Freedom, Liberty, Independence
Dan John's new DVD set: Intervention
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Rather than set off a few dinky firecrackers to celebrate the 4th, I went to the Weight Room to blast it. The sun was blazing and all the traffic was headed for the beach as I maneuvered the last mile to the gym. The temperature gauge read 90, the clock said 9 and I thought, “I’m free.”
I’m crazy.
Everyone this side of the Atlantic and Pacific, Mexico and Canada are barbequing in their backyards with friends and family, swimming and splashing wherever there’s water or cruising the purple mountain majesty above the fruited plain and I’m draped (how appropriate) over an unyielding bench under an unmovable barbell in the inescapable confines of an impenetrable concrete structure tucked in the inaccessible corner of an insensible industrial park. Cheers!
Here’s to a happy 4th, Independence Day. I’m free. Where’s the dang chalk?
As I pull into the rear parking lot, the same parking lot invariably empty this time of day, I encounter 20 vehicles crammed into the space. “What’s this?” I gasp, expecting solitude and tranquility, “Is there a concert, a presidential campaign, a cockfight, an overturned beer truck?”
I parked where I could, grabbed my gear and ascended the aging staircase to the open backdoor. Just as I suspected. A secret mob.
It’s every ironhead this side of crazy who cannot go a day without his fix. There they are, strung out before the dumbbell racks, hooked on the cables and getting loaded at the squat cage. They’re high on chins and down on deadlifts. They’re cool on a very hot and celebrated day, a summer day of American liberty and freedom. I joined them in the free-for-all. We are family, after all. All for one, and one for all. Rich and poor, young and old, short and tall. Masters of our own imprisonment, we go where we want, when we want and how we want. The truth is, we go where we must.
You can take my worldly possessions, the clothes off my back, my Timex, the black and white Motorola, the sardines from the cupboard, but don’t take my gym.
A man without his gym is a man denied the captivating fight for fulfillment and exhilaration, self-expression and personal knowledge. And make no mistake, bombers; it is the same for a woman. He and she -- they -- minus a gym have nothing, nowhere, nil.
~ No safe haven to hide...
~ No refuge to lick their wounds...
~ No shelter from the storm...
~ No sanctuary from which to call out...
~ No platform from which to speak freely and deeply...
~ No emergency ward for a crisis...
~ No asylum to untangle the twisted mind (not Laree's favorite imagery, btw)...
~ No altar to aright the heart and soul...
~ No workshop to construct and develop...
~ No studio to shape and form...
~ No forum for instruction and teaching...
~ No classroom to learn and grow...
~ No hall to study and analyze...
~ No laboratory to research and experiment...
~ No matted floor to fall and pick themselves up...
~ No vehicle to take them where they need to go...
~ No incinerator to the burn garbage...
~ No boat to stay afloat...
~ No place to fret and pace...
~ No space to forget and erase...
~ No room to zoom...
~ No juice bar where they can get a Bomber Blend Smoothie to restore their hope...
~ No, I don't have anything better to do...
I estimated 30 lifters weaved their way around each other while I supersetted Smith presses with pulldowns. I’m a bit out of practice, finding it really weird to train with more than three people on the gym floor. I knew half the trainees and the other half knew me. I tried my best to look big, tall and rugged, but at one point I stumbled into a wall and later my sweatpants slid down to my ankles while doing good-mornings with a broomstick, trashing any chance to highlight my sterling bomber image.
Just joking. I don’t do good-mornings with a broomstick.
I finished up with a dazzling, newly formulated and seldom witnessed superset of dumbbell incline presses and stiff-arm pullovers to assure me and any speculating spectators I was still conscious and twitching. I was the last to leave the building and felt like a million (in Santa Cruz, that’s a handful of spare change).
Gee, I just reviewed the long list above and in many ways it reminds me of the attributes of God Almighty. Alas, the gym is but a pile of stone, steel, wood and plastic; it is not a thing to be worshipped. Yet, that doesn’t mean God isn’t there when you know He is.
Lift smart, eat right, be strong, be free… The Bomb
>>>>>
Everyone has heard of the light at the end of the tunnel, but few have experienced it… or know anyone who has. Lo and behold, Laree D has, and it is neither daylight nor the headlight of an oncoming train. It is the 3.5 hour, three-disc DVD series by Dan John called Intervention: Course Corrections for the Athlete and Trainer.
Three months ago Dan John gave an in-depth seminar about the fundamentals and intricacies of correct training structure for the focused athlete. Cameras rolled as he described, demonstrated and detailed on blackboards the functional movement systems and their achievement. In the ensuing months, Laree edited the raw material, arranged it for clear understanding and added files of related information to present a bright light to which few tunnels lead.
Here’s a quick look: Dan John -- Intervention, releasing Thursday, July 6.
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