The MONSTER GARAGE GYM/MAROSCHER COACHING LOG is a weekly Coaching Log by MGG owner, 2-Time WPC World Powerlifting Champion, Eric Maroscher, and is geared to the new to intermediate powerlifter. LIVE, LEARN and PASS ON.
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THIS WEEK’S Monster Garage Gym/Maroscher Coaching Log: FOR JOAN
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This Week’s Coaching Log:
Sometimes the gym is for taking every ounce of aggression, volatility and pent up anger you have stored up in your being and unleashing a storm of rage and power on the weights. Sometime the gym is a place where you hone in on your goals and train with laser guided precision, leaving no stone unturned as to bring your vision and goals to fruition. And then there are times where the gym is your place of solace, reflection, peace, retrospection and thankfulness.
This past weekend my friend Joan was laid to rest after a long and courageous fight with a terminal condition I won’t dignify with the use of its name. Joan was and is now and forever in memory, one of the kindest and most giving, sweet and caring people I have been blessed to have existed in this lifetime with. Joan was an educator with whom I worked with and her care for kids, especially those gentle and sometimes lost souls who have yet to find their way, was an example of all that is good in a human.
Joan’s life outside of work was dedicated to helping those wonderful four legged souls who don’t have a voice to cry out with when they are need of help. Joan founded Underdog Rescue, and the Monster Garage Gym was honored to be able to run a charity meet to help in the search of a forever home for Underdog Rescue dog, Shilo some months back.
This past weekend the public service for people gather to share memories of Joan and to say “goodbye,” in a more formal setting was held. To me, Joan was and always will be an embodiment of what it is to love life which she did. Even in the very end she was a lover of life and all the good that is around.
This weekend the gym was, for me anyway, a place of solace, a place of reflection, a place of peace, retrospection, and thankfulness. It was all of those things while with those seemly unrelenting waves of sadness continued to wash up as they do on one’s emotional shore line during a time of loss. It was a place to be grateful, grateful for the fact that I got to know someone as wonderful as Joan.
Sometimes during training I put these little clear ear plugs in at the gym so I can be a little more in-tune with my body during a training session and not so distracted by the sound of the weights or music. This weekend I put in my ear plugs and with with my sense of hearing dulled, I looked around at the gym, I looked around at the lifters, my lifting partners, my friends, I lifted weights and watched people living life and moving forward toward their goals, virtually all of them taking that training day by the throat with white knuckled hands and packing 110% into it. They were living that day to the fullest, just like Joan did. The gym was were I needed to be.
The point of this coaching log, as each week our logs have a lesson, is that if you are going through a tough time, if you are facing loss or difficulties, an unlikely place for you to go for peace and solace might be the very place you go to when you need to unleash the venom or rage that you might have locked up inside.
The gym can be many things to you depending on your needs at that given time. A powerlifting gym’s atmosphere is alive, it is real and it is a place where you can pursue the best version of yourself.
As those who live in the moment will say, in a contemporary society where the pseudo world of social media is pervasive, three things can happen to people who live in that artificial world. One-third will get sucked even deeper into the rabbit hole of that artificial world, one-third will become stressed and overwhelmed by that artificial world, but for that remaining one-third, they will wake-up. My food for thought is to wake up, be as thankful as you can (understanding that everyone has those off days) and grab the day by the throat and get every penny of your money’s worth out of it at home, work, and during that special and fleeting time you have during your day to train.
Because, sometimes the gym is for taking every ounce of aggression, volatility and pent up anger you have stored up in your being and unleashing a storm of rage and power on the weights. Sometime the gym is a place where you hone in on your goals and train with laser guided precision, leaving no stone unturned as to bring your vision and goals to fruition. And sometimes the gym is your place of solace, reflection, peace, retrospective and thankfulness.
In loving memory of Joan Boro.
Wishing all of our weekly coaching log readers the best in your training and competitions. Ever Onward, Eric Maroscher, Owner: MONSTER GARAGE GYM
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