forgotten_aria

First, I want to say as a follow up to my last post. I think it's important I think about why I want those things, and ultimately I want to feel good, happy and accomplished, and I don't need a pull up or a super high box jump to feel happy and accomplished if I can unlearn social training of hating my fat. I need to remember that while perusing physical goals.

My weight hit a new all time high of 220. This is likely all due to the stress and other factors of the pandemic. Here's a graph of my weight since January 2014.

( Cut for graph and discussion. )

I went back to crossfit for upper body day and it was much better. I think I'm signing up and they'll make an allowance for me because I want to avoid leg day and I don't really want to do Tuesdays and Thursdays (they alternate days.)

I had wanted to sign up for a silks class, but the person said the class was full but tonight the aerial silks person phoned me and said I could take a trial class and see if my knee would cause me problems. It didn't, but I couldn't get the basic climbing or foot lock down. The other students were having no problems with any of the skills. I really liked the things I could do, so after I asked her how much of a problem it was that I couldn't do the basics. She said most people have trouble, but they condition as they go. Now, I will admit I brought it up, but I said something to the effect of "I'm worried my weight will make it harder for me." Meaning that I would have to gain more strength because of my weight. But she said in response, "have you tried aerobics? You just need a class that makes you sweat." No, a class that makes me sweat is not the easy answer. That's not how it works! I am so tired of naturally thin people thinking being a normal weight is easy. I started crying, told her my weight was complicated, I'd lost weight in the past, but always gained it back and more. I told her I would come back when I was stronger, but I'm not sure I can go back. I feel embarrassed, dismissed and repugnant.

EDIT: and it took away from the things I did do, like hanging upside down and doing situps.

I feel I should post an update, because it's been a while an many things have been happening.

My mother finally went home after her 2-weeks-turning-into-9?-months visit ended. She spent the last week with me. When she got here it was still warm enough to kayak on the pond.

TKD turns out to be very good for me. It gives me several of the things I was hoping it would. It seems to be a better workout than taiko ever was and my body is feeling BETTER for it, which isn't usually the case with me and exercise. In specific, my knees are stronger (though still have to be careful), my back is more flexible and my neck is a lot happier. My mother bought me, after much waffling on my part, a water weighted kicking bag. So now I can kick things at home. My 6 months of searching for a school and my 10 years of taiko seem to have prepared me fairly well. So far I have been ready for every available belt test, though I'm definitely less prepared for this belt test than I have been for others. I'm still only doing simple forms, too. There's a blackbelt form that I've already fallen in love with and is the first real desire to get a black belt, just so I can do that poomsae. My Korean sucks, however, so that's been the most difficult part.

I'm still fairly involved in taiko despite having "quit." I've decided to add myself to the group as a "Guest artist" playing shinbue (Japanese flute.) I'm doing most of their non-YA gigs. Which is a great compromise for me, since I still get to perform, without all the stress of being in the group and trying to rebuild it to what I wanted it to be and the physical and hearing stress of drumming. Their building where they practice had some roof damage from the snow, so they've been practicing in a basement for the past few months and classes were suspended. They're back in the building (which has been shored up, but not fixed,) so I hope they get classes going again soon. I came back and guest taught the advance class because they were having some trouble with a line from the song I had last taught. Sadly every time I do drum for one reason or another (YA fill in, teaching) my neck and shoulder already kind of warn that, yes, this is a bad thing.

This makes me sad, because I do miss the awesome community and I miss taiko and I miss traveling everywhere and sharing it with people. TKD does not give me the performing I crave and, even though the people at the dojang are quite nice, doesn't give me the community. That might get a little better once I can attend demo team practices, but from what I've seen from those practices, I'm not getting my hopes up.

So I'm still seeking a new community of people working together to create something. I think I have to abandon any serious attempt at light spinning, because the community sets my teeth a little on edge. The fact that they're insensitive to using the word poi incorrectly and the fact that the stereotype seems to be either crunchy granola or raver. I realize I'm being picky by going by stereotype, but I've already been burned by finding an amazing community and then finding out that I didn't really belong as much as I thought. And since I'm unwilling to spin fire, which seems to be what the "cool" kids do, then I don't think it's the right direction for me. That being said, image poi still rock my world, so I might get them and then maybe learn TKD staff or even use them as nuchaku if I get good enough that I won't risk damaging them. (My TKD school teaches nuchaku as the first weapon.)

I've also been thinking a lot about anti-fatshaming advocacy. There is this very frustrating narrative on the Internet that normal weight == healthy, overweight == not healthy. This makes arguments very frustrating because there is a large part of the population that just believe that your weight is the important thing and you simply cannot be healthy and overweight. It's impossible to discuss anything with them, because in their brain overweight IS a disease. I want to make youtube videos that explain some of my logic, the most important being that fat-shaming, no matter what you believe, doesn't help people get healthy or lose weight. But it's such a rats nest of belligerent people, I'm not sure if I'll find the courage, especially since when I think I have a nice solid argument, even among my friends, I often find out I wasn't as clear as I thought I was. My brain and language have a weird relationship.

I'm still working on my harp. I keep getting delayed by various things, but I want to work up enough material for an open mic.

P.S. My birthmonth was weird for a bunch of reasons, including that I am now older than my dad ever was, but the party surprised me. So many amazing people showed up and I felt very lucky. It was likely one of the best birthmonth parties I've had.

I'm tired of being fat (though this is nothing new.)

I realize this is a poor motivation for exercise since weight loss is a lost cause but good health is not, but I'll take what I can get.

I've been using the Zumba kinect games (not the first one because it's horrible) and they seem to be good for improving my general well being (getting the kinks out, getting some good circulation) but not really for weight loss or high cardio.

A lot of my friends are running now. ( blah blah running blah )

I was watching a program which was (badly) debating if you could be healthy and over weight. One side included someone who had been a model and had nearly killed her self with her skinnyness, but was now a "plus sized" model at size 12. The other side had someone who had been horribly unhealthy while overweight and had lost her weight and regained her health.

What the once fat person couldn't see if that to prove that not all skinny people are healthy, the single example of the model being unhealthy proves that but to prove that all fat people are unhealthy, you can not just say, "I was unhealthy" and have it even chip away at the burden of evidence.

I wonder if this is a fundemental problem that some people have understanding the world?

Also, why didn't anyone point out that the "plus size" model wasn't overweight at all? This doesn't actual add to the arguement, other than the definition of "fat" needs some work.

Sadly the show was completely dumb.