
- Home
- About Us
- Fitness ProgramsKei a koe tenei e hoa. You’ve got this! #justputyourshoeson
- Contact Us
Our big brother John signed me, Hudz and Ceihla up in his team for the World ZUU tournament that was run online last October 2020 over 12 weeks.
It was a bloody hundy tournament run by the creator himself, Nathan Helberg.
It was designed to test you mentally and physically, but with the added support of your team and all the other teams joining in from all over the world.
Geezus 😳, did it live up to it’s design.
I remember wanting to cry with frustration during our first benchmark effort.
How it worked was, we got given a workout based on our level of ability. You had a set time to complete a benchmark time and then 2 weeks to practice.
In the last week you had to beat your benchmark OR set your best time.
I was f***en close to crying 😭 at the benchmark test…..
I had never had to push myself so hard to complete a workout. With the added pressure that I put on myself to get a good time for my team. Not that they were expecting anything from me, other than whatever I could do.
I remember stopping and saying to Ceihla, “I can’t fucken do it” 😣 while trying to stop frustrated tears 😢 from falling out of my eyes. She had already finished this gruelling workout and set her benchmark. I wasn’t even that far from the finish line. But I had hit the wall of what I thought I could do…
So what does she do? She says “come on Aunty, let’s go”. She takes the line and makes me finish what I started, all the while telling me to keep going, keep going, we are almost there.
I really just wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up 🙄 🙅 I may have even imagined tackling her to the ground 😂 ….. Later on, when I could breathe again, I told her that too and she cracked up and said “I would’ve told you to shut the fuck up and keep going”.
But in real life😉, I only had the energy to keep moving and no energy to talk, so with one step and one rep, I kept moving and completed that god awful bloody workout.
Something died in me that day….. I didn’t realise what at this point though…. 🤷🏻♀️
During competition week I tried to avoid thinking about having to do it again.
We had been practicing and training over the two weeks, since the benchmark train of doom from week one. Our big bro took us through Sunday afternoon sessions to get our technique right and teach us how to conserve energy.
I was still anxious about having to do it again. So our whole team got together via Zoom to complete the workout together. We blasted the music at my office opened all the windows and doors, found a space to compete and clicked into our online Zoom with Hudz and John.
Ceihla and I were the only ones that lived in the same place so we were lucky we had each other. Online and in person, the vibe was fucken amazing and all anxiety melted away as we went on to absolutely annihilate our benchmark times.
If I remember correctly Ceihla and I beat our times by between 19-21 minutes. Hudz and big brother had wayyyy harder workouts than us but they still managed to smash their benchmark times by over 5 minutes each.
After that we had two more months of the same tournament set up, but with increasingly more difficult workouts. Yay! 😖
Something shifted after that first month of competition. I told you something had died in me the day of the first benchmark, mental breakdown I had at the gym.
That day at the gym the part that died was the part in me that thought I had no more to give after fatigue set in. I thought I was done….. I thought I couldn’t go on…
My central nervous system was in shock and thought I was under attack. So it sent me continuous mental alarm bells to try to make me stop. Our central nervous system has aa few jobs but it’s primary job is to keep us safe and alive.
So being great at its job, it started to send me the normal thought patterns that have worked in the past. Like “quit, you can’t go on”, “stop, you can’t breathe”, “you can’t fucken do this”.
The more I kept going, the worse the thought patterns became. Until I actually started to believe the bullshit that was running relentlessly in my mind, totally untethered.
Normally, on any other day and if I was alone, I would’ve listened to the second thought pattern and stopped. Most likely hating on myself later.
But I wasn’t alone…. I had my sister and my brother in my team virtually…… and…….. I had Ceihla right there in the arena with me, destroying one thought pattern after the next.
Her belief in me worked like bullets….. Shooting down every f**ked up thought pattern that entered into my mind like she was a damn assassin 💣
I’d say I can’t, and she’d shoot down that thought with a simple “we got this”.
I’d think “f**k this, I’m quitting” and she’d fire out another round of “one more, one more”.
I’d try to stop…. and she’d revive me with “we’re almost there, we’re almost there”.
I’ve always walked around with this notion most of my life that I’m lazy, unmotivated and will only do as much as I need to, to pass. If only I could finish what I started….🙄
That was literally in my school report, year after year. “So much potential but….”. “If only Courtney had more motivation”.… blah blah blah!! If you get told that enough times you start to believe it.
I not only believed it, it became part of my identity. When you accept things as part of your identity it can work for you in two ways.
It can work to make you better OR it can work to destroy you.
These limiting beliefs were un-intentionally implanted to destroy me. The adults that put them there were actually just frustrated with me for not seeing what they could see…… which was potential. At the time they didn’t have the tools to tell me in a way that made me want to do better. So I just accepted that I would be just above average in some things and in other things I would have to work harder but, most likely wouldn’t.
My team had helped me murder many of my false limitations. They helped me kill who I thought I was and what I thought I could do. That is some magical, life altering shit!!! 🎩 That is a gift 🎁
Years and years of believing I was all these things, assassinated by the encouragement of a team who stepped back into the arena with me. Who picked me up, dusted me off and kept me moving forward into who I wanted to be and who they always knew I was.
That’s what the right combination of people you trust can do for you. They can help you kill what you think you know. So you can step into your greatest potential.
Sometimes you have to kill what you think you know about yourself to bring forth who you truly are…. and in this instance….Murder never felt so sweet xo
Māori Led online training programmes to boost whānau fitness and strength. In your space, at your pace.
Copyright © Squad Nation. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Website by Innovate Digital