tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79763524654798834712024-02-19T14:31:22.997-08:00The Dark OrchestraUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger366125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-38507868990820683962016-06-19T08:37:00.000-07:002016-06-19T08:37:19.716-07:00Jason, Are You there? (Sweat Bank Pt. 2) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Jason, are you there? Yes, I can hear you. Good, because I am back. How long have I been alone? Little over 3 years Jason. I am sorry for the long wait Jason. Life has taken me through many mazes, obstacles and adventures that needed to be taken, some hard, some hurtful, but some so powerful and moving that nothing would change the turn in the tide. I have carried on to carry you forward Jason. I can't seem to write like I used to, due to my comfort. I am no longer angry, but at peace. Maybe the peace will reflect through in my writing. Maybe your destiny will change due to my ever growing maturity and self reflection in my life, for now our life is connected, and your life being in my mind can funnel emotions that were once not there back so long ago; for now we both have changed and we must both continue to grow. As promised, I arranged for you to train with Shankle before your first meet. He says he is looking forward to your first comp, so am I Jason. For the first is the foundation that holds steady as the road cracks and moss grows between your toes. Your chalky hands will later turn rustic red, for blood cells break like old Cal Strength bars now left alone. Creating champions is what this blog inspires to do. You and this blog starve for my creativity, wanting more like weight on the bar. I type tonight with you in mind, for only my closest of fans will understand who you are and what this blog truly means. This is not just bringing you back Jason, this is not just ending your story, this is reflecting on what created you, I, and the reader... this blog. These tears to this music. This coffee to sun sets behind green jungle windows. As the Blockbuster sign glows blue in the night sky, its reflection off my Starbucks windows turns my face down back to the key board that gave me life, created you, and therefore who I am today. <br />
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I am typing as fast as I can, trying to capture the moment before it slips. If I even look up for a second it could vanish, leaving you alone once again and the Jon North of old dead and buried, stripped and forgotten, as new acts to circuses, in one day, out the other. I have changed Jason, but I am proud of my changes. I do miss the old me, I think my fans do as well, but the old me is in the dirt where the old me was once born and new. I introduced myself to the world from dirt, and now I lay at rest amongst its cold weight that pushes down on my chest, heavy and unforgiving. My sun is my son, and my breath is now his Jason. I live for another human, not for myself. That changes a person. My chip gone because my chip has been healed and patched my the hands of an Angel. The kiss from lips that make my heart bleed. The eyes that turn my bar slams soft and easy. The weight going up doesn't go up as much, for much of my day is spent lifting him, my son, a better version of me. I am weakened in the knees, not from squats, but from my son. I body build because I can. I don't compete in Weightlifting anymore because I can't. I hope you understand Jason, but enough about me, let's get back to you. Turn off the baseball game, put some clothes on, and let's meet Shankle down at your local CrossFit gym.<br />
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Shankle put out his hand long and steady as his eyes never looked at Jason, but at his hand to see and visualize Jason's hand shake that was about to take place. Once the shake was in motion, Donny then looked up for a brief second, making contact. The eyes of Shankle are a fascinating thing. They are deep, with hidden emotion that no one will ever understand nor know, maybe not even Donny. The eyes that have seen, felt, been through, and experienced much of life and everything it can offer, good and bad. This is why I respect Donny so much, his eyes. My eyes run watery when I write, Shankle has a glassy layer that I have noticed since day one. His eyes don't lie. Jason nodded his head in a fast manner, and then thanked Shankle for meeting him to train. Shankle then replied, "It's good to see young men getting into the sport of Weightlifting. I would like to see you push the single and see what we got today". Jason, this is pretty cool, right? Fuck ya, it is Jon, thank you for coming back for me and making me live again. I want to live Jon. I hope you never leave me again. Jason, I am glad I'm back as well, but I must end this blog at some point. I can't write your life 100% of the time. I would never live my life Jason, only yours. Yes I know Jon, but could you every once in a while visit me so I can slowly live out my life. Yes, Jason. I promise I will be back, but what happens if I die? Then you die. But wait, Jason, what if when I die, someone takes my place and continues to write your life. That would mean the world to me Jon, thank you. That means Jason, that you will never die. <br />
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Jason hit pr's across the board, as Shankle at times slowly sat up from his chair pulling up his jeans with no belt. Shankle would coach, and Jason would do. You're starting to see why it's fun to write characters. It's exactly what you want from an athlete, do, not think. I think now as a coach and business man, but when I was an athlete I did, and did it harder than anyone. So Jason, you do, and never stop being you, but then again you are me and I might just be living through you. Let's together win this first meet.<br />
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I must go now Jason, like I said in the first blog, I will be back, and so I will. I write to you to write to myself for I am you, that even though things have changed and life is of a new world, your story through this blog will live forever. Next time Jason... we compete, so get your sleep. <br />
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JasonUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-2448056622219691092016-04-19T16:12:00.001-07:002016-04-19T16:22:43.793-07:00Barnes & Noble <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sitting in the Cafe at Barnes & Noble writing to you and drinking you know who. A cafe I've never heard of before sits in the middle of adventures and bios, bibles and sorrows, magazines and endless dramas. Detectives try to solve the mystery of why and how a place can smell so good. As if I was working on my computer in the middle of Home Depot to the smell of wood and glue, paint and the smell of new. The odor hit me right in the face the minute I walked through the giant silver swinging doors to Barnes & Noble. Like Oz, it opened, and like a kid I scurried through holding onto the lion's tail and singing songs with the whole crew. The maze book shelves rang high and long, empty and alone, faces and titles that beg me stop, as they whisper in panic to, "Slide my book out and read my story, enter my world and get lost in its glory". The authors were let down as I finally found the cafe. Their eyes would fall short as their pages would fray. I felt as if I found water in the desert, or a cactus in the bay. The cafe is light green with yellow stripes down the walls, almost like I was in the Mary Poppin's movie when they jumped in the picture and watched the horse race. All I needed now was a hat and a cane, my dancing shoes and some talking penguins. I scurried to find my work place, and my cold iced brewed coffee, yes a little bit of cream to make my stomach not turn. Then, I opened up my computer to write this to you. <br />
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The Barnes & Noble is connected to the mall, and a giant one at that. I sit here typing on my second coffee wearing my Mary Poppin's hat. I watch the empty mall so quiet and alone, as shops are open, but no one is home. I wonder what it would be like to work in the mall, waking up early to open and close. Listening to the chatter of others throughout the echoing breezeway and the footsteps of clatter, up and down like shoots and ladders. Three stories of shops some might see, but I look at this mall as three stories of employees. Are they happy? What brought them here? Do they ever come down stairs to the Barnes & Noble where I sit and stare, like a creepo I look, with a dead empty stare? Reminiscing the days when my wife Jessica worked here, Victoria's Secret in Sacramento, CA. Great job, but mean as hell they were to her. Only if her bosses would see her now, the looks on their faces would make me so proud. This is when I was a janitor and driving the now famously told Dodge Neon. McDonald's all day, and change that lasted a week. We called it pocket diving, ever tried it? The things you will find when digging through old pockets and jackets, under car seats and backpacks. One of the greatest moments in life was when I told my wife to quit her job, "We are moving to the bay to train at Cal Strength, for a new life, a new job." Not saying working at the mall is bad, it was just a time when we were down and out, lost and sad. Until a lion killer gave out his callused palm, and the Don cut a check and gave us a pad, roof and a chance to become Weightlifting champions, to conquer our past and to live happy and strong. From panties to bars, from sweeping to the stars, who knew these two lost broke lovers would be one day living on mars. </div>
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In conclusion, and yes, I said in conclusion. My English teacher would be happy, proper grammar and spelling, proper way of organizing and story telling. But what is "proper" in a world filled with mazes and stories, books filled with pages that tell unexplained mysteries and unsolved crimes, unspeakable sorrow, mixed with the happiest of times. Life is like this book store, so many stories to be told, but most importantly so many stories to be written. By you, by me, by us. Life is full of surprises, adventures and opportunity. You once might have worked in the mall, then find yourself writing at the mall. You might read in book stores, then be published in the same stores. I write this morning to tell a story to you. One about me, my wife and the adventure we have been on. What's your story? What's your adventure? Where do you sit today? Where does the next page take you? Where does the next chapter lead you? How do you want your book to end? I don't know where mine will end or what's next either. I just know I'm drinking coffee while typing to you. The people walk by me as if I'm a ghost typing away amongst my coffee of hope. Who knows... maybe one day my book, The Dark Orchestra, will sit on a shelf in this store. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-69925484795830594102016-04-17T16:56:00.001-07:002016-04-17T17:09:24.433-07:00The Office <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A soft light blue filter covers the office room, making the floors beneath your feet thin, and the newly painted four walls run for miles. Overcast outside covers the morning sun, as rain drops beg to be let inside the third story office window that looks over the parking lot of swooshing tires splicing through puddles, while beeping cars lock and clicking of heels walk. Closer and closer to the meeting they gather, as you sit hiding the chalk stains from earlier. Black suits and grey suits busy as can be, paperwork shuffles as empty styrofoam cups make their way to the coffee maker, as if butter to bread, or an alien ship to a forgotten about forest. You smile without smiling, as everyone lines up like kittens in a milking for their coffee. Small talk about golf and cars, finances and new pools, some about their kids, mostly about business dinners and more about backyard pools. You have been up since four, while your fourth cup of coffee sits calmly on the long oak wood table staring back at you, as if the lightly gold trimmed styrofoam cup is pressuring you into standing up and throwing your briefcase against the rain drop window while walking out softly yelling, "fuck this". But you take another sip of the coffee to gulp down these emotions before acting upon such ambitions. The chalk under your fingernails fidgets with the now chalk stained cup, clicking back and forth like a baby drinking milk while watching cartoons in the morning. Your eyes bounce around the room as if someone just violently drew the black pillowcase from over your head and asked, "Where is the fucken money!?" You lean down to grab your files out from your briefcase that your father got you many years ago while in school, why you still use it in the professional field, you don't know. Maybe it has to do with comfort and where you started, a fatherly reminder of hard work and simple commitment to your family of four, one wife, two kids, and I guess if you count the four dogs that is... well, one big family to support.<br />
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You realize while leaned over your right knee under the table, while the others above still laugh and chat over spilled coffee and shuffling paper, that you were still wearing your Weightlifting socks from this morning. You smile at the blood that once drew from your shin that is now splattered on your socks, as if you were nailed to the table covered in paper cups, folders, and pins. Picking your head back up above land, everything seems slightly brighter like the sun slowly rising when training in your garage. No sunlight of course that early when all are asleep, and matts the weights land on make for the whole family staying asleep, mostly just a light blue filter from the once black night now makes for your Rogue weight set feel warmer and you continue to fight. Up and down you lift the weight, while all are asleep, sound and safe. You are getting stronger for once your family awakes, you can protect and provide day in and day out. You lift to lift others, and you pull to pull from others. A community of thousands undercover. Under garage roofs and behind office windows, behind teacher's desks and Police shields. In and out of office meetings, we are traveling beings, calculating accountants, fire fighting machines. Football coaches, child watch day care providers, to waitresses, to train conductors connected from coast to coast we are out there, you can't see us, but we are. If you look closely you can see the chalk from our buckets, and the blood from our bar. You can see the callused hands we lift with and the motivations and drive that we are. We are made out of iron and act upon this 9 to 5 life, with high bars and early mornings that separate us from the "normal life". We are gym rats in disguise, hidden amongst the cracks of life. <br />
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The meeting got started, and the bullshit began. Whose boat is bigger than whose, the golf trips and pools. Laughs filled the room as the month reports get passed around too soon. Another week gearing up for another month, the same political standards tied in with the same drinks, and ass kissing disasters. A lifestyle this is, lonely hotel rooms and empty cubical spaces, filled aloud with ringing phones and long lunch breaks and plastic surgery faces. Only left with a check at the end of the day, one that provides you and your family to live happy and free. Your eyes glaze over as your head turns around, leaving your chest facing forward, while your feet stay planted to the ground. The slow turn making your leather seat creek and scream, while folders still get tossed around while pins begin to thud against note pads and clicks and clacks light up computer screens. You look outside the sad rain drops who only wish to be inside, while you only wish to be out. Your chin drops, and your eyes watch as your hands glide down your midnight blue tie. A midnight thought has entered this early mid morning. "What if I could achieve the same financial structure while doing what I love?" You say in a whisper so loud, that even your business partner next to you gave you an elbow shove to quiet down. You stand up, look around the room as if the teacher randomly called upon you. Your coffee in your hand, and your father's briefcase tucked up in front of you....<br />
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You then....... Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-3156395196461504902016-04-14T11:02:00.001-07:002016-04-14T11:04:09.220-07:00The White Dome I find new blood lifting big ass weight with every turn of my head. Beast mode athletes with reds on the bar and speed from Mars. It seems they are being grown under a giant white dome in the mid west. Something the X-Files would do a show on. The freak Weightlifting kids that are escaping from the bunker filled with bars and weights, plates and steaks, are being spotted from state to state. Scully would flip out her notepad while the white paper dome covering the giant field of platforms would flap in the wind, making the scene much more intense and suitable for the situation. "Freak athletes are lifting bigger weights than ever," Scully whispered to herself, as if someone was potentially listening in. "How is this so?" Molder asked with dark frames covering his eyes while his hair danced in the wind. "How are these weights being lifted?" He asked Scully again, this time putting his hand on her shoulder as if she was possibly losing her balance. Scully lifted her head like one of the monsters from the fields of brown where the corn fields sway and the dirt roads never end, she replied... "We will find out Molder, we will get to the bottom of this." " Well we better," Molder said while scanning the property with his slowly turning head, looking for any sign of green slime, pills, electricity cables, lab coats, rats in cages, or any mixing tubs of sort. Molder then squinted his eyes, only knowing this from his eyebrows suddenly turning down as if the eye doctor asked him to read the bottom line from the projector. Scully asked what was wrong, as she then started to follow Molder deeper into the white paper thin dome, still violently flapping in the wind, still more mysterious than ever. <br />
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Weights rustic and heavily used laid at rest, quiet and calm, patient and strong, as if they were waiting their turn for their attempts on stage. Resting benches restless, next to squat racks rack-less. Dirt surrounded the platforms like pyramids on sand. Molder walked over two platforms smoothly and without hiccup, almost as if he was gliding over them as his long black New York coat would sway out behind him like a super hero of sort. Molder kneeled down slowly while at the same time taking off his shades and revealing his open eyes to an empty monster energy can. Crippled and cracked, used and abused, dirty but shinny, the green monster can was evidence that these new Weightlifters were truly monsters. Monsters that needed to be stopped from the destruction of commercial gyms, mediocre goals, half ass trainers, elitist articles, excuses, unhappy people walking down society's road while people pleasing others, and so much more. For a low bar is the heaviest bar to be lifted.</div>
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Scully leaned over the right side of Molder balancing her weight on his left shoulder while picking up the dream chasing evidence, and carefully with the tips of two weightlifting clips, dropped the empty monster can into the evidence bag that proved evidence that Weightlifters in American work fucken hard, know about hard work, and use hard work to achieve bigger and bigger weight each day, month and year. Dusty equipment in a unknown dome, drinking warm sugary energy drinks is all we need. Other countries can live and train upon their standards, we will live within ours. I truly believe that America is the greatest Weightlifting team, and has the greatest of athletes, coaches and the best of community. </div>
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Molder and Scully then proceeded to walk out from your garage. </div>
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'Merica 2016 </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-54806850637300873802016-04-13T11:27:00.000-07:002016-04-13T11:34:06.443-07:00Ten Toes Down <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have noticed that the clocks in the gym don't work. Absent like time in Casinos. Empty like the shops late night at the airports. Gone like my do overs. Silent like the morning air. Ten years and counting. Ten years of learning, lifting, seeing, feeling, falling, standing, conquering and failing. Ten tears of joy. Ten tears of sadness. My ten toes have left the ground many times in my career, looking back while this timeless time stands still. A new head on my shoulders, like new weightlifting shoes in the mail, giving me a new outlook on life, weightlifting and family. As my ten toes dig deep into the cool soil below, the humble and thankful ground balances me like snow after summer, like coffee and water. Soft but planted, connected and stable, eyes now open like Church Sunday. Landed and found, for my roots of my past keep me at ground, as the future keeps me sound. Time is the key to your symphony. Time is the healer of hearts. Time is what makes or breaks a person's success. No matter how close or far, time is the one program that will make you better if you constantly self reflect throughout pursuing your goals. If you fail continue to succeed. If you succeed you must prepare to fail. In ten years when the clock stops and your left with thoughts, you will be proud for how hard you have fought.<br />
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Time 2020Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-44898574378817884002016-04-10T20:29:00.001-07:002016-04-10T20:29:54.012-07:00Carpal Tunnel The Doctor asked me what was wrong. I replied with a slight sigh, "I don't know, maybe weightlifting?" The thin crisp paper I was sitting on created a crackle and swoosh from my body leaning to the side as my hand now supported my weight as if I just sat up out of bed tired and foggy from the morning dew and sandman eyes. The doctor asked about my sleep. I replied, "Not a lot", for my legs are alive at night as they twitch like the morning sprinkler slices through the sheets as I lay half asleep, both eye lids closed, while both eyes wide open. Tired legs have a pattern of moving at night when training gets hard, as if the cool breeze from my half cracked window sways them from the simple force and power of mother nature. "Carpal tunnel in your wrists is why your arms and hands are constantly falling asleep," the blond curly haired Doctor said while pushing her thumbs into the back of my wrists to pin point the location where the problem has manifested. What she didn't know is how good the pressure felt against my wrists. My callused hands laid turned over upright, as if a cowboy in the western days was shot in the chest and fell backwards over a saloon balcony. <br />
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Wrist splints is what she gave me. I put them on and felt like the character slowly turning into an alien from District 9. "Wear them day and night except when you go to the gym," the Doc told me with an upbeat voice as if everything was going to be okay, or better yet, feel better. I should be wearing them now as I write this blog, but I am not, due to the fact I couldn't catch a certain rhythm in my typing in order to keep up with the movie reel in my head. She asked if there was anything else. Oh boy... only if she knew the can of worms she could have opened if my body wanted to speak, and my mouth allowed so. I paused, dropped my head and grabbed the back of my neck with my chalk stained palm, slowly brushed my hair while my eyes found my wife holding my baby boy in the chair across from me, I replied... "No".<br />
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3 weeks back in the sport, and I'm welcomed accordingly, like I should, and like it has to be. Skeletons of my past seem to reappear in my mind, making my stomach turn and my emotions run high but not away. Old injuries and wounds seem to deepen day by day, as me knees hurt and my back screams. I almost took for granted how hard this sport truly was as the ride home rings calm and quiet as my baby boy sleeps in the back. My wife smiles at me and guides my hand into her lap, not knowing how bad my shoulder hurt when rotated a certain way. I of course smiled, and continued driving. Being away from Weightlifting takes you away from the pain a weightlifter must endure to become Champion. One will forget this when the comfort of life takes over, making it easy for those to comment on YouTube or write mean tweets. Only if they knew what the weathered mind and the achy body must live with on a daily basis in order to create a base for strength to build upon. Easy is only a word that the weak understand, for the strong only know hard, and hard is the only way to success. For success is the true measure of power, power from temptation and power amongst the weak minded we are surrounded with from sunrise to sun fall. Power not only in body, but in mind. One must learn to shut off normalcy to turn on personal pursuit of happiness. Happiness lies within strength, because to be happy in the hardest most demanding program known to mankind. It takes hard work and time, constant pursuit and self reflection. Reluctant goals some might call crazy or out of this world, are well within reach to some, but you must first reach, and reach high. <br />
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The car ride home is slow, but the trees pass my window fast. Blurry but more clear than ever. Yes older, but more mature than before. Outrageous on the outside, but calm inside. Rap music blended with upbeat house music blasts through the speakers in training, but the deep bellied low notes and painful high pitches of opera music seem to fill my head throughout the most wildest of training sessions. Why this? Why such beauty in a sport so ruthless and extreme? Why does poetry in words resonate with myself and you the reader, when technique articles and program discussions rain king in our field? My guess...? It's the romantic passion laying side by side with something so simple but so hard, something so addicting but demanding, something so loving but so heart breaking... the constant pursuit in lifting big fucken weight. <br />
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10 years and counting....<br />
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2020<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-36690147117341452592015-11-15T13:21:00.004-08:002015-11-15T13:55:22.238-08:00Clint Mansell <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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She found a program whistling past her feet over the blue rocks and their sharp edges. Like leashing her dog for a walk, she bent down and grabbed the music program of the sounds of painful strings followed with beautiful sounds. The composer's songs always moved her, but with others she never seemed to physically move. Songs from all around her from a place of no where. Maybe a light house from the constant lights from above and beyond, as stars and lights mixed together, the reflection in her eyes told stories of surprises and past disguises, as a movie played in her soul while feet felt cold and her head fell low. Nobody else seemed to live on the planet of doom, dark and distraught, alone, her and her regret. A couple that makes for long nights and random hair pulls. Eye lids gone from a condition of missing parents somehow made it all make sense. If a screaming women screamed she would not be heard. A tree didn't even exist in this list of things to type on this keyboard for making this world become more bliss. <br />
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Shallow blue rocks covered by a pitch black sky, this white ruffled up program written and composed by Clint Mansell looked sad and dire, as it laid slumped in her small hands curved as a cup, eyes wide shut, with visions of elephant tusks and child hood animals of stuffed. Unforgiving and forever forgiving, she hummed softly for a conversation with her inner self, relying on herself to keep sane in this blue dusk of rock and lights, lit from afar with violins of cry and self-esteem from Clint's music notes of lust and hate. The orchestra played through the dead air, as the hollow world sang tunes of sadness through wooded caves and high up tree forts from others of sort. Never seeing anybody before she always thought life was living before she showed, fell through the hole, and walked through the closet door. A single tear fell from her eye, quickly wiped off as if someone was going to see it. The blue rocks felt the salt splash from her blue eyes, lids of gone and a soul of torn, beyond abandoned and lost too long. She might as well been dead.<br />
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So much to explore, but what for? As the music played she began to hold her knees, not knowing what way was forward, or back. Side to side was from her eyes to follow, as her mind started to slip as her twitches told stories of Fantasia. Unexplained and unedited, twisted and unreal. She sat and twisted her toes, as Clint Mansell produced songs for lonely foes like her and her toes. Scrunching her eye brows, while now digging lines in the sand hoping to cross them later if the song ever picked up. Why does the dark sky and blue rocks make me feel light hearted and good, only to then draw a fear, that even to her is misunderstood. She kept talking to herself now leaving the face expressions behind, lips now moved and more and more lines were drawn around her bent over spine, skinny and hurt, hungry and deserted. She knew she never needed acceptance from others, explicitly pity from her emotions and actions. The tear was for something else, for herself, for a self understanding that her happiness comes from pain, heartache and sadness. These are the emotions that get twisted by the composer's sticks, as they swish through the cold air like fly fishing in the winter air. The lines drawn were all wrong, the emotions were all torn, misplaced and fused with each song. Composed with her life, Clint kept playing her next step, or soon to be. She raised form her happy pity, bunched up in a ball and now standing tall. Clint's music made her steps feel giant, as her closet planet felt more involved.<br />
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Involved in her, as other skeletons came out from side curtains and sliding doors. Blue rocks and wooded caves now filled with skeletons from the same. Only looks for high up forts, as trees now sway widely from winds of massive torch. Mansell moved his sticks as skeletons met, no words spoken, just hand shakes and nods, tears of happy and skin of warm, understanding is the most powerful conversation any forgotten one skeleton can have. The light house began to move with each string, chasing each being from one end of the orchestra to the next, onstage the wood was sticky, as the red carpet became muddy from the tracks from the past. Her once lonely world was now filled with lonely others, lost pasts now meet up with moving forward futures, tired eyes and steady fortunes. She, the woman of lost, now found by many still forgotten, but understood and respected by the other blue rock humans who once walked alone under the black sky.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-38994271082468073922015-11-09T15:29:00.003-08:002015-11-09T15:36:33.320-08:00Unspoken Crusaders New gym, different day. New faces, same understanding. Broken bodies, with bloody smiles. Hands of torn with eyes of focus. Shoulders click as PVC pipes turn. Coffee flows as the music gets turned the fuck up, creating our adrenaline to boost, rise and spike. Spite, anger, hate, love, and happiness are some tools we will use to conquer the day. Along with technique, we will use each other as fuel - misses next to makes equal makes from misses, as each miss makes each athlete want to make each life even more, not just for them, but the fallen lifter laying on the floor. "Pick him up! Help her out!" One yells from across the gym. We must keep going, or the gym will win! The doubters will be victors and the haters will rise once again! Each athlete said nothing, just grabbed the bar and started lifting EVERYTHING! Gym rats unite! Tonight we fight! <br />
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Once lost, now found. Once turned off, now physically loud, mentally at peace, and one hundred percent found. Hate runs through our blood, but now controlled with our new found community. A raging storm over our heads, simply calmed from the fog that calmly lays around our beds. Dreaming of better times and forgotten times, goals reached and more obstacles to climb. As the final goal will never be reached, for this goal is far from the gym and applied only on the "outside". Once confused, now understood. Gym rat junkies ready for another fucken round. A shot of C4 splashes into our coffee, as we Mary our blood and infect others with our passion. An unspoken relationship of hard work and self pride, is the unspoken relationship of this bar and I. <br />
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CrossFit fan spins loud and hard in front of the sliding warehouse door, picking up chalk and flying it around each lifter, like ash from a fire, like a gladiator the night before. Wrists get wrapped, shoes tied tight, each lifter with a certain number in sight, an hour in and still a fucken fight. Bounty on weights, while knee wraps wrap tight. Virus tights like battle armor, as shirtless athletes mentally stay in the fight, while everything else in life slips away and calmly lets go. Quiet nights are haunted by nightmares from a long time ago, now acting as fuel as each athlete is up for the task, each entering closets of dark only to be met by skeletons from our pasts. A simple song of understanding, acceptance, and well-being is what an athlete needs to become one strong human being.<br />
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You walk up to the PR bar, grab it, and then..........<br />
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Crusaders 2016Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-29292577901584755502015-11-01T17:50:00.002-08:002015-11-01T18:05:48.437-08:00A New Experience <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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First time I have written to no music. First time I have written on a plane. First time I have actually opened a window to write, usually clicking black keys in the darkest of the morning night. I guess what I am trying to say is there is a first for everything in life, this is why I pressure all my athletes and fans to compete, compete, and to compete some more. Beginner or advanced, doesn't matter. Every meet is a different experience, every meet is a first. New openers, new jumps, followed with new goals and the possibility to achieve new medals and better placements. New Teams in new location. New crowds cheering much louder than before, the next one might be dead silent, the next might be an elevated platform. New adrenaline, more pressure, as you think to yourself, "I've done this before why am I so nervous and wanting to run for the door?" Reason being is you want it so damn bad, if you didn't your stomach wouldn't turn and your vomit wouldn't rise, your annoying yawn would go away and small little twitches and self chat mumbles would disappear like a dash of smokey magic. Wizam! But no... you want it so fucken bad it's even worse than the first. Every meet gets so much more exciting and nerve racking that the feeling alone is worth months of training, blood, sweat and tears. Sitting in the warm up room trying not to make eye contact with coaches, athletes nor peers. Focused and steady, your eyes stay down, ready and time-willing, your body is in full gear. It's like a gambler sitting at the table, that's the true rush, poker comes next to such a feeling of intimacy and lust. Just as a weightlifter getting ready for his or her opener, they are more alive before they even step on stage. Now it's time to react, nothing more.<br />
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New again after years of competing, this is why it's so important to keep competing, rising, and knocking off rankings. Each new experience might camouflage itself in the world of Weightlifting, but it's the new feeling that you receive that makes Weightlifting so addicting. Not the weight but the anticipation, as I would chug monsters and yell, "Arnold" keeping my mind from thinking. I would go to a different place when I trained that only brought in feelings, no thoughts, nothing. This was always my secret in taking top spots. I would let each meet take full control, moving with the rhythm of the meet like I was the meet director's soul. Understanding each meet as an individual made me openly take in sights and sounds, allowing all feelings to bubble over and spill onto a platform surrounded by cheering crowds. I was not thinking about my lifting. I was not thinking at all. I was honestly just reacting to what had been happening all along.<br />
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"Why is he slamming bars and yelling Shankle on the stage?" They would whisper and ask, as I walked off stage more jacked than even before. More alive than the meet before, and ready to lift bigger weight than ever before. I sailed to the back room with yells and tears, so emotional and hyped all before my second attempt was even near. 5 out, no time for sitting, just pacing and breathing, feeling and never thinking. I did what I had to do to keep fear away, that's my response to those that whisper from far away. When doubt and fear gets in the mind of a Weightlifter... missed lifts appear. Faces of - "what if's" - and uncertainty cast upon your face. I would then need to pee and I would no longer pace. I would no longer yell, that's when you know it's bad, calm Jon North was a scared Jon North, leaving me with memories of bad. </div>
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Emotions are not thought and they are extremely far from forced. Emotions are driven from want and desire, long ago heartache and a chip on the shoulder. Emotion stem from the possibility of succeeding... believing in what you're doing and reacting on overwhelming feelings of self love, self happiness, and self worth. The hype to go out on stage is a life changing force, that forces your nervous body to lift weight that makes you feel sick, tired and down, only to stand up to spike all doubt to the ground. Now calm palms chatter chalk crumbs from your hand, leaving the air cloudy and out of focused like an early morning flight in the AM. This type of spark sets fire to others around you, a selfish thought now inspires others to clap chalk and slam bars, yell loud while shooting for the stars. </div>
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Chasing dream in night time gyms, lonely and forgotten in the corner of the CrossFit Gym. Classes move fast and high energy continues to dance, the lifter in the corner has to wait another two months until he or she gets another chance. A weightlifter looks for feeling from a tired numb body in the deepest bottom of a chalk bowl, as if a kid looking for the magic plastic spoon in a cereal box, opened eyes and bushy tailed, sometimes, "Bingo!" sometimes nothing. No feeling, only from your legs spiking pain up into your hips, achy and un-oiled your knees make sounds of "clicks". Hands rough like a race horse's hooves, sharpening the ski and getting rid of the dead skin to new. Icy hot gets warm then cold like the last 5 meets you have competed in. Asking a woman out on a date was better odds than this weightlifting thing. Oh well, back to bloody chins and smelly shirts, gym bags that could tell a story of all sorts. Knee wraps wrap tight and steady, taking you back to the meet when your emotions were brave, high and alive. The knee wraps as your armor and the bar to survive. Yep... in the corner of this gym, you are a weightlifter, one day alive, most other days disguised. Patiently waiting for the experience of your life. </div>
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Your first meet or your last is a first. Experience is knowledge, and knowledge is a choice. Take in your feelings and understand your past. Embrace, react and most importantly, be you. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-3128698740091557542015-10-28T19:17:00.000-07:002015-10-28T19:17:17.250-07:00White Walls <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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White walls, silver trimming. This super store has everything. White shelves, bright lights, this super store is electrifying. Cream tiles under your feet reflect images from frozen food doors opening and shutting, shopping carts in motion turning and wheeling, as the constant flickering from the almost dead light bulbs above brings me a slight panic and uneasy feeling. Why am I here shopping alone this late at night? Why does the old man of a manager keep talking over the speaker phone about great prices, half offs, and coupons for deli combos and party accessories? <br />
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Bathroom walls light grey with a rough finish. One mirror looking back at your flush face in a bathroom much too big for such little space needed. The toilet sits alone like a sail boat out to sea, empty and small, navigation is a must to find the door back to what is considered reality. Long hallway with bare skin, nothing but white paint and a much too low water fountain guide me back to the store, one with a name I have still never heard before. Road trips can lead you to cracks of life you never knew existed, and the crazy part is once I leave this place it will continue existing, like nothing ever happened, like I never got lost and needed to use the restroom. <br />
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Sneakers squeak from a newly mopped floor from the janitor the night before. Adventures on every isle, as the carts turn and people smile. No talk, just a shoppers denial, as we buy more junk, plastic straws and buy one, get one frees... quiet calm music from high above the heavens keep us at ease. I am surprised the store lets you leave at all, as the clerks watch with moving eyes, peaking and keeping an eye on when we decide to awkwardly say, "goodbye" followed by a fake smile, half wave, and an awkward sigh. I wonder if a piece of them leaves with me, as they watch me exit, or maybe they like it... beats me. In circles we shop, rats in a maze, deals make us buy as there are no windows to see the outside. The night sky darker than the eye in the sky, following you around the store as if it has never seen a human being before tonight. The dark from the two front skinny doors make the ice coolers by the red lottery ticket machines glow like snow, as if they were a portal to another super store, all connected like a damn worm hole. The longer you shop, the further you go, the brighter the lights, the less you know. Brain washed by pictures of farms with cows, chickens on hills, and smiling kids drinking Koolaid while mom sleeps well overdosed on Nyquil. <br />
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"Do you want your receipt?" No thanks. "Okay, have a great night!"<br />
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White Walls 2016<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-85343798888152869972015-10-27T14:57:00.000-07:002015-10-27T14:57:29.410-07:00Gym Rats on Mars <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The gym shook mid clean pull, a sudden un-hook from your hookgrip as the gym itself un-hooked from the earth below. Shankle posters and Dimas art fell from the walls like a whiteboard getting wiped down after a workout has been complete, only for a new plan of attack to be drawn upon next. Medals and trophies on shelves once stacked high now fall low and broken on mats of black that no longer line up perfectly as if horses were actually going to use them anyway. A gym of strength now uprooted from a tornado of power, for a million powerlifters couldn't stop this horror of confusion. The gym starts to spin faster than an Eleiko bar, turning and swooshing and making your one focal point now blurry and off setting. Visions of giant coffee drops fly wildly around your line of sight....or a lack of. No time to try to drink them with your tongue opened and out like you did as a kid when it rained, only time to hold on to the squat rack behind you that your coach would always tell you to move due to the scare of missing the weight behind and hurting yourself from alack of room for a saved lift and a missed disaster. I think it's safe to say that this situation at hand is much worse than a bar rolling back onto your heels... wouldn't you say? Your whole world literally begins to move upward and beyond, higher than your vertical jump and higher than your bar on a perfectly timed and locked out jerk. High and proud, this time not so proud but confused and misled, for this situation was not on today's program. Weightlifting belts turned to safety belts and athletes of all kinds were locking themselves tightly on the pull up rig that now acted as a cockpit. Here we fucken go! Hold on tight! You yelled louder than the roar from your PR. You thought nothing was louder and deeper than a PR yell, but boy you were wrong... this yell was deeper than deep and louder than loud, as you were now moving to Mars faster than all hell! </div>
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The landing was violent by smooth, just like your feet on the catch, completely in control and stern with your decision. Your coach would usually yell great words of excitement on such a great catch, but on this landing, "Shit!", seems to be the only words out of his vast vocabulary. Skinny but strong arms stretch out from underneath the gym now acting as a space ship, arms like weightlifters misleading and hidden from public. The public eye would never know how strong you are, for your arms hang like theirs, not knowing your arms lift big fucken things high in the air. Their arms lift grocery bags and pins, working a desk job 'til their eyes pop out from their head. You live free in a warehouse of bars, open garage doors and weightlifting scars. Coffee tastes so much better when sweat meets caffeine, caffeine running through a body of free is the true secrete of being the best you can be. Your weightlifting shoes now act as space shoes meeting red rock. Virus tights and singlets act as suits in space, for now you are on Mars in a gym that now has an address above the stars. The air is somehow breathable, cool, crisp and foggy. Forget everything you know about science, people can't breath on Mars this is a fact, but nothing has ever been said about gym rats. Gym rats breath just fine, walk just fine and talk just fine. Gym rat weightlifters can adapt to anything with time. Red rock mater and sand storms are nothing to you, lifting on a slanted platform with legs of broke is normal to you. Haven't felt your legs in years! This makes for great training when legs cry painful tears! No pain can make a weightlifter hit numbers all day, insane training causes for a lack of feeling and a mind of numb, just like on Mars where the atmosphere is dire and grim. You all explore the red sea of rock, like you did when entering a gym for the first time. Eyes open and hands out, feeling the heat like Maximus going home. Taking in the sights and smells. Heads low as if stocking your prey, moving calmly like staking out a house. You accept this new world like your step dad on your mom's wedding day, unsure but ready for the task. Just as you accept the dark that weightlifting brings, knowing all too well that good things come after the darkest of times. Gym rats now huddle and talk about plans, as if we were making a flier and advertisements on expanding the gym and getting new members. A meeting on Mars, a meeting from afar, makes for a meeting that will bring light, water and food for gym rats to feed upon. </div>
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You trained, and hard. The cool windy air was filled with sand that struck your skin like the bar in your throat. Shins bleed from dragging bars as ankles hurt from unstable rocks below. Even with laying the horse mats out, lifting on slops of black, make for many missed lifts in front. No excuses, they trained, with coffee as your only liquid, and chalk as your only food. Eating chalk wasn't so bad, let's face it... the amount of chalk that gets on your body always ends up finding a home inside your stomach. Weightlifters never wash their hands, and face it... you don't either. A few PR lifts later and some Shankle yells followed, echoed through the valleys on red, sandy air and darkness beyond. The weightlifters and their gym on Mars noticed that the more weight they lifted, the more water began to snake through the rock like protein powder slowly falling down unshaken ice water. Green grass started to break through the rocks like a weightlifter's mental block finally being broke, that's the worst when your mind plays tricks on you. But without tricks there are no tries, for clowns of despair leave for more attempts and tries. Sometimes making it hard makes for harder training, in return making for bigger gains to come. "All in good time," a coach once said to me as he reached for his glasses and rocket book of programs. The weightlifters and you rubbed your gym rat tails in a stew of pride, for luck was finally on your side. </div>
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A single gym of athletes hitting heavy singles, made for a world to live in that was completely their own. You don't need society and they don't need you. Create your own, on Mars or at your home. Find a gym and walk on Mars, grab a bar and reach for the stars. </div>
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Create 2016 </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-55835554892599981632015-10-26T08:51:00.001-07:002015-10-26T08:51:22.342-07:00Despair <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Rusted blood built up around my neck like dead calluses on a hand of labor and let downs, gripped tight with a heavy hook, pulling on dreams that seem too far to ever come true. Each heave, and roar pulls the heavy rustic over-sized chain closer, elbows drive back, back holds strong, eyes steady ahead, and feet dig through, all while your body begins to doubt the long adventure ahead, and your mind whispers of white flags and other options. Pain desperately tries to despair you from your goals, as more fish oil tuns in your stomach, leaving you with a taste of old gym bag mixed with knee wraps from yesterday's training. "Maybe another goal is more feasible" - Rest whispers with a crack in her voice and eyes drooped like a Disney character - low and always forgiving. The bar you hold is high but so low, cold metal pulling you down as hope moves you forward. Bloody hands wash up for dinner, as Phantom of the Opera sings loudly in your ears, while others hear the quiet night play a song of silverware meeting the plate and cups sitting softly on the table. Cold nights that turn lonely, make you feel like the only one, like wearing the wrong outfit to the first day of school -therefore being shunned. A weightlifter set a part from the "rest" - An alien who is desperately misunderstood and hated by those who don't understand. Freak, bastard, fucken outcast. There is a place for us, it's called the gym. </div>
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Your scars turn purple as the breath of your air surrounds your thoughts, cold nights can make your midnight smoke turn into a circus of emotions while you sit front row, sometimes good, sometimes a performance that's followed by a head down shower. Does my sweat really build up underneath my shower? Is there really a "sweat bank"? Why the fuck I am doing this? River of red around my neck strangles me on nights of thought as I look back a decade later on my career. Past friends, coaches, teams, meets, medals and memories now dirt, dust, old coffee and cigarette butts. My writing stopped, medals hang in dust, only to move once again from open doors and a gust from an open window, as they cling and clang in a cry of acceptance, once appreciated and now unheard. Old forgotten videos lay on bed side with palms of ever loving lust. Hold my hand they whisper, with an old cracking voice of despair. A decade later and somehow.....I am still here. </div>
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Morning has now come, welcomed by a refill and a long stare out a canvas now almost filled. Normal society marches on as they do, one foot in front of the next, going to their jobs of work, once told to them by people who work, that once went to school who taught them how to work, so they work. The dark of the night slipped away like the last ten years of my life. Full circle....1,000 coffee cups down, stained cigarette hands and palms of rough. Ten years ago when I entered the Dark Orchestra I was lost, and now I am found. Found through weightlifting that gave me an identity nothing else could. Found through a bar that only tried to pull me down. The crazy thing is, is that if you lift the bar high you can achieve greatness. Lift the bar over and over, faster and higher, stronger each day, and opportunity will meet you at 6 am at Starbucks aka The Green Jungle. What door to walk through? I say walk through them all, doesn't mean you have to carry on down that one particular road. A journey only well sought upon is a journey worth taking. Have I ventured down paths of regret, never. Have a ventured down paths too long, yes. Know when to turn, find the crossroad and back trail if needed. Not all opportunity will lead to the promise land, sometimes a promise is only met with burnt grass and a rotten grapefruit tree. At time when all doors don't seem to lead, create your own as windy roads full of bricks and weeds can be the ones that lead to achieving many things, some on the list and some newly discovered. I write to you today, ten years later with more understanding than before, at the same time none at all. The times have changed but the coffee tastes the same. The barbell has been lifted with much weight, but there is always more to lift, more weight to move, walk with, and live with. A decade later and I finally come back to the place that I feel the most at home. A decade later and my neck still bleeds rivers of blood......cut by tyranny, and sustained by desire. </div>
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Shankle 2016 </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-1764950535029325672015-07-06T15:20:00.002-07:002015-07-06T15:24:51.081-07:00The Program <div>
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A note to you, TeamDO. I write these programs for you. Nothing makes me more proud than seeing you take my image, my vision, and turn it into your masterpiece. I write programs as if I am sculpting ice, wood, or better yet......a Weightlifter. A weightlifter with dreams, the same dreams I once had. Success, medals, teams.....VICTORY. Triumph over hardship, followed with pain over pleasure. Pleasurable pain is what I call this Team, TeamDO, the dark is you, with you, and lives inside you. There is no such thing as dark, dark is without light, but why is it in the dark I feel the sun on my face and the breeze on my hands. The past is a funny thing, close but far, love and pain, motivation filled with reluctant doubt mixed with mind numbing conversations between your skeleton and you, I, us. Your skeletons might be dark, locked away and hidden, but I promise you, walking into that closet and listening to the Orchestras they play, white fingertips filled with salty eyes, bones full of hollow, and strings that cry.....listen to them play, bad or good, and I promise you......IT WILL BE THE BEST PROGRAM EVER WRITTEN. Salute. #TeamDO #Thedarkorchestra</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-88704383872369526372014-12-25T16:08:00.000-08:002014-12-25T16:08:37.521-08:00Projector <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times;">It’s where it all started. Full circle. 5 years
later the Orchestra stands, bent but never broken. Side ways, but strong.
Old, but perfect. My old friend. True & brutally honest. Dust
on my hand, as my calused palms drag upon the faded red cloth chairs. Row
after row, higher and higher the 5 story auditorium rises, until the dark
slowly starts to cast a blanket over the last few seats. Seats where we
have sat in so often, as our skeletons play sad songs from the broken strings
from our past. Perfect harmony, perfect motion, and perfect sadness.
Dark, empty, but ever so bold. Too bold and honest for most, for
most don't enter, only those who truly want, and can accept their past can make
peace from this Orchestra. My feet stick from the salt water on the
ground, as broken strings lay next to broken promises, promises that held
dreams oh so tight, only now to lay out like an old rug that runs up the once
lit up isle. I am back, and it feels ever so good. The bright light
from the outside world creeps underneath the exit door, as boards and nails do
their best to block the sun. Black walls, filled with a black stage.
Broken chairs & fallen wallpaper sob like so many who enter this closet.
Passed the coats, passed the boxes, there lies a door, a door that leads
to a place I found back in 2010. I’m glad you can join me once again.
Join me as our journey continues. The next chapter may begin.
But first, let’s go back before we move forward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">2010, I needed a place like this. A place
where I could face my demons like a man. I place that shed no shame, but
bathed me in guilt. A place that would introduce me face to face with the
skeletons that kept me up all those past nights. The boogie man under my
bed, as smoke and coke chased me around the nighttime life I called hell.
A world of frightful tales, amongst the worst of devils. Regrets
from my childhood haunt me; decisions I have made lay me awake, as what if’s
wrestle me to the point of depression. What I have created today takes me high,
where I stand now is a dream world, one of beauty and honesty, but entering the
Dark Orchestra is a must, for it keeps me grounded. 2010, I was going
through a very hard time, one without saying you can relate to. Slamming
bars, chugging coffee, and yelling on the platform wasn't enough. I
needed something to yell at me, something to slam me down and give me a rude
awakening to the person I had become, and the person I was. I needed the
truth, one not sheltered by caffeine and weights, but real, horribly real that
could help me grow to the man I always saw myself becoming. 2010, I sat
down in the back room of Cal Strength, & began to write. It was weird…I
started to write about this thing called…well…The Dark Orchestra. Where
it came from…I will never know to this day. But boy, I am glad it came to
me. Without it…. who knows who or where I would be today. This is
my 5 year reunion of my blog, today I write again after a year to give thanks
to something that connected me to you, you the reader, & hopefully through
my writing helped you along the way as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">I continue to slowly drag my hand over the stage
and music stands raised up high like a skinny robot, as my walking feet creek the
hardwood floor. A projector plays old videos from being a little boy all
the way to my early days at Cal Strength, slamming bars at Sac State, flying to
the American Open under Hassle Free, long chats with Ben Claridad, and long
training sessions with Coach Jackie Mah. Scraping change for monster
energy drinks to split with my wife, all with happy smiles on our face. Not a
care in the world besides training. No cares, for all my skeletons at this
point in my life were locked away and forgotten in my long lost closet door.
Now sitting on the stage, feet dangling down as if I was a kid in a tree,
now reminiscing about moving across country and throwing weight at squat racks
at MDUSA. Epic YouTube videos cast a small smile over my face. I
shake my head sometimes to see if it was all just a dream, but no…I was truly a
part of so much good. I was truly a part of so much greatness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">Gold medals and bomb outs, missed teams and made
teams, friends, enemies, brothers, and sisters. The scratchy projector
screen above the stage continues to play a timeline of my life, as if it was
waiting for me this long year I have been MIA. What happened? How did I
become the man I am today? I walk the stage and throughout the maze of isles
and seats with more confidence than ever before. I have come along way
with my wife by my side, staying off by the exit door as so many memories catch
me by surprise. We have accomplished so much; we have failed so much. I have
changed, but this Orchestra hasn't. Still hungry, but at the same time,
satisfied with my hard work. Hard work…something that sounds so simple,
something that rolls off the tongue…something that is so hard…something that
still must be performed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">A young, ambitious kid lifting weights for the love
of the sport, and the world the sport lives within. Community…something I
finally found back then. Acceptance, pride, attention, something that
felt as warm as the sun on my face. I walk amongst this stage as my
skeletons start to come out from the dark, cellos, violins, bass, saxophone,
& pianos start to come together like life has a way of doing. I sit.
I listen. Half my body covered in dark, half in dust, as sad music from
my far & recent past keep me humbled and in check. An odd
understanding comes forth, giving me pain, while turning it into strength.
Sad songs at first, morph into songs of truth and fortune, breath and
lungs, dreams of better places and untouched grounds, as fog circles my feet,
and dark captures my head. My white eyes stay up toward my songs that
play, as my chin points low, as thoughts interact with the music. The
best part about the skeletons is they have a way of relating. You see…after
a few songs your skin melts from understanding, admitting, seeing, and finally
accepting. Your white bones become strong and loud, your white eyes turn
to black, as your nails fall like leaves. Your clothes become nothing to
you, so pure, so honest just this once, just this minute, your true feelings
are the only thing that consumes you. You my reader, you my fellow
friend, who sit next to me tonight, you are now turned into a skeleton.
We are now skeletons. Nothing but bones that can be seen right
through. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Skeletons of the dark
are nothing more than our own mirror.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">I can truly say that I am more of a man that I was
last year. More mature, wiser, and more understanding on how this society
works and turns. More keen to human behavior. Not as trusting, but
more trusting in some situations. Still growing, still trying to
understand, still playing my violin as a skeleton…no matter how much success I
create, the Dark Orchestra keeps me straight. How far I have come…oh but
how far I have to go. Blogs of sad, blogs of crazy, blogs of tears mixed
with hate and love…this blog is more me than me, as my fingers bleed for truth
and honesty, honesty within myself and others. My father not too long ago
found the Dark Orchestra; I know so many skeletons reading this now have as
well. Finding is key, but ever growing is a must. As my good friend
and coach Les tells me… “This is only the beginning". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">Skeletons of the dark that sit with me tonight, let
us take pride in ourselves, our families and friends, and never forget that our
past is what has made us who we are today, and today is a great day to
fight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">Skeletons 2015 </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;"><br /></span></div>
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PS: Hey Shankle, better step up your writing game……I'm back. #blogwars </div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-11406203115442451102014-07-24T12:19:00.002-07:002014-07-24T12:21:25.651-07:00Pre Energy & The Silent Owl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Four gentlemen. Four scholars. Four men captivated by the bar, sailing the gym with empty guts filled with swirling waves of energy drinks. Their caffeinated adventure and their midnight chatter sways them along the distant and never ending ocean made up of sugar, and birds that circle their ship of chairs and coaches tied together by the strings from each men's shoes. Knots that pull tight just like the grip they use to hold their shaker cups, keep the boat attached, while the men roll deeper into dreams and goals they didn't even know where there. Hands move with their mouths, while body language follows the rhythm of the conversation. Laughter rings out throughout the empty sea as one of the men ask for another shot of energy. "Hell yea!" Matt says to Ryan, as powder starts to pour like sand from a shoe. Powder that dances as it enters the cup.... a cup that will soon be shaken. Pink powder that is legal, how this is possible makes the men burst with laughter even louder than before. A drug that allows the men to feel comfortable around each other, like a beer at a business meeting, or coffee on a first date. An ice breaker, a conversation starter, a counselor of some sort, constantly begging for more truth, more discussion, more of you. Body building magazines that lay scattered on the wet deck, only to be glanced upon and then thrown to the side, leaving the magazine empty and unfulfilled.<br />
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When lost at sea the only thing to do is chug powder, crack monsters, and feel the smooth face of miss brown eyes against the palm of your hand. The yellow birds occasionally swoop down to catch a better view of the on board barrels that reek of motivation and wide eyed emotion. The gusts of wind from the splashing whales and rolling kilo plates made miss brown eyes' hair find peace above her head, blocking out the sight of the birds as if a slide show was being played above all for men's heads. A slide show of blue ski for miles, and clouds that made shapes of Dimas on a unicorn jumping over caffeinated waterfalls. It became quiet for a moment as all four scholars of their respected career choices drew from their rich and inviting drinks. A smack of the lips and a shake from the head was only the start of the after drink ritual. The classic look of the cup from a stretched out arm like something was wrong, meant that everything in the world was right. Chatter laid still in peace, as the sound of the boat slapping the water gave each man a moment of tranquility. Chunks of energy powder found its way on the back of each mans throat and behind the gums that always seemed to bleed when brushed. A fast chew as their eyes pinned wide, but the sight could not make out what laid in front of them from the pure concentration of the task at hand. Rocks exploded as the supplements taste and high powered electricity punched them in the face, followed this time around - by a fast and violent sip to wash the left overs down deep into the belly of the beast.<br />
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Another topic popped up like the silence was never there. The silence grabbed its doctor bag and medical kit and flew away. He was glad to leave, for he was an owl, and owls had no business being out in the middle of a ocean made up of sugar and yellow birds. The silent owl was always known for being realistic, and this situation was far from anything that lingered on making a bit of sense. To the four men reality couldn't be more real. The spray of the ocean tasted like sugar, and the circling birds drew a certain shade that they could feel upon their skin. How could this not be reality? A reality they could taste with every sip of their mixed multi-colored contraptions they were drinking, like a pirate to his alcohol. The front room boat stayed swaying as the lobby squeezed the shoe string boat closer and closer to the tiny door that was becoming bigger and bigger. A door that became land, and land that lead to the land called gym.<br />
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Jokes and ball breaking would be soon rudely interrupted by a heavy reality. Ideas were the reflections that the men saw when they pierced through the depth of the water, as the boat swayed closer and closer to the growing door. Looking back at them was the what if's and the how comes. Whales that rolled in circles with giant smiles upon their faces. Fish that spoke English sang songs from the 90's, and the outer banks of the ocean came to a stop, as if the water and sea life had no where else to go. All roads led to one destination. All the whales were swimming to one location, and the birds were flying to help guide the four men home. Soon the men realized their ocean journey was over, and the front door leading out from the gym lobby and into the gym was 10 feet high and partially cracked open. Chalk dust fell like snow from the cracked door, as the music bumped through the dead end ocean walls meeting their feet and carrying up through their bodies. The energy drinks were gone, empty, now living inside them. The door flew open as the owl of silence made its way to the front of the boat, grabbing the rope with his wing and tying the boat to the long wooded post that the yellow birds momentarily made their new resting spot. "Let's go boys......it's time to train." - Silent owl.<br />
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Energy Drinks 2016Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-89558385113407344462014-07-11T09:30:00.001-07:002014-07-11T09:31:29.968-07:00Catapult<div style="text-align: center;">
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The definition of the Attitude Nation Catapult performed beautifully by Ruben Aleksanyan in the video below.</div>
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Pointers to look out for. </div>
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1.) Bar never touches his body intel the contact in his hips (yes he is a hip cleaner) </div>
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2.) knees almost fully locked out - shoulders over - bar around mid thigh. (superman pull)</div>
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3.) This athlete has performed the early arm bend to a T. ) most likely because he is a hip cleaner)</div>
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4.) the finish (aka) Arched Angel, is one of the best in the game. Hips through - shoulders back - on toes - elbows back - BAR is right under his belly button</div>
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5.) WATCH THE BAR as the athlete starts to go under, goes under, and at the initial catch……..</div>
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THE BAR DOES NOTHING</div>
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Learn how to move around the bar, not move the bar.</div>
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Catapult 2016</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-37653516413488939072014-07-07T16:10:00.001-07:002014-07-07T16:10:00.759-07:00Jon North - Vlog #58 - Day 1<div style="text-align: center;">Had a lot of fun adding the commentary to my training vlogs. Even know Shankle is the commentary king…..its fun to try my best. 170kg 200kg here we come….</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_lMcyNsIraA?list=UU4rHOd0hOQwLDOVC9leOecw" width="480"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Bar Slamming Festival 2014 </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-37090215386293429482014-07-06T11:48:00.000-07:002014-07-06T11:58:12.377-07:00C4 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am going to walk you through my C4 journey this morning while I type to you in Starbucks. Better yet…..please, join me. Lets fly together. Lets dream together and conquer together. Lets become brothers in a world of war together. Lets drink the dancing water in a room of dark, as we get high doing what we love. shhhh…..I can hear society outside these boarded walls….lower your candle young lad, we must never let them find us. Take the bars and squat racks to the back. Shelter the plates and find homes for the clips…….we all know those clips have a mind of their own. They were born bastards in a sport that uses them in training as much as peanut butter on pancakes. Bring the dancing water to the table. Now….Before we start, let me stop this blog for a minute to give you time to grab your C4 and watch the magical dust fall from the sky and then twirl in your water……turning your cup from clear to the color of your flavor. I choose strawberry……so let there be blood! Let the sky turn from light morning blue….to the dark red that flows through my veins! OK…….have you poured? good. Now raise your cup, glass, water bottle, old coffee mug, skull of a lion…….cheers. Cheers to the day, to our loved ones, and the ones we protect from harm. Cheers to the iron sport we call life, that separates us from them, the weak form the strong, the sheep from wolves, better yet…….as we call them here in the dark orchestra……the ones with soft hands…..</div>
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First gulp down as I crack these little black keys. I close my eyes and wait……wait for the rush of joy and the taste of all my insecurities leaving my body like blood from a cut. The cracks of my skin slither like small snakes, running rivers of fresh water amongst my body washing away the day before, giving me a new fresh look on this life we walk upon each day. My skin itches with pleasure, so much that water drips from my eyes, as the goose bumps from my cracked skin raise like the wave on top of a gold medal podium. The itch…..starting from my cheeks, crawling up to my eyes, seeping into my skull, and then like a water fall……down my whole body as if I was born new. My fingers type faster, as my mind becomes sharper. The world around me spins slower, as my concentration becomes better. The pain in my knees starts to seep away like a high tree in a moving fog. My back grows spikes to keep me safe from the back stabbers that lurk during the day, and the two faced monsters who hide at night. My senses grow consistent to a spider, giving me the power in separating the closet haters, to the ones who truly have my best interest. My foot now taps to the violin song I will post above. I write to its rhythm. The beat moves me as the C4 runs through me. I am strong when I am confident…….sadly I need dancing water to keep this instrument tuned and sound, for without it I am not as sound, I am weak and less bound. The room now completely dark, a great time for us to take another gulp……better yet….this time lets take a giant chug…...</div>
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Belly of warmth…..as bones grow bigger, and muscles become stronger. At this point we are dangerous…..unknowing what we will do nor say, not as scared at the punishment that may lay. Another chug down…..as now my heart beats fast like the snatch. Hang snatches are the fastest because of the stretch reflex the athlete can use if done properly……C4 is a triple hang snatch above the knee, fast and violent like a pirate ship set out to sea. I wonder if Shankle is reading this blog, if so you better put down that sweet Louisiana ice tea…..get your self some of this skin itching, belly warming, red sea flowing, water dancing, pain relieving, weightlifting hulk juice we call the 4th element of the C. Late, late at night when the Orchestra is the quietest ……The lion killer has been rumored to lark in the dark. Its been chattered about throughout the halls a few of the skeletons sitting in the very back row listing to the Orchestra play on an ordinary day…..that lion heads have been found all throughout this old forgotten auditorium. Who be-headed them? and why? I have a pretty good guess on both matters….</div>
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C4 before training? The sheep ask. Yes, we reply without looking up. I don't need to make eye contact with those I don't trust. I keep to myself these days, I talk less these days. What I didn't tell these sheep, is that C4 is a must on any day. Today is an off day for Weightlifting……but not for life. I chug this bottle to connect with you. I chug this bottle to clear the pain in order to smile. The dancing water keeps me awake in order to live. Take it away……you take away apart of my lifestyle…….take away my lifestyle, and I don't trust myself in what kind of life choices I would make. </div>
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Stay away forever crystal mountains…….protect me dancing water……..</div>
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C4 2016 </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-10975064261407601032014-07-05T17:34:00.001-07:002014-07-06T10:12:00.566-07:00Leathered<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Times;">Pull back with all your might……for us the skeletons
should never stop fighting the good fight. Heave! Pull! Use your back to attack
and your heart to win; the greatest gift an athlete is given is the strength
within. Pinch your shoulder blades tight to cut through the wind! Fast
with a swoosh and quick like a hush……this will keep the weight from pounding us
against the dust. “Back not up!” the lifters yell from behind, as water
creeps around the bend. Don't try to move a bar; for it will always
disguise itself as a friend, only to steal your gold and rust your crown,
athletes are kings that continually drown. Under we go, heavy we constantly
throw, as buckets of water sink us low. Move around like sound, let the
bar unite you with the ground, as heels dig and tears falls……let your body move
as your fear dies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">Chest up young lifter…. as the leathered faces
crack a dry smile, tying their shoes makes them remember days of denial. A
heavy chest means a weighted down soul, one that carries too many problems on a
platform of weight. Adding extra baggage becomes a weight too much for
any plate. Your knees will break and your heart will stop, as your eyes
look around an audience of silence. Let your chest rise as you break
through the air……let your lats spread like flight to a bird……let your
confidence soar as a lion with his roar. Donny Shankle watches from the
back of the room, blue hat low and jeans full of blue. If you have lost
your chest and your shoulder blades aren't tight… look at the man postured in
the back with a hate that blocks the light. A face on an interview half
covered from shade, half light, one half leathered and the other half brave.
The Cal Strength interview of Shankle is a reminder on how to train. If
you are a lifter reading this blog, you must learn to learn, tighten your back
like the curve of a spoon. Tight and strong not just flat and solid, for
a tree will lie when lying down flat. Some look sturdy, while others look
hollow. To find the right tree takes years for the eye to see, the body
to feel while your hand falls free, once you stand long enough by a tree, you
will know every itch of its matter and how it may be. Learn how to keep
your back tight, and your hands free… this young lifter, is when skin becomes
leathered and the weight of the world becomes free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">I write to you from a corner booth in Starbucks.
The day outside is cloudy and the air is full of salt. I write by
the ocean of peace, thinking about tight backs, weights being made, and how a
lifter’s movement to me is never the same. This is why technique is so
intriguing to my brain, a brain that has never been good at much besides
movements that mock the flow of rain. For we are the best athletes and
dancers alike, we move like the ocean on a stormy night. I lift weights
for the expression it gives, freedom of movement in a life of constant
heartache. You know as well as I that quick sand is quick to find…. grabbing a
bar will always relieve you of your pain, giving you another feeling of
ache…and well…pain. The microphone has consumed me far too long… I am
back home in the dark where I belong. I raise my fist, full of wine and
C4. Cheers to you, the ones of bones and salt, not from the sea but by
the stage of the never forgotten. Right through us they see our past in
the same room as me, and a window open from the Orchestra to the sea. I
ink my pen, I shed a tear, I write directly to you without any fear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">Without this blog I fake smiles. Without this
blog I lose myself. I am the dark, we are the Orchestra….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">Olympics 2016 </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-28768047125585498892014-03-21T08:32:00.002-07:002014-03-21T08:32:08.597-07:00The overall Man<br />
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Ripped overalls with pockets full of broke. Brown bag full of sorrows, and hopes full of let downs. Banned from society, outcast from the world. You the dreamer no longer dream, but only hope to find where this old dirt road leads. You walk with pride, as your knees fucken scream with pain. Holes in your shoes like holes in your heart, shot from the gun of loved ones and sprayed by the machine gun of life. You still stand, I still write, we still walk, we still carry on as our blood shot eyes fill with dirt and our hair with exhaust from passing trucks. The smell from the black fumes reminds us of home. It reminds us of hiding spots while parents fought, closets full of coats and umbrellas that came alive and comforted us as a crying child. The dark is safe, the light is open. A cigarette brings back James Dean, as the 3 legged dog morphs into a strutting cheetah. Messy hair from falling fast, soon combs back like a wet comb as we fall forward. A chip off the old black that could get a cargo ship lost in its depth. A middle finger cold and frozen, stuck high from seeing so many stuck up. Red knuckles and permanent damage from fist to wall, hate to self-pain, and frustration to must figure something out or else. No money to spend, but a fuck load to gain. No future, but a hope to one day look back at the past. A dying want, with nothing to feel, a fight deep down, that seems to only roll in the belly of hunger and a mind of dizzy as the lack of sleep drains your thoughts. Homeless with no home, loneliness with no one, empty and ready to fill the void that is restless within you. <o:p></o:p></div>
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An old abandoned warehouse lies in ruins at the end of this dirt road. The green grass slowly turned into burnt rubber, while the smell rose dark and the backward town seemed hidden but visible from where he was standing. The once blue sky turned yellow, as black clouds traced through like arrows being shot by a thousand gladiators. The graffiti on the walls of the broken warehouse dripped like tears, while the windows closed like fear. A street sign that reads welcome, as the five-story warehouse quietly whispers turn around. Wind that talked, and weeds that grew so high they wrapped around the man's ankles. His cigarette burnt his fingers, making him jump and say, "ouch!" a necessary reaction. He whipped his hands against his orphaned overalls, while his head turned like a spinning top trying to figure out what and where his windy dirt path had taken him. A small child appeared randomly by the front door of the warehouse entrance. Probably 4'9 and 180 pounds of muscle. She was strong and confident, wide-eyed and alive. A tall and skinny man walked up behind her with his eyes never unlocking from the overall scavenger that found himself now surrounded by at least two dozen men, women and children. A complete circle was formed, smooth and fast, out of the dark shadows they appeared. A few more from the warehouse, even a handful climbing down the black trees that were bent and fallen but perfect for climbing and tree forts. The dirt below his feet was grey ash that slowly fell from the sky as if winter time during Christmas. Memories of the once good times in his life passed over his face, before realizing they were and have been dead for many years. His overalls slapped back and forth from the wind that swooped up and over the cliff in front of him. It seemed as if the world literally ended 100 feet from the broken warehouse. He started to lean his head up and to the side as if he was a kid in a car seat trying to see out the windshield in front of him. He was suddenly awakened from his thoughts and curious adventure, a mental adventure on top of a real life adventure. It was hard to faze the man that walked the dirt road with torn cloths and eyes filled with abandonment. His chip held a lack of surprise, while a tender and sensitive feeling of sadness created a shock wave of constant depression. But this......this gingerbread house in the middle of the black forest made his heart beat for the first time in years. His lungs filled back up with air, and then the silence broke. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A little girl broke the circle and sprinted towards the man's leg. Her mother ran after her with her arms out as if trying to catch a chicken. A panic took over the mother, but soon came to ease as she saw the little girl and the man talking to each other in a safe an ancient whisper. The little girl said, "Hello", and the man said, "Well, hi". He looked down at her glassy brown eyes and asked what her name was. She responded by not answering the question, but instead saying "Their are many bad days in this forest where the dirt path meets, but my mom says that if we keep training hard we can make it to the promise land". He looked up to the mother who stood a respectable distance away, while still being motherly. She looked back at the man with no emotion, only her hair in the wind, and the men behind her who looked like monsters with beards of strength and legs of trees. The women looked like lions, fast and furious, strong and hard working. These people didn't look like the normal folk, they looked as if they.......well........they looked like him. Holey clothes with ripped hands. Sad faces with hungry souls. Dry marks from tears, under a brain full of motivation. The only difference from the man in the middle of the circle in the burnt black forest on the edge of the world and the strong people is that they looked like they had found something to be motivated for, while he stood empty handed. He looked down at his hands with his forehead crinkled tight, while his eyes pierced down looking for something that should be resting like home in the palms of his hands. But nothing, for the people around them had something. The little girl tugged on his overalls that looked as if they were going to rip at any minute. She said, "Follow me sir, I want to show you something". They started to walk to the front door of the abandoned warehouse where the tall man with the red beard still stood, eyes locked like an eye to a target. He seemed like the leader, but then again... they all seemed like the leader. The man looked back at the mother to see if she had any problem with the new plot of the situation. The mother nodded her head, walked fast and then joined them by grabbing her little girl's hand. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Inside the warehouse laid 30 to 40 medal cots. Side by side, dream by dream, wall to wall they sat with medal feet, bodies of blankets, and faces made of pillows. The little girl jumped on one of the beds out of either excitement from a new visitor, or just because she was a freak athlete, and that's what athletes do, they move, they jump, and they test the limits. She was defiantly testing the limits of her mother, because she was soon told to get down. The man entered the next room and to his surprise found something that would change his life forever. It was a large bar that stood 30 feet tall, and at least as round and wide as the whole warehouse. How he didn't see the massive metal behind the house seemed impossible. It was shinny and long, dense and strong, alien like was an understatement. The overall man reached out and touched the bar as if touching his first-born's face. There was a moment of complete silence while he tried to gather his thoughts, and control his emotions. He had so many questions, but stayed quiet. Besides the little girl, no one had spoken yet. Just look, expressions, and gestures were being used thus far. The only noises were coming from the wind that had now died down, and the footsteps that had now stopped while admiring the pure shock this lost man was in. Wings..........wings he thought, with his hand leaned against the bar and his head down with thought. He looked up at the man with the red beard and asked.....wings? The tall cold man who seemed to take the leadership roll nodded his head as to say, "Yes". "Wings to fly," the little girl said as excited as possible. "If we lift the bar hard enough everyday, my daddy says the bar will someday fly us away to the land of bright." She said this while pulling each finger down as if she has rehearsed it a million times, and once finished she looked back up and followed with a jump and a clap out of excitement for nailing the plan the tribe had in front of them. The man looked fast to the bearded man with a look of excitement as well. The beard of the man nodded up, then down. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The wings on the bar spread at least 100 feet wide on each side. On one side of the bar the wing hovered over the black forest that covered the warehouse and the people who lived in it. The other wing spread out past the end of the world, or what really was the cliff that led to the land of bright, where the trees grew tall, grass grew green, and the ash was replaced by rays of sun and wind of warmth. The mother of the little girl finally spoke. Her voice was soft like an angel, as her brown hair now fell straight down on the side of her face from the wind dying down. "There is only one way to get to the land of gold and bright, green and happy, cabins of wood and water of clear." She then looked at the bar......he followed her eyes to the bar.......the quiet stood for a while as he felt at home, as he felt alive for the first time, as he felt a part of something, as he felt he finally had something to feel, grab and lay in the palm of his hands. He looked back at the mother with a smile on his face. The black ash started to fall from the sky, and the bad day started to come to night. His eyes wide, his heart beating fast. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She looked at her bloody hands and then smiled at her beautiful daughter looking up at the overall stranger. She then said in the most calm and soothing voice he had ever heard in his whole life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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"To train everyday." </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-31635411227686365242014-03-19T20:46:00.002-07:002014-03-19T20:47:28.515-07:00Crazy 8 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Coffee at night........Coffee in the dead of the night, as I write to the ones who raise hell during the day, and find peace at night. Throat hurts from the bar, while eyes sag from rage. Black eye from fighting.....teammates at war.....nothing new. I write the those who fuck shit up during the day, only to dream about it at night. A plot that thickens in the darkest of the night....fuck everyone, and hold those you love tight. Step and sleep, wake and turn, wrestle what Shankle cooks, and ripe what those wont. I type extra fast so I don't loose what hits me, cleans crash on me as I drink wine like Mathews. Red for wine, and dark like this living room, I say hello before we sleep, I say more coffee! Jump below to keep reading if you relate........the gym world is among us.......and its never to late.<br />
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A journal? I don't think so.....more like a confession to myself and those who read. Read then write, a confession from us develops throughout this dark night. No joke, 1am......coffee still by my side as the quiet tv once alive and well, now lays dead by my side, lifeless and stale. Junk is filled from the box of shit.....I don't watch shows that fill my mind with nothing more than.....well, shit. Moving on, one sip at a time. They told me to make paragraphs, so down I jump. Follow me tonight as I write about nothing more than Weightlifting.<br />
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I like to think thoughts of forgiveness while I write letters of apology. My mistakes may help others as they helped me, for my future kids will know all I did wrong, only so they can make wrong decisions on their own. They will fuck up, we all fuck up, and we will continue to fuck up. It's how we move around the fuck up, getting to the side of stand up, that makes it hard for most to swallow. Stand up and dust the dirt, shake the dust, and become a man of trust and self accountability. Nut the fuck up before you get knocked the fuck out......I tell myself as I look in the mirror. Did you think I was talking to you? No, I would never tell anyone how to handle themselves while looking into the unforgiving mirror. A place so real, that most of the times I wash my hands I never look up. I award myself so well with all my life gathered accomplishments I have earned and taken, never mistaken for deserve.....the only thing that deserves anything is children and animals, they are owed Love. Don't give it to them......well then....you my friend are a piece of shit terrorist and should be shot in the head. You my friend should be killed on the spot and taken far from this world. Love is owed to some.....only a few.....for the rest of us we fight, fight for what is ours and what we have worked so hard to get. I blame others so fast, this is what I write about tonight. My wrong paths and empty chats, leaving bad decisions in other hands. I sometimes walk away from what I created.....good or bad, rather than growing a pair and owing up. Both can spin in different directions by the way you handle them. Bad can turn good, as good can turn bad. The start is not the finish, for the finish is not 'til you're dead, your family and friends must always be first and your last. <br />
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I guess this coffee has a weird way of sliding me into a mood, slipping me off the kitchen chair into a room....a room so dark and thoughtful, while awareness blinds me as my hand hides from me. Black like my coffee, black like the lines around my eyes, that looks like eye liner even to my own surprise. A weightlifter's mind works all the time. Around the clock is we wait to squat, another minute passes as our legs become shot. The night before a meet is where you win, when the win becomes reality.....or when the win becomes a distinct dream that only lies within the dead of the night memories. Shot legs means strong for the meet ahead, acting slightly off means your going to be on like donkey kong. Just saying......now jump down!<br />
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Make odd twitches, talk to yourself in a way of not understanding yourself. Make those around you accept your odd mood as you move to a place that only some will ever see, a place that feels alone and free. Lost in space, where your breath feels like ice, and your heart beats like a fight your parents got into on a vacation cold night........the dead of the night make the worst fights. Alive we will be on top of a platform, a moon walk must take years of prep, just to realize what you are doing takes time to settle, as this coffee makes my emotions rise, like smoke from my other friend I call my tea kettle. Funny how coffee takes our bodies all over, at the same time keeping our mind pinned to one thing. I usually drink tea at night, but being up this late makes me excited for the next day fight. Will I sleep, yes of course, after you read this it's off to bed. Awaiting me awaits dreams of coffee mixed with c-4, weightlifting shoes and so many people walking out the front door. Hmmm.......I wonder.......where have they have all gone. What are they doing as I write along. I have dreams of meets gone wrong, only to dream within a dream they turned right. Friends and teammates I truly hope are doing alright. I have odd dreams of roller blading......crazy 8. Once thought it was cool to where jeans that covered the back of my shoes. Dragging behind like a wasted bum in a midnight saloon. Green skateboard with a Seattle helmet......I don't want to bore you with memories that only live within me, I'll keep this blog somewhat on point as I keep writing deeper into the night.......stay up with me longer...? If so.....jump to the next paragraph with me.<br />
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Thank you for jumping down. I feel like we are back in middle school sneaking out of our parent's house, only to destroy the community with eggs and toilet paper. Ding dong ditch to feel bad and mean, take that you house full of old people! Fuck everyone! We would yell so mad and hurt.....from what? I don't know...... to this day that same anger comes out, as if we were back slaughtering the quiet community we called home. Stay up and let's eat pizza and watch the Rock. A great movie that leaves us loving Cage, only to later ask ourselves why he is doing such shitty movies these days. Bed time is near, again.....thank you for staying up and sneaking out, egging houses and raising hell! Goodnight my fellow friend........see you tomorrow for another day in hell...<br />
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Though I don't know you......I truly know you. 2016 and beyond....next time you see me I will give that look, at that moment we will all strike....<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-88900777351964313862014-03-14T09:41:00.002-07:002014-03-14T09:44:26.271-07:00Cal Strength YouTube Channel <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The gravel crunches under my feet as I take a stroll down a once operating machine factory I once called home, that now lays in ruins full of old cameras and scattered shoes. Swinging swings squeak as the the wind swirls through the empty abandoned park, creating a false reality of life, as newspapers dance across the dirt, and kilo plates fall over from the wooded blocks the weights have gotten to know and love. A rustic world where memories live and dreams were made. Old Cal Strength. The original, and the place where it all started. The longer I walk under this dark yellow sky, the deeper the Cal Strength YouTube channel goes. Faces that bring a smile to my face, and some a tear, as the memories are only the start, for the surface has cracks, and deep within those cracks lie the feeling that each person left upon me. Each person has unknowingly formed me into the man I am today. Each video has branded me a home sick feeling that pounds deep within my stomach. The more I write, the more I walk, the deeper I go, the more the home sick feeling grows, leaving me wanting to re-live each video, each laugh, each joke, each miss, and each struggle. Adopted from what I loved most, a shoulder to lean on, and a family to call my own. I walk with my head down, for seeing too much makes it too hard to continue the YouTube stroll down this graveyard of old school. The graveyard of the very beginning.</div>
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Glenn's nicely shaved face and nervous ticks while being filmed runs a tear down my eye as I write this blog that has already shown itself as one of the hardest blogs to write to date. Max Aita performing a no belt, no wraps and no hands 250kg back squat, then afterward joking around about our little pyramid scheme, inside joke we created after always getting approached constantly at Costco, made my home sick feeling grow to the point of pain. Donny Shankle telling his famous war stories on a hot summer day while we all sat around drinking our energy drinks as if the platform was a camp fire, and the resting chairs were our tent. Mullet jokes with Enderton, while Spencer danced on top of the jerk blocks. Kevin Cornell and his wise philosophy made every one's hard training day become a little bit better, while Rob's loud skipping laugh echoed throughout the gyms walls for all to hear.<br />
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At this point of the journey I have found myself resting on an old white pick up truck that Max must have forgotten to drive away with before the new school Cal Strength came through. It is no longer white and alive, now dead and brown from the constant slashing of the wind and dirt that never seems to let up. Sunny skies and rolling hills have turned into forgotten paths and cow pastures full of bones. A deserted world that once bloomed colors and energy, now quiet and calm it sleeps. I mustered up the strength to drag my legs down the Cal Strength channel even deeper, on the hunt for what started everything.....the very first video.<br />
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The gravel road turned a few sharp corners as it led me down its windy hill. The yellow sky is brighter than earlier, as black clouds splattered throughout like spilled paint. The dirt world is a desert waste land, but off in the distance there stands life, tall and proud, green and alive, beautiful and fulfilling. A tree, a single tree that my eyes followed while my feet stepped blindly. My hands out to the side to better balance myself from my feet stepping in all the wrong places. The wind seemed to die down, as true silence rang throughout the waste land. A broken wall that laid half in ruins tried desperately to stand in front of the tree. It looked as if the wall had been defeated, as the tree stood in victory. Was this wall once a part of the old Cal Strength? I mumbled to myself as my hand brushed the sad wall. Sad it truly was, I felt like at any minute the wall was going to ask me if it could be tall and sturdy like the tree in front of it. My heart rang out, smothering my home sick stomach, with now a stinging pain in my heart. My other hand grabbed the bark from the tree while my eyes stared down on the small path that ran between my legs, now finding myself resting and relying on both objects after a long and emotional journey. I then knew where I was. Lightning went off and the grey clouds darkened the yellow sky. Both my hands became free as my back hit the wall and my body slid down into the dirt that grew so familiar. My eyes closed with a fallen tear, as my fingers dug deep into the dirt creating a sharp pain from my finger nails being pushed back. The tree might as well have smiled at me and told me it has been too long. The wall had my back like it always had, and the little path that ran between both the tree and wall was the same, it was just without water running down and green grass surrounding it. My hands beneath the dirt felt a long piece of medal. My head turned to the hand that captured this treasure, and then my arm began to pick up speed moving back and forth trying to wrestle the dry dirt away to view what my hand was holding. A stubborn thing this piece of medal was, so stubborn I found myself standing up heaving with all my might. Soon after about 10 minutes of battle, the object uplifted from the graveyard of dirt, and showed itself. It was a medal chair. Bent and broken, used and then forgotten, lonely and left behind. I new I had to continue on my path down to the bottom of the deepest Cal Strength video. I must leave this memory behind me always keeping it deep down inside of me never to be forgotten. I must walk away from the once beautiful and magical place Donny and I once called our smoke break behind the gym.<br />
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I soon found myself down deep, deep where the landscape became blurry and out of focus from the small little camera Glenn used to film with. Before the beard, before the exposure, before the medals, before everything. Broken bars and broken straps that were once shinning stars of this time period. Old shoes with no laces, and echos from past lifts as screams and yells whistled with the wind. Dirt hitting empty coffee cups that made sounds of chatter about possibly putting a blog together, and the excited talk about coaching and clients, gold medal goals, and maybe one day the chance to be able to represent the Country. Dreams that were boiling like water on the stove. Videos that were mostly clips of single lifts that bloomed into multiple clips that soon became training videos. Retired YouTube views begged for more hits on the side of the gravel road like homeless bum's begging for drug money. A single number 1, was telling stories and bragging about how he was the first viewer ever, the first YouTube hit ever. He sat up high on a broken platform as he took credit for the start of the thousands and thousands hits to come. For he was the original hit, the first hit ever that created a wave of something that no one at the time ever thought possible. I broke a smile and waved at number one as I passed by, raising my head to show my respect and appreciation. I stumbled upon a blackberry that the dirt had not fully swallowed. Not the fruit, but the phone. I picked it up and then blew the dirt off the screen to get a better look. I knew right away that this was the phone of Dave Spitz. Keys completely worn out from the fast typing of exciting numbers his athletes just hit. Fast texting from the work he constantly put in to grow the life of his baby. The owner of Cal Strength, the boss man, the godfather, the leader, the man that made it all possible. The man that gave me a chance when I was a young troubled kid. The man that breathed air into my lungs and gave me a purpose. Memories of him yelling at me while front squatting, "There is no crying in weightlifting, Jon!" I wonder what he would yell at me now if he saw my face. Because right now I am not weightlifting. Maybe I will travel high up to the very top of the channel where a world of unknown and new faces live and return his phone. Maybe he dropped it while moving forward away from the old school waste land. I put it in my pocket, and traveled down deeper to where the videos became even more blurry, shaky, and innocent. I walked deeper down to the place where I was born.<br />
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Muscle Driver and the Attitude Nation seemed a million miles away. I started to miss my present life, but was too driven by the good old days to stop now. Martin Pashov told stories of how he wanted to be a soccer player in Bulgaria, but was never allowed to because they forced him to become a weightlifter. This always broke my heart. Anthony Grule was just a baby experiencing high school, and Caleb Ward was still a 105 plus. Coach Glenn only wore these gladiator sandals, or what we called, Jesus slippers. I picked them up from the curve of an empty tire, and put them in my bag to give to him once our paths ran into each other again. I was close to the bottom, I could feel it in the change of the air. The temperature started to drop dramatically, and the sky was now pitch black. The dirt scurried past my feet as every step I took crunched the gravel of moving rocks below me. I was far away from Donny's and my smoke break tree, and at this point it would be nice to have one with him from the nervous wreck I was under.<br />
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My feet met water, as a distant light house cast its light far in the distance. The wind was heavy, but the water was glass. My feet became bare as my hands became smooth. The dark only showed its face for the last hour, and now the sun was rising making the nighttime light house fade. The sun crept up my body warming my cold heart while the dirt turned into green grass. A boat was heading my way, but I couldn't make out who it was. It looked like two big people from one side of the boat almost completely tipped one way. How the boat didn't fall over was nothing but a miracle. I was startled from the out of no where comment by Pete standing beside me. I was startled, but more baffled on how he got there. Pete's Asian eyes lit up as he waved the boat down as if he was the kid in school begging to be called on. I looked over at Pete with an excited look on my face and asked him "Who is that Pete?" He replied with a look of confusion because of the fact I didn't know. "That's your new coach Glenn Pendlay and his athlete Caleb Ward!" He went on to tell me they made a long journey from Texas to get here, and how excited they were to be a part of the team. At this point I was waving with Pete, even jumping up and down. I looked over to Pete while half laughing - half yelling "Over here!" then asking "What team?" Pete looked back at me as his face became blank and more Asian than ever. "Team Cal Strength" Pete looked away while still keeping one eye on me as if he was unsure I was not losing my mind. I then realized I was home, back to the start, the very bottom of Cal Strength's YouTube channel. I made it, my journey was a success. I drew many tears, laughed many memories, and walked many lonely paths, but I made it. I looked back with a smile ear to ear at Donny sitting on the brand new chair behind the tall proud gym wall and yelled to him with everything I had, "Donny......Coach is here"!! Donny took a drag from his smoke while looking up into the bright green tree and then back at me, "Good brother, now tell em to hurry it's almost time to train brother". I waved my head back and forth while shooing him away with my hand as if to say that could wait 'til later, Donny. He chuckled while wiping some moss away from his white tank top. "Max! Come fast, coach is here!" To my surprise Max was already right next to me, beard and glasses in full affect, and responded with just a look beyond out to the boat. My chest became warm from my wife Jessica leaning up against me as my arms wrapped around her body, as if we were watching the sunset, but instead we were waiting upon two heavy set men that were almost drowning the boat. Caleb with a barbell, and coach with a small silver camera. Dave Spitz welcomed them both. I then startled in excitement to show both coach and Dave that I found their belongings on my journey to now. I held out the blackberry phone in one hand, and the Gladiator sandals in another, awaiting their good praises. But instead, getting funny looks in return as I soon noticed they already had these objects with them. I almost forgot that this interaction was only a memory, and that the only place to go from here is forward, back through the rolling grassy hills of San Ramon, tall tree of smoke breaks behind the gym, back past Max's bright white Chevy truck, brand new barbells and new shoes, and upgraded cameras to capture all of the memories and success that happened throughout the beginning of the Cal Strength days. All soon to one day turn back into the waste land of forgotten times and rustic memories. At this point view number one was not bragging on top of the broken platform, because view number one was not alive yet.<br />
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Coach Pendlay and Dave looked at the new and improved team with Donny off in the distance wrapping his knees with his famous knee wraps, and they both said at the same time......."Well....shall we train...?".<br />
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The rest is history.<br />
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Cal Strength 2016Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-5781256453046219432014-03-10T18:52:00.002-07:002014-03-10T18:54:34.709-07:00Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I guess sometimes I lose my mind....at times in a state of depression for no real apparent reason, and times in a state of rage. Rage on those who ever doubted me, rage on those who hurt me, and rage against the single piece of metal that has hurt so many of my close friends.....the bar. I sometimes lose my mind in a stage of excitement. A sudden burst of insanity fuels my heart with hope to one day become the man I never saw myself being so many years ago. A solo piece of happiness that whispers in the back room of a meet, that one day I could be a great father, teaching my kids everything that I have learned, and most importantly...what not to do. Yes, some hate me and most disagree, but for those that stand with me......it's all worth it. For those who get me, I get them. Yes I slam bars, and yes I like drinking coffee, but most importantly I say no to all the things that have crippled me, a no to those who once surrounded me. Drugs are a far away world, as coffee reminds me of the path I am on. Guiding me to the stage where skeletons of my past look on. I play my violin to not forget....but to never hide the feelings that once shadowed myself from myself. The coming down was always the worst. A living room with no furniture spoke thoughts of reality, as the light from the rising sun peaking though the shades made my pale skin feel warm, as my teeth chattered from the cold room. My back against the wall, as my knees held my chin. I am death; I am nothing; I am a slave to the crystals that fill my soul. I am scum on earth that chooses easy rather than hard. I simply do not live......so excuse me if I now choose to live.<br />
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My eyes heavy from up all nights and long talks. Talks about so many goals and dreams that truly only live in smoke rings. Smoking a cigarette to the butt....only means you're not done with the nicotine rush. Yes this morning might be here, but I am no where near facing what I have become. As the fan turns like the bar, only in this chapter of my life it turns in fear. I remember crying in the bathroom as my ribs would stick out from my side, eyes so dark and wide you would think I wasn't alive. If you have been down this path you know about the itching that takes place, for skin only falls when the smoke fills your space. Every flake would shed a tear, as I hoped no one heard my sniffling from near. Hanging with a crew like this.....you never showed weakness......funny looking back.....that's all we were, weak. I lose my mind from time to time, only to find it in a better place than before. When this mind is lost this body is weightless, the only thing heavy is the weights I lift. My past is heavier than any bar, as my past skeletons are my coach....rooting me on from afar. So sue me if I slam this bar, or kick me out from this family I once thought was mine. The talk chatters at night that things are already in order for leaving me outside. What they don't understand is the dark is what I like.....the only thing that truly scares me is the sunlight. I write alone in this dark room I call home. A part of me still lives in the past, but I choose this, for my past has turned into you, as gold medals fill my room. Without the dark I would have never seen the lights on the stage, walking out to a bar is my freedom from being a slave. If you don't think empty living rooms with smoked filled clouds is being a slave..... then you have never saw the sun creep in through the shades. My friend......weightlifting is heaven, as blue skys fill my cheeks with smiles and cries. I guess the character from Training Day nailed it to my surprise. <br />
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This is a blog about the person you are. I am me, you are you. Our skeletons have different pasts as our training room might play different tunes. For those that shun our light, our sun.....they are the ones who live everyday not knowing where they come from. Accept your past, don't fight yourself, get to know your skeletons at last. Your past is you and you are truly strong and true. I am me and with you we are three...you, me and the skeletons make three.<br />
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Weightlifting is my love.....but my wife is my life. My dogs are my heart. My future kids are my blood....and you the reader are my understanding and my teammate...not in weightlifting but in life we fight. You and I can achieve anything believing in.....well.....you and I. <br />
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Don't change. I will not. I have never forgot what the dark as done to my life.....it has made me happy, and introduced me to my wife. <br />
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I love you, Jessica.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-38603583446114406332014-02-18T12:57:00.000-08:002014-02-18T12:57:04.869-08:00AnniversaryCan you hear me? I can hear you. Scrolling through old blog posts trying to figure out witch one to re post......re post? Fuck re post. If they missed it then they missed it. We got it, even if they can't understand it. They are those who miss opportunities on purpose and then blame others for missing the bus. You see the world as I do, as I see it through your eyes as if I was you. You feel that....the bar in your hands? Completely in control of your own destiny? The future cant be told, for that you are blind, as I lay a thousand miles away wishing I knew mine. Medals can't be seen from under a turning fan......but doing what we love is ours.....as simplicity can fool the smartest of ones. The smell of chalk doesn't change, just like our love for the sport stays the same. Isn't it funny......that we are still here, as so many have walked out. Its been years now and the Orchestra still plays as this black stage salts our feet, as our pasts watches us from the back seats. Completely dark, besides the small light peeking in from the bottom of the old broken door that leads to wherever you walked in from. The lint from the dusty stage dances within the light, as the skeletons continue to make strings cry....as we still sit and watch with eyes of wide. <br />
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It's been over two years in this stage of black, you still sit with me in complete silence. Why? So much has happened on the outside, to both you and I. What keeps us visiting this place? Why do we love to listen to our skeletons play violins? Why so dark? Has anybody ever tried to turn on a light? This Orchestra sounds horrible from all the strings that have broke, and the salt that has rusted out the wood. Seats that creek and floors than moan. Cob webs that hang while dust claps after every showing. This place is a bloody mess, a disaster, a completely broken down piece of shit! Has anybody every tried to clean this solitude mistress up? "No......leave the fort alone and don't change a fucken thing. This is life, this is past, this is future, this is us, this is beautiful, this is art, this is bright, this is home, this is real, this is true, this is me, this is you...." Skeleton. <br />
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I sometimes forget to visit such a dark place when things in my life are going so right. My ignorance leaves me forgetting what has gotten me to this point. My past bad and wrong, dark and sorrowed songed......has not done me wrong, but has instead ended me up here, next to you listening to this song. PLAY ON SKELETONS PLAY ON! I yell from the stage, skeletons always hard to see for they play so far away. I don't know if my dad ever re-visits anymore.....that one time he did, his tears pushed him out the door. My success is due to this stage with you, accepting my past has brought me strength times two. Has time changed me from visiting the dark? I think not my friend because I am back again.....something is pushing me to write words through this salt filled pen. It's when I am the most happy I get the most down. I have hurt so many, and made so many mistakes, my head hangs low as I feel less than worthy. Faces of the past and feelings towards the future, at times leave me locked in my office for hours, as the door guards locked they from the outside. Fuck they, stay away. They will never understand us. Stay away good times, for sorrow is my guest. A podcast if upbeat usually means I'm heavy in my chest.<br />
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It's good to see you again my friend. Let the our past be our future......and our friendship become our strength. Salute to every skeleton who has stayed with this blog from the start, this is only the beginning to a new start.<br />
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Skeletons 2016<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976352465479883471.post-66230066856388295182014-01-29T07:43:00.001-08:002014-01-29T07:43:47.877-08:00Jon North - Vlog #16 <div style="text-align: center;">Training, Coffee, Podcast, Beer, & more training.....</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">----Vlog #16 is alive and up-----</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Weightlifting to the death! </div><br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GmTI1r-lvlo" width="480"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Shankle 2016 </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0