Intensity

Gymnastics.  My first love.  Gymnastics is fun.  It's incredibly fun, flying around in the air like that, the weightlessness of it, the complete and utter zen concentration required.    You are in the moment in gymnastics or you are on the ground, and on the ground quickly. Gravity always works, even if you're not paying attention.  Riding a roller coaster is the closest thing you can get to doing gymnastics if you're not a gymnast. Running, flipping, lifting, flying through space and time, I miss it everyday.  My babysitters, that lived right next door to me, Monica and Lorraine Rickerl, were my first instructors. They looked after my older brother Brad, my younger sister, Jenny and me. They would play with us and throw us around. I learned back handsprings from them. I started going to the Y.M.C.A when I was nine years old. This was in the late 70s, around the same time that the song was popular on the radio. My friends and I all thought that they wrote it about us. My dad made me a balance beam out of two by fours and covered it with carpet so I could practice at home. I was out there in our yard on that balance beam all the time.

I went to a gymnastics summer camp at the local high school when I was 10 years old. Everyone was so encouraging to me. The high school coach and all the girls there wouldn’t stop raving about me. They would tell me how strong I was, how straight my legs were, and that I had really good toe point. Those older girls were famous to me because, as the top gymnasts in Clinton, Iowa, they were in the paper all the time. It felt especially great when they were telling me how good I could be. One day, the head coach, Leah Eberle and her assistant Mike came up to me while I was stretching and said,

“You need to stop going to the YMCA. You need to get yourself to a private club, a place where you could really do well in, where you could improve and excel. What do you say?” My parents weren’t there so I agreed. My first teacher at the Y was a woman named Carla. She had long, kinky hair and I thought she was completely beautiful. They said she was Olympic material, which was really something in the 70s, and I learned a lot from her. However, they didn’t have any specialized, high level coaching there. I only went there for a few hours of practice a week. If I had stayed there, I would have dissolved.

I found a private gym and started learning under the tutelage of Mike, the assistant high school coach. He used to be partners with a man named Mr. Douglas, but they had a falling out and Mike left to start his own gym. He had my parents going, so they enlisted to help him find a new place to rent out. We were close family friends with Mike’s family. His wife was Vietnamese and they had a daughter named Shelly who was a year older than me. She was an exceptional athlete and we became close, but they decided not to open their own gym  and moved to Miami soon after. Shelly came back to Clinton when she was a college freshman and told me that the collegiate track coach wanted her to run track, but her gymnastics coach refused. She joked that she got so fast because kids used to chase her around the playground in a game called “Chase the Chink.” There was a lot of racism in Clinton. I was in awe of how she managed to turn it around, make light of it, and became stronger for it.

After Coach Mike moved with his wife and Shelly to Miami, I had to continue gymnastics with the only other coach in town: Mike’s former partner, Mr. Douglas. I heard stories about how mean Mr. Douglas was and I was nervous that he would penalize me for training with his nemesis. With Mike, I was his best little girl. He just trained me as if I was better than the rest of them. But on my first day training with Mr. Douglas, I saw how much better his girls were than me. They had this kind of quality training since they were five or six whereas I had just started just a few years prior. On my first day, we were doing these round-off back handspring full twists and all these other moves I had never done before. I was the worst of the worst, by a landslide. I started balling my eyes out, but I was trying to keep my composure. When I had to go and do a flip, snot flew out of my nose. I noticed the mucus on the floor where the other girls were tumbling. I was so mortified, worrying that someone was going to land in it and know that it was mine. I was expecting deep, public humiliation at my first practice with the big time gymnasts.  Then I saw Mr. Douglas nonchalantly walk over and wipe up my snot with his sock. From that moment on, I knew I was going to be okay.

I was so bad when I was in 6th grade. A good score for our age group was a 9.0 or better out of 10.0. A 9.5 was awesome and a 9.0 was really good. If you could get 9.0’s and get a total of 36 all around, that was a solid place to be. To qualify for a state championship, I needed to have a 7.0 average. I remember my mom coming up to me at the state qualifier and explaining that I needed an 11.8 to make it to state. She said,

“Don’t worry about anything. Just go up there and do the best routine you can because you won’t make it to state this year.”

I probably had some 4.0’s and 5.0’s in there. I do remember one particular meet where they wrote the scores out on the ribbons. On my second place ribbon they had written 2.75. I had no chance. 

A couple of months after that meet I just started working really hard.  In the beginning of 7th grade I would leave middle school at the end of the school day and walk to the gym to train for two hours. Then, my teammates would show up for practice. Somehow, Mr. Douglas either saw potential in me or realized how badly I wanted to be good.  Looking back as an adult I can't believe what drove me as 12-year old kid.  I packed my gym bag, packed a snack, walked to practice and worked out twice as many hours as required of me without any asking me or pushing me to do it.  

After five months of practicing like this throughout that 7th grade year, I worked my way up to 8.2’s. In the interim, I found an article in United States Gymnastics Federation's magazine that explained how to train your brain with positive affirmation. I took this to heart and immediately started implementing it.  I repeated,“don’t fall,” over and over. I had a teammate that was a junior in high school named Karen.  She was a complete Gutsy/Crazy  #Bad Ass, but that' s a story for later.  I told her of my recent mental training endeavors. She said, “Hey, Patty; that’s great what you’re doing, but you have to change what you’re saying. If you keep repeating, ‘don’t fall,’ all you are going to hear is ‘fall.’ Instead, I would say, ‘I will make my beam routine. I will make my beam routine.” She was taking psychology in high school, so I listened to her advice and started to basically hypnotize myself. From that night on, every night, I wrote, “I will make my beam routine,” on a piece of paper. I then wrote, “I will keep my legs straight. I will make my beam routine. I will make my aerial-cartwheel. I will make my beam routine,” and I kept going with every specific skill I needed to nail for each of my events. I did it for vaulting, I did it for bars, I did it for beam, I did it for floor, I did it for everything. Once I had my plan mapped out and written down, I would repeat everything 10 times.  Then I would visualize what it looked and felt like in my own mind to complete my routines flawlessly.  The more I practiced visualization the better I got in my mind and just like Oprah says, "it manifested out in the physical world." This took me upwards of 30 minutes per night, more time before a big meet approached. 

The next state qualifying meet came up near the end of winter 7th grade year.  All the way up to the meet and especially the night before, I practiced my mental training. From the year before of getting 4.00’s and 5.00’s, I got 8.95 on floor and an 8.95 on beam. You would have thought I won the Olympic gold, I just couldn’t believe it. Unfortunately, instead of elation, I came back to scrutiny from my teammates. Jacque, Mr. Douglas’s daughter, and Julie were always better than me. But that day I blew them out of the water by two points, a significant amount in gymnastics. They refused to talk to me for the remainder of the day and when they did, they said they weren’t mad at me for winning, but at how I conducted myself throughout the competition. We were all just behaving like 11, 12, and 13-year olds. They were sore that I had beaten them after doing so poorly the year before, and I was hurt that they weren’t happy for me. This was around the time I overheard Jacque arguing with her father one day at the gym. She was complaining that he was always harder on her and meaner to her than any of the other girls he was teaching. Mr. Douglas lost his temper and yelled back,“That’s not true at all! I’m harder on Patty than anyone else here.”

I was flabbergasted. I had not thought him mean at all, but I was grateful that he cared enough to be tough on me.

After qualifying for the state championships, I went home and tallied up my scores. I realized that I could qualify for regionals with my 8.95. From not even coming close to qualifying for state championships the year prior to surpassing the minimum requirement of an 8.5 average for regionals, I was stunned not only with my hard work, but with the impact that mental training had on me. After that, I inserted the idea of regionals into my mantra and kept repeating, “I will make it to regionals. I will make my beam routine. I will make it to regionals. I will make my aerial cartwheel.”

There was a month in between the state qualifier and the state meet. If I performed well at state and received at least a 63.2, I would be able to go to regionals. As a Class II gymnast, that was the highest meet I could achieve at the time. I went to the next practice and told my teammates about all the calculations I had done, that I could make it to regionals that year with my scores.  At the next practice after that my teammate Julie turned to me and scoffed,

“No you can’t. My dad thinks that the only person who can make it is Diana ‘cause she’s

the best.” Diana was older and was the reigning high school state all-around champion. 

I took it pretty hard.  I remember her saying that her Dad thinks I was setting myself up for disappointment and once again, no one was good enough to make it to Regionals except Diana. 

The state meet finally arrived and I needed to have the meet of my life to make it to Regionals. I had a good day at compulsories and I was right on track, but I messed up an event on my second day that landed me in the precarious position of needing an 8.4 on my final routine to qualify for regionals. It all came down to the balance beam and I had to make my beam routine no matter what. If I fell I was out.  Up to this point, I had been relentlessly training mentally and physically. Each day, I saved an hour before bed to repeat my mantra. In this particular meet I was the last one up on beam.  Balance beam takes longer than the other events and so that meant nothing else would be going on.  I was the last competitor in the last session of that meet.  All eyes would be on me, it would be quiet and scary. As I prepared to start my routine I did my physical warm-ups and told myself I could do it.  Then, my body took over.  I got up on the beam and I nailed my routine! I didn’t so much as wobble. As soon as I  my feet hit the mat, I remember hearing Julie’s dad just screaming from the bleachers. "WOOO!  Yes! Great job Patty!"  I remembered Julie telling me that he doubted me and here he was, cheering me on and cheering me on loudly.  To this day, his support and cheering for me at that moment still chokes me up.  

I believe that meet changed the course of a lot of things for me. I think that if I failed that day, I probably would have given up on gymnastics shortly thereafter.  But I didn't fail and I had proof that hard work and faith pays off.  I improved my all-around score 13 points in one year.  I felt like that empty platitude my mom always repeated but didn't act on it as it pertained to her own life,  "You can do anything you set your mind to" was actually real. So from that point on, that was it, I was a gymnast. And after that meet, I became a highly motivated gymnast. 

Road Kill Factory

I grew up in a smelly,little industrial town on the Mississippi River called Clinton, Iowa.  Our three-bedroom ranch home with white siding and red shutters was 1/2 mile from a rendering plant, yet somehow also right across the street from a country club.  Rendering plant? What the hell is a rendering plant?  When I was growing up, we called it the Road Kill Factory.  The smell of rotting animal flesh left out on the road on a sweltering August afternoon permeated the entire South side of Clinton.  It was a stench that lasted the whole year, though it was especially bad in the humid summers.  Clinton Country Club- I can just imagine the distinctive aroma of road kill wafting over and mingling with the freshly mowed grass of the greens.  When you grow up there, however, you are accustomed to it.  It's just the smell of the air.  But if you leave for awhile and come back, the odor mingled with the heat hits you like a wall and makes you gag.  

My Uncle Gary and Cousin Dave both worked at the plant and they told me that they processed dead animals there, whatever processing meant.  The smell got into everything.  When Dave left work, his clothes stunk of the plant, which would stink up his car.  He had to buy a beat-up junk car just for work.  As an adult, my friends busted on me all the time about it.  I can just hear our friend Cy exclaiming, "There you go, bragging about your family money!  Your cousin bought a special car devoted just to drive to his high-flutin' job.  You and your rendering money."  

Then there was the stench produced by ADM, Archer Daniels Midland, a sickening sulfuric smell of what was once known as Clinton Corn.  ADM and the rendering plant were just two of the numerous industrial factories located in Clinton.  The townspeople were happy to have those factories as they employed a lot of people, then the recession hit.  There was a major recession in farming in the 80s.  Think John Cougar Mellencamp's famous hit "Rain on the Scare Crow."  Major farming corporations bought all of the little family farms that people had owned for generations.  I remember that International Harvester planned to build an enormous 100,000 square-foot facility about an hour away from Clinton.  All of a sudden, construction just stopped.  They left that skeleton of a structure up for years and years to come.  Driving by that as a kid just made you have a deep sense of instability.  As if no one was immune to bad financial hardships, not even huge corporations.  Not that Clinton was ever a wealthy community, it certainly hadn't been in recent times, but it took a nosedive in the 1980s.  Everyone lost their jobs, many of the educated people left and everything spiraled downwards.

I grew up definitely lower middle class although I never really had a sense of this when I was a kid.  I don't know if it was because it was a different time, or the area in which I grew up, but nobody cared.  My friends and I never even really knew what a BMW was until we were 16.  In that way, it was kind of a utopia.  Money was never why you liked someone because you were all in the same boat.  It was usually an old, rusty boat.  You were liked for who you were, not the clothes you wore or if you had a trampoline in your backyard.  There was none of that.  You were popular if you were nice, funny, a good student or a good athlete.  

My grandfather was among many in our town who worked at Clinton Corn and ADM since the end of World War II. His character was symptomatic of someone who grew up during the depression. When he died, he left behind close to half a million dollars that he saved over the years. He was a picker in Iowa long before those guys from American Pickers in LeClaire, Iowa,  became famous for it. For at least ten years before he died he couldn’t even fit his car into the garage; there was so much stuff in it. He never paid full price for anything, but would buy a toaster for a dollar and sell it for eight. We found upwards of seven toasters in his garage after he died. My grandfather smoked, he drank, he was diabetic, and he was cheap. He would go to Hardee's every morning at 9:00 AM and order a cup of coffee. He waited there; drinking that coffee and getting it refilled for free, until 10:30, when the restaurant stopped serving breakfast and gave away their sugary, cinnamon biscuits. The biscuits were certainly not at the top of the heart-diseased, diabetic "Ok'd" list, but hey, they were free!  He had open-heart surgery in his late 60s after suffering a heart attack and I remember he told my mom that if he had known how badly it would hurt, he would have just died. He died when he was 72 of another heart attack.

My father’s mother was a farmer in rural Missouri and she had the equivalent of an eighth grade education. My father graduated high school and when he turned 18, they pulled out every single one of his teeth. Rather than attending to his dental problems, they figured it would be far less trouble to remove them and give him dentures. He was an 18 year old with false teeth. He and my mother were both smokers. They never did any form of exercise. I remember if he ever saw our neighbor Loraine out on a jog, he would stop and offer her a ride. When it came to exercise they didn’t believe in doing more work than you had to. But they had trouble conceiving, so they adopted my brother. They adopted me a year and a half later and even before my adoption was finalized, my mother gave birth to my sister.

Stating that my parents were smokers is like saying Bill Gates dabbled with computers.  They really loved to smoke.  In the 1970's their brand was Raleigh Cigarettes.  They had little tickets on the back of the packs and cartons you could redeem for prizes. We "won" all kinds of camping gear, tents, radios and other grand prizes.  To say we had an excess of Raleigh Coupon prizes is an understatement.

My mother was born in 1941 five months before Pearl Harbor. Her father left for the war and came back to Iowa in 1945. He never discussed the war. He dealt with the pain of the war by not dealing with it and drinking too much. Men who came home from the war didn’t have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There was no mention of therapy, of abuse, or anything like that. It was 1945 and you better be tough. 

I often think about the way my mother was raised and the time period she grew up in so I could understand her choices. Once my mom found some old books for women from the 50’s and 60’s and showed them to me. They were guides that gave women instructions on how to be a domestic goddess. You were supposed to put lipstick on before your husband came home from work. You should have the kids ready to greet him, dinner already prepared, and in no way could you ever complain about any of it. You were told to be a demure house wife and answer to your husband even if he was an abusive alcoholic, which my father was. 

My mother graduated high school in 1959. She didn’t go to college and stayed in this little town in Iowa her whole life. Leaving, even to go to Chicago by herself, was completely out the realm of possibility. My mom grew up when things were becoming more automated. You didn’t have to detassle corn anymore, you were supposed to stay at home, and so a sedentary lifestyle became normal. Then, all you had for physical activity was cheerleading and swimnastics really. There was no Title IX. 1928 was the first time they allowed women to run in the 800-meter race in the Olympics. Nine women competed, one of whom collapsed at the finish line. The take home message from that event was that 800-meters is too far for a woman to run. There were eight other women who crossed the finish like, but they said they were all collapsing left and right. 

So both of my parents were sedentary, heavy smokers.  They not only hated to exercise themselves, they would make fun of people that did.  My Dad drank too much and my mom ate too much.  How I became a healthy fitness professional is nothing short of a miracle in this life.  

Although I was eventually able to divert myself from many of the health choices of my parents, my fitness story really starts with gymnastics and my childhood coach, Mr. Douglas.

Me at 14 years old.

Client of the Month -- December 2012

I can’t believe it is already time for our last client of the month for 2012! Boy how time flies.  But I am proud to announce this month’s client of the month is Brian Carey!  Brian was one of my very first male clients and has been working out with us here at Indianapolis Pilates by 15 to Fit for over 3 years.

Brian has always been interested in working out to keep his body healthy and fit, as well as to control the diabetes he has had for the last 42 years.  He just decided he wanted to try something new and gave Pilates a shot.  In his own words, he “got hooked right away.”  He likes that it is an intense workout, but that he also doesn’t get tired of it because we are constantly changing it up.  He did try Pilates once before at another location, but didn’t like that they weren’t more closely monitoring what he was doing—and since he wasn’t so sure himself on his first try, it didn’t really work out.  He told me he enjoys the fact that at our studio, the classes are small and that there is an instructor who is always keeping an eye on his form.  His advice to new people interested in Pilates? Just give it a couple of sessions and see what you think.  Even though it may be slightly more expensive than larger group classes, he feels like you get what you pay for, and that the value you get at 15 to Fit is exceptional, particularly with all the one on one attention.  Who could ask for a better compliment? 

Brian has always dedicated time to exercise and has done a fair amount of cardio and weights—but he feels like Pilates offers a full body workout and this is one of the things that he thinks is the most different about Pilates from other types of exercise (and one of the things he likes the most about it).  He also thinks the workouts are intense—he jokes that sometimes his male friends tease him about doing Pilates, but that he just challenges them to come in and see what it is all about.  He enjoys that the workouts continue to increase in difficulty as your skill level increases, so that you always have new goals to accomplish.  He likes the class he takes weekly because it incorporates the machines (the reformer and the chair) as well as the barre and the TRX equipment.  He tells me he can really feel his core working!

Brian told me he didn’t have specific goals when he started with us here besides trying something new, but that he has seen so many benefits from Pilates—for one thing, all his doctors, who closely monitor his health particularly because of his diabetes, have told him that he is in great shape because of all he does.  He also is very physically active in his business (he owns a mobile dry cleaning service called Pressed 4 Time) and feels like not only does he have more energy, and better balance, but loves the fact that when he leans to pick something up, or is bending over, he automatically tucks in his stomach muscles—a habit he credits to his Pilates practice. He also has started incorporating portions of his workouts at the studio into his personal workouts. THOSE are exactly the kinds of things that I LOVE to hear!  Keep up the good work and congratulations Brian!