“What is this fresh hell?” – Guest post!

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Today’s post comes to you from my training partner Rage Butterfly. She and I both podiumed at California’s Strongest Woman (women…wimmin really) in April and are training to compete at Nationals this September. Here’s Rage Butterfly’s take on her training progress!

I just spent way too much time wading through the Internet freak show, keyword “women and bulging neck veins”.  I could care less about my own bellowing and Jim Carrey faces while working out, but the THING that popped out of my neck today while deadlifting was seriously alarming.  You know that ropey kind of vein that looks something like this?

Well, actually, mine doesn’t vibe like that at all, just in shape only.  I wish this new vein was quietly confident, patient, profoundly forceful.

Ah, nope. This vein is thinly-veiled agitation, testing the boundary of my fragile sun-damaged neck skin.   I could see it bulging out in the mirror from across the gym.  The meandering form is so beautiful in a river, yet surely portends imminent death in a human neck, yes?

”Don’t  hold your breath, your veins will pop.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“You don’t really need to be that strong, why push it?”

I picked up a barbell for the first time about three years ago, and really, lifting has only taken off in the last year for me.  With zero background in strength sports and a fairly cautious, phlegmatic nature, I am in a constant state of alarm over the trauma and odd adaptations that happen to bodies that regularly pick up very heavy, awkward objects.  So, I exercised due diligence and waded through enough information online to mollify my concern that I would exsanguinate through my neck the next time I sneezed.   (You might think I tend toward the dramatic.  In fact, I am fairly stoic.  I’m simply highly susceptible to imagery, and what kept coming to mind was the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail.  At least it made me laugh.)

Ah, but I digress.  Some of you may still be reading this in the desperate hope that you just might find out some useful information for your training.   Well, let’s see.   Ropey neck veins aparently have something to do with the musculature getting bigger and kind of pushing the veins out to the surface, and then if you don’t have much fat to cover the spectacle, you’ve got yourself a bulging neck vein!  Congratulations.  It apparently won’t kill you, and it generally goes back into its cave when you’re not playing so hard.

Perhaps this is more useful?   The last time I PR’d my deadlift I actually felt as quietly confident as that meandering river above.  For several months I had been putting down layer after layer of imagery, mentally rehearsing what I wanted to happen in those particular five seconds of competition at California’s Strongest Woman in April.   I had actively practiced being open to the possible magnitude of the lift.  When I stepped up to the bar, the lift had essentially already happened in my mind, hundreds of times.

I’ve been fishing about for a working image to get my head wrapped around Strongman Nationals this September.  So today’s little vascular drama has conveniently given me an opportunity to welcome in a new mental picture I can use in the coming months to build up my head game.

This river is a powerful meanderer.

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.  -Ranier Maria Rilke

Watch Rage Butterfly kick ass at CSW 2018!

Introducing: Log clean and press!

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Here is a video of me doing my first set of 3×8 log clean & press (“press” in this case means “get it overhead any way possible”) at 70% of my one rep max.

I do one clean and 8 jerks here, because we’re working on building my overhead strength for contest. My current 1 rep max in log clean and press is 105#, and the log at contest will be 120#.

That’s a long way to go.

A friend asked me, “How is a log different than the regular barbells?” I thought it was a great question that maybe others have, so I’ll share my answer here.

The log is different from a barbell in several ways. First of all, imagine a giant car muffler trying to strangle and crush you. Another friend wondered if it could double as a meat smoker. (Answer: Probably!) After a while, the barbell starts to feel more like a conductor’s baton than an actual weight-bearing implement.

Physically, the log itself is a giant 10 inch cylinder which, in order to hold in the rack position (on your chest between jerks/presses), you have to bend your back and look straight up at the sky. This requires a lot of thoracic mobility and a different orientation for your balance. When pressing with a barbell, you can look straight ahead of you at a fixed point; the sky doesn’t really have that. I once saw a crow flying with a cracker in its mouth, but usually it’s just blue sky ahead. That makes the balance piece much more challenging. Not to mention, the weight is positioned much farther in front of you, so it’s imperative that you keep your elbows high. Otherwise, the log will tip forward, and it will become extremely difficult to press up.

Then, when you’re pressing a log, you’re doing a much bigger loop around your head than you would with a barbell. In fact, with a barbell, you want to minimize the looping around your head by pulling your head back and out of the way. Pressing the bar straight up is key to utilizing the larger muscles in your back and not just the smaller arm and shoulder muscles. The log prevents you from doing this, however, because you’re already in a slight backbend in the rack, so you can’t pull your head back any further. It simply requires a lot more strength in a very awkward position.

And finally, there’s the psychological piece. When you’re in that rack position, you might feel like the log is trying to choke you out. It’s hard to breathe in a backbend with a heavy implement pressing down on your chest and neck. As coach Patrick says, “The log is trying to kill you. Don’t let it!”

For comparison’s sake, my most recent barbell jerk max is 143# (tested in February), and my current log jerk max is 105# (tested in April). So you can see the major difference in weight, at least for me at this point.

Here’s to making it to 120# for reps by September!!

Titanic Lifting: Another name for Strongman

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Just a quick note to share a thought I had a while back while training.

As it stands, the sport I’m currently competing in is called Strongman. Sometimes, if the competitors are all women, it’s called Strongwoman. But neither of these sit right for me for reasons I’ve already explained.

So a few months ago, I thought of a better name for Strongman: “Titanic Lifting”. It’s a bit clunky, perhaps, but the name comes from Atlas himself. A Titan who lost the war with the Olympians, Atlas was forced to spend eternity holding the sky upon his shoulders. Now we pick up concrete stones, call them Atlas stones, and lift them onto a platform for time.

We have Olympic lifting, right? Why not Titanic lifting?

Check out a piece I wrote about Atlas stones and psychoanalysis here, which is where the name “Titanic Lifting” first came to me. As always, I’m curious about your thoughts. Feel free to message me here.

Last chance for t-shirts!

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Just a quickie note to let you know that if you want one of these FABULOUS shirts with our slogan “float like a rage butterfly / sting like a tenacious bee” (with deep appreciation to Muhammad Ali) they will be selling until July 18, and then they will be GONE!

LINK HERE: TEESPRING

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Buy a shirt and help Rage Butterfly and Tenacious Bee get to Nationals! Plus you’ll look fabulous.

How I balance life with training

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In a recent post, I talked about how I have turned exercise from a form of self-punishment into something that provides me with containment, self-care, and encourages self-love. That transformation did not come easily, and there were several things I learned in the process. I’d like to share with you the most important lessons I have learned so far.

  • I pick a sustainable schedule for my lifestyle, including times of the day and days of the week, and stick to that. Even if all I can muster on the day-of is showing up and stretching, I stick to it. If I find that I consistently am unable to stick to that schedule, or it’s burning me out, it’s not the right schedule for me. I’ve discovered that some of the best gains are had with a 3- or 4- day a week schedule because I have time to recover (that’s where the muscles are made anyway).

  • If I wake up in the morning feeling headachey, sick, stressed out, exhausted, or starving, I take a day off. I eat well and abundantly. If I have a food craving, I satisfy it. I stay in bed instead of go to the gym. I take an epsom salt bath. If I can, I go for a walk in nature. I go to analysis if it’s scheduled. I write. I take it slow and easy. I eliminate extra things in the day like social events and errands that are unnecessary. I drink lots of water and consume sodium. I drink electrolytes. I have learned that this is what overtraining feels like in my body, and it is communicating to me that I am over-doing it.  I have learned how to listen to that message and take it seriously.

  • If I don’t “feel like” going to the gym, I go anyway. I train anyway. *This is a different feeling than the overtraining feeling of actually being sick and headachey and starving. The “I don’t feel like it” is more of an emotional experience than a physical one, though it may have physical manifestations. It has taken me YEARS to figure out the difference, but now that I know, I am always honest with myself about which feeling it actually is and respond accordingly.

  • I remember the long game. If I am actually training for a competition, I commit in advance to an exercise and recovery protocol with my coach who works specifically with me to track my body’s response to my program. If there is no competition, I am not training: I am exercising. Exercising is for well-being and health and to support everything else in my life. Showing up at the gym becomes about building on something for the long haul. I remember that if I lower my intensity but keep showing up, my work will accumulate and I will have more strength and skill down the road.

  • The number one thing for me as a Masters athlete and as someone with a very stressful job is to prioritize recovery. I keep a workout schedule that gives me built-in days off to rest so my body can make use of the work I’ve put in. A consistent couple of days off can do wonders for my long-term health and my performance at the gym.

  • This also includes eating. If I’m training for a competition, I do my best to keep my diet abundant with plenty of protein, a variety of carbs, and my favorite fats to keep me satiated and to keep the food delicious. I do my best to cut out most alcohol and sweets and chips unless I am in a position where the craving is sending me a message about giving myself what I need. I don’t see cravings as bad. I see cravings as a communication that I am not getting enough of something. IT IS OKAY TO HAVE ENOUGH. On this note, I take the time to food prep once a week so that I have a better chance of feeling like I always have enough. This feels to me like a form of self-love: To provide myself enough of what I need.

For me, over time and trial and error I have found activities and sports that I enjoy and will keep putting the work into. Sometimes I go through cycles: Swimming in the summer, squatting more in the winter, more CrossFit in the spring, a couple of weeks completely off in the dead of winter. There are so many things to do with your body! I’ve learned that what you love and enjoy may change as you change and grow. It’s an ever-evolving relationship with movement and your body. Soak it up as best you can while you can.

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Sometimes, for those of us who drink, a beer is absolutely necessary. Pictured: A beer with a large foam head next to the book “Killers of the Flower Moon”

From “exercise as punishment” to “exercise as self-care”

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(content warning: references to disordered eating and self-punishment)

I am often asked, “How do you find the time to exercise?” I think this question comes from folks who are busy, just like me, but who also maybe expect exercise to be a bummer and uncomfortable, something they “should” do rather than something they want to do. It’s easy for these cultural messages, like fat-shaming messages and obesity concern-trolling (“I’m just worried about your health!”) to turn something that could be fun and enjoyable into something punishing.

If we go beyond these critical cultural messages about “diet and exercise” being the gateway to a moral and worthy existence, we can find that there are so many ways to have a body and so many ways to move it. To me, choosing something that is enjoyable, gives me positive feedback, offers a community, shows me growth over time, and that I can commit to consistently has been the best way for me to “find the time” to exercise.

It took me several years to find a kind of movement that I enjoyed doing. In that process, I also began learning a practice of self-care through developing protective boundaries that support me doing what I choose to do with my body. One of those boundaries is to make a sincere commitment to myself to show up for myself. For me, that means committing to my gym schedule unless I am overtrained, overstressed, or need to compromise for work or family.

My ideal gym schedule is somewhere between 3-5 days per week depending on what the rest of my life requires from me and what I feel I can commit to, and so that is what is programmed for me. I’ve tried anywhere from 3-7 days per week, and I’m at my happiest when I commit to four days a week and give myself bonus days if I feel up to it. I will adjust this frequency depending on what else is happening in my life, such as stress, travel, or work and home obligations, but unless I am severely ill/injured or on vacation, I have a commitment to myself that I trust my program and show up as planned.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE HERE: I do this not because I think I’m “bad” if I don’t go to the gym. I do this because of how much of my self I have invested in my lifting. My community is there. I can see proof of my work making me stronger. Lifting gives me consistent feedback only when I consistently show up and put in the work. I need this feedback in my life, and over time I have benefitted from it.

My history with exercise is complicated. As a young person, I enjoyed moving my body.  As an adult, going to the gym turned into a form of punishment. It became a painful experience of taking out all my hatred of myself onto my body. I would also use exercise to punish myself for eating too much. Yes- I have a history of disordered eating and body dysmorphia. While I won’t get into the details of that, I will say that weightlifting and CrossFit coupled with intuitive eating and psychoanalysis have transformed my punitive and self-destructive mind by helping me understand my relationship with myself, and opening up new options for interacting with my body besides self-hatred and self-punishment.

Eating, exercise, and training can actually be containing, supportive, encouraging experiences, and can offer me positive feedback and a sense of wellness and goodness. I’m so fortunate to have discovered this! But I did not stumble upon it by accident. I realized over the course of a couple of years of exercise-as-punishment that how I was approaching my body was unsustainable, and only served to reinforce my self-loathing.

Psychoanalysis gave me the freedom and psychic space to heal, and I could begin to give myself permission to make different choices about how I approached exercise. Now, lifting has become a space where I have committed to taking care of myself. It has given me an opportunity to trust the process. I have seen amazing strength and skill gains through my programming, but the programming only works if I stick with it.

My commitment to training is different from my commitment to exercise. When there is a competition coming up, I train for that. I made certain trade-offs in the rest of my life to prioritize training. But when there is not a competition on the horizon, my goals and commitments are different. For example, at the moment I am on summer break from my doctoral program, so I have a lot more time to commit to training. Once school begins again after my contest, I know my priorities will shift. At that time, I expect that my focus in the gym will be continue increasing my strength, but at a slower pace since I will have much less time to train and to recover than I do now. During the school year, I will focus more on exercise to support my life as a therapist and student rather than on the intensity of training and competition, which sucks up a lot of psychic and emotional space (not to mention 12-15 hours a week of actual gym time).

In my next post, I’ll share with you some things that have worked for me to keep myself consistent and accountable. Until then, I hope if there’s one thing you remember is that this is all a process. This is your life. Life itself is a process, one which unfolds and shifts and grows and evolves. There is only one final outcome, and that’s death, so everything else is simply a part of being an alive human being. You are always learning! You will make mistakes as you learn! And if you pay attention to your wins and your errors, and don’t let the shame monster gobble you up, I believe you can learn how to live your life in the best way that works for you.

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My cat srsly knows how to self-care. We can all learn a lot from hanging out with my cat.

A gender discussion

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I’ve always struggled with the gender divide in sports. As a person who sometimes identifies as a woman, and sometimes more on the masculine end of the spectrum, and mostly something else or in-between, but am cis-female passing, I struggle with gender binaries in general. But this kind of bullshit here reinforces my frustration with separating competitive sports by sex:

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notice the difference in winnings? *cough* BULLSHIT *cough*

I’ve heard the very accurate and important argument that prior to Title IX, there was no equity for women in competitive sports. (See the picture to the left to remind you that we still have a long way to go.) I totally get, and agree, that having a men’s and women’s division is actually really important in establishing equal access to competitive and recreational athletics. I totally support this. But the problems that gender flexible, transgender and non-binary athletes face in regards to how their gender is determined by competition organizers, and thus how and whether they can participate in competitive sports, bothers me.

A typical argument about why a transgender woman shouldn’t be allowed to compete with cisgender women goes like this: “Well she has a biological advantage because of her testosterone levels!” In fact, a trans woman who has undergone hormone therapy has about as much estrogen and testosterone as your “average” cis woman. And goodness knows each woman has a different hormone balance anyway regardless of her sex assignment at birth. (Check out this article by Washington Post with further links.)

But, I think what bothers me more is that there is a gender binary in these sports at all. It’s hard when every time I sign up for a competition I have to choose between genders, neither of which fit me. I get that women have a position in competitive sport because of the tremendous power and force from my ancestors like Billie Jean King, Althea Gibson, and Kathrine Switzer. These women fought for (cisgender) women to have increased access to sports traditionally populated by cisgender men. Just as we used to expect only men to participate in most sports, we have now come to expect a gender binary. So, yes, massive change has occurred; but we still have a long way to go before there is gender justice in sport.

This is where cisgender women (and cis-passing “women” like me who are comfortable-ish enough in our cis-passing bodies most of the time) have leverage. For decades we have had access to sports that have traditionally been reserved for cis men (though still with inequitable cash payouts in some sports). Cisgender women are in a powerful position to advocate for inclusivity when it comes to our trans siblings. It’s up to us to continue to fight for inclusion and equity for all people wishing to compete in this sport.

And, to speak to the picture above: When we are fighting solely against the patriarchy and the misogyny of the oppressor, we limit our fight. We also have to fight for something, for inclusivity, and we can do this by remembering our wins and that we have a lot of wins left to make for true equity in sport. We can do this by continuing to fight for cisgender women making the same amount of money cisgender men make in our athletic (and other) careers, AND use our platforms to leverage those of us who are not making anything at all, because the folks who can’t fit into someone else’s idea of the gender binary are not allowed to compete.

Culture and community can provide safety, structure, shared experience, and connection. But many cultures, including cultures of sport, can become exclusive and insular. With the emergence of CrossFit (which is a notoriously white space on the elite level), some women are increasingly likely to feel socially permitted to be strong, muscular, and physically powerful. But in addition to being a primarily white sport, CrossFit is also a heavily gender-binary sport, and historically has not allowed out trans athletes to compete on the elite level.

I hope we can bust through the binary in strength sports by being thoughtful about our positions and privileges when it comes to gender, and advocate for folks who are still trying to get access to competition space.

I’m super interested in hearing from trans and non-binary athletes to hear your experiences in sport, and your thoughts about what I’m saying here and what I can do better to improve access to sporting spaces and eliminate bias and divide. Feel free to email me privately through my contact page.

Some Frustrations about Weight Classes

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(Content warning: FUCKING DIETS and cursing)

I am a late bloomer to athletics. Well, okay, actually I was on the swim team and a sprinter when I was young, but once the boobs started to happen, I basically refused to get into a swimsuit. Body dysphoria is REAL, folks, talk to your kids.

So it took me another twenty years or so to start exercising again. I began with running, which got me high (WIN), but started to wear on my body. I found an awesome bootcamp in Berkeley (Phoenix Fitness, Kelly Mills is my hero, I don’t know if she knows that though, I’m coming out with my love for you right now!) and actually made a few friends that I still see to this day.

Though the bootcamp was awesome, it left me wanting more in the realm of brute strength. I wanted to get strong and lift heavy. I discovered I wasn’t super into the long endurance cardio- which makes sense, since physically I’ve always been more of a sprinter than a marathoner (while mentally and emotionally, I know how to endure). So I found a CrossFit box that had opened up nearby just a few months earlier, and reveled in the phallic majesty of the barbell.

(Yeah, I know, CrossFit is cardio too, but I can handle 10 minutes of pull ups and cleans much better than a 45-minute bootcamp.)

I have done several CrossFit competitions, but none of them have involved weight classes. I’ve also participated in four annual Strengthlifting contests where my weight was used for calculating my Wilks score but not for determining how much I was allowed to lift. And being only quasi-competitive, I was just thrilled to participate and see if I could beat my own records each year.

This Strongman contest in September, however, does involve weight classes. And it’s not the kind of weight classes where you are simply compared to others of your weight class, sort of like they do with Master’s age folks. (I’m compared with others in the 40+ range, rather than with 20 year old whippersnappers).

No, no, that would be too simple and stress-free!

Instead, the weight we are required to carry/lift for our events is dependent on how much each athlete weighs. So all the physical prep I’m doing right now is to get me in a position to be strong enough to lift in the Lightweight class, which is not where I generally sit in my healthy happy emotionally stable place. Essentially, I have to cut weight to get into the weight class I have an iota of hope of becoming strong enough for.

Cutting weight while getting strong is generally not indicated. It’s kind of a bummer, actually.

It’s humbling to consider, every day, that all my training is based on the hope that I can cut weight to make this weight class. Which goes against two very important truths: If you want to get stronger, it’s best to eat more, and DIETS ARE FUCKED UP AND THEY ARE MEANT TO MAKE YOU FEEL SHITTY ABOUT YOURSELF. Also who the fuck wants to feel hungry when you’re trying to get strong and powerful? DOES NOT COMPUTE

But, this is where I find myself today. I have a lot of feelings about this, and SO MUCH MORE TO SAY about the intersections of self-worth, body size, taking up space, cultural expectations, restriction, personal choice, body modification, and disordered eating. So stay tuned…

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A typical meal while cutting. Pretty damn tasty, actually.

That feeling when you “get it”

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My hip extension is the WORST.

I mean, it’s no coincidence that when I dance I look like a robotic amoeba. I have no hip flexibility!

A lot of that is due to over-active hip flexor issues from an under-active glute and hamstring duo, which I’m working on with my physical therapist. But I can’t get a stone or a sandbag to platform if my life depended on it. My hips are just like, “Not today honey! How about some ice cream?”

But, today, I got it. That bag flew over that bar, and my hips and glutes worked together. Hips, glutes- you really showed up for me, friends. Thank you. It feels good to have you on my team.

When showing up for civil liberties and human rights takes priority over training

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As you can probably tell, getting to Nationals well-prepared is super important to me. I consider my training a part-time job and am as committed to my work in the gym as I am to my work as a therapist. Inside me, they take up the same quality of space and energy, and I am equally as dedicated to being a good therapist as I am to being a good lifter.

But sometimes, the rights of the greater community take precedence. I recognize that I work, lift, love, play, and persevere in a society that is unjust and commodified, where the prison industrial complex profits off the mass incarceration of primarily black and brown people, and where borders and nations are increasingly rigid and punitive, while body sovereignty is eroding. When families seeking refuge are being torn apart, I will speak up.

On Saturdays, I usually train Strongman events with my team and during open gym. It’s the one time of the week when I see my community and can get support with the lifts and implements that are more challenging to set up. I benefit from the experience of the group, and our diverse ways of approaching challenging experiences. And because I work full-time while pursuing a doctorate degree in psychoanalysis, I have limited hours during which I can practice some of these more uncommon lifts.

However, this past Saturday, I chose to skip my Strongman class even though it meant I would have to modify my training program for the week and potentially skip some of the programming. It’s a small tradeoff, really, to exercise my privilege to attend the Families Belong Together demonstration outside the West County Detention Center in Richmond, CA. It is my civil right to demonstrate, and when someone organizes against oppression and injustice, I will do my best to show up.

Around five thousand of us positioned ourselves in the parking lot of the detention center, sandwiched between manzanita bushes, the sparkling bay waters, and the two-story cement jail. Dozens of police officers stood in the shade of the beige building while thousands of us chanted, “Families Belong Together!” Music, posters, revolutionary messages, personal stories of immigration detention and the appellate process, and protest speeches moved my heart.

Boundaries between people keep us healthy. Borders between nations are fictional and arbitrary. We are all shaped by where we are born, and that is no fault of our own. To seek out a better life is part of the “American Dream,” and if this opportunity was open to my ancestors, it should be open to all. Speaking of my white ancestors: I have a lot of ancestral repair to do and part of that is to become someone who can see things differently from them. Unlike my ancestors, who believed that only some should be considered human and therefore some lives were more valuable than others, I believe that what is open to some, should be open to all.

Part of that belief has me calling into question, was America ever really open to me and my ancestors? In fact, I think we just took what we wanted and started making decisions about who gets what.

America is not mine to take; it is not mine to own; and it is not mine to say who gets to come and who must leave.

No Ban. No Wall. Sanctuary for All. Decolonize NOW. I have a lot of work to do on myself as a colonizer- and that work is just as important as anything else I do in my life. In fact, I doubt I could do any of this (psychotherapy, weightlifting, life) without simultaneously working on my own historical status as a colonizer and beneficiary of slavery.

Lifting weights helps me get stronger to hold all the truths I must uncover. Being a therapist helps me navigate complex emotional territory. Staying awake means staying aware of how I am always in a position of structural power- and that I must learn to let that go, no matter the “inconvenience” or if it jeopardizes my plans for myself. I’ve benefitted for much too long from other people’s pain, whether I know it or not. Better to know so I can start to un-do.

I’m training for more than just making the lift. I’m training so that I can own my shit and stop myself and my lineage from perpetuating harm on susceptible and marginalized communities. I’m training so that others can have a chance to be better, and be more themselves, just like I can.

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Me holding a sign that reads, “No Ban! No Wall! Sanctuary for All! Families Belong Together”