Comfortable in Your Own Skin

What does is 'Comfortable in Your Own Skin' mean to you? 

I know this concept is different for everyone, for me it was a lesson that turned into a way of life and its one that I learned a long time ago back when I was a young man but I never really realized it until one day when I was talking to someone that most people would folks would think to be most unlikely person to teach them or anyone else a life lesson. 

Little Richard was a busboy at Dick's Last Resort and part-time wanna be gangster!!  He and I had a good relationship because I talked to him and treated him with respect (and I tipped out generously).  Our friendship started when him and the other busboys were sliding cases of matches down the stairs from the street level and when they went to get a dolly to take them to the storeroom and I decided to toss them all back up the stairs.  Now these were 40 pound boxes and there were probably 30 cases, OH MAN you should have seen the look on their faces when they came back saw all of the boxes back at the top of the stairs as I stood there laughing and sweating up a storm... dammit it was hilarious!!!   

One day Little Richard saw me sitting writing on the big ass pieces of butcher paper we put on the tables and he started talking to me and I was telling him about some of the Payton's Place bullshit happenings of Olympic Gym where I trained when he said  "Who do you train for you or everyone else?"    I immediately wrote that down in the notebook that I carried ... yeah I've been carrying a notebook everywhere I go usually in a backpack all the way back to the early/mid-90's when this story took place. 

Understand I have always been comfortable going at it alone in pursuit of my goals and dreams mostly because for the better part of my life my goals and dreams were very different than others so that usually have been feeling like I was stranded on an island all alone and you know for a long time that's not just how I felt that was my everyday reality.  I can think back to when we moved up north away from Detroit and the guys up in Rogers City that I played football with would pick me up from home (we lived 18 miles from the little town of Rogers City).  Back then the big thing was to 'Tool Main Street' which meant driving up and down the 2 mile stretch of the Main Street in town passing each other time and time again usually tipping up a beer or a pop (yeah that's what we called it up there!!) and there I was tipping up a quart of milk that I had bought at the corner store!!!  There were never any high school parties or many dances for me (just ask Sally how great I can dance... still trying to figure out how I landed her) because I was (and still am) extremely uncomfortable in many social situations but also my parents would never let me use the car and honestly I really didn't want to go and end up staying out late and drinking too much which is exactly what they did and since most people that know me now know that my Dad was a mean ass drunk that beat me and my Mom way too often so yeah drinking wasn't something I wanted to do.  Besides I had my own 'scared straight' moment I first moved up there, a bunch of us met at a wrecker yard to look at a wrecked car that was driven by a classmate who lost her battle with a big ass oak tree because she was driving drunk!!  While we were looking inside the car I saw brain matter on the driver's side door... yeah that was a combination of the old 'scared straight' they use to do.

Let's keep going, I learned to focus on a goal somewhere but I really couldn't tell you where.  During the school day when everyone else was eating the hot lunch there I was with a big brown grocery bag full of sandwiches, a thermos of soup, fruit and anything else I could pack up for a day of eating.  There was always a joke or three sent my way but I had goals that were on notecards pinned on the wall in my room and since I was the least gifted athlete in the world I had to work my ass to achieve my goals and dreams, also my family really couldn't afford to provide me lunch money to eat at school.  Back then just like today most of my goals and dreams were based in Strength Sports and getting the hell away from home so you can say that Strength Sports were my avenue for a better life and one that I desperately wanted.

Strength Sports and its history has always made me happy and that's what has me thinking and writing today.  I went to visit a friend that's known me a long time, a really long time as in late 1985 when I went to Austin to watch a powerlifting meet at the Villa Capri Motel (YEAH Brother Yox you know the place) and I went to his gym The Texas Athletic Club to train.  Mike Graham would go on to judge me in the late 80's in bodybuilding shows and I'd see him when I would travel to Austin JUST to train at his other gym Hyde Park Gym.  I'll write more on Mike and his amazing wife Carol and my visit at his badass old school gym soon because it was so inspirational that I when I texted Sally I was leaving Lockhart after eating BBQ at the original Blacks BBQ and was headed to Austin I just couldn't contain my enthusiasm in my messages and she messaged back that she was happy that I had a good visit and that she liked seeing me get back out there and reconnect with people that know me and respect me (which by the way started last year when we loaded up on a whim and headed to Corpus Christi to visit Rick Gaugler and his awesome wife Nancy ... but back to my story).  I told her that I was finally once again getting Comfortable in My Own Skin and had stopped constantly comparing of myself to my old self, everyone else or wondering "what if".  I told her that I realized that I am living MY best life.  

After I read her message and responded my thoughts struck me so hard that texted her that I had to stop driving and write (this is why I always have a notebook in backpack that I carry).  As I was writing I remembered some deeply personal things and I told Sally this... "you know I can remember as a kid being so beaten up (not physically but emotionally) by my family and so-called friends that I would come home and head straight out the garage and lift weights.  I never wavered in what I wanted to do or who I wanted to become.  I've always loved Strength Sports but it was when I met Rick in 1985 and got some real guidance on my journey that my love and passion for Strength really took hold of me and my life.  Just like when I was a kid I haven't strayed from my path and while I'm not a loud boisterous asshole I have always had a little swagger and to go with that swagger is a look of confidence and strength and that was evident when I'd go to NSCA Conferences or Clinics people would listen to to what I had to say .... hell the Grand Daddy of the NSCA Boyd Epely once came up to me and grabbed my goatee and slapped my shoulders saying "way to look the fucking part" in front of a large group of coaches!! 

Over these past few years I seem to have lost some of that and my way.  Look I don't care the why or make the excuse of the absolute shitstorm I've been through these past couple of years ... Hell I've been through shit my entire life and always had the mantra of NO EXCUSES but finally I've found myself once again Comfortable In My Own Skin. 

Honestly, I'm very happy that I have once again found my love and passion for Strength and her glorious history but I've also found my voice once again.  You know, I think back over the years that I have in the Iron Game and realize that I have lived and experienced more of the History of the Iron Game while I traveled the world lifting Iron and Stone than most Strength and Conditioning Coaches have years on this planet so just like when I was at the 1995 NSCA Conference in Phoenix and I stepped up onto a bench and had an impromptu talk about using strongman exercises in training and in circuits for conditioning not giving a shit about the looks or comments I got I'm feeling that same way about talking about how I train myself and my athletes for Strength and Power.  Oh shit.. someone bring me a soapbox so I can once again preach a little from the Squat Racks and I don't want to hear shit from someone who looks like 'their shirt is on a wire hanger'... I have lived a lifetime in Strength Sports so if you've got something stupid to say it'd be best to keep your ass moving and your mouth shut because if you say something stupid you'll quickly find that I have a sharp tongue and my words will hurt you!!! (I don't care what the old childhood rhyme says... my words will fucking hurt you).

There was a reason I made a lot of money waiting tables at Dick's Last Resort on the San Antonio RiverWalk and I can tell you that it damn sure wasn't because I was a good waiter!!! 

So ask yourself these two questions:  Are you Comfortable in Your Own Skin??

                                                                 "Who do you train for you or everyone else?" 

Thanks Little Richard.

Play Hard ... Train Harder ... NO EXCUSES