I had known for weeks that it was coming. I planned my schedule accordingly and knew I’d hit it on a Sunday and hit it when Elaina was teaching. I counted down the days. I watched the counter change one digit closer after each session. I was aware of what was going to inevitably happen, but I had no idea how incredibly proud I’d feel.
I walked through the doors and Elaina made me walk back outside. She said to wait there for a minute. I was confused but I secretly knew what it was about. Then she yelled out for me to come back in again, and as I walked through the door there was music playing and people cheering. She recorded me with one hand and cheered the other one in the air. As I tried to awkwardly avoid the attention she screamed “congratulations!” and handed me a pair of blue socks. I smiled and sweetly thanked her then took the socks. I told her I’d wear them that day.
They were my celebratory century socks. I hit 100 Bar Method classes.
Right after that I walked to the back to throw the label away from my new pair of socks, and Crystal caught me by surprise and yelled “congratulations!” She put a lei around my head and hugged me close. I had to hold back tears.
You see, I met Crystal a few months after starting at Bar Method. When I first started I didn’t know how to tuck or where my naval was. I was sore after every class and I couldn’t make it through thigh work without pausing for a break. Physically, I was pretty weak. Mentally, though, I was completely shattered. I was months into my world flipping upside down and deep in the unbearable pain of trying to figure out life on my own. So when I met Crystal at an event after class, my body hurt and my mind was always two seconds away from a complete breakdown.
Crystal had asked me something, and it prompted me to tell her what I was going through. She was kind of tipsy at that point, but she told me that all I needed was myself. I wanted to roll my eyes because being by myself was what was causing all this pain. Being by myself was the absolute last thing I wanted. But she told me that, and I was never able to shake those words.
Because now I’ve completed 100 Bar Method classes and nobody else did that but me.
I endured the pulse push-ups. I persisted through those dreaded fold overs. I suffered through classes with Elaina. I tucked and I untucked. I dropped down an inch each time. I lifted my leg to seat height. I held for 20 seconds. At one point I even did classes daily for at least two weeks. I did that all by myself and no one else can take credit for it.
And so I looked down at my blue socks during class and I couldn’t believe it.
The girl that started Bar Method was chunky and mentally unstable. She had a hexagon shaped face and weighed the most she has ever weighed in her life. She also had a broken heart and was absolutely defeated each day she woke up and had to live another day on her own. She cried. A lot. More than she smiled perhaps.
Today, that same girl is the strongest she’s ever been- both physically and mentally. She loves bicep curls and can hold a plank without her arms turning into jello. She recognizes that her body does wonderful and amazing things. That she can do the hard things, and that she’s come so far. That now she’s in a place where she never thought she’d be. She’s made it through challenging things, and she’s made it out beautifully.
That’s me. I hit 100 classes. All on my own.