Alive? Dead? Alive? Dead?
It’s a bit less extreme, sure, but we change when we know someone
is watching us. Performers perform. Athletes compete. Hell, as much as I am
paying attention to my form right now for ME, I pay that much more attention when
I notice Chris, or Jobst, or Neil, or Susan, or even a bunch of the newbies
watching me. That’s part of why the CrossFit group training formula works: we’re
all suffering together, doing the same thing, and sorta kinda competing with
each other, so we are observing each other out of the corner of our eyes.
It can be fun also to notice how people’s behaviour changes
when they notice they are being observed. How you perform differently when your
boss, or your mother, or your girlfriend, shows up to watch your competition or
your teaching of a class, or playing with a child. In some ways we’re more pure
when we think no one’s watching, kind of like that strange line between actual
modesty and false modesty can be blurry sometimes; when we know we’re being
watched and we care, we change. We might show off a little. We might smile
more. We might become more ourselves, or less ourselves, but we put on a bit of
a mask which is that of the person we want to be seen to be, or the person we
aspire to be, or the person that we think the watcher(s) want.
I guess I just enjoy watching people, and noticing what they
do. It’s all a big dance, right? I love watching Neil jerk, Mona snatch, Jobst
do wall balls, Rika row, Chris do butterfly pullups, Grant squat, Jeremy play,
Kim move, Peter think. When people do what they’re good at and what they like,
it can be beautiful. Whether or not they are showing off. Sometimes that
showing off is what makes it go from good to exceptional.
I wonder what I do that’s the most beautiful. Maybe it’s
notice things. I’m learning about myself that I’m a thinker, and a planner. I
like to see patterns and think through solutions. I am certainly capable of
getting involved in the details. But that’s not where I enjoy playing, and when
I get sucked into the minutia it’s all encompassing and it’s hard to find the
headspace to get out, into what I really like to do.
I also don’t like to feel like I’m wasting time. Going in a
direction that’s wrong, or working on things I don’t care about, or trying to
help people who don’t want to be helped, or coach people who don’t want to be
coached. That sort of thing is just as soul-crushing as anything, as
frustrating as an injury you’ve been battling with in one form or another for
eight months.
It’s much better now, even with the couple of days of light
training over the weekend. Kim didn’t believe me when I told him I was resting.
What he doesn’t realise is that I’m also stubborn as sh*t. If I say I’m going
to rest I’m bloody well going to rest. If I say I’m going to diet, I’m going to
diet. Seeing fast results helps: I was feeling a bit fat after our little road
trip, so a couple days of tight diet (excluding wine) and intermittent fasting
and I dropped 2 kilos and am pretty much back to my normal training weight.
Easy. And right in time to get bloated from plane travel; whee!
Similarly, I am finally to the point where I’m seeing
results with my healing. The acupuncture will only do so much if I keep going
and doing stupid sh*t, as I’ve been told countless times. But a new form of
therapy that stimulates the nervous system to put muscles back where they
belong, combined with the stupidly, shockingly painful fascial release, is
doing wonders both for injury healing, and just to get my body back into proper
alignment so I can be more powerful and less prone to injury. Sounds like
nirvana, right? But it seems to be working: my hamstrings keep getting sore.
It’s kind of like when you’re sick and you don’t exactly remember
what it feels like to be better, save for the absence of the crap feeling you
are having. That’s how having a major muscle injury is: you vaguely remember
what it was like to train, to sleep, to LIVE without constant awareness, if not
fear: certain twisting movements are going to hurt, or strain, or worse. But I’m
coming out of it now, at long last.
I’ve been thinking also about our own tendency to revise the
past, to make it fit with how we want to remember it, to justify our own
actions. Remember the Benjamin Franklin Effect?
How you can look back on a relationship that was probably more good than bad,
but have it poisoned in your mind because of how it ended. How you can look
back on an employee’s performance and confuse “not always” doing what they
should with “never” contributing in a meaningful way. In general how if you are
not treating someone well in the here and now, you find things in their present
or past behaviour to let you justify your current feelings about them and
behaviour towards them. Or, if you are infatuated or obsessed with someone or
something, it can do no wrong and you don’t see all the little flaws.
I was talking to a friend recently who seemed to me to be
engaging in a bit of revisionist history. It was interesting. Well, in some
ways I guess our memories are only our own and don’t really matter to those
outside of us, except to the degree that they colour our present and future
reactions to things. Geez, sometimes between the looking back and the looking forward
it’s hard to know what we even really want, leaving aside all our potential
fears about failure or loss or heartache.
Whatever. There’s no telling what our world will be like six
months from now, or what we’ll be doing, or what our goals and aspirations will
be at that point. We must remember as well that our own forward-looking goals
and desires are shaped by others. Sometimes when people speak to me I can sense
that they are trying to get me to see myself, or the situation, in a certain
light, for their own purposes. I’m sure sometimes I read more into things than
is actually there, and at other times I miss blatant manipulations.
One point that my friend Amy made to me on my last night in
town was the difference between people you feel you need to have in your life and people that it’s just kind of nice to
have around, for company or whatnot. Need is a strong word, and the way I am I
don’t like relying on or needing anybody. But, there are certain people I want
in my life more than others; certain people that if they died or moved away I
would be devastated. That’s close enough. There are friends in the U.S. that
fall into that category, people who I am excited beyond words to see, who I
will probably try to crush the air out of when I see them (ok maybe not, I wouldn’t
want to hurt anyone with a hug, even someone who was asking for it!).
The last few days were a whirlwind of activity. Even work,
where instead of doing all the things I really wanted to do before I left, I
wound up spending 80% of my time doing stupid stuff trying to sort out the slow
internet and the up and down wireless routers. I really thought my days of
pings and traceroutes and standing on shelves in server rooms to plug cables
into things were done. That put me into a royally bad mood; I’m not going to
lie. Also, you can tell I’m really tired when I stop speaking. True story. Insufficient
sleep, nuff said.
But my interns gave their midterm presentations and I hope
everyone was impressed. I was, and in both cases they contributed meaningfully
to the business. Which is the only way to contribute, and the best way is to
pick something important and focus on it. Focus, focus, focus is my mantra for
the rest of the year. It’s easy to focus on diet, sleep, and training: that
sh*t is easy. Trying to focus on the important stuff when there are people
around intent on distracting you (not out of malice, but because their
priorities are not yours), is hard. I love that office and those people though.
Mandy’s cheer, Peter’s intensity, Hollie’s laugh, Anton’s pursed lips when he
asks me a question, Jonathan’s voice, Zaheer’s fascination with my extra-curriculars.
Sunday night UEFA Euro final (Spain won), Monday I learned
how to get out of a choke hold (haven’t practiced it yet but I know the theory),
then dinner with Hermann, Lucien, Andrew, Michelle, and Susan at Hermann’s
place. Awesome stuff: good people, good food, good fun. Tuesday night a drink
with Mandy at &Union, followed by a coffee with Amy, watching Derek &
Kim teach wing chun & shaolin, respectively, over to CrossFit to get my
biltong for the plane, give goodbye hugs to Jobst & Chris, and to Lynda who
is moving back to Ireland, and generally say goodbye to that environment for a
couple of weeks, then back for qigong where I learned the end of the sequence
we’re studying, and stayed after for a long chat with Derek about form,
intensity, and injury.
Wednesday was a similar rushing around; starting with to
Killarney Gardens to drop off Mona’s weights at the transport company. On the
way I laughed because I was driving through a notorious township and some guys
had a cable strewn across the road and were clearly in the process of stealing
electricity (hooking up the shack lands to the grid is kind of a national
sport, although of course Eskom discourages it), while a police car sat 50m
away. Only in South Africa. One of those funny vignettes like when Susan and I
were driving home from somewhere and had to stop for a goose to cross the road …
and glare at us, like how dare we get that close to it before stopping for it
to cross. Hilarious.
Then, to acupuncture which was as much of a social visit as
a medical visit … and I am going to miss that place and those people a lot
these next few weeks. I won’t miss CrossFit because I’ll be in the epicentre of
CrossFit, but I’ll miss that cold room, everyone’s relaxed but serious
attitude, Amanda’s straightforwardness, Bridget’s gentleness, Derek’s
enthusiasm, Anna’s look when she’s fascinated, Shirfu’s quiet power, Kim’s
laugh and smile.
Happiness makes me happy, and you can smell happiness from a
mile away. I have a lot to look forward to when I get back: across literally
every part of my life.
Anyway, afterwards, over to Starling Café for a fantastic
lunch (both food-wise and company-wise: talks of leadership, ad hominems,
cognitive biases, and sport always makes for a happy Ellie). That ran late, and
I had to do a little bit of shopping then go home and pack. I was so proud of
myself for fitting two suitcases into one (literally: my gym bag is inside my
suitcase). I’m ready to bring some loot home! Dropped off a wallet I had found
at the Woodstock Police station, then took about the longest possible route to
Tygerberg Hospital (thanks GPS) where I picked up Susan and Talia, and from
there to the airport where I choked down some food (strange thing about resting
… I have NO appetite and am force-feeding myself because I know my muscles and
brain need it).
So, leaving the land of rugby and rooibos, biltong and
braai, Cape Town and car guards, Vida and driving on the left, for the land of
the free and the home of the brave. American flags, Starbucks, catfish, Whole
Foods, big SUVs, baseball, and the American dollar.
Should be interesting. Should be fun.
- “I hope tonight’s aggression night.” – Zaheer
- “Maybe just not as sweet. Or as fast.” “Or as strong?” – Susan & Ellie
- “When he came back, he came back with a bang.” – Amanda
- “You stuck with your team.” – Jobst
- “It’s the mind that fails the body first.” – Derek
- “You don’t know kung fu. You shouldn’t be walking around this town alone.” – Derek
- “Good luck with all the good times ahead.” – Hon
- “You had a protein bar in the week? That’s it. I’ve lost all respect for you.” – Ellie
- “If you compete, you must go either to win, or to have fun.” – Kim (TRUTH)
- “Stay anabolic!” – Kim (best parting words EVER)
- “It’s about helping.” – Doug
- “Remember, age is only a number.” – Mona
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