About two weeks ago, at the time of this writing, I recorded a few video sets to remotely compete in the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open. I didn’t immediately write a retrospective because I wanted time to gather my thoughts about it. Then, after they were sufficiently gathered, I managed to put off writing about it for another week or so.
Last Year
October 2022 was the first time I’d ever competed in kettlebell sport, and it is no exaggeration to say that it dramatically changed my life for the better. The first competition I entered was the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open 2022 and I managed to eke out some rough-looking long cycle reps and fall to the floor as soon as my set ended. It was everything I expected!
Immediately following the competition, I managed to get picked up by a coach and enjoyed a full year of specific programming to help me get better at getting weight over my head by very particular means. This brings us up to the present, where things went off the rails and I learned some useful lessons.
Off the Rails
In August, I got furloughed at my day job. I wasn’t willing to wait that out, and thus began a frantic job search to secure a new position and continue getting paid. It turns out that this feels a lot like competition to me. At least, it activates a lot of the same parts of my brain and it leaves me almost entirely uninterested in training.
That is to say nothing of the emotional blow of suddenly not having steady work.
This meant that training took a backseat for a bit, as much as I didn’t want it to. Obviously, this wasn’t ideal when I was facing down a competition in October.
It also turns out that getting used to a new job comes across a lot like competition to me.
There were some other personal matters that occurred that I won’t detail here. The takeaway is that I had a pretty rough couple of months. Recreational pursuits like lifting weights for a competition faded into the background as the general demands of life asserted themselves.
Competition Week
I had planned to be physically present in the Twin Cities area for the competition. The careful reader will have noticed that there were troubles outlined in the previous section, though, and there was a financial and time demand that I didn’t want to deal with.
One of the most attractive things about kettlebell sport is that remote competition is possible. As long as you have a scale, a way to record some video, and competition kettlebells, you’re probably set to compete. I would like to know what it’s like to attend an event in person, but in the meantime, I can still participate in some meaningful way.
Truthfully, I wasn’t feeling up to lifting anything. Concerned about my performance, I talked to my coach a bit and was able to contextualize the effort in a very useful way: I was going to do what I was capable of at the moment and remind myself that I could choose to do hard things.
The Value
You might notice that I’ve danced around actually discussing my results or how well I did. I might talk about that at some point, but I really regard those details as irrelevant at the moment. What is most valuable to me is that I was able to get through yet another difficult set of tasks and prove my own capabilities to myself again.
Lifting weights without being able to set them down for ten straight minutes sucks. It is physically painful and pretty intense. Yet I was able to get through it again and demonstrate, in controlled conditions, a degree of resilience that I needed to be reminded of.
I’m never going to be a pro. But the point of competition doesn’t have to be about drawing your paycheck from it.
It can be valuable just to stake a claim about what you’re capable of and defend it against steel and gravity.
Gradually Faster 