ARE YOU A CHEETAH OR A GORILLA?
Transform, Switch and Incorporate
Golden beige cream covered the sponge edging up my inner thighs where the air compressor had missed spots. Men and women emerged from the pop up tents shimmering with wet spray tan. Everyone was almost exactly the same shade. Leon gazed critically at me like I was a car he was polishing .
“You look alright…” , he announced at last, as he dabbed a spot on my back .
“Just keep doing pull-ups and work the band so you stay pumped. You remember the poses?”, his accent was pure NY. He was broad and dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie from Bev France’s Powerhouse gym- The Mecca. Like most dudes who lifted weights, he had big legs and big arms, so “normie” clothes no longer fit him. The legs of jeans would be too narrow and arms and shoulders of most woven jackets and shirts, too small…His girlfriend Diana had the same issue. I loved all their bodies. I tried to keep from gawking at all the loads of milling bodies, yet that was what we were all here for to show what we had sculpted out of our own flesh. We were created from lifting heavy things, either by ourselves or under the direction of a coach. Leon Wong and Diana Schnaidt were a couple of the best body building coaches/trainers in NYC. They had strange, secret ways of using regular gym machines, barbells and dumbbells to bring out specific muscles and eyes to look objectively at a potential competitor and design a program. They knew how to pose, where to get the best posing suits, what shade of spray tan to get, earrings to wear and heels. Diana had one of those sexy Ukrainian accents. She had transformed her own fashion model body into a muscular, curvaceous, stunning Wonder Woman body. Together they created, on a regular basis, people who did well in bodybuilding NPC ( National Physique Competitions) shows. The process was long, magical, and to me, glorious. Lifting weights and building muscle gave me back a youthful feeling, my life, and my dignity.
I went from a middle-aged housewife, homeschool mom to an 18% body fat , tight, lean, competitor … I loved it. I loved the competitions and the competitors and the camaraderie and the little adjustments and angles to lifting that could carve a muscle. I loved being able to jump and run again and keep up with my kids and their busy schedules. I had never been a cheerleader, a homecoming Queen, or had much success in my attempt at petite modeling. In many ways this competition filled my soul and heart to replace the, “less than feeling”, I often walked around with. In many ways bodybuilding was about validation, belonging, and a, “ healthy narcissism”, as my shrink said.
I paced and chatted. One girl swore eating a pop tart and salted wine right before going on stage popped out all her muscles at the last minute.
I told Leon and he called bullshit to that statement. “If you need a little water take a little, if you need a little food eat your tilapia and greens.”, he said shaking his head and walking away to check on the other nine people who were being coached by him. A redheaded Russian girl, a gorgeous chiseled black man, who was also an economics professor, and six others who I am ashamed to say I can’t remember.
We were all in the zone, feeling otherworldly, from the six weeks of “cutting”. Cutting fat, sugar and carbs from our diet, cutting water from a gallon a day to eight ounces on the day of the contest. Black coffee, no sugar, no milk was also acceptable. My senses were so heightened from the restrictions. I could smell a morsel of meat all the way across the gym. My mouth watered, constantly craving food other than tilapia and broccoli. Sweet potatoes tasted like the richest dessert… bones on my face appeared that had been hidden in fluffy fat that had disappeared and I felt slightly creaky and dry. My body… felt light and tight, so the discomfort was worth it.
Competitors numbered in the 100’s. Eight divisions… for both genders. Four for women: bikini( the least amount of muscle), figure ( a medium amount of muscle), physique ( the most amount of muscle) plus the fitness girls who did routines that included dance, cheer , extreme calisthenics and some acting and cos-play thrown in. I was a garden variety figure girl.
Many wanted an IFBB(International Federation of Bodybuilding) card to enable them to compete in the Arnold Fitness Exposition held once a year in Columbus, Ohio or the Ms.Olympia competition held in Las Vegas. Only ONE person got an IFBB card per category. It usually took lots of small competitions, showing your face and your improvements to get there. My coach Diana Schnaidt had gotten her IFBB pro-card already.
There were further breakdowns of groups into ages, height and combining everyone into a mishmash. I entered the open and the masters (translation- older). I came in 5th in masters and 8th in overall. I felt overwhelmed with total gratitude to have done so well on my second attempt. I felt hooked.
Yet there was trouble in my paradise. I was also doing a yoga certification with a very critical teacher, who in my perception, alternately ridiculed me or challenged me. Sometimes, she would announce to the class that I was a bodybuilder. Then direct my classmates to look at me to see how long I could hold a pose and if I failed she would jeer and sneer at me. My little tempest in a yoga studio teapot. Definitely a first world problem. I had a love/hate feeling about yoga. Dominated by white women in expensive fitness gear and politically correct to the extreme, I was having a hard time jockeying into any core group in yoga.
Affable, and liking most people, I usually could manage to make confidantes and friends, pretty easily in any group. I genuinely enjoyed and loved most people . Yoga was different. Many of them were formal, very well-educated and fairly elitist. The price tag for a yoga teacher training shut out many people. My credit card debt had gone up pursuing yoga. My motives had been good -a desire to help my clients, as a personal trainer but I had not counted the many costs or challenges of that particular journey.
Of course, since many of them didn’t warm up to me, I wanted to belong more. “I don’t want to belong to any group that would accept me as a member…” Groucho Marx , that was my masochistic motto.
My boss had said , “ Where you going with this yoga shit?”.
Leon and Diana had said to switch yoga schools. They surmised the teacher was probably nuts, with “issues” and made circular finger movements by their ears. They were right, but she had specific knowledge and if I had to become a bowing, scraping sychophant to get information, I would.
Urdhva Danurasana- aka — backbend was my nemesis. Yoga teacher would say , “ Wallace , your shoulders are too tight, stop it, don’t force it…”,I would slit my eyes, grit my teeth and PUSH into it. I felt like my arms would rip out of their sockets. I would collapse on my back , exhausted, feeling old and defeated. No one could connect the dots, in a way I could understand. Even a generous, ex-gymnast, trainer co-worker who was very sweet couldn’t get me there. The answers to this pursuit and many, many other subjects are the same two solutions that kept popping up again and again- TIME and PRACTICE.
Books, books and more books have to be read by wanna-be yogis. Not about fitness either … eye roll… but about philosophy, breathing ( whole multitudes of books on BREATHING!), chakras, energy channels and “ love”… ugh. I was feeling and growing increasingly annoyed. These snake oil, sales people, these con-artist hustler yogis, they may as well be passing around a collection plate they were so preachy and sanctimonious. I would mutter curse words under my breath, as the head of the yoga studio in Chelsea walked by. What had happened to me? Why wasn’t the loving-kindness meditation working on me? I had just been taught it by one of her many henchmen. I was paying good plastic money to sit at the feet of these luminaries.
Yet , I WOULD have moments of total peace after some yoga classes I took with her despite my cynicism and doubts. Feeling PEACE, pulled me like spider silk tendrils that looked very tiny but were very strong.
I felt stunned at the audacious tales in some assigned books. “The Autobiography of a Yogi”, was an old classic, published 1946. The guy writes about his search for a teacher -a guru. He encounters one yogi who was also a fighter (like a former day UFC fighter) and he made money that way, along with fighting tigers. PETA ( people for ethical treatment of animals) were not around back then… ha ha. So one of these tigers he fights, rips his arm off and the yogi grabs his arm out of the tiger’s mouth, presses it back onto the gaping, wound ,where his arm had once been attached to his torso, and BOOM, after meditating for an indeterminate amount of time, he is HEALED! Arm intact, tons of people following him, he had become a healer and a, “God man”. I read the Sutras of Patanjali,(written between 200–400 C.E.). I encountered more wild tales of superhero feats such as flying through the air and becoming invisible. I was starting to feel embarrassed reading this irrational, unscientific stuff but yet I am drawn by the peaceful feeling so much I want to BELIEVE.
I kept weight lifting. I realized I was walking with less length in my stride, my shoulders were tight and my body felt like I had clothes on that were a couple sizes too small, even when I was naked. Now, I know I had created my problem by not getting enough mobility work in and not stretching enough. That was the gold in yoga, amongst other benefits. Yoga was reversing my transformation into a mini-gorilla who was very strong but not super mobile into cheetah potential. I am not knocking gorillas. Gorillas are 6x stronger than humans!! Strength is a wonderful asset but cheetahs are FAST… I am not a cheetah yet but I have a ghost of cheetah power sometimes.Cheetahs have the longest stride of any animal for their size, that gives them their speed. The ability to tap into both of those types of power are needed for balance. It takes the right balance and dosage in a fitness prescription to get there.
Diana is more like a panther than a cheetah and Leon is like a greek statue of Hercules. They accomplished for me what I had desired. I want more though. I am still working on what animal I will transform into, I will keep you posted.
