“Victory requires vulnerability.” I heard this during a sermon I was watching (50/50 by Steven Furtick) and it helped me understand why last Friday night I was seconds away from dropping out of the physique competition.
I panicked. The physique category requires a lot more than just flexing. You need a routine with a song of your choice, you don’t wear heels, and you have to perform a dance-flow-flex combination for a full minute. (You’d think “without heels” would be a benefit, but I think my legs look much better in heels.) To be honest, I can dance and I have rhythm, but I’m definitely not good enough to be judged on it, that’s a whole different level. I also don’t really have time or energy to put together a routine. Besides, I’m not a very graceful person either. I bump into things all the time and mysterious bruises are always showing up to prove it. My biggest concern of all was that there were only two weeks before the competition and I couldn’t find a coach to help me create the performance. My trainer helped a bit but he’s a 300 lb gorilla (his words, not mine). Obviously there are limits to how much he can instruct me on this whole graceful, flowing segment. I needed someone to tell me specifically what I was doing wrong and how to do it right. Coaches are great for that and incredibly necessary in this sport.
So, Friday night I was tearful and decided to call in the morning and see if I could get reimbursed for my entrance fee. I was afraid of looking ridiculous, of being vulnerable and embarrassing myself. I do lots of things where I look silly and I don’t mind it. Like I’ve said in past blog posts, when I learn new things I always expect to look silly, because if something is new to me, I don’t know what I don’t know. But this was different. I realized that I was worried I would look silly because I felt unprepared. I hate the feeling of being unprepared, it’s unacceptable to me in all areas of my life. I decided to go on YouTube and start looking at some of the videos my trainer has sent me. I stumbled upon Michelle Harris and her website, “Get Poised.” She’s terrific and was willing to work with me and my very tight schedule!
Finally, I had someone to work with and I could breathe a bit. I decided instead of quitting, I would think about what victory means to me. When someone wins at this competition, they get their “pro card.” Honestly, I don’t even know what that means. I realize it means they’re considered a professional, but it costs about $1,000 to be a member at that competitive level and then they have to enter more competitions. Prepping for competitions is brutal, as I have been sharing. I assume going pro leads to sponsorships, which would be nice since this is quite the expensive sport. (By the way, I will have new totals for you about all the little details that add up.) But other than going pro, which isn’t really my goal, I needed to decide what victory would mean for me.
I finally decided that to me, victory means being proud of my effort, being able to say I did it and giving it my all. It means liking my presentation and the photos from competition day. I want to be old and telling stories to my grandkids and be able to say, “Yeah, after 2020 and all the chaos from COVID, I became a bodybuildler…” That would be awesome, lol! So there’s the story of how I almost quit last week and the way I chose to define victory instead.
Vintage Vitality 