When I first
heard of CrossFit years ago, I knew at some point I was going to want to try
it. I was well into circle-way things by then—Red Tent, Women Writing for (a)
Change, Conscious Feminine Leadership Academy—and watched my own trainer, Natalie,
get involved with a CrossFit community in Centerville. I benefited from her
enthusiasm, her own formation in that community’s ethos and practice. Our
workouts became tinged with CrossFit learnings, paced for me in my one or two
workouts a week with her. At some point, I said to myself, I want to try that. A loosely organized circle-way, athletic community, aiming for a collaborative ethos that challenges into competition...? Sounded like a balanced feminine-masculine kind of thing, in my ears.
About 18
months ago, I’d guess, I visited a CrossFit in Beavercreek. A morning workout
that included burpees and squats, among other things. The warm-up was with a jump-rope, which did
not go well for me. I hadn’t jumped with a rope in over thirty years, perhaps
forty, and my body did not remember this rhythm. It was frustrating and I felt
foolish for not knowing something so elementary. I remember trying to pace
myself, slow myself down, but the energies of the group did push me in a way I
liked then. My body cried out for probably four days afterward, however, so…
Good for me in the end? Not sure. I did
realize that there was little chance of me driving that direction several times a week, alongside my work 40 minutes
in the other direction, and circle two evenings a week. The coach I spoke to
there was nice enough, but I never went back.
Come more into
the present, and I’m finishing up a coaching call, August 1st,
maybe. A Wednesday. In conversation with her, I awoke once again to how I’d
become motionless, stuck in the energy flows of those around me, unable to
choose what might be for me, for me alone. This is an ancient pattern for me,
unclear origins, but one I’ve redressed again and again in my nearly fifty years.
I felt foolish to have been swept up into it again, though I know the pattern
always serves its purpose in the end. I hung up the phone, got out a Julia
Cameron book, did morning pages, and made a list of things I’d wanted to try
but hadn’t started yet. I researched a number of CrossFit communities in the
Dayton area and chose one close to my work on campus. I scheduled myself to
come to the Community Open Workout that Saturday, and dove in. Amidst two
intensive commitments that month—teaching a week on campus and a retreat with
17 other women—I scheduled the intro sessions with Matt, one of the coaches,
and last week, my first week of ‘regular workout classes’ began.
The timing of
this feels significant to me somehow. I turn fifty this next March, which
doesn’t feel a big deal to me but is to many human beings around me. I’ve loved
every birthday these last 10-15 years, enjoying the climb up the numbers
without a sense of forboding many women feel. My anam cara soul-sister, Lisa, is facing double-hip surgery this
fall, a journey of hers that has yet impacted me greatly. I began to go a little tharn, truth be told, as this journey unfolded for her. I grew
still inside, not wanting to startle the wildlife in her, facing down something
that feels (and is) a pretty big deal. I began to know a deep gratitude for my
morning walks with Nala, aware of my body’s capabilities as distinctive,
unique, my own. I began to know a deep sadness too, a belly fear, about what
needed to happen for her own health to be restored. I wanted her body journey
to be easy, relieved…and it’s been painful and limiting. I probably felt a
little guilty too, being able to move in my body in ways unavailable to her.
Illogical, I know, but plausible in how I feel connected, my body to hers.
Unsure and
incapable of easing her own body’s journey, of connecting in like we often
have, I turned my full attentions to CrossFit and the invitations there. Might
as well, I figured. Fear I could
face. Fear that was my own. And
greater movement, greater intensity workouts, greater energy output…all felt
invited and welcome.
CrossFit
Dedication, the community I’ve now joined, is a family-friendly place that’s
been around for five years now. They just celebrated their Five Year
Anniversary with a party August 25th. I was on retreat with my
circle of women, so could not join in. They seem to offer challenges for those
seeking to enter competition-level CrossFit and
create a space for folks like me who simply want to workout more, with
like-minded folks, creating support and structures for more healthy
living. Matt handles more of the intake
and business responsibilities, so I have worked with him the most, just to
join. I attended the 8 a.m. class that his wife, Melissa, coaches this past
week. It’s a smaller class, so the coaching is more personalized. I really
appreciated her style and attentiveness to my own form and process.
For now, I
think my invitation is to try different classes, to get a whiff of what each
feels like—time of day, number of people, walks of life, etc.—and tend to my
own body’s language as I deepen my capacities. The first fruit, just from the
month so far, is that movement is fun
again. And fear is less present, as I move in the flow of a circuit workout
or a slated set of exercises in rounds of repetition. I look forward to going,
and I’m tickled to be diving into something that called to me years ago.
