Doing push ups is harder than you might think. I’m not sure what condition you find yourself in, but as far back as I can remember doing anything like a push up, a sit up, or a chin up reminds me of the cracking in my elbows, and being the last fat kid on the field during the presidential fitness award competitions of 1975. I couldn’t even do one sit up. Now as hard on myself as I was at the time, it only fueled a rage which I unleashed as soon as the whistle on my emotional kettle blew. I’m not sure if I showed them, or if I accomplished anything other than spicing up my psyche and re writing my own cartography, but when I got that kid by the arm, twisted it back behind his torso and shoved his face into the sidewalk… hearing his arm crack, and his voice break, drool and tears all over the sidewalk… I felt a lot better. At least I felt better at the time. Later I would come to see that however angry I was, it didn’t make me a victim, and turning into the exact same sort of bully was no remedy for all the hate in this world. At the time I would have looked down and said something like “I don’t fucking care” all together as if it were one word to be mastered in a grunt. Nowadays I would extend my hand with compassion, and spend a little time. I wouldn’t expect that being a man meant anything at all like “how many push ups can you do?” or “I’m gonna kick your ass you little piece of shit!”
No, nothing like that at all.
I have continued to keep my promise by doing a set of pushups every morning and every night. One set, and then as many military style push ups as I can. At first all I could hear was the crack of my elbows, and then feel the flow of the distant past come alive within me. “I can’t” said the fat kid… believing in the darkness and inevitability of shame, loss, and hopelessness. But I would do them anyway. I promised my son. I keep my promises.
Slowly they began to feel better. My torso began to stay a little straighter, my elbows cracked a little more softly. Somewhere around twenty my shoulders would begin to burn, and the elbows would report. Now it feels good. You can’t see the difference, and I’m not doing them for visual aesthetics. I am doing them because my son and I decided that we wanted to be able to do them. He wants to be stronger. I want to be stronger. So we do them. I remind him, and in so doing remind myself.
It feels really good.
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this is a great idea !
i tried it last night with my son and he’s hooked.
it didn’t go over so well with my daughter’s though, they
just said they prefer running, so they immediately went
for a jog, so it kinda worked for the exercise part. :)
what i love about this is that my son will never forget to
do this if we establish a routine and he will usually be way
more motivated to do them than i will. so that will push me
to do them as well, .. ” daddy, daddy it’s time for our exercise com’on…”
there’s no way i can say no to that.
thanks sunshine !
g.