CrossFit again...

It’s a little hard to believe but this week marks the one-month anniversary of my first visit to a Cross Fit box.  For four weeks I have repeatedly returned.  Not every day mind you, but I’ve pretty much made it for four days out of every seven.   

The obvious question of course is, “Why?”  The answer lies in one of those experiences we’ve all had, where we’re asked to describe what happened and words failed us.  We just look at the other person and say, “I don’t know.  You had to be there.”  That’s how Cross Fit is for me.   

There is just so much going for it.  Right off, there's the worry.  My coach is very good about posting the next day’s WOD—Workout of the Day—on Facebook each evening.  Now I have about 21 or 22 hours to worry about what tomorrow evening will bring.  And this is completely silly.  He wouldn’t have to post anything and I’d still know what was coming.  Pain.  Then after the warm-up is over, Real Pain.   

Now, when I say, “Pain”, I don’t mean it in terms of injury or anything like that.  I don’t do this to injure myself.  Nor would I presume to claim that it gives me an idea of what child birth must be like.   However, at the risk of sounding sexist, it does make me glad I don’t have to give birth to any children.   

So maybe I exaggerate.  Maybe it’s not pain so much as it is an incredibly annoying focus on the eternity of the present moment.  A moment in which I am struggling to breathe.  And stand.  And lift my arms.  While praying for stout blood vessels in my heart.  A moment that seemingly has no end.      

Sometimes it gets so intense, I feel as though I’m outside my body watching myself.  I display all the grace of a bag of feed falling off the tailgate of my pick-up.  Cross Fit calls these moments “burpees”.  It is a moment where you fall to the floor while simultaneously kicking your feet behind you.  You flail your arms about pretending to do a push-up.  Then you pull your feet up even with your stomach and slowly drag your ass back to a standing position.  Then you put your arms over your head and give a little jump for joy as if to say, “Whoopee I’m vertical again!”.  Then you repeat these movements until you hear Bob Dylan singing, Knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s door…    

Well, at least that’s what I hear.  But being surrounded as I am with people much younger than me, I am actually listening, no that’s too passive, I am being beaten with a much different kind of noise.  It is loud, and there is rhythm, but that’s about it.  Hip Hop meets Heavy Metal in a cage match to the death.  Something like that.  And sometimes I hear words that I didn’t use even when I was in the Army.  

All of this to say, that this is the best part of my day.  The endorphins start flowing and the adrenaline starts pumping, and in spite of the discomfort of the moment, everything seems right with the Universe.  Once I walk out of the box the pressures of life will assault me once again.  Work, family, the economy, the culture warNorth Korea, Syria, the Russians, the concern about the future.  But in the box I can’t worry about that stuff.  It’s like a vacation, albeit one where the tour guides torment you through the seven levels of Hell, but for one eternal momentI’m outside the “real world”.  It’s a nice break.  I think I’ll stick with it a while longer yet, and see what happens.  I’ll keep your posted.   

Cultural Appropriation. Huh?

As you know I try to avoid overt politics, but sociology—how human societies are ordered and disordered—fascinates me.  Today I bring another example. 

It seems there is a group that is asking the United Nations to make what they call “cultural appropriation” illegal.  A Dean of the University of Colorado Law School said that the UN should negotiate a legally binding document that would “obligate states to create effective criminal and civil enforcement procedures to recognize and prevent the non-consensual taking and illegitimate possession, sale, and export of traditional cultural expressions”. 

Say what?

The utter nonsense of this idea just overwhelms me.  My first reaction was one of dismay.  I’m British, Irish, and German according to my DNA, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up Spaghetti Bolognese for Steak and Kidney Pie!

As I looked into it though, it got worse.  Noodles were invented by the Chinese.  Even if I had some Italian DNA I’d have to get permission from China to have my spaghetti.  Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill would have to close their doors. 

And speaking of China, if the owners of the Oriental House restaurant—the best Chinese buffet in the Fourstates—couldn’t serve Ozark hillbillies and Oklahoma cowboys, they would soon be broke.

So who gets the corn?  Americans?  Or Native Americans?  At a minimum it would all have to stay here, but what would we do with it?  How would Hispanics and other Latinos make tortillas?  I guess we could negotiate an agreement and make it “consensual”.  But it would have to be reciprocal or Taco Bell would be in trouble. 

I suppose if it were determined that corn belongs to all Americans we could make moonshine.  It goes down very smooth; it just doesn’t have quite the nutritional value of a tortilla. 

Some of you will say I’m just being silly.  This is not about food or commodities, it’s about cultural and intellectual property.  Really?  Again I ask:  Who makes that decision? 

I make my living working for an Indian Tribe.  They are great people to work for, and I like being here.  Because of my appreciation and respect for all of those in “Indian Country” as it is called, I have two watercolors hanging on my wall.  Yes, they were painted by a Native American artist.  I enjoy them immensely.  One of them depicts a young Indian on a horse.  He is wearing feathers, and holding his lance and shield.  Very iconic. 

But wait.  The indigenous peoples of this continent did not have horses.  Horses arrived with the Europeans.  They were quickly appropriated by the native peoples, but they didn’t originate here.  Did the artist ask permission to use that image?  Maybe he tried, but who would he ask?

Who gets to lay claim to horses?  Probably not even the Europeans.  They got them from the Central Asian steppes, and the North African coast.  My ancestors took those animals, and through the process of selective breeding created the breed we know today as the Thoroughbred. 

Thoroughbreds came with the early settlers to America and mixed with other breeds to create more new breeds.  The Morgan Horse is a totally American breed, and was used along with other breeds and cross-breeds to create the even more famous American breed, the Quarter Horse.

My point, of course, is that all of our various cultures have something that was “appropriated” from another culture.  It how our species, homo sapiens, behaves.  Businesses today even memorialize this appropriation.  They call it “Best Practices”.  Selecting the best of a culture and incorporating it into your own is how mankind has made it this far.  After all, we Europeans turned Americans, wouldn’t be here today if our ancestors had not appropriated many of the ways of the native Americans who were here before us.  There was a time when schools actually taught that fact.  If not for a man from the Patuxet tribe named Squanto, we were told, the Pilgrims would have all died.  We were taught to admire and respect him.  I still do. 

In the end, cultural appropriation is the best way to disseminate ideas and practices.  I’d love to see more people appropriate the American concept of “Equal Justice Under the Law”.  It’s a much better way than sending soldiers to foreign cultures to “Nation build”.  If I can appropriate what I like, I can make it mine.  If you come using force to make me make it mine, you’ll have a fight on your hands. 

You’d think an organization like the “United Nations” would understand that.

Boxes, Amraps, and WODs...

It was a good Memorial Day holiday.  Thank you to my son for sharing his story.  Thank you to those who sent heart felt messages.  It is good that we remember.  As the historian, David McCullough said, “How can we profess to love our country and take no interest in its history?” 

My oldest son and I did watch the Indy 500.  It was a pretty exciting race this year and ended on a satisfying note.  I had no problem with Takuma Sato winning the race.  He is a good driver, been around a while now, and seems to be a decent sort of fellow.  All in all, a very good holiday weekend. 

All of which left me totally unprepared for what awaited me this week.  Apparently, my daughter and oldest son, in collusion with the Russians from what I surmise, conspired in a nefarious plot to thoroughly disrupt my life.  As a result of this conspiracy, on Tuesday evening at 6pm I found myself in what I now know is called a “Crossfit Box”.   

I was confronted with incredibly fit, but friendly, people talking to me about “Clean”, “Jerk”, “Burpees”, “Cross-bar burpees”, “Amraps”, “Squat Protocols”, and a host of other words I didn’t know.  Then they told me how much I’d like getting to know “Randy”, “Cindy”, and especially, the one they call “Murph”.   

They were lying.   Please forgive my language here, but honestly “Cindy” is no fun.  “Randy” is a bear.  And “Murph” is…well, just way way beyond my comprehension. 

As some of you have no doubt by now guessed, I, without real warning and no time to prepare, suddenly found myself down the rabbit hole, and into “Crossfit Land”.  Whoa!  This is another universe whose inhabitants spend a portion of their day torturing their bodies to the point of collapse, and then spend the rest of the day telling each other what great fun it was!   

I don’t use the word “torture” lightly.  If the CIA finds out about this thing, we won’t ever have to worry about them “waterboarding” anyone again: 

CIA agent:  “Hey Chief, we’ve got a suspected terrorist here.  Should we waterboard him to get the information”?  

CIA Chief:  “No, just give him “Cindy”.  If that doesn’t work, try “Randy”.  Let’s stay away from “Murph” for now.  We want to stress him, we don’t want to kill him.” 

I’m telling you.  Problem solved.  

Naturally, I’m looking at the humorous side, but this really is serious.  What I learned is that they give certain WOD’s (Workout of the Day), the name of a person.  Certain “benchmark” workouts are named for girls, and certain other specific workouts are named for military and law enforcement heroes.  “Randy”, is named for Randy Simmons, an LAPD Captain who was shot and killed by a gang member in 2008.  “Murph” is named for Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005.   

Anyway, the truth is I can’t even begin to touch “Cindy”, or “Mary”, or “Fran”, or anyone else for that matter.  I am a long way from having the ability to do that.  What little they’ve had me do has been tough enough.  To say that I am “sore” is an understatement.  All I know is that I am extremely grateful that my workplace has handicapped accessible bathrooms.  Those grab bars on the wall made the difference between success and total disaster.   

After one set of difficult movements, I expressed my dismay to my daughter.  She just laughed and said, “Just think.  The harder you work now, the longer it will be before I put you in the nursing home”.  Such love. 

She takes care of me though.  Yesterday we had a drill where we divided into teams.  Not surprisingly none of the other Captains picked me, so she ended up with me by default.  I told her that I didn’t want to hold her team back, but she assured me, “That’s not how this works.  You will contribute even if you can’t do very much”.  It turns out that she was correct in that regard, and it did feel good that my little effort really did count.  It counted mostly for me because I was doing the exercise.  And that was the point.  At the end, no team claimed to “win”.  It wasn’t even discussed.  All that mattered is that you and your companions encouraged each other to do your best, whatever level that was.   

I’ll admit it.  I like that attitude.  I like the idea of competing against no one except myself.   And I like the idea that someday I’ll get to do “Mary” or “Cindy” or “Fran”, and the Sergeant Major won’t be at all upset.  In fact, she’ll be cheering me on.