Day 60: Bruised Not Broken, Damn Pole

Well, I took pole fit again and I look like I have been beaten half to death, for real. My feet, legs, and right side are all bruised and sore from the many attempts at climbing and inverting. I went and bought pole climbing gloves and ankle braces so I guess that made me feel like wonder woman, because I finally climbed the pole! Not very far, I got half way up, but shit I will take a win any where I can.

Apparently I have some weird PTSD situation happening from the last time I went to class and ripped a hole in my hand. I kept getting nervous I was scared to fully grip the pole, so I need to work on that. Until next time. Talk to you tomorrow.

Day 40: I Didn't Need That Skin Anyway

Today was crazy busy. I was at the warehouse all day prepping for this weekends staging. I got out of there about 5:30, just in time to run back to the house, walk Fi, and grab clothes for this evening's pole fit workout with Q.... and surprise guest Sabrina! I was so excited. This was her first pole class.

As usual, Q's music was on point. We opened the class with The Weekend's Earned It which is probably my favorite song at the moment. It was all fabulous R&B with a little hip hop mixed in. I always feel so amazing when she teaches. I was even able to CLIMB the damn pole tonight for the first time ever. I still can't invert, but I am getting closer. A few more weeks of arms and I think I will be there.

I told you a few weeks ago that Pole can be "dangerous". I usually end up with bruises and such (which I kind of love)... Well, tonight was no exception. About halfway through the class, I look over and see Sabrina with a pained look on her face, holding her finger. She knocked into the pole wrong and completely took off one of her acrylic nails. OUCHY! With 15 minutes left in class, S runs out to catch up with her hubby and I took her pole. That thing is CURSED I tell you. I was going through our choreography and went to hop up into a pole hold when I heard something rip, immediately followed by the feeling of one thousand tiny needles digging into my hand. I pulled my hand back, looked down and realized my skin just separated from my body. Sexy, right?

That shit hurt like a BITCH! I looked at it for a second, kind of in shock, because it didn't make sense to me. It was a smooth pole.... but upon further investigation of my hands, I realized that I had a callous coming up because of the type of training I am doing. So, between the callous and the alcohol I was using to keep my hands dry enough to grip the pole, my skin decided it no longer needed to be attached to my hand. Needless to say, I am not getting back on the pole without some gloves... which happens to be conveniently sold at the front desk.

Once I figured out what happened, I ran out of class to the front desk, grabbed some pain cream and Band-Aids, and went to the locker room to change for this evenings festivities.  One of my friends (Hi Sophia!) got promoted, so everyone converged on Samuel Becketts' Gastro Pub to celebrate. It was a really good time. I imbibed on some delicious Pinot Noir and a couple shots of Fireball (since this is my last weekend to drink), hung out with some of my favorite people, and met some new friends. It was a great end to a crazy week.

I hope my future weekends will be as much fun without my good friend, red wine. I guess we will find out! I will talk to you tomorrow.

Day 33: I Am... Sasha Fierce

Ah, my favorite day of the week, Pilates and Pole! Today was fabulous, I had a 10 am Pilates class, roamed around Michael's for a while, made a bracelet, sold a sewing machine, hung out with some awesome puppy dogs, and went back to the gym for some S Factor Pole Fit where Q was teaching.

 

She had a special valentines surprise for all us ladies tonight. The playlist was only Beyoncé so we could channel our inner Sasha Fierce annnnnddddd we had pink moscato, chocolate covered cherries (which I did not eat), and roses. It was so sweet.

 

I had to take a few shots since everything  always looks better in red light:
 

 

 

After class Ryan, Joey, and I went to outback for dinner. It was so delicious. I had a filet, crab legs (no butter), salad, and potato. I really have no idea how outback cooks their potatoes so perfectly with no butter. It was everything I ever wanted in life. 

 

Now, I must go off to sleep from my food coma, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Day 17: Work That Pole Girl

Today was SUPER fun! Q surprised me earlier this week with a playlist she was putting together for a private S Factor Pole class for one of our training sessions. This afternoon we got to put that bad boy on and she taught me how to perfect some integral moves. We threw on the red light, cranked up the bass, and I have never had more fun in my life in a personal training session.

Let’s get one thing strait, pole is incredibly difficult. It requires a shitload of upper body strength and trust in yourself that you aren’t going to completely bust your ass. I am a big girl, there is no way around that. I have taken this group class several times, and while I loved it, I wasn’t able to do a lot of the things the others girls could do. LO AND BEHOLD, today I did awesome. Like, really awesome. Like, I don’t even know who this girl was or how she developed enough upper body strength to spin her big ass around the pole as many times as she did.

Q taught me how to perfect a couple of spins which are the firefly, firefly with extended leg, and firefly with leg tucked behind me. She also got me to pole climb with the prance down MULTIPLE TIMES! I have NEVER been able to do this, no matter how many times I’ve tried. So needless to say, I am pretty damn proud of myself. Check me out, this is the pole hold, prior to prance:

 

I am so sore I can barely lift my arms. I’ve got bruises coming up on my feet and legs, my back is throbbing, and I STILL feel like a rock star.  Pole class will beat the hell out of you (if you couldn’t tell), but what it does for your inner goddess is just indescribable. You will just have to take a class yourself and find out. It is amazing and only yours. You don’t have to share it with anyone if you don’t want to.

Even with all this upper body work during pole, I wasn’t about to give up my two-a- days or the opportunity to work with Caesare in Kettlebell. I really do love his class... So, I went back at 6 and rocked it out. We did 2 rounds of double squats with arm press, swings, plank rows, curls, soccer kicks, lunge pass throughs, butterfly kicks and leg lifts.  I am going to have to switch it up next week though. Currently I am only using the 17.5 pound kettle bell, but next Wednesday I think I am going to step up my game to the 26 pound. After all, Caes says: “Train the same, remain the same. Do different things, get different results… TurnUp!!!”

So I am going to TurnUp again tomorrow. Crossfit with my Lena comes early. We have Josh again, so this should be “fun” and by fun I mean awful...or awesome, I don't know... the Crossfit Kool-Aid has a way with distorting your emotions. I look forward to letting you know how it goes. Talk to you tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

Day 5: The Struggle is Real

Have you ever thought you might be legitimately crazy? Have you ever had so many thoughts swirling around in your head you become nauseous? If not, you’re lucky. If so, welcome to the party. We should start a support group. As I type this I feel manic. My heart is pounding, my eye is twitching, and it is taking every ounce of self-control I can muster not to walk downstairs and grab a bottle of bourbon.

This morning my will power was strong, I was still high off last night’s accomplishments.  I woke up early, made a delicious breakfast and headed to a class I was actually looking forward to. I was taking a Pilates Rehabilitation where we actually got to use Pilates machines. I have seen the machines before, but never paid much attention to them. Let me tell you, when I first really looked at them, the first thing out of my mouth was “are we about to be water boarded?!” It didn’t help that when I walked over to my machine this notice was on it:

 

This is the actual machine:

I always knew the gym would try and kill you if you gave it the chance. This just confirmed my suspicion. Thankfully, Vicki was instructing and she didn’t let the machines come to life and exterminate their prey like I'm sure they wanted to. I think they trust her as one of their own.

I have taken several classes with Vicki, she is the Director of Group Fitness at ETC and responsible for the group signature classes that I absolutely love. With her I have been lucky enough to take Pound Fit, Body Pump, Pilates, Pole Fit and my absolute favorite, Air Fit (this is the silk scarves that are hanging from the ceiling that you do Yoga with). Vicki has a beautiful way of empowering your femininity that is good for your soul. I will never forget the first time I had a lengthy conversation with her. We had just started S Factor Pole Fitness as one of the group classes at ETC. I had no intention of taking it because I didn’t think I could get my big ass up that pole. Then she started telling me about the philosophy behind S Factor and I was so moved, I was teary eyed. Sure enough, I signed up and was in class the next day. Ladies, I will tell you one thing, if you want to get in touch with your inner goddess, go take an S Factor class. I felt so empowered. It is a beautiful class in a completely judgment free zone. There are ladies of all shapes and sizes and all fitness levels. It really is a lot of fun. It’s good for your soul.

That is one thing I am learning on this journey. You can’t just go hard and train, train, train. You have to do things you enjoy or you will collapse. I needed this Pilates class today for so many reasons. 1. Because I needed to deeply stretch my muscles after these last few days 2. Pilates is an incredible full body workout. 3. It corrects your posture and encourages spine elongation, which I desperately need. 4. It helps you learn how to breath during exercise which I need serious work on. 5 (and most importantly to me) I wanted to be there. I was looking forward to it. The mind/body connection that I feel during Pilates (and yoga) is healing.  I felt awesome when I left the gym!

I spent the next few hours doing things I love. I went and dropped off all the furniture for my client in Arlington, then I decided to treat myself to a stroll around some of my favorite home furnishing stores to see if they had anything new. I came home, grabbed a salad and sat down with my laptop. That is when the crazy came.

I started a battle with Bloggers comment software (the site that hosts this blog) that turned into an all-out war. When it comes to computers, I can figure out a lot of things and ease my way around pretty swiftly; but I kept getting errors and I was doing everything I was supposed to. On queue, I started to panic and go into a tail spin. Thank God Ryan got home, jumped on his computer and fixed the problem. Now, thanks to the Obi-Wan Canole, I have a working comment section. You would think that would have stopped my tailspin… but it didn’t.

When I get into my head like that, I spin and end up going down a rabbit hole of failures. I failed to fix this insignificant problem and all of a sudden I’m failing at everything, being a wife, being a small business owner, being a friend, and succeeding in the challenge. It is all very exhausting and very much bullshit. This is just my demons raising their head trying to keep me down. Well fuck that. I am stronger than that and I refuse to accept failure. There are too many people in my corner and I owe it to myself to be mentally and physically healthy. 

On that note, cheers to you friend, here is to staying awesome and living to see another day. I’ll chat with you tomorrow.