Moving Up

I'm moving up in the world.

Literally.  Like, from the floor of CrossFit SISU all the way up to the big ceiling beam.

That's right...I climbed the rope today.  Let me repeat that...I climbed the rope today.

Twice.

Now, this may not seem like much of an achievement to you, especially if you're male.  The Hubster recalls scampering up the rope like a squirrel when he was in school, and I think a lot of guys have a similar memory.  Rope?  No big deal.

For me, though--the clumsy hater-of-PE (I even, despite my obsessive rule-following, skipped PE during one whole year of improperly-supervised elementary school)--rope climbs were one of the  iconic "separate the jocks from the klutz's" activities in PE.  There was a lot of stuff in PE class I could fumble my way through (and I lived for the track unit, when I could finally redeem a small bit of self-esteem by being one of the few girls who actually wanted to run the mile).  There were a couple of things, though, that I was just never going to be able to do--no way, no how.   Rope climbs were number one on that list, and whether it was self-fulfilling prophesy or just weak arms, I did not, indeed, ever get more than about six inches off the ground in rope-climb units.

Until today.

I've been having weekly Personal Training sessions with CoachBoy 3, to help me figure out some of the stuff I haven't been able to figure out yet in 10 months of CrossFit.  Puzzling things like Olympic Lifts and rope climbs; things that give me horrible flashbacks to middle school PE, when I would watch the teacher execute some intricate piece of athleticism and then feel my brain seize up with the impossibility of ever even figuring out what he/she had just done, let alone replicating it.  Today was split jerks and rope climbs, and as CoachBoy went through the litany of what needed to be done in a proper split jerk I began to have one of those flashbacks.  Dip drive, chin back, get under the bar, push through...good lord, there's no way I'll ever remember that--I can barely figure out what he's doing. CoachBoy 3 is a very talented (and patient) coach, though, and so I managed to muddle my way through a few split jerks and felt like I maybe could figure them out eventually.

Then we moved to the rope climb.

I'd tried the rope climb once before in CrossFit, when we had a time to practice it before a climb-infested WOD.  I had never figured out the way you trap the rope between your feet to make a step so that you can use your legs to ascend the rope rather than pulling yourself up with your arms, and after flailing around ineffectively a few times I resigned myself to doing the "pull yourself up off the ground using the rope" maneuver to scale any WOD that required rope climbs.  So I didn't have high hopes for the success of today's endeavor.

Today, though, CoachBoy 3 showed me a different way to trap the rope (and one that will help avoid rope burns and the subsequent need to wear goofy tall CrossFit socks.  I don't think I'm a goofy-tall-CrossFit-socks kind of gal.). And, wonder of wonders--I could do it.  So he had me just make the step and then hold myself there on the rope a couple times, and then we went back to the split jerks.  (This alternating-activity strategy was a great approach to keeping me from freaking out about my inability to do either activity).  Before we left the rope, though, CoachBoy said "you're gonna climb that rope today."

Well, I've learned that it's best to keep my "I can't" thoughts to myself...but a little "no way" did creep through my mind.  CoachBoy 3 said that the rope climb at SISU was actually fairly short--but that ceiling beam looked mighty far away to me. And then there were the small matters of fear of heights and the whole "getting back down the rope" thing.  On the slim chance I got up there, how the Hell was I going to get back down?

But I stepped up to the rope, jumped up and trapped it, and started moving up.  I lost my footing once and CoachBoy had to steady the rope so I could re-trap it--but I didn't freak, I kept moving...and suddenly I was reaching for the beam and I actually touched it.

I'm not quite sure how I got back down that first time; I doubt it was any appropriate method, but I was just so thrilled with having climbed a rope that I didn't care.  And when, after another split jerk interval, I tried it again, I climbed it cleanly this time and made it back down in a more controlled fashion.

So yeah.  I climbed the rope today.

I'll stop smiling sometime tomorrow.