Me < Coordinated

I am not a coordinated person.

I come from a long line of non-coordinated individuals. I am lucky in that, compared to other members of my family (*cough* older sister *cough*), I absolutely seem graceful and synchronized.

People would talk about my family’s epic klutziness, and I categorically disagreed with them! Sure, Jordan is a klutz; she sealed her own fate when she tripped over nothing and broke her wrist on the world’s most gentle fall. Brandi, my younger sister, can’t help but to be uncoordinated because by the age of 12 she had more hip surgeries than most people have….ever. And my twin sister Tiffany, well it is hard to be coordinated when you are suffering from chronic fatigue and are tired all the time.

But I was sure that I had been lucky enough to dodge the klutzy gene.

Then I went to college…..

No one in my family went to college with me, so there was no bigger klutz to hide behind.

Sure I denied it at first, but after a few instances like, oh, I don’t know, falling out of a canoe a few dozen times on a float trip that resulted in calf covering bruises that were as black as my mood when I find out we are doing burpees (seriously. I do not like those.) Or perhaps stepping off of a curb and spraining my ankle. That was fun to explain to the coaches. Or missing a step when walking down the stairs and landing on my back side. Or stepping on an icy patch and flying into the air before crashing down on my left arm. Or…well, that’s enough. No need to get into the other three years of college.

So you see that my coordination, or lack there of, is really a problem. (Yet, I insist on tempting fate by wearing 3-inch heels every day to work. And yes, I run in them because I’ll be darned if I miss a pedestrian crossing sign just because of footwear.)

So far I’ve been able to pretend that I am coordinated in CrossFit. But today I was unable to hide it. And I became frustrated.

I don’t like not getting things. That’s why I hated Chemistry. It is still a mystery to me. All of it. It wasn’t from lack of trying: I did before school tutoring, after school tutoring, private tutoring, Chemistry for Dummies, help in study hall….none of it worked. To this day I am sure that my chemistry teacher passed me out of sheer pity. I could fake an English paper with the best of them. I would write “A” papers on the symbolism of a book’s title with out ever cracking the spine. I get BS. You can’t BS Chem. lab.

I have learned that Kettle bell snatches are a lot less like English papers and a lot more like Chemistry. I don’t get them.

I have a theory that because I am tall (5’11”) that my brain has trouble sending all of the coordination details to every inch of my body. That makes sense, right? But it is still frustrating!

So on the kettle bell snatches, the coaches are like “No, nononono…do it THIS way.”

Ummm…that’s what I thought I was doing.

“Punch the air,” they say. So I do.

“Well, you almost, sort of have it. But you have to swing with fifteen more Newton’s of force, and then with a forty-two-point-six-five degree bend in your arm, twist your wrist at an acute angle and then, while you twist the kettle bell at the rate of fifty RPM, punch the air like you mean it.”

Ooohhhh. Is that all? And to think I thought it was difficult….

I guess there is a possibility that maybe, someday, the stars will align and heaven will shine down on me and a heavenly choir engulfed in bright white light will sing “Hallelujah” as an angel bestows upon me the gift of coordination.

Ha! Between that and the Kettle Bell snatch….I definitely think the heavenly choir will happen first.