Daring To…..

….MOVE!

Gym Jane has been here for a little over two years now and it’s been an experience to say the least. A part of the growth on our personal journey’s to discovering our utmost potential as human beings and to connect with all of you, that we might do so together.

As part of that process, for the first time since we’ve started, I’ve come to that place where movement is the next natural step in my personal evolution. So I’ll be continuing, but over at my new blog:

Dare To Evolve

Come on over, check it out, feel free to subscribe and, of course, to continue sharing your thoughts, challenges, experiences and success’s. You’re a part of what has made this growth thrive.

See you on the flip side:),
Shane.

P.S. Gym Jane ain’t going nowhere. It’ll still be here. And if anything, at a time when Chris and I have some wacko idea to undertake together, we will most likely revisit these pages once again;).

Two for You, Two for Us, Two All Around

We can now officially call this a tradition!

Gym Jane’s been around now in the blogging ‘verse for two years. And to mark that time we stand with hand held to heart and raise our voices in song, the song we’ve adopted as our anthem;).

Thanks all for following along and for your responses and feedback. We hope sharing the journey continues to spark thought, reflection and inspiration, no matter how small.

s. & ae

Re-Capping the “Year of Excellence”…2

Now where were we…..ahh yes,  Intu-Flow.

By this point, the quality of excellence morphed. It morphed into consistency. The slow and steady was still there, but rather than thinking about becoming excellent at a particular skill (though still there) the primary focus became consistency and applying that to the new skills I was learning (in order to deal with my back). That’s all I did, twice a day, for almost 3 months, working my way thru the various levels. Wow! There will be a lot more on this to come, but the effect of Intu-Flow has been unlike anything I have ever undertaken (from a physical exercise stand point). And it WAS helping the back, helping me move beyond the pain and immobility.

I then, on a last minute whim, partook in a course I’d been encouraging everyone else to attend, but felt I’d be unable to make myself. It was the first ever Kettlebell Fitness Instructor Certification, held in New York, which saw the combining of Valery Fedorenko and Scott Sonnon’s material. This was exactly the natural evolution in kettlebell lifting I could see happening upon my introduction to RMAX and the things taught there. And the best part: I felt great lifting thru the weekend and my continued lifting afterwards (still light, but doable and for longer). I have been continuing with all this and more.

Now this year of “Excellence” (which worked out to 9 months) has come to a close and the new theme realized and being acted upon. So what did I learn in this period I took to slow down (and strive for excellence and consistency)? Don’t be afraid to give yourself the time to discover what you need. Sometimes it takes a drastic change in how you approach life to find it. Don’t feel the drastic change will be a waste of time and energy. If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to the way you were doing it before (which wouldn’t have brought you much further ahead anyway:). Have the courage to take the risk. Relax thru the process, you’ll learn what you need to, faster. Although we may know all this on an intellectual level, it takes time of actually applying it to turn it into real habits and natural thought processes. Then even more time to turn it into consistently repeatable acts. Also, by taking the time, you have a greater awareness of the opportunities that surround you, thereby giving you greater clarity of the details, the nuances, warnings and gems that life throws your way, thus having the ability to act upon them in a more timely fashion. When you take the time to smell the roses, you then see the bees, spiders and webs, ladybugs and the differing shades in colors of the petals. You get to taste the sweetness of the berries that grow and give yourself enough time to think of picking one of the roses to present as a gift to a loved one .

Is that it Shane? Not in the least, but as this is just the recap, we’ll save it for the weeks and months to come. To finish off, I’d just like to acknowledge that in the end it was a drastic change and risk worth taking.  I’ve come out the other end so much further along than if I’d kept trying to trudge thru the way I’d been doing it before. And having come to understand this thru experiencing it, all this new ingrained learning should get old much sooner (than the last round) as I continue to make my way, consistently and openly, along my evolutionary path.

s.

Disclaimer

Just to be sure we are all on the same page with this We are not a “gym facility” or “fitness experts” by any means and neither do we pretend to be. We are not saying “this is how you should do it…for this reason and this and this”. We are students of life, taking various “courses” to better enrich this journey we are on. Everything we’ve learned and continue to learn, with regards to the technical aspects of physical fitness come from those who ARE the experts. And we encourage everyone who is inspired to take this particular “course”, to go to the source and learn from the experts as well. Then, as you become more proficient, learn from your own experience, you can begin to infuse it with your own personal flair. Just as we have taken responsibility (for the exercise’s we do, the routines we perform, the gear we use) we ask that you do the same. We decided to share what we are doing, so that others (among them, like us, Dad’s with young children) could perhaps draw some inspiration, during what can sometimes be a difficult transitional period in their lives, and continue to be an active participant in their own physical, spiritual and emotional growth.

Credit

We are all for credit where credit is due.

First we’d like to thank our parents for those times, starting from birth, when…..what? Oh, oh okay, you’re right, we all acknowledge our parents for the things they’ve taught us in life. Alright, well, we’d like to thank our high school teac……huh? Everyone understands and acknowledges the significance of what we learned from the various adults, teachers/coaches/mentors, in our pre-teen/teen years? Okay…. okay, okay….we’ll make it a little more present. We’d like to thank our wives, who……sorry? Right, of course we all give credit to our wives, for the best friends that they are, the support and encouragement they provide, the strength they display and the inspiration they spark within us….you’re right, that’s a given. Lets see, credit where ya’ll don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from. The “Big Guy” upstairs, we have to thank the creator of all creation for………no, no, you got a point……(sigh) he IS the creator of all creation, thus acknowledgement goes without saying (seeing as He knows all of our thoughts before we know we’ve thought them). Guess we just wanted to make sure we weren’t overlooking or taking for granted all the most important sources that have helped shape who we are today as individuals.

Hmmnn……ahh, here’s one for you. We’d like to acknowledge the source of our physical fitness routines, the skeleton of what we do here at Gym Jane………

…anyone….anyone……anyone…..Bueller…..Bueller. No? Jackpot! Alright, we’d like to acknowledge Gym Jones and Crossfit. This is where most of the learning for what we do, physically, occurs. They are both amazing resources, with tons of FREE info, which we are also very thankful for. It is this kind of accessibility that allows everyday Joes, like us, to get a good start on gaining the tremendous benefits this system offers. It is an example of people who take what they’ve learned and, rather than horde it for themselves in an effort to raise their station above everyone else, share it with others, so that the lessons can be passed along and built upon. It makes us want to tell others about them, as well as not having a problem investing money into it. We’d also like to throw a big thanks out to Dragon Door and the guys and gal that were an integral part of it (Mahler, Maxwell, Cotter, Martone, Du Cane, Jones, Lawrence and Morrison). It was the gateway to the current fitness philosophy we now adhere to.

The Gear

So some of you have been asking what we use to workout. Well… let me tell you. We have some state of the art equipment which is out of the reach of most. However, we thought that for those that are really committed, it would be nice to give you a list of things to get.

Now, the acquisition of equipment for our home gym has been slow but sure, evolving as we evolve and just a lot of fun. It’s been an exercise in creativity and resourcefulness. We’re going to show you what we’ve got (see categories), as an example of how you can make this stuff or where you can find it. And we’ll include the prices too, just so you can see that this can really be done on a budget (which we are on;). This is all from second hand stores, yard sales, junk people are throwing away and stuff we’ve got laying around the house that we aren’t using for anything else. There are some things we buy new, but try to be creative in what we use to make it affordable. And if you can’t do an exercise without a particular piece of equipment, get creative with your workout’s until you can get or make that piece. Be patient, the gems are out there.

If you’ve got the money to spend, then go for it. But reeeaaally……acquiring the gear without the money develops more than just some strong arms and nice abs, and that’s a big part of what Gym Jane is about.

The Gym

This is our gym.

By day, a space filled with sand boxes, soccer balls, toy cars, worm farms, garden hoses, pools and overrun by little people.

By……really early day, a spaced filled with pain, laughter, oxygen deprivation, iron, stop watches, rings, little people who think they’re big and……you guessed it, more pain.

About Us

We are two good friends that have found ourselves on a variety of fun adventures over the last couple of years. We also happen to be brothers-in-law (married to sisters) and Dad’s of young children. We live in the same house (Chris and fam upstairs, Shane and fam downstairs). Being at a similar stage in our lives, it’s been great having that sounding board, a compadre in the transition to parenthood and the learning that comes with it.

Something we’ve done consistently over the last year is getting out for hikes in the mountains. This has been a source of much learning. Learning with regards to where we are at, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. And about the effect that that continued growth has had in our personal lives, in our work, as parents, as husbands, as members of the community.

The pushing ourselves and challenging our limits in this way has been of such value, that we have now thrown something else into the mix…..Crossfit. This is a system of physical fitness that very quickly takes you to the edge of your limits and makes you face your ANGELS and DEMONS (on a daily basis:).

We are by no means “elite” athletes and this is not some kind of extreme….anything. We are not Gym Jones (though we have admiration for what they do). We are a couple of guys who strive to better themselves, to stay true to themselves, to challenge themselves and to have fun thru it all.

We’ve gained such benefit from all this that we decided we would start up this blog. To share our adventures (and misadventures) while hiking/exercising and just other fun stuff that might not even have any correlation! To connect with others, who are somewhere along the road, experiencing similar “learning”, facing similar challenges, to expand the sounding board, to find a few more compadres.

ae & s.

The Name

So some might be wondering where we got the name and why we chose it. Actually all of you are probably questioning it a little. Well, as you may already have gleaned, the inspiration for the workout’s we do come from Gym Jones and Crossfit. And more specifically Gym Jones, because we decided to start consistently working out together, using the system that they use, with the goal of being able to complete the “300” test from Gym Jones. One morning, about 2 1/2 weeks in, after one of the workouts, Chris said (after we had just completed one of the “Circuts”, doing half the work load that the members of Gym Jones did, and doing it in more than twice the time they’d posted) “we should be called Gym Jane”. I had a really good laugh and thought “yup, that sums it up perfectly”. The name stuck and thus was born…….…GYM JANE.

The P.O.D.

We will post our workouts (see categories), so you can see what we are doing and share in the laughs, the misery, the learning. As well, to act as a quick reference, for you, as you begin to design your own program and to create your own routines. Of course when doing that, be sure you are also referring to Gym Jones and Crossfit. That’s where all the learning for this system will come from (as that is where we’ve learned it from).