I’ve not blogged in a while and wanted to fill you in. In the last month or two I’ve had an influx of compliments “You’re so buff!” “Wow you’re strong!” I appreciate these compliments despite the fact that I often struggle with them as I perceive them as contrary to what a woman is and should be. Yes, yes, there are no “should’s” and at the end of the day I still need to feel like a woman. I don’t feel very feminine with my increasingly muscular upper body. My shirts are tighter (and any guy would love this–just in the right spot…on the back and chest.) This alone makes me feel un-feminine.
Thus I’m taking a break from the rings and from Muay Thai. I’m going to Cross Fit a couple of times per week (because I already paid for it 🙂 and am incorporating more running and yoga into my routine. While I’m sure you’d love to see a video of me running, it’s just not that exciting.
Soooo, for now I’m not posting here. If you want to reach me, I’m not gone. Find me on email or Facebook. I’m around. I’m just taking a break from this particular workout routine.
Thanks for your support, y’all! I hope you keep training and kicking some butt in whatever it is you want to achieve.
Two weeks ago I began CrossFit at Invictus (http://www.crossfitinvictus.com) In Little Italy. Invictus, a premier CrossFit gym, is a community and a place where trainers and trainees are focused on performance across all sports/fitness domains. CrossFit itself can be defined as “a strength and conditioning system built on constantly varied, if not randomized, functional movements executed at high intensity” (CrossFit Journal). A full article on “What is CrossFit?” can be found here: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/what_is_crossfit.pdf.
My first impressions of CrossFit are positive ones. The intensity of the workouts can be increased or decreased as necessary. The skills I’m developing access sets of muscles I never knew existed. A workout lasts on average 15 minutes (not including rest time) and it’s a humbling 15 minutes. The depth of knowledge of the trainers at Invictus is amazing; I’ve never seen trainers so pumped and focused on providing every person at the gym with guidance on proper technique, an understanding of the fundamentals and objectives of each movement, and a commitment to make them (the trainee) the best s/he can be. I’m most impressed by the community Invictus has created. They put significant effort towards bringing people together and using team dynamics as a motivator. Everyone cares about the success of others. It’s a cool feeling to be around a group of people–some elite athletes and some looking to lost 40 lbs.+–and have everyone push each other to be better, stronger, and faster.
I can see why it’s addictive. It’s exercise that’s functional. The results from these workouts actually transfers to other areas of life and other sports. While I’m not yet addicted, I can see why it’s addictive. More to come when I’m fully immersed in the world of CrossFit. (Before and after pics too!)
Last weekend I met Yuval Ayalon, a Cirque du Soleil performer. He performs (just alike all performers) in four hundred and sixty plus shows per year. Yes, that more than one show per day. Yuval was inspiring. He’s down to earth, incredibly respectful, thoughtful, and precise with his language. He understands expertise. He’s a handstand genius. He’s married (to a Cirque synchronized swimmer–so cool) and has two children. What a rockstar family. I was honored to spend two hours with him–a handstand genius.
Post on Yuval and handstand training forthcoming. Be on the lookout!
I was so amazed by Yuval that I watched a couple of Cirque du Soleil documentaries. 16×9 created a documentary on what it’s like to audition for Cirque. It covers dancers, gymnasts, clowns, “open sport,” and more. This documentary is all about getting into Cirque’s database for possible future shows. You don’t get a job when it’s said in done. You get the possibility of a job.
When have you worked as hard or as long to achieve a goal? One guy submitted 20 DVDs. Others apply and audition annually for years. These people are inspiring.
In the last month I’ve become very intimate with a new perspective on life. I am a detail-oriented person. I dominate the details. The micro vs. the macro — give me the micro any time. Recently, I’ve become viscerally aware of the value of the macro. I have heard the term “big picture thinkers” (ahem–Micha Mikailian, Co-Founder of eBoost Consulting) and I think to myself, “Heck, I can think big picture but I’m not necessarily a big picture thinker.” Not true. Everyone is a big picture thinker. If you think you aren’t, think again. The most masterful people in all practices of life are big picture thinkers. You can’t effectively relate to and persuade people without the macro view of reality.
While I’d like to generalize this post to the entire world because I think the transition I’ve gone through is one common to many humans, I’ll keep it to me/I statements to keep it real. Look for the parallels in your life and let me know your thoughts.
I can build an Excel model with deeply embedded formulas. I can craft a structure for anything. I can formulate a deliverable in precise, prioritized steps. I can break down every training move, every instruction I receive from Adrian into 1/2/3. I can reduce anything to identifiable chunks. I love that about myself. It’s served me well my entire life. I also realized through the Landmark Advanced Course that my cop out in life has always been, “I don’t have enough information,” or “I don’t understand.” I use this excuse as a scapegoat for not taking responsibility or action. I’ll call this my “act.” This act ties directly to my healthy and useful obsession with details. I never let things slip and require impeccability from all those I work with and for. What I’ve realized, however, is that this is limiting my potential. I’m capping my power to only the micro when relationships, value, progress, and true, deep, collaborative understanding come not from these individual details but the aggregated delivery of these details. The delivery is the macro. Back it up and think, “How can I best present this information (to myself–that is, how can I most effectively digest it?–or to others)?” Value comes from the magic in between the details and in delivering the information to whomever I’m talking to.
I’ll give you two examples. First, Adrian takes great care in explaining things to me and he uses metaphors of all kinds to make sure I understand what he’s saying. He demonstrates the movement before we start and every time it looks like I’m off, he demonstrates the movement again, adjusting his description of the progression. What he doesn’t know (but will since I’m posting it here) is that my act often gets in the way and I try and “understand” what he’s saying. I wait for explanation and delay my launching into the exercise. There are a few precious seconds before I begin a movement that I seriously consider delaying and often I do. My mind things “I don’t get it!” and resists launching into the unknown. I am wasting time. I am wasting precious moments of life I will never get back. Fuck waiting. Fuck “explaining” things away before diving in the deep end. Now, I am practicing looking at the big picture with every moment I make and every word that comes out of my mouth. I’m looking at life and every experience and thinking, “How does this fit into the larger reality?” That might be a larger reality of becoming an elite athlete. Or it may be a reality of wanting to make a difference in someone’s day or life and needing to see the forest for the trees to be effective in having this positive impact.
Second, at eBoost Consulting I engage with successful executives of a lot of companies in all kinds of industries on a regular basis. I lead several teams and in the process of growing into a leader, I’ve noticed how important it is to understand the ecosystem of emotions and motivations (social dynamics). This is the macro. It’s not the project scope or schedule that matters (the micro). Yes, my team needs to kick ass at producing excellent work (I accept nothing less than excellence), however the true value comes in delivering this work to the client in a way that acknowledges and leverages the social dynamics of our teams. There are social dynamics ecosystem within my own team (everyone has a different way of working, different motivations and metrics for evaluating their own performance), within the client’s team, and between our teams. This is the work of a great leader. A great leader understands the complexities of this ecosystem from end-to-end and facilitates greatness from every person on all teams. My job is to make my own teammates great (best in class, baby!) and to make my clients and their team members great (also best in class).
I’ve come to use the “zoom function” in my brain to make progress on mastering this new understanding of the macro view. I deliberately take time to back out into the bird’s eye view and consider not only now, but also the future–one month, one year, five years, and ten years from now. How does what is occurring now fit into my ten year vision? As for training, those lazy moments of hesitation because I’m acting as additional explanation would “fix” my understanding are not in alignment with my ten year vision to be an elite athlete (I’m fucking wasting time when I delay). Those moments in which I focus only on my team getting work done, or I focus only on one issue in one project, I’m acting completely out of alignment with my ten year vision to be a recognized and respected female executive involved in the startup and/or VC world. I am shifting perspectives and re-orienting my language to facilitate greatness out of every person I’m with at all times. I will be an elite athlete and I will be a recognized and respected female executive. I need the micro and I need the macro to do this.
Yesterday evening I went with Johnny to watch Adrian fight Coke in Vegas at the Hard Rock. More than anything, this fight demonstrated talent, respect, and intelligence. The terms “win” and “lose” are labels we assign to the judgments made as a result of cumulative points assigned in the five-two minute rounds (a knockout cuts this short). They mean nothing (and they mean everything, depends on how you look at it). Literally, the labels are meaningless yet we assign meaning to them. This is my reflection of the fight.
Adrian clearly dominated the first two rounds; the third round was in Adrian’s favor, although I’m not sure what the judges thought. In the fourth round Coke knocked Adrian out (not a punch to the face but knees to the stomach). While the judges deemed Coke the “winner,” I learned by osmosis (listening to everyone’s conversation), that the sport is much more complex than the simple win-loss.
Staking a Claim
Coke has had over 100 fights; Adrian has had less than 20. While every fighter goes in to “win,” there’s also a future into which the nature of the fight feeds (dirty/messy/clean, w/ or w/o respect). Adrian’s willingness and ability to take a fight with Coke sets the bar that much higher and earns him a place among a new tier of fighters. Now, promoters and news channels know more about Morilla and are intrigued by him–his background, presence, technique, and future. Interviews after the fight confirm this. Adrian is staking a claim for himself and for other fighters. An American fighter took on a Thai fighter and stayed in the entire time. He made a bold statement that will follow him through the years by setting a foundation for who he is, what he stands for, and what he is up to.
Best In Class
Adrian shared more on his fighter mentality (psychology) before/after the fight. What struck me most profoundly was the orientation he brings to his training, to the fight, and post-fight. During training he is relentlessly focused on being best in the world. Winning is the only mental consideration. During the fight he is present and absorbing every moment so he can strategically respond. There is no wasted energy. Seeing the punches and kicks come at him is key. Adrian demonstrates respect for the sport and his opponent, something to be noted and praised as it is these kinds of fighters that grow the sport as one with integrity. After the fight, I was fascinated to hear the recount of events and assessment of each move. Wow. To know himself, his moves, and his mentality as clearly as he reflected back was profound. As a result, Adrian took away a lot more than just an experience, a “loss,” a name. Adrian seemed to take away a greater understanding of himself, his fighting style, Coke, and the sport. He took away respect for himself, his trainers, and expressed gratitude for the experience. (Note that I’m not quoting Adrian. I’m sharing my perception–which is not guaranteed fact.)
A best in the world fighter and human being carries himself with dignity, compassion, intelligence, and respect (for self and others). Adrian models this for everyone–fighters, students, fans, and friends alike.
Tradition
None of the other fights included a Wai Kru. Some fighters show a lot more posturing–their “act” gets them and the crowd (or part of the crowd) pumped up. Adrian and Coke paid homage to their lineages and carried on a Thai tradition that few spend time perfecting. The Wai Kru is as much a part of the fight as the punches, elbows, and kicks themselves. The grace with which the Wai Kru is completed and the tradition of honoring those that came before sets the tone for the sport. It’s not a free-for-all blood bath. Technique, precision, and respect are all core components of Muay Thai.
Speaking from a novice’s point of view, the fight was eye opening and humbling. So much heart goes into these fights and it’s a testament of who is more skilled in the moment, not necessarily overall or in a lifetime. Every person has his/her style and the fluidity of the fight is for me as valuable if not more valuable than the hard core knockout (yes, those are nice and if landed correctly can be an easy way out).
Here are some pics and videos. Enjoy.
Johnny Chan and Adrian Morilla After the Fight
Nico Cebreros, Jeremy Caley, Johnny Chan and Adrian Morilla After the Fight
Drum roll…you’re going to see some before and afters! This is the first in a series. I’ll keep building these out. It’s incredibly motivational and humbling to share these with you.
There are four sets of photos that pertain to these key dates:
MARCH 2012 | Photo of me before I thought about training, before I started Bikram, and before I did the Drew Canole cleanse.
APRIL 2012 | Photos from the time I first did Bikram yoga (I had just started).
JUNE 2012 | Training begins. I started working with Adrian Morilla and Johnny Chan (http://www.youtube.com/user/jiunnchan1). There are no photos of me from this specific date–just those above and below.
AUGUST 2012 | Canole/Desmond/FitLife.tv cleanse ends.
Here we go!
MARCH 2012
@ start of nothing…in middle of enjoying Thailand!
Some of my best friends and me on Ko Phi Phi in Thaland. From L to R: Jason “King of Thailand”, Rita “50 on Rita”, moi, Nick “The Rainmaker,” and Johnny “Chan the Man”.
APRIL 2012
@start of Bikram yoga
JULY vs. AUGUST 2012
@ start and end of juice cleanse and during month months 1-2 of my training
All in all, the months have been good. I definitely want to speed up the transformation. The side pic shows it the best (belly is flatter). There are hints of muscle definition–we will see where it goes.
To wrap up, don’t forget the “Why There Are No Excuses” post (http://wp.me/p2yTYu-2R) and also remember that you’re transformation is on you’re own timeline. I’m happy with my results and would like to do better during the next three months, but I’m definitely not beating myself up about this. Progress is progress. Be happy with your before and afters no matter what!
Yes, that’s what the Killa said to me about a week ago. Adrian was being very generous with his half-joke, half-truth. Traps that catch bears are more like these:
Now, my traps are nowhere near this (nor do I want them to be that ripped) s0 let’s just say they catch baby bears, not big bears. Or maybe puppies (except by “trap” I mean “snuggle”). When I began training on June 26 I could not do one pull up, kipping or no kipping, overhand or underhand. Zero. With continued focus on building my scapular strength, rhomboid strength, and improving my overall bodyline, I can now do two (three on a good day) underhand pull-ups all by myself. Commitment pays off, although that was a tiny taste of what the bigger improvements will be like. Still, gotta count the wins as they come.
I mentioned bodyline above. It’s critical to the success of my training. Bodyline is just as it sounds–the alignment of one’s body. One of the key components to performing any gymnastics-type activity is alignment. For example, my goal is to, from standing, bend over, place my hands on the floor, and then slowly pull up into a handstand and hold it for a minimum of 60 seconds. To effectively hold a handstand, my bodyline must be perfect. That is, all my joints and bones must be perfectly stacked on top of one another.
Here’s a PDF I found on bodyline exercises (I do many of these): http://www.pandf.com.au/docs/2012/wrist-mobility_bodyline-exercises_handstands.pdf. The key to effective bodyline exercises is to engage your entire body–every single muscle–as you perform the exercises. This primes your CNS and trains your body to quickly move in and out of full engagement. I’m talkin’ 110% engagement of every muscle.
The other interesting thing about bodyline exercises are their ability to train your muscles into definition through very simple exercises. Adrian mentioned to me once the difference between training muscles via CNS triggering exercises (e.g. bodyline exercises) vs. doing individual exercises thousands of times in a row and on a daily basis (e.g. sit ups). Try this on–the reason six packs born out of thousands of sit ups must be maintained by doing an insane amount of crunches, etc. is because the muscles are post-thousand crunch workout behaving much like the body would in rigor mortis. In rigor mortis, the entire body stiffens, but over time, it relaxes and returns to a fully disengaged state. Thus, a six pack born of 10,000 daily crunches will last long enough, but won’t be “permanent” because eventually those muscles will relax.
On the other hand, if you train your muscles through CNS-triggering exercises, you are essentially training your muscles to increase their thresholds of strength and engagement and thus their natural resting state and degree of definition. This is a sustainable six pack. (While some effort will be required to maintain the six pack, it will be nowhere near the amount of exertion required of the crunch method above.) Think of each of your muscles as having a tiny little brain. Each muscle brain (MB for short) only know what it knows–how it has performed in the past and as a result, its limits. The thing is, these MBs don’t know what they don’t know. That is, each of our muscles has an artificial limit placed on it and it’s the responsibility of these full-engagement exercises (from warm-ups to ring work) to prime those MBs, push their limits, and over time they will increase this “limit” to a new unimaginable level. Make sense? (If not, reply with a comment we can talk it through.)
I’ll leave you with Adrian’s walk-through of the key bodyline exercises I do to warm my body up. I secretly absolutely love this exercises. If done right, you’re entire body will feel alive and engagement and you will literally feel the energy coursing through your body. Don’t forget–engage every single muscle.
Adrian, Johnny, Scotty (Dingas) and others often give me pointers that I find are really helpful in improving my technique. This week I focused on footwork. I know I’m lacking in this area because I don’t move my head much when sparring (slip, bob, weave, etc.). I’m not necessarily totally upright, but I’m definitely not leveraging technique that could save the day. Also, when I checked out sparring at Black House two Fridays ago, there were a number of boxers I sparred with and they are very good with head movement (or head movement resulting from their footwork).
Two tips Adrian gave me have helped re-orient the way I think about throwing punches and about footwork. I highly recommend recording yourself while you train as you’ll be shocked at how poorly you implement the tips you get from trainers and, of course, this blog. 🙂 You might feel like you’re relaxed and rotating your body smoothly and effectively, but trust me, you’ll usually be very surprised at how off you are. I just started recording my Muay Thai sessions and I look very different than the way I feel.
On to the tips of the day:
Body Line The head never moves without the shoulders which never moves without the hips, the legs, and the feet. No matter what I’m engaging in–be it the rings or Muay Thai–my body moves synergistically and must always be in a form of balance. Think of the body on an axis (a pole from southern tip to northern tip of your body) and imagine rotating around this axis, even when you’re crunching in for a kick or making any movement at all. Every exercise is a full body exercise. Leverage the natural alignment of the body for maximum results.
Punching and Shoulders When throwing a cross or a jab (or “yab” as is phonetically correct ;0), my eyes should direct towards my opponent’s shoulder (right or left depending on the punch being thrown). This facilitates the rotation of my shoulders and a slight slip of my head such that a cross or a jab from my opponent will slide right by my ear instead of landing directly in my face as it would if I were looking to my opponents chest. (If I look at their chest, my head stays totally upright and in the line of fire.) If you pay close attention, all the action of looking towards the shoulder does is give me a visual cue for leveraging my body line (rotation of the shoulders and hips) to result in a rotation of my shoulders and hips and thus my head so that punches fly right on by.
Adrian explains body line and punching “to” the shoulder:
Adrian then points out the importance of distance (a tall vs. short fighter results in varied distances) and shoulder rotation:
The idea of no excuses hit me hard in the last two months. I only have now and I make up excuses all the time for why something did or didn’t happen, for how I feel, for everything. It sickens me how many excuses are built into my day to day life. Enough.
There really is no excuse for anything happening or not happening (whichever you desire). It took me two plus decades to get this. I’m to the point now where I can hear excuses within seconds of listening to myself or others. It’s sad to hear how many excuses people have:
I don’t have time.
I am tired.
I didn’t sleep well.
I got injured [ten years ago and I’m still living as if I have a broken back].
I’m scared. (We’re all scared at one point or another. If you’re scared, just do it and see what’s on the other side.)
It was someone else’s responsibility or fault (or any variation thereof).
It was unrealistic.
I don’t have enough money. (This is common — everyone lives as if they don’t have enough money even when they have enough. Be resourceful, lean on your friends and networks, find a job, create a job, adjust your standards for living. None of these tie to happiness–happiness is a standalone variable.)
Nobody showed me how [to do x, y, or z]. Ask for help!
I’m not sure. (This is useless. You can’t predict the future. Nobody is “sure” there will be a tomorrow either.)
Excuses are a bad habit pervasive in our culture. I think it’s in part because we don’t trust each other to live up to our word and live with full integrity. Living with integrity means taking 100% responsibility for our promises and actions and learning to forgive and understand so that when things don’t go our way. It means knowing how to put ourselves in others’ shoes and coaching them along towards greater levels of integrity. Coaching and facilitation skills are also severely lacking from our society. If something doesn’t go the way we thought it would, I usually see people sidestep the situation which erodes the integrity of the relationship. Deal with it. Deal with your and others excuses and you’ll be amazed at how life changes.
What I’ve learned is that it’s like a muscle (everything is like a muscle it seems…or like fighting/Muay Thai). Just like I have to condition my brain and CNS to engage in new behaviors, I have to condition my mind to stop the excuses and take action. I am obsessed with the notion of having a bias for action. I have an addiction to action. Do more, think less. I’m not great at this (yet). I think wayyyyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyy wayyy too much (I can’t say “wayyyy” enough here) and am training myself to fuckiing get over it (whatever my mind is chewing on) and take action. No action, no results. If you ask any of my friends, I’m sure they’d say it’s a strength and severe severe weakness. I think too much and it becomes an excuse of some kind or another–or a pathetic delay to act.
So give it a try–the next time someone complains to you or you pick up on an excuse in their dialogue, instead of commiserating / endorsing, try asking them questions about it so they can first release steam (everyone needs this now and again) and then ask questions that together draw the person out of a victimized state and into a state of power where they know what actions they need and want to take to change the outcome of the situation or to create a new situation that they deem is positive/good. Help them develop a bias for action and they’ll feel much happier as a result of having an impact on their own life (vs. letting their life happen to them).
Re-cap and key takeaways:
Excuses are useless. Condition yourself to catch them before letting them come out of your mind/mouth.
Have a bias for action. Take the driver’s seat in your life and try things–everything. You’ll be surprised how much you learn and how empowered you feel.
Learn to coach others and facilitate the progression from a life of excuses to a life of action and empowerment. Next time you hear an excuse, get curious, ask questions to draw out the possibility of changing the situation or the perspective on the situation.
Be trusting, patient, kind, and gentle with yourself and others. Everything I’ve written above is a WIP (work in progress).
Final word: do not let others judgments of what you do, look like, feel, think, say or do be the evaluation of your success in life. That is, if you drop all excuses and are not an overnight Ido Portal, Adrian Morilla, Johnny Chan, or Olympian with a rockin’ bod who can do a muscle up as if it were a morning just-out-of-bed stretch, who effin’ cares? You got up, you trained, you did it and you did not complain. You improved. The goal is to improve YOU. To be a better YOU(not Ido, not Olmpian, not that other guy at the gym or at work).
The modified dip works the rotation of the wrists, the body line (especially when rotating the arms from a forward locked out position to inward facing position prior to the dip), the scapula (obviously among many other muscles), and for me, really gets at the muscles right in front of the arm pit which I think is part of the scapula–the subscapularis:
A couple of key points about this dip:
ALWAYS think body line. The objective is not to do the full dip and press back up, but to do it with perfect body line. What that means is that everything is engaged. My legs are fully locked and to me feel rock hard (who knows if they really are…the point is to generate that sensation) and I draw on every single muscle in my back and shoulders.
When rotating the arms forward to a locked out position and then back to a position parallel to (facing in towards) the body, lean the upper body forward, creating in effect a sort of sideways “v” or L-sit to create space for the arms to move into position in front of the body. Try simply focusing on this moving–forward facing, locked out arms, inward facing arms (ready to dip).
Try it without the thumb in place. (I just tried this today and it’s a good way to improve the grip.)
Keep the elbows in and release down as far as possible.
When pushing up, protract the back/scapula (it almost feels like I’m hunching over) and leverage the core and engaged legs to push back up.
You should be sweating bullets after a couple of reps. Take time to rest in between. Quality over quantity. We’re retraining the CNS and brain to know how to engage. Trust me, if you’re doing it properly, your brain will be overloaded with action items–engage the legs, rotate the wrists, engage the core, lift the legs (L-sit), protract the scapula, etc., etc. Initially I couldn’t remember all of the things I was supposed to do simultaneously. Over time, though, I’m slowly getting it and I have to think less to achieve the same outcome.
The Morilla Method 