Done...and More to Come

The goal was one pull-up. Sensate awareness of my sixth-grade self in P.E., Ms. Hill by the bar, a sense of forboding and shame about the same time every year. One pull-up would offer me a path to alter history, at least where it counts, inside my felt sense of myself. One pull-up would demonstrate to myself that wisdom may take a while, but it’s worth the work and the wait. One pull-up would give me something to focus on amidst a demanding season of manuscript writing and online teaching. So how goes it? a friend asked today. And of course, the answer is…? I have to decide!

Last week, I surprised myself by pulling myself above the bar, contracting core, arm and back muscles. It was fantastic. I was aiming to jump up above the bar, to catch myself in a static hold, strengthen the abs and all that. Before I jumped, I remember thinking, “Be sure to jump high enough so you can catch in the static hold.” A previous day had taught me I’ve simply not been getting enough height to activate all the right muscles for a static hold. Get enough height, I can hold myself just fine.

Well, I didn’t get enough height:  I pulled myself up to the right height and held me there for a while.

I pulled myself up and held me there!!!

It was such a marvelous feeling—to pull myself up above the bar. I couldn’t get the smile off my face. I released, then repeated it three more times. Then I was done. Since then, I’ve been laying my hands on the bar, chin-up style, and tip-toeing upward to pull-up over the bar. I love it. I printed out the Physical Fitness Award paperwork from some elementary school in Nebraska and saw the challenge of my sixth-grade self to hang for 7 seconds. Easy as cake now. Got that.  My body says I’ve done what I set out to do.

But my mind is telling me all the ways I’ve not done what I set out to do, because now I know so much more than I knew when I started! Folks well attuned to the body-world know that a pull-up is one thing, a chin-up is another. Pull-up means hands facing away from the body, requiring a different combination of musculature to accomplish the body-lift. A chin-up has your hands facing inward, allowing greater access to the core and bicep muscles in much more direct contraction as you do the body-lift. Of course, I did not know they were different. As with most things in my life, the mental image of it speaks a reality unto itself for me. If it’s in my mental image, it’s real; if it’s not, it’s not. Chin-ups and pull-ups are the same thing in my world. It’s not my body’s fault they’re different ‘out there.’

And now I’ve pushed into the world of physical strength training, vistas I’d never imagined have appeared on the horizon. I’m considering exploring Olympic lifting, O-lifting it’s called. Apparently, my body is perfectly set for such things. It only took me 44 years to learn the kind of strengths my body has, and so to explore those. I even feel different in my skin, my weight, my bones. I had to give up my gym t-shirts to GoodWill because they were too tight in the shoulders and upper back. How cool is that?

But does it 'count', my mind whines? Does vindication of my sixth-grade self count? Yes, I'm deciding today. Whether ordained or not, I’m calling the week’s efforts a fait accompli. For my purposes, I pulled myself above the bar and yes I have vindicated my sixth-grade self. In the greater senses, the goal was a straw-person anyway--I want to learn to find my strengths and develop those, focus on those, offer those. Achieving this milestone doesn't close off my sights to a kip-pull-up. I am smiling though. When one moves deeply into anything—apparently anything—the lesson appears to be learning just how deep and mysterious ‘the other side’ can be. 

So let's move to the kip-pull-up, to increasing my ability to hold my weight in the world by playing with it on the bar. No deadline, no guessing, just playing. It’s what the doctor orders. That’s me.