Learning to Dance in the Rain

There are many lessons to learn in life. Nobody has the same story and no one deals with anything the exact same way. There are all these quotes and maxims out there to live by, but some are pretty contradicting. For example some people say “look before you leap,” while others say “he who hesitates is lost.” Confusing right? There’s a right time to use both depending on the situation and the person. What I’m trying to say here is that almost nothing is set in stone and when it comes down to it we make our own decisions.

The one thing I am sure of is that every life on this earth is filled with tragedy and suffering. Everyone dies; most likely you are going to lose loved ones at some point in your lifetime. Most likely you will have to deal with things you don’t want to deal with. As Rocky puts it, life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

The difference between the people who are successful and the people who sit at home depressed is how they react. Successful people realize that sometimes life sucks, but if you can find positivity and opportunity in the ugliest of days you can rise above it. If you can always find things to be thankful for,  you can rise above it. The people who sit around depressed are the ones who look at the suck and say “nothing good can come of this, and I can’t do anything about it.” They throw a pity party and hopelessly mope around for a couple of days.

I’ve been there, I’ve done that. What I am starting to realize is that life really is what you make it. No one will be there for you in the end, except yourself. Yes, you may have close friends and family who you can trust and are very supportive, but in the end they can’t make your decisions for you. Your life is completely up to you; the more situations that you are able to find opportunity and positivity in the better off you will be.

The most successful and happy people have lived tragic lives filled with repeated failures, setbacks, illnesses, deaths, etc... They all have one thing in common though, they’ve learned how to dance in the rain.

Bomber Strong: Scott Safe on High School Weightlifting

Liz - interviewer

Scott - interviewee

So how long have you been in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting?

I think 18 years. Longer with powerlifting, but for weightlifting I think 18.

So you have a big powerlifting background then?

That’s what I was. I was a powerlifter, then I converted to weightlifting because that was much better for athletics. My kids were coming up and I wanted them to do what was the best, so that’s when I made the switch.

How did you get involved in the high school weightlifting program?

We started it. I knew that when my kids were coming up I wanted them to have fun with weightlifting in a high school environment. So when my son, Nathan, and I were deer hunting one year, we were talking about this sitting in the woods, and I said “We’re going to make this weightlifting association up with high schools,” and he thought “Yeah, that’d be cool dad,” and that’s actually how it started. So I got with Roger Sydecki, and the NSCA (Scott Sully), the NFC people, and the USA weightlifting people. We called a meeting, and I said I wanted to run these high school meets, it would be for high school only, with high school state championships. They all kind of laughed at me, but said “Yeah, lets try.” That was the start of it, and I think this is the seventeenth high school state championships. That was seventeen years ago, and that’s kind of how it started.

So, just follow your dreams then right?

It was! It was something where we just had a plan and it worked out.

Can you tell me more about the program? Like how often are the meets and more about the season.

The meets start in December, after volleyball and football are finished. We like to be finished before track and baseball get started. So we’re kind of a winter sport. We follow the model of Texas with powerlifting and that, but the reason they did that is because more high school coaches are accepting of that. We’re not interfering with their sport seasons too bad, we’re just taking up one sports season, and that’s the one we picked; the winter.

How does this program benefit the students?

Physically, weightlifting is by far the best and as an athlete I think mentally it’s awesome. It’s all about hitting PRs (personal records), and building self-esteem. All kinds of good character-building things. Weightlifting is good in many ways, so I think it’s a beautiful program for kids.

Do you have any ideas for how to spread the program to other schools?

We try every year to bring new schools in, and so we’re always talking to schools. Not just myself, but Scott Sully does, a lot of guys do. Also now USA weightlifting is flying me around and we are going to other states trying to build the same kind of program in hopefully all 50 states. We need to get more weightlifters.

What do you see for the future of the program?

It’s very bright. I don’t think many people know how cool it is, but they’re finding out and as they find out, for every good experience that a youngster has that youngster and his parents tell other people. So I think the future is very bright, it’s a great sport that not enough people know about.

How do you think we could make it more entertaining?

Part of that is that we just need it to continue to grow like it is now. Nationally, weightlifting is growing because of the influx of crossfitters. That helps because there’s more interest, more money, more gear, and more people doing it. The more people do it, the more they like it, so it’s kind of like the chicken and the egg. You don’t grow unless you got more people, but you don’t get more people unless you grow. We’re kind of in that, but I think every time we can hook another school in, we bring another whole group of people; parents, kids, coaches, etc. I think we need to continue to just keep on doing that.

Any ideas to get weightlifting on the media?

The entertainment part is a good question. That’s a toughie, because we still need to get through six attempts with everybody. Cooler singlets are fun, people like that. Streaming live, like today, so people can watch from home is good. It’s a long day and I don’t think we can ever get away from that totally, because everybody gets six attempts. They need their six attempts. That is something we have to keep working on though; figuring out how to make it more acceptable to the TV audience.

Last question, what’s the most important thing in weightlifting?

Desire. If you’re really going to be the top of the top certainly there’s a tremendous amount of just physical talent. At the very very top of the heap you do need a big amount of talent, but I think passion more than anything. People with a lot of passion for it, they continue to train even when they don’t get maxes. You just keep on and keep on. I think passion is #1.

 The Cannon Falls weightlifting team. Each one medaled at the
 state championships. Coach Scott Safe is pictured to the far left.

Scott says none of his lifters are pure weightlifters, most of them participate in other sports such as volleyball, football, and basketball. If you are interested in the high school weightlifting program go to www.mnweightlifting.org.

Living The Dream

    It all started about a year ago, when I walked into Crossfit Progression for my intro session. I was crazy nervous and had no idea what I was in for. Coach Juli started by teaching me how to squat and other various barbell movements. I didn’t understand any of the Crossfit lingo at the time, and the only workout I’d ever seen was Fran. My mom decided I could try crossfit, but only if I quit gymnastics. I was a bit devastated, but I got over it pretty quickly.

I would spend an hour at the gym on Mon, Wed, and Fri, then 2-3 hours on Tues and Thurs. This wasn’t a huge deal for me, because in gymnastics I used to practice about 12-15 hours each week. I was always looking for some workout to do. If I had time when I got home from school I would sneak in a quick Jillian Michael's workout or a run before going to the gym (which I now realize was probably not the smartest idea).

Pic from the Pendlay Seminar
by Sherwin Samaniego

My favorite part of Crossfit was the Olympic lifts. I loved the feeling of having the barbell in my control. At the beginner’s lifting classes I learned what real weightlifting is; lat pull downs and squat jumps were not part of it. I guess you could call that weight training. Anyways, I thought Coach Nic was the coolest coach ever: he was always loud, enthusiastic, shouting encouragement, and he made the lifts very easy to learn. When I was finally allowed to do regular classes I was pumped. I got to push myself beyond my limits and set new PR’s.

In February there was a lifting seminar with Glenn Pendlay and Travis Cooper. I had no idea who they were and was pretty confused to why everyone thought it was a big deal that they were at our gym. Now I understand that they are like weightlifting gurus. At that seminar I think I was the only one lifting in tennis shoes. Glenn said something about getting real lifting shoes if you were going to be a serious weightlifter. So soon after the seminar I got a pair of Reebok lifting shoes. This was an exciting moment and led to multiple PR’s.

In March there was the MN LWC meet. Through talking to my friend Jack and asking him about a million questions I had a better understanding of how a weightlifting meet goes. I was confused when he said that they didn’t give points, instead you either make a lift with two or three white lights or you get red lights and the lift doesn’t count. I also learned who all the big name weightlifters were and how they trained. The meet was filled with personal records; we all had a good time. After the meet we got to have chicken fingers as a reward.

Later I found out that I had qualified to lift at the 2013 Youth National Championships, even though I didn’t know what that was. That was when I decided that I wanted to get really good at Olympic weightlifting. After that I started doing what Coach Nic told me too, instead of trying to max out every day (even though it was fun).

Last year I went to school 8 hours a day, just like a normal kid. I always looked forward to snow days and early releases – when I got to go train with Coach Nic and Coach Juli at 11am. In my mind they were (and still are) the most amazing weightlifters/coaches ever. I couldn’t wait until summer, when I could train with them everyday.

When school came around I knew I would have to wait until after school to train, unless I figured out a way to get there in the morning. In the end it worked out pretty well to do some online schooling. I have an insane schedule which includes riding in different transportation devices for about two and a half hours just to get to and from the gym. I don’t mind all the riding, but it can be pretty time consuming.

The coolest part is getting to lift with the coaches in the morning. I learn a lot from them, more than I could ever learn from hanging out with people my age. Although I do kind of miss my friends, going to football games, and eating skittles.

Pic from short film "The Artist and The Olympian"

Through being obsessed with weightlifting I have learned a lot. There are multiple podcasts, books, Youtube videos, Facebook, and Instagram accounts that have a ton of useful information. Not just on weightlifting, but on life. The people in this sport are a certain type of people. They are not people who are knocked down by anything or anyone. They are not people who give up when things get tough. No sport is easy, but weightlifting is different. I think the people who succeed in it must have passion. They must love the mental and physical struggles. Mental pain (training when you’re tired, feeling lonely, training hard when your shins are bleeding and bruised) and physical pain (being tired, always sore, little pains everywhere) are of course part of life, but we train through it. Weightlifters are the most powerful (fastest and strongest) athletes on Earth, so maybe I should suspect that it wouldn’t be easy to be one.

Right now I am living the dream; training about 20 hours a week (with some really amazing people too). There is 938 days until Rio, so I am going to make every minute count. I know that I will get to the Olympics; maybe in 2020 or maybe in 2016. I know that I will get there because I will not give up.

A Few Tips That Will Make Your Life More Fulfilling

1) Don’t let anything own you. Learn to let go of the past; focus on the present and creating a better future.

You are at a national competition and you just bombed out on the snatch. There really is no need to continue the competition because you have no chance of placing, but you know deep down that placements don’t matter. What really matters is grit; how much will you have to keep going. You decide that you need to make these lifts, so you take a deep breath and focus on hitting your clean and jerks. You forget about your missed snatches because they are in the past and they don’t matter. You PR on your last clean and jerk, leaving you satisfied knowing that you were able to come back and make your last lifts.

2) Stay resilient, just go with the flow. Life is never going to happen exactly as you plan it to, so make plans, just know that they may change. Don’t get hung up on the fact that something didn’t go your way. Just try to make your situation positive.

One day you catch a lift funny and end up tearing your rotator cuff. You go to a physical therapist and learn that you will not be allowed to put any weights above your head for a few weeks. You could go home and cry about it, or you could go to the gym and squat. You know that your squats could use some work, so you decide to focus on getting the strongest legs you’ve ever had. A few weeks later you come back stronger than ever.

3) Stay calm; there is nothing more annoying than someone who gets angry and has freaks out all the time. The worst thing that could happen is that life goes on.

You are angry at your coach for not letting you make one last attempt at a PR that you’ve been chasing for months. You want to throw a chair at the wall because you knew that if you had one more chance you would have stood it up. You still have 5 sets of 5 back squats to do at 90% and gym rules don’t allow throwing chairs, so you decide to calm down and dial it in to hit all of your back squats. Life goes on and no chairs get broken. You realize you have your entire life to lift weights and you should be thankful your coach lets you max out once a week.

4) Don’t be afraid to try. If you are going to try don’t just half-ass it either. You either do it or don’t.

You just loaded the bar to a heavy weight that you’ve never hit before. You aren’t sure if you can make this lift. If you have this kind of attitude that bar could potentially smash your neck and break you. You need to be confident that you can hit this weight. Imagine yourself making this lift then approach the bar and show it whose boss. You are the only person who can stop you. Remember that you, as a human, are literally limitless in your capacity. You can do anything you put your mind to.

5) Set goals, but follow processes. Goals, like life, can change and often when people think about their goals they become overwhelmed. All you can really do is focus on showing up everyday and beating on your skill. Everyday you have the chance to get better so use it.

For someone who wants to go to the Olympics in weightlifting a good process goal would be to show up everyday with an optimistic attitude and give 110% in training. Walk in the gym with the knowledge that you could lift more than you’ve ever lifted before. A good process goal for non-max out days is to hit all of your lifts and make them consistent.

6) Don’t compare yourself to others. It sucks the fun out of your life. You are you. No one else knows your entire story, no one else has gone through everything that you have gone through.

Someone 10 years younger than you just squatted your PR for 10 reps. You start to get down on yourself and you tell yourself that maybe you aren’t that great after all. Then that person tells you that they have been lifting for 4 years and you realize that you were stupid for comparing yourself because you haven’t been lifting as long. Remember that there is always more to every story and never squat with your ego.

7) Don’t apologize for who you are. Keep it real.

People will love you for who you are, and if they don’t then who cares? You don’t need their negativity in your life; you have things to do. Don’t say you’re sorry if you’re really not. Some people are sensitive and here is my advice to them: SUCK IT UP. Life is a mental game and the strongest survive. However do not be an insensitive asshole just for the fun of it. You should focus on inspiring others, not putting them down. (If the real you is an insensitive asshole then maybe you should focus on being positive for your own good)

Everyday is a new day to wake up with a new attitude; you choose. No one can make you feel anything without your consent.