YEAH!

Remember back when "Annie" was new and terrifying? I miss those days. I rarely get pre-WOD jitters anymore, which is kind of like the first time you don't get a cigarette buzz tells you that you are an actual smoker. The only thing that scares me is handstand anythings. I have this mental block when it comes to handstands, and for years I've either refused to do them or told my coach to eff off. Which won't necessarily surprise any of you. But yesterday I was bossed into them by my coach, and I realized, as I was upside down against the wall with a hand around my ankle and my shirt gathered somewhere about my chin that in that moment, I was more worried about what my exposed torso looked like than fighting gravity.

And I thought to myself, "There is something wrong here."

We don't jettison our body image issues as soon as we get that kip situation handled. We don't just leave our fears of looking "fat" as soon as we PR on our overhead squats. Before my knee rebelled, I had a 245 lb deadlift, which is not too shabby, but I still hated catching my reflection in mid-squat. As my new friend Kirsten said, once you fully commit to CrossFit, your definition of beauty begins to change, but that doesn't mean we give ourselves a break. I can look at my fellow lady CrossFitters and see the beauty in each one of them, but there is no way in hell I'm cutting myself some slack. At the bottom of a heavy OHS, I see strong, beautiful women striving against the box this culture is trying to shove them into. But the second I step on that scale... my paradigm has not shifted enough to let grace come into my self-talk.

One of the things I love most about CrossFit is that the girls I come into contact with are genuinely less annoying than the girls on the outside, especially in SoCal. There is less pettiness, less bitchiness, less crap. If there is any, I am at a point in my life where I feel comfortable telling a b*tch to f*ck off, but I haven't had to do that. (Yet. You've been warned, ladies.) We have common goals, and a language that not everyone understands. A group of us can walk into a bar, look around and say to ourselves, "We are physically superior to 99% of the women and men in this dump." And it's true. Tell me that doesn't get you off a little! It does it for me.

Remember that the next time you're at the gym, feeling bloated or weak or inferior to the woman overhead squatting over 130lbs. (Cough, cough -- Tami!) Remember that we're all here for one reason, to get stronger and each of us have a different road there. But you are superior to the chick coming out of 24 Hour Fitness, the girl who hasn't broken a sweat after 2 hours on the elliptical, who got her hair done to come to the gym. She's never uttered a guttural scream trying to PR on her cleans. She's never even heard of Murph. She might wear smaller jeans, but you could totally kick her ass.

And her boyfriend's too.