Bangalore to Budapest ~ Learning and CrossFit in India and Hungary

I recently returned from a one week holiday in Budapest. (pause) Budapest in October is a cooly restrained elegance. Dark and tightly symmetrical, the urban landscape presented this lonesome traveller with his first taste of culture shock in a very long time. After living amid the hullabaloo of Bangalore, the scantly populated shadows of the Hungarian capital seemed like a uniform ghost. A spectral, silent haunting. Especially in the mornings when the icy mist of late Autumn moved breathless across the Danube. It was not the sort of trip I had anticipated. People wait for the lights to change before crossing the streets.

In all honesty, I went to Budapest because I had heard it mentioned several times while on my last adventure in Turkey. It sounded like a place to get your hipster on, sup fine espresso and party until the early morn. And it is. But it is other things as well. Perhaps I arrived too late in the season. With Summer a slowly setting memory, the night scene did not take me in her arms. Travel is just as much about who you meet as it is where you go. I just didn't meet those kinds of people.

Instead of drinking and dancing and posing in laneway coffee houses (okay... fine. I posed in coffee houses. But only one. Espresso Embassy. If you go to Budapest, go there.), I found myself poking about in museums, wandering inspired down streets old and dark, and discussing history with not-so-party inclined individuals of a similar age bracket to my own. The quiet and introspective nature of this experience was laden with rewards. I spent much time sitting here or there, scribbling in my journal and reading Raymond Carver. These are things I have done in India as well... but when work resumes, the writing quells. The isolation made room for reflection and decision making. It also meant that I was in good shape (not hungover) and able to make it to a few CrossFit classes.

(Warning: if you have no interest in CrossFit or exercise in general, then you might want to stop reading now.)

CrossFit is young in India. It remains largely unknown but appears to be gaining popularity. In the third largest city (population in excess of 9 million) in the world's largest democracy, there are exactly four boxes to choose from. In the Hungarian capital, which boasts a population of 1.8 million, there are five. By a similar point of comparison, my home town of Melbourne (which has a population of 4 million) has at least 50 boxes in the inner city alone and over 100 if you include the suburbs. CrossFit is huge in Australia. And I have never done it there.

But it is exciting to be a part of a new fitness movement in India. And it is encouraging to know that one can satisfy their passion for this crazy stuff (my friends think I've joined a cult) just about anywhere in the world (there is no CrossFit in Antarctica or Bhutan, but there are two boxes in Kabul). Though, on arrival at the Reebok Duna CrossFit (reebokcrossfitduna.com), I was a bit apprehensive about training in new place with different people. We're a pretty tight bunch at my place in Indra Nagar (thetribefitness.com), and while I'm not the strongest or most agile fella in the place, I hold my own and usually do quite well in the WODs. So going to a different box in Budapest was a touch scary. For starters, Hungarian people tend to be a bit bigger than your average Indian. And it is in Eastern Europe, which is a part of the world associated with serious weight lifting. CrossFit has been happening there for a lot longer. The men and women are extremely fit and take their training very seriously. Writ short, I was expecting to have my ass handed to me.

And my expectations were not inaccurate. There were athletes at Duna who were doing my one rep max for squats as a warm up. The venue itself was an old warehouse space on Obuda island with a grey and brooding view of the gentle Danube. When sprints were programmed, we bolted through icy winds and rain beside the river. The industrial charm of the venue and work ethic of the athletes inspired an almost ecstatic atmosphere. I don't know if my fellow trainers shared my wide-eyed joy, but the experience of lifting heavy weights in Budapest was just too bloody romantic. I gushed as I slid a barbell back onto the rack, then thought about where else I might get the opportunity to train. Perhaps I'll hit a new PR with my clean and jerk in Berlin. Or smash a benchmark WOD while travelling in Iran. It is fun to think about.

And what new ideas about programming can be learnt by moving about, training with as many coaches as possible? While the set up and style of CrossFit gyms might be largely uniform (though I expect boxes in Dubai, New York or Shanghai would have their idiosyncratic differences), the training experience in Budapest was distinct from the one in Bangalore, and not in immediately obvious ways. Like I said, I was expecting to be destroyed by the Hungarian CrossFit experience. But this was not necessarily the case. They were hard and they were heavy. But they were not excessive. Which may or may not be indicative of a usual week at Duna. You can never tell with CrossFit. No two workouts are exactly alike.

For the very brief time that I was there, the coaches were following the 5-3-1 strength training method devised by Jim Wendler. The coaches informed me that the box had had a recent influx of new members and that this had necessitated a return to some fundamentals. I had come along during the third week of a cycle (for those unfamiliar with 5-3-1, Wendler's programming operates on a four week rotation of set/rep ranges and percentages. See jimwendler.com) so the work looked a bit like this:

Squats:
2 warm up sets of 8 reps @ 50% of your 1RM.
3 working sets. 1 of 5 reps @ 75% (or 1RM), 3 reps @ 85%, and 1 rep or more at 95%.

This obviously didn't take very long. The WOD that followed was either a benchmark like Fran (thrusters and pull ups for 21-15-9 reps as fast as possible), or a combination of movements that complemented the major lift of the day. For example, after dead lifts, the WOD consisted of sprints, kettlebell swings and lunges. All great movements for developing power and kinaesthetic awareness in the hips and pelvis.

The WODs at Tribe, on the other hand, tend to have a stronger focus on metabolic conditioning. Again, it depends on the day. And we have done a lot of heavy lifting during the short term of my membership at Tribe. But the WODs are always absolute monsters, and scaling (reduction of weight or rep ranges - acceptable and negotiable at Duna) is frowned upon. The trainers in Bangalore (at least at my box) bite off a lot and they chew hard. Bodies hit the floor in dizzy pirouettes as the final reps are performed. When the energy to rise is summoned, a stencil-like arrangement of sweat angels bears witness to the brutality of the work.

As if that wasn't enough, and inspired by my time in Budapest, I got chatting with the trainers at Tribe and we decided to start following the Wendler method in addition to the regular, one hour workouts. So Tuesday last week looked a bit like:

Week two Wendler's program: Squats (warm up plus 3 working sets of 3 reps at 70% 80% and 90%).

Then the regular class, which consisted of: a) another warm up routine, b) handstands and handstand push ups, then c) four cycles of push presses and hang cleans (eight minutes of continuous work - seriously intense shit) and then a bonus challenge of 50 burpees as fast as possible. I. Was. Dusted.

All up, the workout lasted 90 minutes. And we do this (or something that looks like it) four days per week. On the fifth day we just do the regular 60 minute programming. There is some yoga in there somewhere as well. One of the fellas I'm training with goes in for a sixth day, just for the fun of it.

Which prompts me to wonder: are we doing way too much?

If you read Jim Wendler's book (which I am), he encourages following his programming for primary lifts with some ancillary work not more than four days per week. I can't imagine his routines lasting more than 45 minutes and they are based on "tried and tested" methods for achieving maximum strength gains gradually over time. The man is a monster (having pumped out squats with over 1,000 lbs on his neck) and his method is extremely well regarded. He discourages deviations of any sort. But here we are slotting it in before a 60 minute session that consistently leaves its participants unable to descend a set of stairs. Wendler claims that the slower, less-is-more approach is designed to avoid plateaus and burn out. So is this 90 minute business sustainable? It is seriously hardcore and I don't think I've ever routinely worked so hard in my life. But it isn't as much work as the Outlaw Way (theoutlawway.com), and that's a method that made the best of the best in Budapest raise his eyebrows and exhale: "that is awesome programming!"

Will this system of training reap the desired results?

It is early days and for the moment I feel amazing. I get excited about the work and I love being at the box. It might be too early to say if the additional work is having an impact, but I am inclined to think that it will only boost what we are already doing. A recent video on the Barbell Shrugged blog (not super keen on references to Ayn Rand, but they know their lifting) revealed that brute strength is the key to success in competitive exercise.


So I/we have a long way to go if regionals are a dream one is even remotely entertaining. But, as Fernando Pessoa noted in the Book of Disquiet, "We live through action, that is, through the will. Those of us - be we geniuses or beggars - who do not know how to want are brothers in our shared impotence."

I may not ever participate in serious CrossFit competition, but I know that I want to get stronger and that this inspires me to search for the "tried and tested" methods for doing so. Why do I want to get stronger? That is a question for another time. But for now, I want to work. I want to train and to feel the effort and exhaustion shake me out of thought and reflection. I want to feel myself pushed to the limit and know that this is existence and that there is creativity, achievement and growth in all things.

Through these misunderstandings between myself and the world, I want to feel alive.

Waking Up

It has been a long time between posts and not for lack of things to share. I have been ruminating extensively over the role of writing in my life. Its function and demands. Journalling is something I have always done, though to varying degrees of intensity, and blogging was more survival technique than habit when I travelled through India and parts of Europe in 2008. After that, my desire to describe my life in psuedo-metaphysical language gradually tapered off. When I came back to India is 2012, I was optimistic that new surroundings would provide new inspiration. And inspire it did, but not in the ways I anticipated.

Ask the musician Scott Walker what he has been doing in the lengthy periods between recordings and he will answer simply: "I have lived". And perhaps that is as specific as one needs to be. The process of decision making is an odd one, and I rarely understand why I do anything. But when I look back at the story of my life, everything seems to fit together. Even those moments when I really thought I was making a mess of it, retroactively turn into glistening sign posts that marked the way. Anxiety and fear can overwhelm and consume us as we negotiate the schisms between who we are, what we feel and where we think we should be. But even though I might have been tearing myself apart in side, there are few regrets that I carry with me. As one of Tolstoy's charismatic protagonists reflects in War and Peace, "I have lived well, but thought badly." And in similar moments of romantic solitude, one might almost feel the influence of some spiritual navigation system. A voice deep within, whispering directions as we stagger blind among the scattered debris. Call it intuition, spider senses or simply "the heart" - retrospectively, we can convince ourselves that all the time we were being tossed this way and that on confusing tides of consciousness, we unconsciously knew exactly where we were going.

And, if I am honest about it, most of the big changes in my life have required very little conscious thought. They seemed to emerge suddenly and without effort, and always at the right time.

For example, ask me a month ago what I was planning to do this year and I would have told you a story about a 30 something male who has spent over two years living in Bangalore and now feels it is time to start preparing for the next adventure. The next place. Somewhere new and abundant with possibilities. Funny how things change so suddenly. I am now thinking about staying for another two to three years, completing my masters in education, and immersing myself in the local fitness scene. And none of this would have made any sense (and perhaps still doesn't) until two weeks ago when I first walked in to a CrossFit Box in Indra Nagar.

The slow road...

Those who have known me a long time may recall that as a child I was one of the least physically gifted students in my school. Awkward and uncoordinated, my enforced participation in team sports was routinely preceded by the crushing experience of being chosen dead last by whichever team captain drew the shorter straw. In a combined class of almost sixty students, this public display of sporting/social status was a slow and tedious process that brought ones' willingness to participate into bleak alignment with a quietly deteriorating belief in ones' ability. The result: I hated sport.

And I still don't especially like sport. Or sporting culture for that matter. But I am hopelessly obsessed with exercise, and have been a serial monogamist with different physical disciplines since my late teens. Weight lifting, basketball, juggling, fire twirling, acrobatics, trapeze, physical theatre, dance, yoga, etc. I even trained as a massage therapist way back when I first graduated from high school. One can conclude that he has a certain, almost spiritual fascination with movement and the body. And this fascination has now settled into regular attendance as a CrossFit gym (or "box") in Bangalore. I was doing my own version of CrossFit for the last nine months at a regular gym in Frazer Town. But since moving to a certified venue with certified trainers, where I am participating in structured (near ritualisitic) workouts with like minded devotees, my life has changed. Dramatically.

There is a popular adage, parodying the initiations in David Fincher's Fight Club, doing the rounds on fitness related social networks: "The first rule of CrossFit, never shut up about CrossFit." Similarly, an image of a woman crumbling in what appears to be a nervous breakdown laments: "Accidentally asked a CrossFit person about CrossFit. Lost 45 minutes of my day." I have seen the eye rolls that CrossFit discussion inspires in those with no personal connection to the activity, and so have done my best to remain mute about it when in social settings. But these amusing memes seem to reflect a certain hostility towards the form. And, perhaps understandably, the rise of CrossFit has triggered a lot of critical debate about the sport's pros and cons. Indeed, many remain reluctant to acknowledge it as a sport at all. But, say what you will, CrossFit has tapped into philosophies and behaviours in a creative way that strongly appeals to and reflects the values of the current Western Zeitgeist.

However, I have no desire to enter into the various debates that surround CrossFit here. Let's leave that for the fitness journalists, sports critics and exercise ambassadors. What I can say with certainty is that I have felt a profound sense of peace since I started participating in this multi-facted, dynamic and extremely intense form of exercise. It is a peace that has eluded me for many years, and I have only known momentarily and in specific contexts. I felt it while trekking in Nepal, and I have had glimpses of it while attending butoh dance classes or when on stage with Chotto Matte. But this calm in exertion is a slippery fish, and has never lasted very long. When it happens, I feel like I am present and love can flow through me. Whatever that means.

But it seems oxymoronic to suggest that a discipline that is so demanding, so overwhelming, so all consuming in its moment of action, can induce a profound sort of inner tranquility. Take a look at the images of army personnel pasted all over the Cross Fit website (www.crossfit.com), or consider the "go hard or go home" attitude that has become synonymous with the method, and inner peace may sound like an unlikely bi-product. But, oddly enough, this is what I have found. An almost spiritual connection with "the moment" through the performance of extreme physical exertion. Actually... to me that makes perfect sense.

In Waking Up, Sam Harris observes:

Most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now.

Acknowledging that this is the structure of the game we are playing allows us to play it differently. How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives.

For me, this echoes the belief that presence - a full and electrifying immersion in "the now" - is essential if we are to live full and authentic lives. No matter what the medium, we all seek a connection to the present moment, whether it be through art, song, writing, meditation, dance or travel. We all want to feel alive now. And perhaps the medium changes as we pass from one age to the next. I can think of no one for whom a single "something" is "everything" all the time. But for me, right now, CrossFit has become that medium. The vehicle through which I have been able to transcend fear and doubt and become completely and utterly present. Left lying on the floor, drenched in sweat, my heart thudding desperate in my ears, I forget about "I" and the self conscious stories that orbit that foggy illusion. Attending absolutely to the specifics of the workout, I feel peace and quiet. An ecstatic calm emerges that is perhaps only possible when the obstacles one faces are immediate and measurable. In this state of accelerated crisis, the luxuries of fear and anxiety fade. One must simply cope with the all out and uncompromising demands of the present.

Like I said earlier, I have been a serial monogamist with physical disciplines, and CrossFit may sooner or later become another abandoned vehicle, rusting by the roadside. But for right now, it is working for me. And, if I am to trust that this thing has emerged at the right time and that my heart or spirit or whatever has brought me here for a "reason", then I guess I should immerse myself in it fully. I have even started running CrossFit workouts at the school. We also have a blog: siscrossfit.blogspot.com. And after those sessions with my students, I feel my entire being buzzing with optimism. So, while it may have been a long time since last I published, know that I have been living and that it has been a tumultous dance through a hazardous labyrinth. But one way or another, the heart finds the way.   

Take care, and thanks for reading.