Other than the whole law school thing, the biggest development in my life has been entrance into the world of Olympic Weightlifting. Now this isn’t power lifting and it isn’t body-building. This is the real deal. Lifts as old as time. Technique above all. Fast twitch muscles. Don’t get it twisted, the men and women who are good at this stuff are incredibly strong, but it’s about much more than strength. The assistant coach isn’t a big guy. He’s dense. And he’s oh-so-fast.
The sport consists of two lifts: the clean and jerk and the snatch (laugh it up). I spend 6-8 hours a week working on what amounts to two motions. We do more than just competition lifts in training. We squat in various ways and do presses and push-ups and pull-ups. But it’s all in the service of the two competition lifts. I think about it the way I think about Yoga. The concentration is intense, but this isn’t a sport about thinking. It’s about moving past concepts, past strategy, past any kind of plan. It’s an attempt to get your mind and your body to act like the whole that they are. In Yoga this is done through deliberate motions and concentrating on release and body position. Olympic lifting is all about setting and then moving as fast you can in one fluid motion until you have an incredibly large amount of weight over your head. When the best lifters move you can hardly see it. There are lots of discreet motions, but when they happen together it looks effortless (contrast this to folks doing deadlifts).
I’m a big fan of sounds and this sport has two of them. First, you wear platform shoes with solid heels (to keep you straight when you are in the full squat position and to give you something push off of when you stand up). The lifts are done on wooden “platforms” (not actually raised) and when you lift you come up on your toes on the pull and slam your heals onto the wood when get under and catch the weight (it goes into free fall when you get under it). The sound is a snap of the best kind. Second, the weights covered in rubber, so you get to drop them when you complete the lift. Few things are more satisfying than tossing 180 lbs from 8 feet.
Our internet has been crapping out on us, so it’s been difficult to post. My apologies.
I saw Reign Over Me yesterday. I’m a big fan of Mike Binder, who also wrote and directed the criminally overlooked and under-appreciated The Upside of Anger. Reign is a fine film that doesn’t often resort to sentimentality while dealing with the tremendously difficult problems of loss and mental illness.
I feel like I’ve been writing about entertainment lately, so I’ll just recommend the film and leave it there.
In other news, I’ve joined the adult swim team. Practice is Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 6:00-7:00…AM. I’ve only been to two practices (I overslept on Friday), so my body is not acclimated. I have a good workout and then feel tired at about 10:00 AM and again at 3:00 PM. I then come home and take a nap. On Monday I came home, put the laundary in the washing machine, went to lift weights, and then played raquetball for an hour. It was a mistake that left me nauseous for the rest of the night. Wednesday isn’t a weights day, so I was able to just take a nap and then feel good for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow I’ll swim in the morning and go to the gym in the evening, but absolutely no racquetball.
I forgot just how powerful it is to practice with other people. On my own I would never have been able to swim 900 meters, but when I’ve got some one in front of me and behind me, I’m a machine. I’m the youngest person there, so I’m faster than everyone, but I have little in the way of endurance and my stroke goes to hell after a couple hundred meters. This will improve in a month or two and then I’ll be unstoppable (until I go to a meet and have to race people my age). The coach seems pretty good. He wasn’t there on Monday, but on Wednesday we had a good practice with lots of distance. Monday and Wednesday is long course (50 meter, Olympic length lanes) and Fridays is short course (25 yard, high school length lanes). Long course is preferable because on any given length you get to swim about 43 meters, whereas on a short course you’re down to 36 for two lengths (turning takes from your actual swimming distance due to gliding, plus, it adds flip-turns, which are tiring). Once school is out it will be long course all three days.
It feels good to be in the pool. The workout is tiring, but you know that you’ve used just about every muscle in your body. I especially love the scent of cholorine that hangs in your nostrils even after you’ve showered. This is at its best when you walk home (something I don’t have the time to do in the mornings, but can do on weekends) and then walk into an air-conditioned room (it’s too cold for that, plus we don’t have air-conditioning). Coming back from the pool or beach in the middle of the afternoon was always one of my favorite parts of college. During my first January ISP I would walk down to Old Caples and spend hours making game trees for my project. If it was warm enough (above 70), I’d walk out into the water. It would take about fifteen minutes for me to get up to my waist, my body slowly acclimating to the cold water. I’d drink in the perfect view of the bay from this vantage. Old Caples is nestled alongside a small point. With the water three feet from my eyes and the sun reflecting off the water, it was paradise. Blue skies. Then I’d tense my body, count to three, and take the plunge.
The walk home was also nice. I’d air-dry on my way back to an empty dorm room and drink in the stale air. A quick shower and then I’d DJ a game of VirtuaTennis with Ben and Brian.
Filed under: Bank, Cooking, Excercise, Horse-Play, People Watching, Weather, Work
I got a job today. I will be the executive assistant to the CFO for Los Alamos National Bank. The pay is OK and the benefits are really nice. Now I can start paying rent!
One of the best parts of working for the bank is that you get a free membership to the YMCA, the gym across the street from my apartment, and the aquatic center down the street. I've decided that this means that I should train for a triathlon.
I just returned from Smith's (the supermarket across the street) where I was treated to the wonderful sights of last minute Valentine's Day shopping. The carts were filled with alcohol and hunks of meat. The flower section had no fewer than six guys crowding the sole female employee. Each had a look of panic and confusion on his face as they handled boxes of bad chocolate and gazed at half-dead flowers. For my part, I had a dozen roses delivered and I'm cooking what I hope will be a delicious meal of salmon and shrimp steamed in a nice, vaguely Asian, broth.
Beki got home little early today and we went out to play in the snow. We put on black gloves so that we could catch and see individual snowflakes. They're small, but really amazing when you see one all on its own. We then had an epic snowball fight. Tonight Beki will make homemade chocolate truffles. We experimented last weekend and they came out pretty well. I look forward to gaining a few pounds over the next 24 hours.
