Solcana blog

By Lauren Anderson

Hello.  My name is Lauren Anderson, and I’m afraid of CrossFit.

Whew. There. I said it. They say the first step is the toughest… And now that I got that out of the way, maybe I can give you some more context.  Let me introduce myself.

I am an actor, improvisor, sketch comedian, writer, and instructor in the Twin Cities.  I work at the Brave New Workshop Comedy Theatre full time, and sometimes you can also see me on stage at HUGE Theater.

I perform for audiences on average 4 nights a week, and I love it!  But the thought of walking into a Crossfit gym, that has a reputation for being a “tough workout” scares the Beetlejuice outta me. I just kept thinking, “I don’t belong at a place like that.  I’ll just embarrass myself.”  (And this is coming from a person that has worn a diaper on stage MULTIPLE times.)

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Coach Hannah in improv for years now.  She’s as badass on the improv scene as she is at the gym. When she started Solcana, I was so impressed. And as more and more of our mutual friends started to go there and get their lives changed and their bodies rocked, I looked on in admiration.

“Good for you!”  I thought. And if any of them said “Hey!  You should come!”  I would always answer with a resounding, “Oh no. That’s not for me. It’s not really my thing.” And then I would offer them some gum, and snake out of the room.

Now personally, I HATE it when people dismiss stuff without trying it. And here I was doing exactly that! What a bunch of B.S. Like when your movie-snob buddy tells you a movie is bad without ever actually watching it. But unlike my movie-snob buddy, who won’t go see a flick out of an inflated sense of what a summer blockbuster could be, I wasn’t trying Crossfit out of fear. FEAR.

A really real and deep down FEAR. And honestly, I was shocked by it.

I don’t consider myself a ‘fraidy cat. I am morally convicted, I speak up for myself even when it’s hard, and I like to try new things.  Sometimes just to say I’ve done it. I’ve been sky-diving, I’ve been mugged, and I even ate something in Japan that had WAY too many eyes…But none of that seems as scary as Crossfit does to me now.

But why? Why was I so scared?

Oh, I’ll tell you why. I keep imagining the same Hellscape. Picture it: I enter the gym. It’s a bunch of Beefcake Bros. They are all wearing non-ironic tank tops, and grunting, and whipping towels. It smells like Bengay and pain leaving the body. I walk in. The music stops. I hear snickers. Some over-tan lady looks me up and down, and says, “I think you got the wrong place.” Everyone laughs, and they go back to spotting each other while somebody cranks up the Insane Clown Posse on the stereo. See what I mean?  HELLSCAPE.

Even though I know that Solcana is not like that.  It is NOTHING like that actually. (I have been reading Coach Jenn’s blog along with the rest of you.)  I still can’t get the mantra out of my head: You don’t belong there.  You don’t belong there.  That kind of place is not for you.

Seriously! What are you thinking Anderson?! You’re way too fat, too out-of-shape, too weak, too asthmatic, too allergic, too “creative”, too unwieldy, too always-picked-last-at-sports. I was the one kid everyone had to wait for, because I always had to walk the mile in gym class.

So when Coach Hannah approached me to take over the blog from Coach Jenn, I was flattered. Did Hannah see something in me I couldn’t see in myself? And she’s a professional! But you can imagine all the things swirling through my head:

1. Can I do it? What if I fail? Holy Moly. What if I try and fail?
2. I have been wanting to rock my body in a new way, and this is definitely something I’ve never done before. Sometimes the universe DOES provide.
3. What if I can’t do it? What if I look dumb?
4. I have never been able to stick to a workout unless I was held accountable by some outside force.  And if I have to write about it, that means I have to go and actually workout.
5. There it was again.That fear. Why was it so intense?

I went home from our meeting and laid on the floor of my living room. I was excited. Oh man, this could be cool. “I will try to do a sit-up.” I thought. It’s been years since I’ve even tried. So I thought, what the hell? Try it. Just one sit-up. Come on Anderson!  You can do it.

I tried it. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even do one sit-up.

My stomach got in the way. I wasn’t strong enough. I could get my shoulders off the ground, but nothing else. I laid back down, and I cried. I’m not an easy crier, but I laid on my floor and cried.

My biggest fear had come true in my living room. And if I was crying in the living room after an attempt at ONE sit-up, what the hell would happen if I walked into that gym? My sister (who I live with right now) came into the room. “What are you doing?” She said.

“I’m crying on the floor, cause I can’t do a sit-up.” I replied.

I told Marnna (my sister) about the opportunity, and she said “You don’t have to do a full sit-up. Just do what you can, until you can do more. Then do more.”  She stood on my toes and held her hands out. “Just try and touch my hands.”  So I did. Then I did it again.  Then a set of ten. I felt good. All that fear that had been roiling in my head dissipated. And I could see a little more clearly.

I guess when something scares you this much, you have two options. (Well, I don’t want to be reductive, you technically have many options. But in this instance, two options stuck out.)  I could run like hell in the opposite direction and do what I’ve always done, or I could stand and face it and try something new.

If improv has taught me anything, you learn a lot about yourself by standing and facing something you fear. Even if it’s just surviving the moment. There is something very powerful about meeting yourself on the other side of something and knowing you survived.

And then one of my favorite quotes came to mind.  From a wonderful book called, “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” by David Wroblowski.  I highly recommend it, but we can save the deets for a different blog.  It goes like this:

That was how it goes sometimes.  You put yourself in front of the thing and waited for whatever was going to happen and that was all.  It scared you and it didn’t matter.  You stood and faced it.  There was no outwitting anything.

So here I am. About to embark on a Crossfit journey that scares me, and excites me, and I’m ready. I hope you join me along the way. I will stand and face my fear. And then probably do some squats with my fear. And I will take my sister’s advice. I will do what I can, until I can do more. Then I will do more. There is no outwitting anything.

Besides, I really want to be able to lift a car someday.