Is there not just something incredible about watching elite women athletes blow everyone’s mind with their incredible athleticism? In case you missed it, the latest almost unbelievable achievement in sport goes to US gymnast Simone Biles, who completed (though not to her own satisfaction) a move that is reported to have revolutionized gymnastics. The move is called “the triple double: a double back somersault with three twists spread out over the two flips.”
According to Slate, it is “the single most spectacular skill that any female gymnast has ever attempted, on any apparatus, in the history of the sport. It’s got an “astronomical difficulty rating” and looks almost impossible (but for the fact that she is doing it!):
From the same competition, the US Gymnastics Championships in Kansas City, Biles completed a stunning and unprecedented dismount after a gripping routine on the balance beam. According to the article in Slate, Biles “destroyed a new balance beam dismount, the most difficult and daring in the history of the sport: a double-double, or a double somersault with a full twist in each flip. This is a skill that is usually reserved for the floor exercise—an apparatus that is 40 feet wide and outfitted with 11 centimeters of springs. Biles did it off the end of a lightly padded plank 4 inches wide and 4 feet off the ground, and she made it look easy.” And landed it perfectly:
This is really just an “in case you missed it post.” Simone Biles is not to be missed. Keep in mind too that she purportedly had an off-weekend, by her own lights it was not her best. She expressed disappointment over her floor routine because she didn’t complete the triple double to her own high standards. And it was all still enough to secure her first place.
Amazing.
She’s making me fall in love with gymnastics all over again. I really don’t even have a question to end on today, other than the rhetorical: “doesn’t watching Simone Biles do gymnastics make you want to watch more of Simone Biles doing gymnastics?”
You know, sometimes you’re in a spot where the only way forward is with the help of a GIF. As a non-early adopter of both texting and GIF-ing (yes, I know it’s annoying, but I can’t/won’t stop), I’m still in the thrall of sending GIFS to, well, everyone. Undoubtedly this phase will pass (and perhaps not soon enough). But, in the meantime, I’m living my best GIF-sending life.
The other day I was texting my friend Pata, who was sad on the anniversary of the death of a loved one. In the course of the back-and-forth, we talking about drowning in emotions vs. swimming through them. I mentioned how it was good we were both lifeguards for each other when the waves got rough (please don’t judge me for being sappy here…)
Then, it occurred to me: time for a lifeguard GIF! And what better one than… wait for it…
BAYWATCH!
Here is the one I sent.
Pamela Anderson (I think), running to save someone on BAYWATCH!
However, looking through the other candidate GIFS my iPhone handily provided, I saw another one I liked much much better. Then I sent it. Here it is:
A large woman NOT from the cast of BAYWATCH, running to the ocean as if to save someone.
I LOVE THIS. I LOVE HER. I LOVE HER EXPRESSION. I LOVE HER BEACH RUNNING STYLE. I LOVE HER SUIT. I LOVE HER SENSE OF HUMOR. I LOVE HER STRENGTH. I LOVE HER MOXIE.
Maybe/probably/certainly people are using this GIF to express fat phobia. Shame on them. But I bet she made it to express fat power. To personify fat grace. To demonstrate fat strength. I am there and loving it.
I hereby promise you, dear readers, that sometime I will:
make some GIFS of ME doing some active things
take pleasure and pride and humor in the making of them
distribute them copiously (with the forbearance of my friends)
take in the FACT (not idea or hope or possibility, but FACT) that I am– if not exactly cool– instead strong and funny and graceful and attractive and eminently watchable.
I didn’t make any GIFs this week, but here is a series of photos of me pretend-dramatically jumping from one rock to another, by my niece Gracie. My nephew Gray is on the left. Definitely gearing up for more projects like this…
Prepping.
Leaping (sort of).
Landing.
Hey readers, how do you feel about pictures or videos or other representations of you doing your active/physical/movey things? What makes you feel good about them? I’d love to hear from you.
The beginning. All the riders gather at a park on Church Street in Toronto besides the 519 community centre.
I’m writing this blog post in a bus to Toronto on the way home from Port Hope. I’m here with David and Sarah and all the other one day riders taking part in the one day version of the bike rally.
A three person selfie at the Port Hope sign.
We had a terrific ride. It was all things perfect. Sunny but not hot. A really cool wind off the lake. A tailwind! We made it in record time. Lots and lots of personal bests. I’ve done the bike rally six times total and this was by far my fastest and easiest day 1. At least one year, though it feels like more, I was a sweep on Day 1 which is really tough. But not today.
I teared up several times today though during Stephanie Pearl McPhee’s words to the bike rally. I teared up again on the way home reading her blog post about hard things. Please go read it.
Here’s Steph at the opening ceremony.
We’re living in really tough times and the intentional community that is the bike rally is warm and welcoming and generous and caring. It’s not really about riding bikes to Montreal. There a lot of people involved who aren’t riders at all. Together–rustlers, road safety, riders and more–create this beautiful thing. For a day, I felt weight lift off my shoulders. The world has pockets of good and strength. Bike rally, I’ll be back. I need you in my life.
The most important thing? All the riders, one day, three day, and six day, and the crew, have collectively raised more the 1.5 million dollars for the Toronto PWA Foundation.
You can still sponsor me here. Please sponsor Sarah here. Thks blog readers who’ve already contributed. It’s really appreciated.
The United States women’s national soccer team (USWNT) won the World Cup this year—their fourth. They played 20 games last year, posting 18 wins and two draws. The United State men’s national soccer team played 11 games last year, posting three wins, five losses and three draws. They failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
1.Question of pay. is the USWNT paid equitably? By “equitably”, we could mean something like “paid the same as men’s professional soccer in accordance with”:
their win-loss record, compared to those of the men’ teams
their tournament play/record, compared to mens’ teams
the prize money offered in the tournaments they play in
prize money offered in professional soccer tournaments in general
revenues generated by league and tournament games
revenue generated by sponsorships, merchandise, viewership, etc.
I could go on
Yes, we know: economics is complicated. But do we have some idea of the answer? We do– the answer seems to be “no”. The USWNT is not paid in accordance with any of the above-listed measures. How do we know this? Here are some informative bits from articles I read (here and here and here).
US women’s soccer now has edged out US men’s soccer in terms of game revenue generated ($50.8M vs. $49.9M)
The US Soccer Federation sells broadcast ad sponsorship rights for the women’s and men’s teams together, so they haven’t provided information to separate out the revenue streams.
Nike’s highest-selling soccer jersey is the USWNT’s home jersey. Here it is:
The USWNT home soccer jersey– white, with blue and red stripes on the sleeves, and logo on front. Also back view.
The USWNT is paid a guaranteed base salary, while the US men’s soccer team is paid in bonuses alone. However, the men are paid when they play (win or lose), so their annual pay depends on how many games they play in a year.
The total prize money for the women’s World Cup is about $30M, whereas the FIFA men’s World Cup prize money is around $400M.
The US men’s and women’s teams have different contracts under different collective bargaining agreements. The US men’s team has publicly stated its support for increased pay equity for US women’s soccer.
The USWNT has sued the US Soccer Federation for changes in their pay structures (read more about it here):
All 28 female players sued the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) — their employer — in U.S. District Court in March, alleging they are paid less than the men and are provided with less support, despite their consistent outstanding performance. The lawsuit also argues the team’s success has “translated into substantial revenue generation and profits” for USSF and “during the period relevant to this case, the WNT earned more in profit and/or revenue than the MNT.”
The soccer federation denied the claims in the women’s lawsuit, arguing in a May court filing that the pay differential between the men and women players is “based on differences in aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex” and that the two teams are “physically and functionally separate organizations.”
The Washington Post, in the article I cited above, goes into much more detail, but their conclusion is this:
Are the women players paid less? Sometimes. When the female players have appeared to make about the same or more money, they’ve had to turn in consistently outstanding performances on the world stage. Even with those feats, earning the same amount as the men’s soccer players was near-impossible under the previous collective-bargaining agreement.
The new agreement has provisions that may reduce the difference in bonuses for friendly games and tournaments, but there is — without question and for whatever reasons — still a massive gap between men’s and women’s World Cup bonuses.
2.Question of politics. Is the question of the USWNT’s pay becoming a nasty political fight? That one’s easy.
Yes indeedy!
Prominent Democratic politicians have not just tweeted support, but in fact introduced legislation requiring that US Soccer pay women’s and men’s teams equally. In response, the US Soccer Federation hired two lobbying firms to present a case that the women’s teams are not paid inequitably. Groups are battling over the numbers, which (as I pointed out above) are complicated. So far the lobbyists are working on Capital Hill but haven’t registered yet (they are required to register within 45 days of beginning work). The lobbyists and US Soccer say they are trying to give accurate information, and the USWNT say that the lobbyists and US Soccer are trying to derail legislation and mislead legislators. Politico reported the following interchange:
...one of the lobbyists representing U.S. Soccer — Ray Bucheger, a former Democratic congressional staffer who’s now a partner at FBB — told a Democraticcongressional staffer late last month that one of the bills could jeopardize the country’s chances of hosting future Women’s World Cups, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Bucheger declined to comment.
3.Question of (mis)perception. It is, sadly, true that lots of people hold women’s sports in lower esteem than men’s sports. And there are loads of reports and surveys and studies that show that non-professional-athlete men think they are as good or better athletes as world-class professional women athletes. You have no doubt seen the survey, published here, that 1 in 8 men in the UK surveyed believed they could take a point off tennis titan Serena Williams.
Yeah. Me, too.
In the comments section of this article (I know, don’t read the comments ever, but I’m doing this for blog research purposes) I saw exactly this same view: some people said that the USWNT were less good soccer players than mediocre men’s professional teams. Some cited a 2017 scrimmage with a US Soccer development program under-15 boys’ team (that the USWNT graciously did to teach the boys some techniques) in which the final score was 5-2 in favor of the boys’ team. You can read the real story here. You also might be interested to hear that in 2017 (maybe encouraged by the USWNT’s participation?) US Soccer added some girls’ development soccer teams (finally).
Other commenters said that this is the way of all women’s sports, that professional women athletes pale in comparison with (most? all?) male athletes in terms of performance. So it’s okay to pay them less and think less of them as athletes (or not to think of them as athletes, period).
REALLY?!
Let’s all take a deep breath now.
Responding to this general claim– that women just aren’t as good/strong/interesting athletes as men– takes a lot of hard work. Scholars and activists and athletes have been and are currently spending their careers responding in a bunch of ways. Some of those ways include:
carefully documenting and framing the comparative histories of sports and athletic development programs for boys and girls, pointing out the myriad disparities girls experience in everything from resources to coaching to goals to opportunities to social support, etc.
framing and revealing the historical and social contexts in which girls and women interested in physical activity/athletics are treated; in short, it’s not good.
providing context for the ways media coverage of women athletes treats and judges their athletic performance, I blogged about the juggernaut UConn women’s basketball team, stuck between a rock and a hard place– media criticized them for being too good and messing up the sport. Really. Read about it here.
What I hope and even expect is that, with increased support and programming, society’s perceptions of girls and boys and men and women as athletes will change. Then we will be able to see and value girls and women as the athletes they are and can be.
Readers– what do you think about our current atmosphere of sports development and outlets for girls and women? Any stories or ideas or suggestions you want to share would be most welcome.
I know promised a post on my newfound love of cycling last time, and a post on this you will get, eventually. But first, I want to talk about an amazing female athlete, a cyclist in fact, whom I find incredibly inspiring. I’m talking about Fiona Kolbinger, the 24-year old woman who just won the Transcontinental Race, a self-supported 4,000 kilometre bike race from Burgas (Bulgaria) to Brest (France). Please bear with me as I fangirl a little.
Fiona was the first woman to win the race, which was in its seventh edition this year. The race website describes the event as follows:
The Transcontinental is a single stage race in which the clock never stops. Riders plan, research and navigate their own course and choose when and where to rest. They will take only what they can carry and consume only what they can find. Four mandatory control points guide their route and ensure a healthy amount of climbing to reach some of cycling’s most beautiful and historic monuments. Each year our riders cover around 4000km to reach the finish line.
Doesn’t that sound so amazing? And so hard? Fiona did it in 10 days, 2 hours and 28 minutes. She slept for about four hours a night. What a champ! (Personally, I couldn’t sleep for hours a night for 10 days without being in a 4,000km cycling race. I would be curled up in a corner snoring on day 2.)
Of course, Fiona being a woman, this is a big deal. Out of the 265 starters in the race, 39 were women. And one of them won! This is actually not all that surprising: women have shown again and again that they are amazing endurance athletes. In ultra-long distance events such as ultra-marathons, or ultra-long distance swimming, women have been managing to close in on the gap over the past decades. If you look at the record-holders for the longest recorded swim distances, there are a lot of women (note that this doesn’t necessarily have to mean they are faster than men, although there is a study saying that too, at least for swimming. But it seems they can often go for longer). [Update 11 Aug 19: The BBC just published a piece about women and endurance sports following Fiona’s win. It’s very interesting, a lot of this is apparently also down to how women manage these events emotionally and mentally.] Nevertheless, given that there were a lot fewer female than male participants in the Transcontinental, and given all the crap female athletes constantly have to put up with, and the fact that society makes it so difficult for women to excel in sports, this is a huge deal.
But back to why I find her so inspiring: Fiona is not just a badass athlete, she is also a cancer researcher! She’s an MD student at the German Cancer Research Centre‘s paediatric oncology unit. This woman is studying how to cure children from cancer. And in passing, she wins a 4,000km bike race. I can’t even.
In an interesting turn of events, the research centre she works at is actually in my home town. It is, shall we say, not one of the world’s worst research institutions. And she is not the only one around here. Just recently, I was doing laps at my local outdoor pool when a woman turned up only to literally lap everyone swimming in the fast lane, at what to her seemed like a casual speed . It was beautiful to watch, I had never seen anyone swim so efficiently in real life. She was wearing a cap with her name on it, so I couldn’t help but look her up afterwards. She turned out to be a former member of the German Olympic swimming relay. And, as per the next link that came up, she’s a physician at the local university hospital. There are so many inspiring female athletes who are also doing amazing other things.
Just why is it so hard to find them? Why doesn’t everyone know who they are? Yes, often they are unassuming. But also, they don’t get the coverage. This really needs to change. Fiona has receivedplentyofcoverage this week, but I still want to bet that if you ask a random person on the street if they know who she is, you’re going to draw a blank.
Meanwhile, Fiona? When she’s not busy beating more than 200 men at cycling a very, very long way or curing kids’ cancer, she plays the piano, while still wearing her cycling kit. I rest my case.
The mirror in our locker room says Never Apologize for Being Strong
I took up a New Thing in the past six months: a feminist version of cross-fit style workouts, which I’ve written about here and here. It’s literally the first thing I’ve ever been willing to get up to do at 7 am. I’m a wee bit obsessed — because it’s given me a whole new, unexpected fitness identity. Despite a 25 year history with running, yoga, cycling, spinning and a healthy acquaintance with the gym, until I turned 54, I’d never lifted heavy things.
We had a “summer of strong” program at my gym (a woman-only, small class space called Move whose philosophy I love). At the end of six weeks, we spent two weeks testing our heavy lifts.
Over those test days, in deep concentration on alignment and form, I danced with higher and higher weights. I partnered with a tiny blonde woman young enough to be my daughter to encourage each other to deadlift way more than we ever imagined (10 lbs more than my body weight), back squatted and benchpressed higher and higher numbers, and most memorably, tangoed with Kelly, the founder of our studio, who is just returning from having a baby — to keep adding increments to our strictpress as the community around us cheered us on.
Strict press means lifting a barbell up above your head with just your upper body strength — no force or movement from your lower body. It’s hard. Numbers don’t build quickly. It’s the nemesis move for many people in their lifting. (You can see from my face in this oh-so-flattering pic how hard it is).
The purity of strict press appeals to me, even though I’m not “good at it.” And that moment where Kelly and I were poking each other gently forward, each of us reaching the height of 3 x 65 lbs — it was emotional. For me, because it made me feel stronger than I ever have in my life. For her, because she really felt her strength for the first time after pregnancy, birth, post-partum hormones, sleepless nights. This little video where you can hear our community encouraging us tells you something about that feeling.
The video also ends with me slamming the bar against the rack, as my coach is encouraging me to do — “like a teenage boy, not a dainty lady.”
I was chuffed to add my numbers over the two weeks of testing to the community chalkboard — and I also started querying *why* this newfound strength feels so very important to me. Even though I like watching the numbers add up, like that little stretch for more, it’s about a lot more than my predilection for counting things.
There is something that feels… renegade… being a 54 year old (who’s still menstruating, by the way) becoming stronger than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s like I’m strutting up to all of the things that are changing in my body and life because of aging (insert long list here) and saying yup, I get that, no problem, I’m with ya, but hey, I still have some magic to unfold here.
My body has changed. I don’t think anyone would look at my lined face and not recognize I’m in my 50s. I’ve gained weight in the past couple of years in the predictable middle-50s way, the thickening of the middle — and since I’ve started working out at this gym, gained a few more pounds in muscle. My jeans don’t fit. That number on the scale is significantly higher than it’s been since I first embarked on being a fit person when I was 30.
I don’t look like I did when I was 40 — heck, I don’t look like I did when I was 52 — but I am finding I am starting to love the way I look. (I don’t like my clothes not fitting, but I solved that problem a month ago). I like looking in the mirror at the gym and knowing that I feel comfortable knotting my top up even though I’m thicker through the middle. I love the fact that I can see muscle in my shoulders and my arms. I love the ripples in my legs. I feel like I have a trunk, like I have roots, like my branches can hold anything I hang off them.
Lizzie O’Shea wrote a piece for the Guardian last year exploring the relationship between feminism and the small victories and empowerment of weight training. I particularly liked her description of what happens as we become stronger and more muscular:
“[Strength from lifting heavy weights] is about expanding out. A large butt is an achievement; thick thighs are not a source of shame; arms that strain the seams are an accomplishment. Rather than seeing your body through the lens of others, you feel it swell and harden under the quixotic influence of your own agency. When I started to lift heavy, my clothing began to feel tight – less because I was using it to keep my embarrassing bits in, and more because my muscly parts were busting out.”That “quixotic influence of your own agency” is what I’m feeling. I’m in my 50s, but I’m really in my body, owning it. Not fighting time — riding it. Finding out what’s true now, today. And how I can play with that truth.
And what’s true? I can learn a whole new way of relating to my body. I can lift more than my body weight. I can almost benchpress my youngest sister. I can hold my own body upside down on my hands for more than a minute.
It’s a new kind of honesty. When I’m standing in front of a barbell with 135 lbs I’ve just deadlifted and I’m trying to decide if I can add another 10 lbs, I have to be brutally honest with myself. I know if I overreach, I could hurt myself. I have to know what I’m truly capable of, what’s a good stretch and what’s ego or stupidity. I have to walk that line between wanting to know — really KNOW — the limits of my physical strength — and the tempting narrative of “wouldn’t 150 lbs be a freaking awesome number to write on that board?”
It feels like a pure kind of honesty about what’s at the essence of my strength. As Sam wrote about last week, at this point in our lives, there are some things that just are behind us, regardless of willpower or training or effort. I’m never going to run fast or far again, and my metabolism is just plain slower, and my skin is only going to get more lined and weathered, and I wonder if I’m ever going to sleep well — really sleep — ever again. I’m slower, I’m heavier, I’m tired. But my body is showing me something from the inside out — I have roots, I have branches, I have a strong powerful trunk.
As O’Shea wrote in her piece, this confidence expands outward. On Tuesday, I also cut off my hair and coloured it grey. Yes, a trendy, expensive, chrome version of grey, but grey nonetheless. I wanted to see how it felt. Turns out, it makes me feel even stronger.
I’ll keep playing.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives and lifts heavy things in Toronto.
I have a small pile of shirts waiting to be returned. Pretty much, almost always, they are XLs that are too big.
Why do I have them? What’s up with that?
Reason 1. I hate trying on clothes.
Reason 2. Online shopping.
Reason 3. I have to be XL. I can’t believe I’m merely L.
Reason 4. If it’s an L that doesn’t fit I often keep it aspirationally. (Bad idea.)
Reason 5. Since I started teaching fashion and fashion ethics, I’ve become fussy about countries. Fast fashion, sure. But also expensive designer clothes. I buy but then I think about it and return them.
I’ve had a lot of questions since my post on Tuesday about the 10-day Vipassana meditation course, so I thought I would follow up with one more post about it. These points are in random order and are themselves random.
Waking up at 4 a.m. No question, it’s not easy to wake up a 4 a.m. If you’re staying in one of the residences, they assign someone to take care of the 4 a.m. gong. And then there is another at 4:20. And you’re expected to be meditating in your room (not in bed!) or in the meditation hall by 4:30. Once I relocated to the cabin I needed to wake up on my own. I’m really glad I had my Timex Ironman watch. I don’t think I have ever used it so much. I set the alarm for 4 a.m. daily, and I used the timer whenever I was meditating in my room and also to wake me up from naps that I took during the longer breaks.
Image description: close up shot of the face of a Timex digital Ironman Triathlon watch, showing a daily alarm at 4:00 AM, on a wrist.
The food We had two meals a day — breakfast at 6:30 and lunch at 11:00. At 5:00 we had a tea break and new students could have fruit (anyone who for medical reasons needed a meal at that time could pack up some extra at lunch and heat it up for dinner). The food was simple but good.
Breakfast was the same set of choices every day: Oatmeal, stewed prunes, bran cereal, granola, raisins, sunflower seeds, flax seed powder, nutritional yeast, cinnamon, almond milk, soy milk, cow’s milk, bananas, apples, oranges, sometimes sliced fresh pineapple, 12-grain bread for toast, butter, vegan margarine, peanut butter, tahini, and jam. Instant coffee, black tea, green tea, hibiscus tea, peppermint tea, chamomile tea. I always had a coffee and a tea, both strong because I needed the caffeine.
At lunch, we usually had brown and white rice, some sort of stew or stirfry, veggies (roasted or steamed), salad with optional toppings of shredded beets, shredded carrots, raisins, chickpeas, sprouted lentils, choice of dressings (including a really delicious sunflower seed dressing they made there), and about 4-5 times we had dessert. Same choices for tea and coffee as at breakfast, with almond milk, soy milk, or cow’s milk. My favourites among what they served for lunch were: the thai tofu curry, the grain pilaf, the roasted beets, the roasted broccoli, the Persian rice, the sunflower dressing on shredded carrot with chickpeas and raisins (I made that every lunch time), and the cassava pudding (OMG it was amazing; I need the recipe). I always had a strong black tea with soy milk with my lunch.
Having only tea and fruit at 5 wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I didn’t feel terribly hungry but I was grateful to be a new student because the old students only got tea, no fruit.
The silence: what if you had an issue? A few people have asked me about this. The course was conducted in Noble Silence, which means no communication. But that was only among the students. The goal was to enable an inward experience to work on the technique. I think this was a good idea because it prevented (as much as possible) us from comparing where we were at with where others were at. And it prevented people from having negative and complaining conversations about how hard it was. That could have created a downward spiral of commiseration that wouldn’t have served me well.
However, we were definitely not left alone in our heads with no recourse. If you needed something or were having difficulties, you could talk to the course managers about it. That’s how I ended up getting moved from my room in one of the women’s residences to a cabin of my own. It’s also how I ended up being permitted to sit in a chair during the evening discourse rather than having to sit on the floor, which was causing me some difficulty. We could also speak to the teacher, which I did on two occasions to ask her about ways of easing my body during meditation. She made some suggestions that were helpful. Finally, the teacher checked in with us periodically, calling us up to the front in small groups and asking us questions about our progress. During those periods we spoke.
So it wasn’t as silent as all that — I did talk a number of times during the course. You could also speak with the kitchen servers if you had questions about the food.
Was it hard not to exercise? I went for a walk most days and did a lot of stretching. Frankly, that was about all I could handle. At first I was bummed that I couldn’t go running, but with ten hours of sitting in meditation in a day that went from 4:00 a.m. to about 9:30 p.m., I used most of the off-time when I wasn’t eating to lie quietly on my bed.
Was it hard to follow rules? There are a lot of rules. From noble silence to indoor footwear in the dining hall to showering only during your designated 20 minute time-slot to meditating during all meditation time, remaining within the course boundaries while at the centre, respecting a modest dress code, not bringing any of your own food, maintaining a fragrance free environment, meditating only inside and never outside, not to mention the 5 precepts (against killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and using intoxicants)…to name a few. They give a lot of advance notice. I think someone who really felt like these rules would challenge them and make them feel controlled (or defiant) probably isn’t temperamentally suited for this type of thing. Myself, I didn’t experience them as a big issue, not for just ten days. But some struggled with the modest dress code, with the silence, with the fragrance free policy, and with the requirement to meditate during all of the meditation times.
What was the best part? That’s a tough one. I liked most everything, even if it wasn’t what I would call “fun.” I enjoyed the nightly discourses (the talks) by SN Goenka. These are videotaped recordings of talks he gave during a 10-day course in 1991. They are excellent and engaging, and gave context to what we were learning. I also relished the silence and the permission not to engage in social interactions. And I liked the challenge of it all–I felt as if I was doing something that would change me in ways I couldn’t anticipate. I’m pretty sure I was right about that.
What was the worst part? I’m not sure I would define this as necessarily “bad,” but it was definitely a lot more physically demanding than I anticipated it would be. But the worst part was probably the first three days when we were doing the breathing meditation (Anapana) and I couldn’t focus for more than a minute or two at a time. It was mentally and emotionally frustrating. Plus I was exhausted — the 4 a.m. wake-up was pretty difficult and never got easier for me during the entire ten days.
Would I recommend it? This is the sort of thing that someone needs to get curious about on their own and apply for only if they’re drawn to it. In that sense, I can’t say I would recommend it as something for everyone. I don’t think it’s for everyone. My suggestion would be for anyone who was intrigued to take a careful look at the “What to expect on a course” page on the website. I suggest looking more carefully than I did (I kind of read it but didn’t take in the intensity of the schedule). I don’t think I would have been dissuaded had I fully appreciated what I was signing up for. But I would have been better prepared, psychologically, for what I was about to undertake.
Okay, I’m done talking about it now. I feel a strong commitment to continuing to work on the technique of meditation that the ten-day course introduced me to. I do think that employing this technique on a daily basis can and will improve my life. Already I have experienced clarity about a number of things and, though that is not the exact purpose of the technique, it is a result of it.
My question: has anyone gained a curiosity and interest in the course (and possibly a desire to apply) from reading about my experience with it?
If you see me doing something at the gym that I could maybe be doing better, I would like you to hold your tongue unless at least a few of the following criteria are met:
*You know my name. This isn’t the first time we’ve spoken to each other.
*You know my goals. How we lift changes outcomes. Do you know if I’m lifting for absolute strength, power, or hypertrophy (increasing muscle mass)? Do you know if there’s an imbalance I’m working around or trying to bring up?
*Related to the previous bullet point, you should probably know my injury history before offering advice. I have a long one, and it impacts the work I do and the pace I do it in. For example, I have internal scar tissue on my right side after the removal of the middle lobe of my right lung. This impacts my range of motion, how efficiently I use the impacted muscles, and proprioception (how I perceive where my right arm is in space).
*You are genuinely motivated by MY best interests. You aren’t trying to sell me something or some service. You aren’t flirting or finding an excuse to make conversation with me. You aren’t trying to impress me with your thick and rippling . . . knowledge.
*You recognize that there are few absolutes in fitness. If your suggestion is about to include the word NEVER or ALWAYS, I’m not interested. The more we know, the more nuanced our advice necessarily becomes.
*You’ve asked ME for advice in the past. This shows that you recognize that I know some of what I’m doing, and you respect it. I would LOVE to have someone with whom to talk about lifting at the gym; but I don’t want a mentor, I want a collaborator. I want someone who sees when I know something and can honestly evaluate when they have something to share. This kind of co-teaching is built on mutual respect, rather than the paternalistic mindset that assumes one person has all the answers.
*Your routine includes more than the bro standards of bench press, bicep curls and crunches.
*You’re not wearing ‘80’s short shorts and a headband non-ironically. Ok, I know this one is petty, but I’m kinda serious.
I am, admittedly, a bit of a nerd when it comes to weightlifting and personal health. I’m a biologist by education and a science and health teacher by profession. I like doing research; I’m not intimidated by primary sources and big words. Most of all, I enjoy reading and exploring these topics. I spend hours a week reading and researching programming, musculoskeletal anatomy, and optimizing nutrition for one’s goals.
This does not make me equivalent to a personal trainer or a physical therapist, and I readily acknowledge that I don’t have those skills. It does make me very good at identifying bullshit, and over the years I’ve honed my ability for identifying which sources to trust on these topics. So the lifts I do, the frequency and volume, are based on professional programs, adapted to my individual needs. And that adaptation is educated by professionals, too, honed by literal years of physical therapy, learning what my unique body needs to be successful in this hobby that I pursue with seriousness.
I welcome conversation and camaraderie, built on mutual respect for each other’s unique goals and experiences. But if you can’t see yourself in at least a few of the criteria above, please keep your thoughts and “advice” to yourself. It isn’t helpful, and it isn’t welcome.
Are you open to advice in your athletic pursuits? What are your rules and requirements in order to be receptive?
Marjorie Hundtoft is a middleschool science and health teacher. She can be found picking up heavy things and putting them back down again in Portland, Oregon. You can now read her at Progressive-Strength.com .
Image description: A rack of dumbbells in the near view. Further away a white woman in black clothes using some of the dumbbells. Photo from Unsplash.
Image description: Tracy, short hair, smiling, dressed in loose black pants and a long sleeved jacket with a t-shirt sticking out the bottom, standing in front of Cabin 4, a light green-blue cabin with a white door, two steps leading up to it, grass in front.
A couple of weeks ago I posted about how I was about to take unplugging and meditation to “the next level.” I was preparing to attend a ten day meditation course at the Ontario Vipassana Centre, Dhamma Torana. It was not a retreat. Or a vacation. I mentioned there that there would be ten hours a day of meditation. I mentioned there that we would be getting up at 4 a.m. I also said I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. And maybe that was a good thing because it meant I didn’t get scared. Had I known exactly what was coming, I might have been at least a little bit afraid.
And that would have been entirely appropriate. Because ten hours a day of meditation is not trivial. I think it is the most grueling physical undertaking I have ever endured (more cumulatively taxing over the ten days than running that marathon a few years ago was).
Before I left, I have to admit that the thing that attracted me the most was the silence. The entire course is conducted in noble silence. Though it is not everyone’s cup of tea, I absolutely love noble silence–where people occupying a space together refrain from talking or communicating in any manner, including gestures, written notes, or eye contact, and more generally maintain as quiet an atmosphere as possible. Though it is somewhat challenging because the urge to interact, even with a smile of greeting, is so strong, once you’re in the swing of things, noble silence takes off the social pressure and let’s everyone do what they need to do for their own practice.
I arrived at the course on Day Zero. We were still allowed to talk until 8 p.m. that night. Everyone was directed to the dining hall to register, check in their valuables (that included all electronic devices), find their room, start unpacking and be back to the dining hall for dinner and an orientation meeting. No meditation to speak of on Day Zero (I think–I actually can’t remember Day Zero so much). Day Zero was also the day to sign up for your shower time–that would be your 20 minute shower time for the rest of the course. Mine was originally at 7 (half an hour after the start of breakfast) but then changed to 7:20 when I moved my room (more on that later).
One thing I do recall from Day Zero is a conversation I had with an “old student” (that’s what they call students who have already completed one ten day course in the past). She said she thought she would never do it again because it was “so painful.” “Painful?” I really hadn’t thought in terms of pain. But she made it sound as if everyone knew that. Nope. Not everyone. But then the next thing I knew it was time to go into silence and I couldn’t really ask about it again until I got an interview with the teacher later in the course.
The course is designed to teach the Vipassana meditation technique. It starts with Anapana, a breathing meditation that focuses the breath on the small area between the upper lip and the top of the nostrils. We spent three days on that, learning to feel the sensation of breathing, and, finally, to focus on the sensations we could feel in that area between the upper lip and the start of the nostrils. Three. Days. It’s a challenge to stay focused for ten hours a day on such a small area, but there is a reason for that and it did pay off in the end.
During those days, we were instructed that if we got uncomfortable we could change our posture. That was good and I found myself changing quite a bit because my usual meditation posture turned out not to be great for long sitting. I had to spend a lot of time stretching out my legs in order to alleviate discomfort. Also, my mind wandered all over the place. This is normal in meditation, I know. But I couldn’t keep my attention on the requisite area for five minutes in a row at the beginning. My mind just ran all over the place. So between the shifting postures and the mind run amok, I struggled those first three days.
I forgot to mention too that we had to wake up at 4 a.m. and were supposed to meditating, either in our room or in the hall, by 4:30 for the first two-hour session of the day. I mostly did that session in the hall because otherwise the temptation to go back to sleep was just too strong.
Here is the timetable:
Day four: Vipassana. Each evening we had a discourse, or Dhamma talk, by Goenke, the teacher whose method we were following. He explained Vipassana as a technique for enabling people to experience the reality of impermanence (based on Buddhist teachings, but offered as a nonsectarian technique that can be practiced by anyone of any faith or none at all). The idea is to observe the bodily sensations (of which the first three days training develops the ability to be aware) with equanimity (a balanced mind that neither craves or is averse to any particular sensation). This is supposed to be possible after some time practicing awareness. Though he didn’t call it a “body scan,” it’s something like that though much more subtle and “advanced” perhaps (I’m not sure if “advanced” is the right word — it’s definitely different) than mindfulness meditation.
The thing with Vipassana is this: though it may sound perverse, it’s not designed with the goal of “feeling good.” Not in the moment of meditation, in any case. It is designed to sharpen the mind’s awareness and equanimity with respect to bodily sensations and to maintain an attitude of neither aversion or craving towards any particular sensations. Why? Because, as taught by Buddha and countless others, aversion and craving is the source of human misery. We get miserable and suffer when we get what we don’t want or when we don’t get what we want. (I don’t really want to debate the finer details of this picture — it does make sense to me).
The course emphasizes repeatedly that it is the technique that we are there to learn. It’s a practical thing, not a ritualized undertaking to be done without attention and alertness. They emphasize as well that proper practice has immense benefits. Through the technique, as practiced (purportedly) by Gautamo (the Buddha) 2500 years ago, the student comes to experience the ever changing nature of reality at the level of bodily sensations (which are themselves ever changing). Developing equanimity towards sensations such that we don’t react and increase our misery then carries over into the rest of our lives (so they report–I just got back a couple of days ago).
There are several layers of teaching delivered in the evening discourses, but I’m not going to get into all of that here. The main thing is that attention to sensation. Okay, so this brings us to the sittings of “strong determination.” Remember how for the Anapana part of the course we could shift position? Well, not so much with Vipassana because the whole point is to be able to observe whatever sensation you’re experiencing and not react to it — to bear it with equanimity. So on the fourth day they introduced the idea of these three sittings per day (8 am, 2:30 pm, and 6 pm) where for a full hour you weren’t supposed to move.
Before the first day of Vipassana instruction (day 4), when we were told we had to remain in the Meditation Hall for the full two hours without leaving (!!), everyone who knew what was coming was already in the foyer stretching and getting primed. It kind of reminded me of the start of a race.
It was about the time when he said we shouldn’t move for the hour that I started to panic. Why? Because I had up until then been moving every 5-10 minutes because of pain and discomfort. My knees and quads and hips were okay for about 30 minutes in a cross-legged posture if I really pushed it, but after that I needed to get some relief. My preferred method was to stretch out my legs. But when I met with the teacher she suggested instead that I just bring my bent knees up in front of me and hold on to my legs for a bit (kind of like a sitting version of the fetal position, which seems appropriate).
The thing is, you are motivated to move as little as possible during the sittings of strong determination (or, as I liked to call them, “hard sittings”) because in a silent hall with 100 other immobile people, the slightest shift on your cushion makes noise. There is peer pressure not to be the one to make a sound. That’s amazingly motivating and got me to sit through all sorts of pain and discomfort for longer than I anticipated. Not that I never moved. In all the seven days of Vipassana, I only completed three of those hard sittings without having to shift my posture at all. Note that you were not supposed to leave the hall when in the sittings of strong determination.
Ten days alone in your head is a long time. Besides the physical demands of Vipassana, there’s the whole mental side of the house. I became very aware of my thoughts as the source of my own misery. I mean, I was interacting with no one else and yet at times I was having all sorts of drama.
The life for students at the Centre is likely as close to monastic living as I’ll ever come. The schedule is rigorous and exacting. Besides the scheduled sittings (ten hours a day) and the evening discourses, the meal schedule was strict. Breakfast at 6:30 and you had to be out of the dining hall by 7:15. Lunch at 11 and you had to be out of the hall by 11:45. Tea break (with tea and fruit for new students, black tea for old students) at 5 and you had to be out of the dining hall by 5:30.
The course was fully gender segregated, with men’s and women’s residences on opposite sides of the grounds with course boundaries that did not permit any intermingling at all. There were separate entrances to the Meditation Hall and we meditated on different sides of the hall. The Dining Hall had two identical halves with separate entrances and a curtain drawn down the middle. We didn’t see or eat with the men at all. We even had separate walking trails.
There were some times in the schedule where you could meditate in your room. But we were given strict instructions that we were to be meditating at those times, not sleeping or walking or sitting outside. Meditation was not to be done outside, ever.
They also had a fragrance-free policy that was well-articulated ahead of time and I went to great pains to respect. I bought special products and other than my toothpaste, nothing had a scent. I appreciated the policy because though I am fine with the scents I am fine with, I react strongly to scents that I can’t handle. I had some difficulties in my residence with someone using essential oils. When I brought this to the attention of the Course Manager, it happened to be the same day another student had asked to move out of a cabin into a residence room instead. So I was offered my own little cabin and I absolutely loved it. It felt like an upgrade and I had my own space, and a bit more space. I didn’t want to develop a “craving” but oh how fortunate I felt.
I can’t really get into the full measure of details but suffice to say that I am enormously grateful that I had this opportunity. These courses are free. The Centre runs fully on donations from old students. No one can make a donation who has not completed at least one ten-day course. Once you complete, you can donate with the idea of paying for someone else to attend (or more, or less of course, according to your means and what seems right to you).
On the last day, we learned a new type of meditation called “loving kindness” (metta bhavana), with which I am somewhat familiar already. It was a really beautiful way to end, and it is suggested that a few minutes of metta bhavana be added at the end of each Vipassana session provided you are physically and mentally fit (that is, not in physical pain and not in any kind of emotional tumult).
After we learned the loving kindness meditation in the morning, we were released from noble silence at 10 a.m. We had lots of longer breaks that day, and much of the time was spent in chatter, finally being able to meet and speak to these women I’d been meditating and eating and living alongside for the past ten days. It was overwhelming and exhausting in its own way, but lovely to exchange our reflections on our experiences.
I had a profound experience there. I had no issues with the rules. As my experience of noble silence, the rules kind of let me off the hook. I followed the schedule for the most part, oversleeping three times but not by much. I did my utmost to remain in the same posture during the hard sittings. I stuck to my shower time. We had committed to five precepts — no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sexual misconduct, no intoxicants.
The only one I struggled with was the no killing because summer in that part of Ontario means mosquitoes, and I confess that though I didn’t kill a single mosquito outside, I did kill a few that made their way into my room at night. Maybe 6-8 in the ten days, which isn’t so bad. But when you’re lying in bed with your aching limbs (even my fingers ached from holding on so tightly when wrapping my arms around my legs and clasping my hands together when I was taking a break from sitting cross legged) and trying to fall asleep because of a 4 a.m. wake up…it’s hard.
I’m going to follow their suggestion to give it an honest try for one year. That means one year of two one-hour sittings each day. My schedule is to do one at 5 a.m. and one at either 5 p.m. or 9 p.m. depending on how my evening looks. Being on leave until September 2020 will help a lot.
The course is for not for everyone, but it is for anyone who is already meditating and is already of the mind that much of our misery lives in our head, and that equanimity in the face of difficult challenges is a worthy approach to minimizing that misery. That doesn’t mean that the world needs no changes. I like the idea of training my mind through the practice of awareness and equanimity, and I believe that the more people who engage in this sort of life-changing practice, the more the world will change for the better.
So that’s my experience more or less at the ten-day Vipassana course. It was not a retreat in the “wellness” sense — no spas or luxurious bedding or quiet spaces where you could curl up with a good book and take refuge from the world for a bit. I feel confident that it was so much more than that. Instead of being a break, which is how I always experience vacations, it was more of a beginning, introducing new students to a technique that if practiced with diligence, attention, and commitment can change their lives.
Have you ever done Vipassana or any other practice that is designed to transform the way you see and interact with the world? Do tell.
We had a “summer of strong” program at my gym (a woman-only, small class space called 
Strict press means lifting a barbell up above your head with just your upper body strength — no force or movement from your lower body. It’s hard. Numbers don’t build quickly. It’s the nemesis move for many people in their lifting. (You can see from my face in this oh-so-flattering pic how hard it is).
The purity of strict press appeals to me, even though I’m not “good at it.” And that moment where Kelly and I were poking each other gently forward, each of us reaching the height of 3 x 65 lbs — it was emotional. For me, because it made me feel stronger than I ever have in my life. For her, because she really felt her strength for the first time after pregnancy, birth, post-partum hormones, sleepless nights. This little video where you can hear our community encouraging us tells you something about that feeling.
The video also ends with me slamming the bar against the rack, as my coach is encouraging me to do — “like a teenage boy, not a dainty lady.”
I was chuffed to add my numbers over the two weeks of testing to the community chalkboard — and I also started querying *why* this newfound strength feels so very important to me. Even though I like watching the numbers add up, like that little stretch for more, it’s about a lot more than 
That “quixotic influence of your own agency” is what I’m feeling. I’m in my 50s, but I’m really in my body, owning it. Not fighting time — riding it. Finding out what’s true now, today. And how I can play with that truth.
And what’s true? I can learn a whole new way of relating to my body. I can lift more than my body weight. I can almost benchpress my youngest sister. I can hold my own body upside down on my hands for more than a minute.
It’s a new kind of honesty. When I’m standing in front of a barbell with 135 lbs I’ve just deadlifted and I’m trying to decide if I can add another 10 lbs, I have to be brutally honest with myself. I know if I overreach, I could hurt myself. I have to know what I’m truly capable of, what’s a good stretch and what’s ego or stupidity. I have to walk that line between wanting to know — really KNOW — the limits of my physical strength — and the tempting narrative of “wouldn’t 150 lbs be a freaking awesome number to write on that board?”
It feels like a pure kind of honesty about what’s at the essence of my strength. 
As O’Shea wrote in her piece, this confidence expands outward. On Tuesday, I also cut off my hair and coloured it grey. Yes, a trendy, expensive, chrome version of grey, but grey nonetheless. I wanted to see how it felt. Turns out, it makes me feel even stronger.
I’ll keep playing.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives and lifts heavy things in Toronto.
