rainbow-unicorn-pony idealism veiled under a thick tar veneer of cynicism. This blog could even be called Pep Talks To My Own Damn Self That You Can Also Read If You Are So Inclined.

I’m always focused on the end result it seems. What am I DOING to reach my goals, have I done enough, when will I GET THERE already. But There is like a magic carpet ride. Exciting prospect but virtually impossible to make happen.

I’m sure we all remember the days when we believed we could actually ride on a magic carpet, that the world was all ours (oh, say, ages 2, 3, 19 and 20). But then time goes and goals aren’t reached immediately, except through hard work and dedication, and we look around us and realize, OMG, um, so many people have to work HELL OF HARD to reach their goals.

And then we buck up and start working hell of hard as well, one little piece at a time.

Seems a lot of my friends in their forties are having successes with their work. A couple of my friends in that category just got a bunch of work published. This writer I have been getting to know better in Portland is traveling all over the place and writing for big rags, I have a friend who just got an amazing summer gig playing for one of his favorite bands that will bring in a bunch of dough as well as give him major cred. My kettlebell coach friend just achieved her master of sport in the snatch lift after training and training and training. They’ve worked for years and years and years, with little to no end of working in sight (and are still working on the next thing now).

I’m proud to be friends with these people and to be able to see all of the hard work they have put in turn into success. And I look at my own life and see that if  I continue to pick myself up every time I get knocked back, I too may reach some of the goals I have set for myself over the past years, albeit much more slowly than I ever would have imagined.

I can’t give up. Ever. I can entertain the thought of giving up for a minute, but then must banish it immediately by stabbing it to death with a mental spork. Then, if I’m feeling lost and aimless,  I can ask myself if I am doing everything I can to move myself forward towards the goals I’ve set out for myself. And I can make my goals clearer if they are too vague. And I can blame being a Gemini if I can’t focus on just a few goals and instead want to do everything all at once, because that’s socially acceptable here on the West Coast.

Sometimes I believe I create sheerly out of neurosis. I am kind of insane, and have a lot more energy than most people. I also see and feel on a level that makes me want to barricade myself in the middle of a jungle sometimes with no humans around to affect my moods, but all in all, it’s a good life, just hard, and a lot of work. I feel like whenever I set my sights on something I am tested again and again, the universe making sure I want what I want before it gives it to me, and in the past, I kind of fell down in the ring  a bunch of times, or just got tired of fighting. I blame genetic pessimism.

So now I’m fighting in baby steps, trying not to have too many expectations, but also seeing how each action I take influences my chances at success, and surrounding myself with only people who believe in me being able to be who I am. It’s really hard to be the first authority on believing in yourself, but I’m here to say that there is no other authority on what you yourself can do, and everyone has an opinion. It’s good to learn from others, but to always check back in and make sure that you are going where you want to go and your work is saying/portraying what you want it to say/portray. There are always people better and more advanced and more skilled and committed and beautiful and charismatic and successful. As my friends always tell me, “That’s life.”

So keep fighting. Don’t give up. No one else is going to believe in you like you can believe in yourself. You’ve got to have your own back, because that’s the first step to actually moving forward on your path. If you have no faith in your own work, your work is pretty much dead in the water.

Put A Dead Bird On It

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Put a dead bird on it. Yes, there is another sticker here that catches the eye…

It’s been a strange time–for a few weeks I had nothing but ideas. Now I am struggling to put together enough paragraphs to update this blog. I hate it when blogs start out with, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around…blablabla,” but here it is.

I started writing a post about imposter syndrome. I thought of writing a post about meeting other artists and the scarcity complex, but in general I am like the dregs at the bottom of a burnt cup of coffee. I don’t want to self-express in public. I want to lock myself up in a cabin somewhere and spend every day hiking until my legs give out.

The Pacific Northwest is the perfect place to disappear.

I’m in Portland for a few days, home of the creative person, doing a freelance assignment for a music trade magazine, taking pictures of street art and trying to find a cup of coffee that’s not burnt. I was in Seattle a couple of days ago and could not find a bad cup of coffee if I tried. Every single cup, black, was perfect. Smooth dark heaven. Here? Not so much. In fact, not at all. Expletives have been plentiful in my brain. I need good coffee. Like my friend Bucky said, “Dude, it’s all we have left. We have to obsess over it.” I don’t have cigarettes, pills, alcohol or bad behavior anymore. What I have is a need for good coffee.

***

Anyhow, lately I’m thinking about writing–what it is I’m going to work on next, the Beast Crawl coming up, the two music gigs I’m playing in June, the side project I’m trying to get off the ground–and I’m also just trying to be a human being. I’m thinking about other writers who are more successful than me and me trying to find my balance and my voice amidst the cacophony of noise about where, when, how and what to publish. I’m trying to listen to the silence in nature and find my path in the empty spaces, cultivating what I need to cultivate before I send it out, without the pressure of trying to fit in and be awesome and accepted and part of the group dynamic. Most things take time, especially art.

This place did not have good coffee. Neither did the place down the street. Neither did the food carts.

Speaking of not fitting in–I snuck in a kettlebell competition while I was in Washington. I expected to do as good as I did in Hawaii, and was aiming for master of sport. First off, I was in flight 20 of 20 flights, which means I didn’t compete until around 3pm when the competition started at 9:30am. I watched the people from my gym and the Orange Kettlebell Club do amazing sets, pushing through until the very end.

I don’t know what happened when I finally went up. I used a bell that was differently shaped than my normal bell. I didn’t feel strong. I struggled through the first few minutes, hitting my goal reps per minute and then I lost all my steam. I knew I should switch hands, but I decided to push out one more rep because it was a minute before I was supposed to switch.  I lost the bell. My legs had been weak, shaky, and I was tired. I’d had little sleep and hadn’t eaten enough that day or the day before, but had trained super hard for weeks. Three days previous, I had eked out 103 reps with that same bell. I needed 106 to get master of sport. I got 42 on one arm before it all went to shit.

Everyone else kicked ass. I mean kicked ass! Whatever. The worst part was that after I dropped the bell, some guy tried to give me advice on how to do a ten minute set. I just looked at him like, “Wtf.” It really irritated me. I do kettlebell because it’s a sport women can kick ass at too. Dude bros who lift don’t usually give me shit at competitions, they say, “Good lifting,” and pat me on the back. To be given advice (and none of the guys who dropped their bells were being given advice after their sets) as if I hadn’t been training and didn’t know how to breath right was obnoxious. But I bombed so hard and looked like a girl who couldn’t lift and my ego got bruised something fierce. Which is probably a good thing for me.

It’s very good to fail sometimes. I can’t tell you why yet, only that John, Juliet’s coach walked over to me and gave me a hug after my set and told me that everyone drops the bell at some point. Also, towards the end, when they were giving out medals, he came over and got me from the corner of the gym and brought me over to where everyone was sitting. And I got a medal, third place out of five people in my weight class, for doing the worst set I’ve ever done with the 16kg yellow bell.

I don’t understand what happened, probably never will. All I know is I felt invisible, again. I couldn’t prove myself with my muscles. Just like sometimes I can’t prove myself with my writing or music–I can’t tell you how many tryouts I’ve had with music or playing my songs in front of people where it just fell flat.

The worst part is knowing you can do better and watching yourself fail and having to accept it. There’s a place for failure. I just am not sure where exactly. The only thing I know is failure can only lead to success if you don’t let it get you down.

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Hawaii Bound (For Kettlebell)

It is POURING rain here in the Bay Area. I am packing up my stuff (or was, rather) so that I can fly out to Hawaii for a Kettlebell Instructor Certification course and a kettlebell competition.

My kettlebell coach hates Domo, so my husband and I tag her on facebook in every domo picture we can find

I didn’t know what kettlebell was until two years ago, when I was visiting the boutique gym a friend of mine went to. I walked in the door and two buff as hell women were hoisting kettlebells over their heads. The taller of the two, with curly reddish blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, looked at me and said, “I’d say hi and all, but I’ve got to finish this set.” She then proceeded to count to eleventy billion, or 60, I’m not sure. It seemed to go on for ever.

She made it look really easy. And I wanted her arm muscles.

“How do I do kettlebell?” I asked her.

“You can’t afford me,” she said. She meant that literally. Her one on one sessions ran about $80 an hour at the time.

She was right, but I took it as a challenge and signed up for four personal training sessions, using the money I was supposed to be putting on a medical bill. I’ve gotten a lot more out of kettlebell than I would have gotten out of paying that medical bill, though the adult in me is grimacing at my general lack of fiscal responsibility. I’m like the dude in Back to the Future. Don’t call me yellow. Or in this case, don’t tell me I can’t afford you. Because I will afford you! Even if I can’t!

I’m a bit impulsive, in case you hadn’t noticed.

The first sessions of kettlebell were grueling. I thought I was going to die. My arms and legs and stomach have never been more sore in my life. I don’t know why I kept going back–probably because I started reading about how many calories kettlebell burns, and how it’s a combo of strength and cardio. Also, probably because I started losing inches and even my favorite jeans that I’d wanted to fit into forever were too big.

I’d been running a lot, and all of a sudden, doing kettlebell, I could run faster. My breathing capacity improved, I could endure more pain. I didn’t give up as quick. Instead of throwing in the towel at 2 miles, I could get through 5 with my long-legged running partners.

***

Kettlebell taught me how to push through self-imposed physical barriers.

At first, when I noticed, I thought everyone looked silly, exhaling and inhaling so loudly, dedicating entire workshops to breathing technique and form for this silly little ball with a handle. The more I applied the breathing technique though, the better everything else got.

Even getting tattooed felt less painful. I could get through 3 -4 hour sessions just by concentrating on my breathing. (The Zen of Being Tattooed).

***

It’s still teaching me a lot, kettlebell. About a year or so into it, I was still struggling with form. I took a weekend workshop and my form improved light years, and has been subtly tweaked over the past year to get better and better, through training with peers and working with my coach (friend) Juliet. Mostly, like any other art, it improves with practice.

Form is everything. You want your technique down, so that you can get the maximum number of reps during a certain period of time. When you compete, it’s usually ten minutes (for what I do). You are judged, and there is a time clock, and you are trying to get a certain number, based on your weight class and whether you’re aiming for Master of Sport.

It’s hard. It kicks your ass. And you dedicate four days a week to training for months before a competition. If you slack off, it’s your own self that suffers.

I remember when I looked at a 20kg bell and wondered if I would ever be able to get it over my head once.

Now my coach is having me train regularly with that damn purple bell.

I started out with a 12kg bell. Juliet was always telling me I’m stronger than I think I am. I didn’t believe her. And now, when I see newbies starting out, I know what she was talking about. They’re much stronger than they think, and they usually figure it out a lot quicker than I did.

Domo says, "you are über strong, dummy."

***

I’ve always liked sports.

When I got back from reform school as a teen, I graduated high school early with a test and starting going to the local community college. I got into cross country and track. It saved my ass–being on a team, showing up every day to train from 3 – 5pm, having a coach. I felt like I was part of something, I didn’t feel tempted to screw off. I got straight A’s and did really well for someone who had never run before she turned 16.

All of the girls on my team had been running all through high school. I didn’t have that advantage, so I was always the slowest person. (Well, there was one person slower than me, but she had bulimia and was rapidly losing weight, so it was no wonder she couldn’t run very fast.)

In kettlebell, you compete against yourself for your own personal records. You can compete way past what is a prime age in other sports. At the last competition I went to, a woman in her 50′s smoked everyone’s ass. And she just did kettlebell sport for fun, on the side, to balance out her martial arts training. (A lot of people do kettlebell to round out martial arts training).

Anyhow, my whole point here is to say that kettlebell is a positive outlet for me, and it helps me to focus on my writing and music by easing my restless mind. It’s important to by physically active–I think a lot of human problems these days stem from how much we sit in cars, offices and on couches. It’s hard for anyone to stay in shape with that kind of a set up, especially with fast food around every corner and the need to be busy, busy, busy.

The best thing about kettlebell is that I can do it at home, with online training, going to the gym once or twice a week to work on form/technique, etc. It fits around my schedule. I can compete when I feel like it (though I hear talk about me competing with the 20kg bell in the Fall. Shoot me now).

***

wifeys costs so much monies!!

Me and my husband scrimped and saved our pennies for months so that we could afford this trip for me…I literally rolled a giant jar of coins we’d been saving for two years.

Rest assured, fellow starving and non-starving artists alike. I’m still broke. I’ll be sleeping on the fold-out couch in a hotel room shared with my coach and another kettlebell sport person from my gym. My coach even bought me kettlebell shoes, in addition to letting me pay her in installments over the course of a few months, thank the lawd for her.

But maybe I’ll be able to teach kettlebell along with doing personal training in the future. Kettlebell is a growing sport, and I’ve really taken to it. This is like taking a college course to upgrade your marketplace skills, except the course is in Hawaii (I know, poor me). I’ll be paying off that plane flight for the next few months, but I’ll be certified. Woot.

I explained kettlebell sport in much more detail a while back in Kettlebell is like Writing, check it out if you’re still hell of confused. I’m sure you are. I just babbled in another language for almost 1,000 words.

And, when I’m not doing the competition and spending two days being certified, I will definitely try to enjoy the 80 degree weather and the smoothies and the tropical fruits and the beach…

And I may not be updating a lot for the next five days. Just sayin’.

I love Domo. He's so cute.

Tattoos, Culture and Complete Ignorance of Social Hierarchy

I’m not always the most alert person. It takes me a while to figure stuff out. Like who people are, why they’re important, that kind of stuff.

While watching the end credits for Million Dollar Baby, I once asked, "Who was that guy with the really deep voice?"

I often stumble into a community—say I decide I’m going to learn more about some odd sport like kettlebell, for example—and I adopt the habits of the natives, just chugging along, when all of a sudden I look around and realize that I have no idea who, what or why any of these people around me are, only that I’ve learned to know a few key players.

Kettlebell is how I got my aaaaaaaaabs!!!

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How Kettlebell is Like Writing

There are a number of topics I want to cover this week, mostly to answer questions I get all of the time. Things as seemingly simple as “Why do you have so many tattoos.” It’s a question I often ask myself. Another question I ask myself, is why I continue to practice kettlebell (Girevoy) sport when it is so hard.

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