Debrief from The Movement Minneapolis: "Pain pain go away"

Oh the lords of metal and all things emotive in a masculine vain are sure to chortle upon thier thrones as this flagrantly gloom and doomy post is manifest in text.

-Rather than deleting and revising most of the expository portion of this post, i put up that self defending disclaimer.  I'm a goofball with regard to my own introspection.

Enter: The Ozzman
My castles were burning.  No one could help.  Since i asked no one, no one could help.  I was in pain all over and i could hardly deal with my own existence.  I had questions, burning for answers.  I searched my brain, and all that i exposed was my own naked vanity.  Autumn 1992 right there homeboy.

"Why aren't I better yet?"  I have done everything.  Why haven't I gotten better yet?"

It took the deeds of others to make me look elsewhere first, and then within.  Adam T Glass.  frankie Faires.  Josh Hanagarne.  Gary Berenbroick.  All doing things with their bodies and lives that i was in a great spot from which i could attune to their decibals.  I know i did many many push ups in the military and my body was jacked before i entered recruit training, and i know i misused and overused my soft tissue in the name of strength, yet as recently as March/April of this year i had a chiggity chunk of the following list all flared up, and my vessel lobbying for change in an audible scream.  

Timeline:
1995- Car accident
1997 Car accident [continuous back and hip pain from then until now]
2001-Car accident
2002-Sprained wrists
2005-Blown shoulder
2002-2006 continuous neck pain
2007-Sprained ankle
2008-Bicycle accident, sprained wrist
2008-Ventral hernia surgically repaired
2008-Followed Enter The Kettlebell to the letter and got all twisted up. . . .Neck and shoulder pain came back more fierce than ever.
2009- Bicycle accident, sprained wrists again
2009-Blown shoulder
Christmas 2009-Massive lower back sprain while deadlifting.

Autumn 2009-Adam Glass called me and talked to me about pain.
April 2010-I started testing my movements.  And then i had an inguinal hernia repaired surgically.

October 2010-Nearly all injuries have receded and all i have is a talkative back in the mornings.  And when i tell you that as recently as this April, nearly every injury i listed was flaring up to a degree that had me thinking dark thoughts.  Time has come that i talk to you about pain.

I have been wrestling with pain since i was 8 years old.  I have lost many rounds and won a few.  The few i have won are more important than i can convey and what i can tell you is that right now, i am winning.  I am orientated towards 'better'.  I was 8 when my mom's sister came to visit us in Philly from her home in Florida in 1987, we went to a BBQ at a family friend's house.  I ate too much.  I ate Oreo cookies and hot dogs and got sick all over my clean bedsheets when we arrived home and i went to bed.  Donna, in nursing school, came in to be with me.  I was so embarrassed to have vomited all over myself and so unhappy with my parent's constant fighting that i told Donna, through tears, that i hated myself and could not stand life.  Or something like that.  I can't imagine the position an adult must be in when a child close to them, at such an age, says something so heavy.

I had an unhappy childhood.  Big surprise.  Never heard that story before, right?  I am the only one whose ever been less than happy with the way they were brought up.  It certainly seemed that way until about 2 years ago.

Through depression, childhood taunting [no way, in America?], weight gain, injury, and scores of decisions less than forehtought, depression followed me.  The cycle of injury and depression made its way across my life and career so pronounced that i have had several serious 'check out' sessions planned.  Suicide and suicidal are two different things.  I can say that i am neither, i was simply afraid, desperate, and had trapped myself.

When the wolf came to the door, i would go internal.  Lock the doors, eat like crap, not answer the phone.  Snap out of it, come back to life, repeat.  Only with the help of close friends Sarah, Joe & Kia [who just had a baby] did i accept the fact that i get severely depressed and begin to come out of these spells stronger.  After almost losing my Babyluv this year to these cycles of depression and injury did it become clear that i had the choice to avoid pain.  After convincing myself that i was going to live in pain forever, i listened to someone else's story, and then asked myself questions.

Why am i in pain?
What makes it better?
What makes it worse?
What happens to me when the pain goes away?
What happens to me when it gets worse?
And the secondary concern, only to the above concerns is this: What happens to the people in my life when the pain arrives/recedes/amplifies?

It would appear that my friends are not far from suffering, as i would have bet on.  It appears that my pain affects my people, possibly they were in my blast radius.  It would seem that they are much more patient and understanding than i am, as i have literally ditched myself and my own concerns multiple times, considering others through looking back solely when i was at my most desperate.

I received Killswitch Engage "The End Of Heartache" in the mail the very week it was released in 2004.

These days, the path i walk, i walk in with my own resolve.  It is the same road, the same stimuli, i simply deal with it better.  Darkness fell, i was reborn.  Multiple injuries remain, as scars, and memories do.  But i have a different aim now.  Along with being honest and not denying things any more [the origin of my injuries, extended bouts of sadness and despair and the effect they had on others] i know how to take action.  I know how to make myself happy and in some cases, i can view the fallout long before it happens as i have seen it before.  I know me all to well.  And now you do too.

"Chaosidince"
Silverton, Colorado 2010

Maryanne Garvin grew up in 'Jersey and got her orientation early.  MA, at age 19, began working on people's bodies and took her talent and taste and educated herself with experience and liesurely quests.  She enetred a tug o' war in Silverton and busted two ribs.  Her plan to certify as RKC in San Diego was broken as well.  Her and Shicole went to shake thier tail feathers at the Philly RKC and arrived to a welcome as warm as a bucket of yesterday's piss in February.  No team assignments, no name tags, no manuals.  No love!

Shicole took the reigns and hand wrote her and MA's names onto the posted roster for Team Williams.  And so it was.  They both passed the cert and snatch test and while catching their CO vibrartions all weekend, i noticed MA for sure as she took charge of the two ladies who were her assigned "victims".  This chick had "skizzills".  She worked those two women over like an instrument she had been practicing for many moons.  She was clearly an experienced fitness pro.  Not just a fit woman who owned a facility.

For dinner on Sunday night, i tried to rally the troops to a neutral location.  The southeast of PA and west of Philly burbs have a coat of arms and i farggin' represent.  I wanted to take the team to somewhere dope, like The Flying Pig Saloon or Theresa's Next Door.  Yet, the mass of bodies called for a situation better accommodated with an Iron Hill Brewery or like the place we ended up, Champps in King Of Prussia, Pennsylvania.  Dude, if i knew it was going to be Big Will Fish, MA and Shicole only, i would have motioned that we rode in the ladies' rental down to Wayne.  I was expecting the bulk of the team to show up.  I could have lobbied for Anton and Bato to come with us as well.  As it played out, it was the only way it could have been.  MA and i discovered our connection as 'escorts' in this lifetime and continued our association in Minneapolis as i urged her to
I.  Cancel her CKFMS registration
II. Use her non-refundable non-adjustable buddy pass airfare to get to MSP
III. Get educated by Adam Glass while i floated around his training room, The Movement Minneapolis
IV. Have a blast

Friday October 22nd 0430, i clocked a 50.00 cab ride to the airport
-Painless flight to Minneapolis
-Sweetly priced Hotel room
-Great training session with Adam Glass
1.  We took my injuries and specified various positions within the Primal Patterns model to improve upon movements that have been testing well, and movements that have not.
2.  I have no desire to lift kettlebells again anytime soon. I have tested well with very few kettlebell movements, and as Mike T. Nelson noted at dinner on Saturday, i have "associated a lot of bad $#!t with kettlebells
-ATG took us out to Minneapolis.  Kieran's Irish Pub on Hennepin Ave. in Downtown.  Awesome food and great service.  Interesting place to people watch, use tobacco products, and watch the Athlete Creator create the funkiest dance moves this side of Wisconsin.
-From there, after a dinner of braised cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and Ox sausage with leek and mashed potato, we visited Drink.
-It was a daggone freak show.  Maryanne and i are over 30.  No one else in the club was over 30, save the dude who looked like the crypt keeper.

We got home at 0215.  MA and i were smoked.  0800 came up way way way too fast.  But SaturDAY and night were fabulous.  Adam taught Maryanne Day 1 material from Gym Movement Bi0-Mech 1, and damn if he didn't deliver like a freaking pro.

It is my hope that i can be back for the Summit, in early December, and that all the coach candidates who i have not yet met are able to attend the levels II & III Gym Movement education in March of 2011.

Thank you Maryanne and thank you Adam.  And if you have ever been invited to train with Adam in Minneapolis and have not taken advantage of it, i urge you to consider this model.

-Southwest Airlines or Midwest, purchase the flight 3 months in advance if you can.  Air fares are least expensive on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
-Super Shuttle to the hotel nearest The Movement Minneapolis is 26.00 from the MSP airport.  If you can rent a car, do it.  You may want to go downtown or uptown while you are in town.
-Best Western Kelly Inn, Plymouth MN.  0.4 miles from The Movement Minneapolis [Adam's Gym], 3 nights for 290.00.
-There is a Trader Joe's food store 3.2 miles from Best Western.  It is a great place to load up on awesome, cheap, healthy food for your stay.
-Goin' out is fun.  Where other than Minneapolis can you have zero traffic, minimal asshole factor, and get pizza by the slice until 3AM?
-Nowhere, that's where!
-It's The Movement.  You simply must be with one of us to understand.  And we want you there.  We do.  You can help us.  And we can help you.  

File under 'misty water colored memories'.  This was an excellent trip.  Mind you that this was my 10th trip to the twin Cities and your ole' dad here knows his way around.  But get this- i was at once In and OUT of my comfort zone.  Why?

Because i was on the west side of the Mississippi, that's why.  

September 26th 2009

October 23rd 2010