Joy Like A Childs

Yesterday I skipped the workout for various reasons....one being that my muscles are extremely tight and fatigued from mondays workout/romanian dead lift. (hamstrings killin...need to stretch more obviously).  Another reason is that Papa Craig and Nana Nalani surprised Lokela (my son) with a new playground/playset of his own.  I LOVE playgrounds!   Even though I am way to big to be playing on this particular playground, I am super excited for what ever adventure Kela will have as his imagination is unleashed as he plays.  And for those of you who know Kela you know that it will be something to see for sure.

Watching him play for the first time on his new toy all I saw was pure joy.  It was a good thing we were outside because if not my eardrums would of been blown out.  He ran to the road at one point and yelled at the top of his lungs to the neighborhood kids, "HEY GUYS! COME SEE MY 'TREE HOUSE'! EVERYONE COME AND PLAY!" Where he got "tree house" I have no idea....maybe because it's made out of wood??...I don't know.  So anyway, he then proceeded to guide all the neighborhood girls (girls... go figure) to the yard.  They had so much fun running, jumping, laughing, throwing balls at each other, swinging on the swings, & inventing new games to play that encompassed all of the above.  By the time it was time to say good bye to everyone and get ready for dinner he was drenched in sweat.  Reluctantly he contented himself with a grin, waved goodbye and made his way to the house.

As I watched the kids play, I reflected back to when I was that age and how it seemed I had an unlimited amount of energy.  I remember doing muscle ups on the bars without much thought or effort.  I also remember swinging on the monkey bars with the sole purpose of building calluses on my palms.  Playing had its share of pain and discomfort (scraps, bruises, blisters, blood, & broken bones) but as children we never let any of that hinder the enjoyment of the task.  An example of this from yesterday: 2 of the girls (sisters), one was swinging while the other one was running around.  The running sister got a little to close to the swinging sister and got hit right as she swung back.  All I heard was a loud WHAM as they hit and the sister running got knocked 2 feet in a spiral motion.  I thought she was down for the count, but she just popped back up asked if her little sister was ok and went right on running.  I'm a mother, so my protective instincts went into action.  I was in a half run, half leap watching this in slow motion.  My heart almost jumped out of my body.  But then I had to stop short and recompose myself because the girls were fine, happy and smiling.  Gosh that was close.

So how does this story tie into CrossFit?  Well I believe that in a way with much imagination CrossFit is our adult version of a playground or playtime.  There is much sweat, bruises, scraps, discomfort, pain .......and in Erin's case broken bones...but in no way do we let it hinder our experience (also getting inspiration from Erin, who has a broken collarbone from one of her adventures in CrossFit and still comes anyway to 'play' at the 'playground' with her friends).  And in some ways it even makes the experience more memorable.  So as I whine and complain about the difficulty of the WOD, I also need to remember to have a sense of joy and merriment that I am with good friends on our own 'playground' doing something worthy of our time.  So enjoy "Playtime" people and keep up the amazing atmosphere at RFM that I am glad to be apart of!