WALLS WITH MIRRORS
I am really stupid. I thought all those frickin' mirrors at the gym were for vanity. But they actually have a purpose far beyond self-admiration.
Sorry, beefcakes, I misjudged you.
I realized this today when I was doing a squatting and extension exercise with a medicine ball. My trainer kept telling me to keep my back straight and to let my weight move through my heels, not through my toes. He told me to keep my chin up and look directly into the mirror. I found this very hard to do at first — to gaze at myself in a mirror with someone watching me. I have always found this hard to do. When I'm in a public restroom and feel the need to mess with my hair or check out my teeth, I can't do it if someone is standing right next to me, even if she is all-out primping and dabbing lipstick and practically saying out loud, "Damn, I look good." Even in the presence of a totally vain person, I can't stand appearing vain, which I'll grant is an even more pathetic kind of vanity.
But I did what my trainer said and looked directly into the mirror. I watched myself, and I saw instantly what I was doing wrong, and by continuing to watch I could keep my form true. What a revelation. With visual aid, versus mere concentration, it's so much easier. I could focus on myself, which is the whole point of this exercise stuff in the first place.
My muscles are sore as heck, but it's a good soreness. It's nice to have such a visceral awareness of your body, to feel not just that you inhabit it but that it's you. It's nice to feel a sheer exhaustion in the limbs that lately I've been feeling only in the brain, from overthinking and worrying and stressing. Today, looking into that mirror, I decided that I'm going to give my mind and all its silly doings a rest — just let it go inert and flabby and take a little break. It's time, I think, for this body to start pulling its weight.
posted by kc @ 8:41 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
What a great photo!
I think it's cool you're getting buff. What kind of basassery will come next?
You are the second person this week who has used the word "basassery" (badassery?) to me, and Joel used the plain "assery" to me — he wrote something droll and then assured me no assery was intended. Is there a movie or something that I missed? I feel all asserybackwards, like I did when people started speaking that wonderfully bizarre Snoop Dogg language.
In any event, the next basassery will be a set of killer abs — some abassery, if you will. At first, my goal was to just shed a few pounds and feel more fit and healthy.
Fuck that.
I want me a washboard.
By the way, I saw Mr. Graphic Artist at the rec center this morning. Oh! Also, I heard a gym-rat girl talking on her cell and she said, "I'm at the rec." Apparently, that's what the kids say.
So I saw K-man at the rec with a 50-pound dumbbell in each hand, lying down, lifting both at once. I don't know if that's impressive in the world of male weight-lifting, but I sure was impressed. Don't tell him.
We had a tete-a-tete at the water fountain. He's rather delightful in a nonwork setting.
I love it. Also, I will be utterly envious if you get a killer six-pack.
Congratulations on your continued exercise success.
Exercise can be meditative. I think that's why so many folks listen to music or watch television or read when they work out -- they are afraid of what might surface if they allow their minds a quiet moment.
And when I say "they," of course I mean "I." I quit going to my last therapist because she was encouraging me to meditate, and I was afraid of the silence.
But silence will be good for me. I have an unquiet mind; perhaps quiet should be my medicine.
Maybe I'll not bring my headphones to the gym tomorrow.
And you really out to have some consideration for this fat man and get buff very slowly. It should take me only a couple of decades to get in shape, and I don't want you doing it first!
I don't think I could be plugged in while exercising — maybe while walking on the indoor track or riding the stationary bike, but for everything else I'd like to be more mentally present. Some people plant themselves on a treadmill with a TV, and it seems so strange.
Oh!
I meant badassery. How odd. I don't know where I picked that up -- surely not Joel.
I think abassery would be the best. Or tightassery, you know, for our future Buttbook site.
I like music when I exercise, except for swimming, of course, but swimming is so pleasant that the time flies by.
TV I don't follow. Whether the rows of people on treadmill are trudging to the news or a soap opera, they look like they're killing two unwelcome tasks at once.
When I worked out on the elliptical machine yesterday, I just stared at the time display.
For the first 15 minutes, I counted the seconds from one to ten over and over.
For the last 15 minutes, I counted from ten to one.
I enjoyed that very much, but I don't know whether I'll want to do it every day.
Tightassery is also a worthy goal.
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