kurt vonnegut's super-skinny, 6-foot-tall baby brother was in 'my' gym today. wandered in while i was preparing to leave dressed like a beachcomber, and he did a warmup/limbering routine that i've never seen before in my life. i actually paused putting all my outdoor gear back on just so i could watch. it was kind of like watching yanomono war dances or some form of kendo done with the bar instead of a stick or something.

but he was obviously very centred and symmetrical and he had mad control so after the performance that i racked up tonight, i'm not gonna carp. it was just fun watching this great tall guy who probably weighs less than me with the wild grey-black afro curls and handlebar mustache squatting and bouncing and . . . he really did exactly that, actually. got all the way down in a sort of atg sumo stance with his hands going namaste at his mirror image, and then he held himself in exactly that pose and jumped eight or nine times. about half a foot off the floor. his hair bounced and his namaste never faltered an inch.

we had a short exchange about him needing the bar that belongs to the bench i had all my outdoor clothes strewn all over and he seemed pleasant enough, even actively friendly. i'm kind of squirrelly about forming actual associations with anyone i have a short-form conversation with at a gym, because just having basic social abilities doesn't prevent a person from being weird or republican or just a thundering, blistering, head-bending bore . . . but still. noteworthy.

i've been given advice here and there not to go all the way down to the touch because pec tears, so it seems like it might be legit. i do it anyway, but i've got a nice round ribcage like a labrador retriever, so maybe it just works for me.

my guys-in-the-gym . . . there are so many new random people in there, it's the plus side of happy new year i suppose. on the other hand, the whole 'buddy' factor of new years workouts is a thing to deal with. boyfriends telling their girlfriends how to do stuff is one trend i really notice and try not to bristle/eavesdrop about. and the other is roving collections of young/youngish guys. basically, if it's at either end of the teen spectrum and it's in the gym, then there's three or four others just like them somewhere very close by.

i usually try to just mind my own business and not try to critique other folks' form, since it's not like i feel anywhere near sure enough to give intructions to anyone. but right now it's really really quite hard to keep to that rule because even i see things that are making me flinch. the little cluster of 13-yo's all 'squatting' under the direction of one of them in the smith rack. and benching with their upper arms out at right angles eeek yike. two specific things spotted tonight though:

1. guy in a beanie and combat pants, instructing his girlfriend in leotards and tight tank top. they happened to be doing it in the floor zone where i was stretching, so this doesn't count as creeping them. he was teaching her squats first, and tbh from where i was sitting it looked to me like her form was much better than his. but anyway, i heard him saying 'you do five' to her, and then i heard her checking her phone and asking 'how come everything's five except deadlift?' and so i had to pipe up and yup, stronglifts. they were quite nice really and i think she was pleased to know i was doing it too. although i'm not sure how happy the dude was about me interrupting. he seemed to sort of know what he was talking about, but also sort of, in some ways, perhaps not. i was able to point them both towards the big skinny training plates when they did get to deadlift, and i feel like i did a good deed because he had her with only 25's on the bar, and the poor girl had long legs. i'm sort of hopeful she might become one of those people you don't ever really get to know as a friend outside the gym, but you kind of smile and feel pleased to see them inside of it. why not? the guys all seem to have plenty of people like that.

2. roving gang of young late-teens guys. oy vey. these ones just did hack me off because you could have transposed them straight to the sidewalk outside the 7-11 of a small town and they would have been less out of place. it was that typical configuration where one of them does something while the other two stand round and watch. they antagonized me without even trying because they were right where i couldn't help noticing them, and one of them was sort of doing something with some sort of bar in a half-assed hur hur kind of way, and one of the others picked up the broomstick people use for dislocations etc - and he was using it at his friend like a fake sword. you know the kind of stupid meaningless fake-fighting stuff stupid meaningless people do when they're bored and brainless and just arsing around. it surprised me how arnold i felt. You Don't Act Like That In The Gym. Show Respect For The Iron, all that. but they wandered off to take turns at wrecking their rotator cuffs on the cable pulldown before i could make up my mind whether to mouth off or not.

thing is, one of them . . . i was watching them a little bit anyway, kind of glowering, maybe kind of hoping that they'd make my day, i dunno. and i suddenly noticed one of them's socks. he was wearing i-dunno-what for a shirt, long stupid silky baggy blue shorts for his pants, and ankle-high motorbike boots. i kid not. the kind that come right across the whole foot and close with snaps and buckles and stuff on the outside of the foot, instead of laces or even velcro. and right above the top edge of his socks, some kind of bad-*kitten* ufc or marine-looking tattoo, all over one calf reaching up to his knee.

but his socks. his socks were the gift. they looked like a little girl's flannel pyjamas, is why i double-took and looked closer at them. toadstools, they had printed on them. toadstools. and some kind of woodland-crittery something else, and these bigger green images that looked like turtles or perhaps lily pads, i'm still not totally sure. i couldn't swear to it although i'd love to be able to, but even though i can't swear it i really do think he was wearing franklin-the-turtle-themed socks.

crabada wrote: »

he would curl his upper back down and almost "crunch" the bar down to his upper abdomen with elbows flaring wide out. I can't imagine how bad that can be on all of his upper body. There is a reason you're supposed to keep the shoulder blades back. =/

this. but it's one of those things where how would you ever know, if you didn't know? all this stuff with my own shoulder has made me slowly capable of actually seeing various lifts in anatomical terms like humerus angle inside the shoulder capsule. but i had to start getting hurt before the picture began to put itself together for me.