i am feeling very tough today. yesterday i went to the gym and did my program again and managed to do the whole thing (minus 1 set of pushups – i’m working up to 3 sets of 12 but am only capable of 2 sets of 8. don’t tell max). i am SO tough. by the time i got to the stretches, i was flying on my endorphine rush (a little reward for toughing it out) and really enjoying myself.
it’s crazy, isn’t it?
then lamby had to go and bring me down to earth with
a) a little talk about how weights are bad and all you need’s your own body weight to really work out;
b) declaring that pushing yourself past your pain limit is the only way to really get the most out of your routine, and
c) flipping me around his waiste in a curb-side demonstration of the lamp post aerial, so i could not only feel his iron-hard muscley body 360 degrees in under 3 seconds, but also experience a demonstration of how effective working with your own body weight is in increasing strength.
now, i cleverly countered his point a) with my points
i) where i argued that yes, i know that about the body weight thing – that’s why i do yoga and
ii) where i declared that i like using the weights and machines and things because it’s a safe, supervised way for me to learn proper weight lifting technique, show off my ‘muscles’ and get away from the thesis. i followed with
iii), arguing that it also prevents me from doing silly things like working out til i pass out as did certain thai chi masters who have recently flipped around their favourite hamface.
i then followed up with a refute to his point b) with my points
i) that working to the point of pain seems dangerous and injury-causing, esp when you’re just a baby,
ii) that i want to enjoy going to the gym, so i’ll go back and
iii) max told me not to.
there was no response for point c) rather than to suddenly develop a counter-intuitive and somewhat disturbing enthusiasm for learning aerials as a follow. wrong, wrong, wrong, i know, but still. he’s very strong and it’s very exciting.
you might wonder what lamby and i were doing playing ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ on the side of the road after midnight on a thursday night.
well, it seems The Squeeze’s little sister had broken down on vic parade. i say ‘little’ because she really is – only up to my breast bone and she’s younger than he is. she’s also the other fittest person i know, who teaches aerobics (recent title holder for the ’13 classes in 7 days’ … title), was the ‘best of the best’ winner year before last, where she scared the pants off us with incredible aerials, and demonstrated that being little, a former gymnast and very good at scrunching your center is actually useful.
so we were waiting on the side of the road after dancing at cbd, lamby and i one-upping each other with feats of physical prowess (i got up on the trunk of his car using only my bare hands), The Squeeze presenting his little sister with a very sexy new – and very little – digital camera. just right for her little hand, and the RACV man on his way to give us a lecture about dissy’s.
this is not the first time lamby and i have waited on the side of the road with a friend while their car fussed and acted broke. i remember lamby and i working on the bows for our swingouts in carlton one night while cammy wrestled with his temperamental station wagon.
it seems that my learning to lead has sparked a degree of competitiveness in lamby, and in myself. a sort of productive, spurring-us-on-to-excellence competitiveness, rather than an eye-scratching, pushing-yourself-past-your-pain-barrier sort of competitiveness.
it’s all to our benefit, anyways, as, when i declared ‘i’ll learn how to do aerials and then i’ll throw you around, ok?’, lamby promised:’yeah, and i’ll let you’. we are agreed.
it’s lucky he’s not only incredibly taut, but also little.
