Pain...hurt...pain...shut up

It starts when we're young. You see something interesting. It looks "pretty." You want to touch it. Mom says, "Don't touch it, honey, you'll burn yourself!" And you don't understand how bright colors that dance could be do deadly. I mean, Christ, it's all over your birthday cake. Mom says, "Blow out the candles." But no, your chubby little 1-year-old hands wanna play with fire instead. From day one, we're drawn to pain, whether we like it or not.

There's different types of pain. Physical, mental, emotional... pain that eats away at your soul. Pain so severe that you only let very few people see it and when they do, you try your damn hardest not to cry or show vulnerability because it's too much for you to handle. You always want to be strong. You always want to be in control.

Then there's what I like to call "drama pain."

Do you ever find yourself overanalyzing something, overthinking something, or overdramatizing something? And then when you go to share it with your friends, you make it sound ten times more dramatic than it actually is...and then your friends overdramatize it even more and then you're left feeling overwhelmed, confused, and downright hurt by what really was not that big of a deal to begin with. Why do we put ourselves through that stress?

Are we trying to cover up what's really bothering us? YES. Of course we are. We don't want people to know what's really eating at our souls, so we overdramatize mediocre crap instead. We're cheating ourselves short. We're letting mediocre crap dictate our lives.

Now how the hell does this relate to CrossFit? Do we overdramatize mediocre crap when we CrossFit? Yes, we do. Here's a prime example of what I did once upon a time...

Coach #1: If you want handstand pushups, you should get into a handstand. A real one.
Me: I don't know if my shoulder is ready for that.
Coach #1: Try.
(Five seconds later, I attempt a handstand)
Me: Uh, it hurts so bad!!!
Coach #1: Oh, I guess you're not ready then.

In actuality, my shoulder did hurt, but was it so bad that I couldn't have tried the handstand again? Hell no. I overdramatized it. I made it worse than it was to cover up the real issue. And the real issue was the fact that I am (or rather I WAS) terrified to be upside down.

Here's the conversation that eventually unfolded with Coach #2:

Coach #2: If you want handstand pushups, you should get into a handstand. A real one.
Me: I'm scared to be upside down.
Coach #2: You? Scared? You're the deadlift queen, now get the fuck upside down this minute.

Am I saying you should unleash to world all your fears, doubts, and confusions? No. You don't have to let the world know you're afraid of heights or afraid of pink cars or afraid of sheep. But you should trust your friends and certainly your coaches (but not Coach #1 - he sucked!). They're not out to make fun of you for being afraid, but rather they're there to help you beat your fears. They may yell at you, but they won't give up on you.

It's late and I've been rambling for awhile...but bottom line is you can be better athlete by being honest with yourself. And stop giving attention to the "drama pain" and work on fixing the real pain. I know where my pain is. It's not in my shoulder. It's not in my wrist. It's in my head. And it's the hardest kind to get rid of. So don't act like you don't got none. We all do.

War

It's been roughly a month since my life completely changed. At first it was tough, adjusting to the new schedule and the challenge of keeping up my training. I won't go into details about how my former box was stolen by a bunch of sheep, but despite everything that happened, I knew my goals would not change. I would continue to train and I would compete and I would one day make it to the games.

Right now, I know all those dreams are destined to come true. I'm signed up for my first competition in August, and I have plans to work my weaknesses until that day and after that day. By working out on my own, I have been programming my weaknesses into the majority of my workouts. I started with the burpee challenge. As a "big" girl, burpees have always been a bitch, but now I do at least 100 a day with ease. I also make sure that at least 2 workouts a week have a good volume of pull-ups in them. I also do pullups as part of my warm-up. I'm kipping again and able to string 3-4. This is a huge stepping stone for me. I feel like soon enough I'll be able to string 10+ and then I'll start working on the muscle up. Double unders are still a challenge for me, but the more I do them, the more I hear a rhythm that I need to force myself to stay on, and zen out to. I notice a rhythm with most movements. I guess that comes from being a dancer...but I notice it a lot on the clean & jerk. 95lbs feels light because I treat the movement like a dance, meaning I don't think about it. I just let my body do what it needs to do.

Handstand pushups...probably my biggest weakness. For the rest of this month I'm determined to get upside down every other day and keep getting my head lower and lower until I get an RX pushup. The month of June I will be doing HSPUs until I can go unbroken with them. I will start programming them into my WODs more. I will conquer them.

It seems like I'm going to war with my weaknesses. That's okay. Because weakness lies within all of us. It's okay to fight yourself. It's okay to want to be better. But on the way, give yourself praise when you deserve it. So today, I say to myself, "GOOD JOB, NATALIE MARIE BLANK. YOU ARE ONE BAD ASS RX-ING MACHINE."

Did I mention I'm starting to go Rx-plus on a lot of WODs? ;)