ninja elitism

Through absolutely no fault of my own I spent some time learning about gypsies today. What a cool bunch they are. If I could pick and choose my own cultural group to join, I’d definitely consider gypsy. Or maybe Trappist monk. Or Pennsylvania Dutch (what’s not to love? flat-iron: out. Homemade apple butter: IN).


But in a different life, had I been born with all sorts of skills and proclivities that I currently don’t have, it sure would have been nice to be a Ninja. Not an actual Japanese ninja, mind, because… well, I think I wouldn’t want to be Japanese period because I’ve got enough problems without taking on more (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1264812/Ki-o-razy-Young-men-prove-bravery-riding-giant-logs-steep-hills-bizarre-Japanese-Ki-otoshi-ceremony.html)

What I mean is simply to have ninja [whisper it] “skills.” Obviously I love the program Ninja Warrior because of the insane commentating. If and when a contestant’s slippers unhinge from the walls during the Spider Jump and he plummets into the water beneath the obstacle, those guys are right there to capture the magnitude of the shame the contestant has brought upon not only himself but also his family, his ancestors, his dentist and the entire division of the fish-gutting factory in which he labors by day.

Even when G4 ruined the show by injecting American Ninja Warrior wannabe competitors, I managed to find a silver lining to the whole fiasco in the form of super hot freerunner and sometime Madonna backup dancer Levi Meeuwenberg, winner of the American Ninja contest’s second incarnation. Mmmmm, Levi. In the course of my healthy idolatry I developed a fascination with freerunning and vicious envy of people who can actually do this shit:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ColoradoParkour#p/u/4/smLhCygDWi8

I actually went to a freerunning exhibition in Trafalgar Square last summer. It was a really solid showing and even featured a surprise intermission performance from Diversity, the dance crew that bested Susan Boyle in the finals of Britain’s Got Talent, though I don’t know if those guys made the highlight reel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2hdaPaIJQg


How amazing would it be actually to do that stuff for real? Very inspirational. But here’s the thing: I am a surprisingly bad athlete. Bad bad. Failblog bad. Stephen Hawking bad (too much?).

I’m a geek. Geeks don’t climb up rocky cliff walls with our bare hands like Tom Cruise[’s stunt double] in Mission Impossible. We whine about being dragged out to the Torrey Pines cliffs, accidently blink out contact lenses in the gravelly sand never to find them again, lose our footing and slide downhill feetfirst badly scraping our midriffs and shins against the jagged rocks, and finally contract a raging case of ringworm from foreign fungi in the soil that won’t heal for four months afterwards. For example.

My athletic ineptitude cross-trains too. My brother is doing the p90x program – I got through p1x and then quit.

I’m having dinner tonight with a friend from North Carolina who in the time since I’ve last seen her has apparently gotten really into CrossFit. We’re going to a Korean BBQ joint, and I’m afraid she'll be so fit that she's going to out-grill me handily.

For those of you who don’t know what CrossFit is, it’s an exercise phenomenon that brands itself “elite fitness”:

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

Yikes! Elite! I’m not sure what to make of the word. The last time I was in a rec beer league to play some volleyball, they set up three divisions – Beginner, Intermediate, Elite. Everyone signed up for the Elite division. Including the elite athletes who couldn’t even serve a bran muffin across the net, nor walk from their cars to the gym door without gulping down a restorative sip of Gatorade. Anyway, the commissioners ended up creating three new divisions – Elite, Super Elite and Ultimate Elite. I love America.

Anyway, CrossFit has been spreading like herpes in a freshman dorm, because….well, I’m not sure why because. What I do know is that anyone who does CrossFit becomes instantly obsessed with CrossFit and can talk of nothing but CrossFit and post nothing but cryptic CrossFit-related quotes on facebook. They don’t carry wallets, just gallons of milk. They count grams of protein and reps like Oprah counts her money.

It’s scary and intimidating. As an astute friend of mine once noted, “CrossFit is sort of like a fight club, except the first rule is ‘Always talk about CrossFit.’”  Or, as an astute friend of hers noted, “CrossFit is a cult.” I continued, “It’s like the Scientology of exercise.”

I do think that they are able to poke fun at their elite selves though, which is cool, because this is pretty hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgH_ZoMOht8&feature=player_embedded

Unless they weren’t actually being sarcastic and I just didn’t get it because I’m not Ultimate Elite material. Man, I hope that BBQ tonight is paleo.