Training Through Grief

We all deal with grief in our own way; sometimes we dive into our work, we distract ourselves by being around others or go somewhere that makes us feel a little brighter, some of us even train to push through the emotional pain. It's still hard to accept that it has been 10 days since the passing of Bud Jeffries and the amount of love and influence he had on people during his life that are now dealing with this tragic loss. I still get little jolts of emotions whenever I write or think of him. 

Since he died, I have written on facebook, some stories about him when he was up here in Idaho from stories just days before my wedding to my most recent one about our trip to a Wolf Sanctuary sometime after we performed a show together. It's also a bit eerie to me that I'm now the same exact age as Bud was when I met him in 2011. His influence on me and others are mostly indescribable even though we try to tell what kind of influence or impact he had on us. 

Through this process, it has been a battle a time or two to get training in or just little workouts. The thing is, no matter how much I was feeling, I know deep down he would've wanted me to keep doing what I love to do and make the most of what's possible and be victorious in the midst of tragedy. That's what he wanted for all of us who train or perform feats or whatever in our lives to do because he would've done the same thing. The power he had and the energy he put on us can never truly be matched in the sense that when you trained either with him or through his videos and books, that energy made you feel stronger, almost invincible and you had abilities you didn't think were possible. That's the kind of person he was.

Most of my workouts recently had been short or micro throughout the day, doing little things here and there but one workout really stood out in this time where I wanted to do something that I know I can do but also have it be challenging enough to push through. In one workout, I did 500 Step Ups in under 22 minutes (21:51) which I had never done before or did that many in that amount of time. I used a countdown method and didn't rest the entire time. I wanted to quit a couple times but it felt like Bud's spirit was right beside me and telling me to keep going and that I got this. It wasn't really like a cheering me on type of thing but I sensed that he was just pushing me to be the best I can be and to not quit on what I can finish. 

Other workouts were some carrying & step ups, chest expander training, working with the TNT Cables and now just getting back into my animal workouts. I did some demo videos I posted on Social Media, swinging a sledgehammer like a mace, fingertip push-ups, hindu squats, lifting my 70 lb Kettlebell with three fingers in each arm and even doing push-ups on three fingers of both arms. I guess you can call those micro exercises or workouts and than doing a few other things. Some of these just came to me to do and others were to honor my friend and mentor because it's something I love and that's the biggest moral of this piece is that to do what you love and share it with the world like he did. 

This world is a little darker now that he's gone but in the words of Art Lafleur as the Ghost Of Babe Ruth in the movie The Sandlot, "Heroes can be remembered, but legends never die. Follow your heart kid and you'll never go wrong." Bud was our hero and his legend will live on till the end of time.