We are working on the details to begin the chronicles of Dru Seller's journey as a V23 Athlete.  Dru began training at CrossFit Central and has now moved onto Red Black Gym where only the best athletes sharpen their knives.  

A few of V23 Athletics goals are to incorporate local culture and local artists in some of our designs to capture the strength & energy that feeds us here in Austin, TX. We also wanted to be able to give back to the community that we live in and are proud to be associated with.  This is the first of many collaborations that help us accomplish the above goals.  

I met Connie Arismendi through CrossFit Central and we tackle workouts together on a regular basis.  Once I found out that Connie was a nationally renowned public sculpture artist I knew she would have a lot to offer the small start up that we were developing.  I arranged a meeting with Connie and we met for coffee at Epoch.  It was a lot of fun to listen to her tell her story of how she ended up in her field and how she pours all her energy into her art.  She is very humble so if you don't know her sometimes her talent will not get talked about enough in my opinion.  

One of her sculptures grabbed my attention and that is the Cesar Chavez Memorial Sculpture located in East Austin.  It is a metal sculpture of an eagle that is lighted up at night in various colors.  The lighted up eagle is a Beacon, or "The Way" to honor the strength and energy of Cesar Chavez.  On days which Chavez fasted in non violent protest, the Beacon is lighted up with purple lights.  We chose to incorporate the purple colors in our designs since that is when Chavez displayed the most strength & energy during this time.  

Below I wanted to attach Connie and Laura's narrative from the artists themselves.  They put a ton of time and energy into researching Cesar Chavez before beginning on the sculpture.  

Excerpts from Connie Arismendi / Laura Garanzuay's Narrative Final:

"Cesar Chavez believed his greatest accomplishment was the formation of the United Farm Workers Union. His non-violent actions of marches, boycotts, and fasts brought social justice and civil rights to the poor and disenfranchised in our society. His life is an inspiration to millions of people."

"The form of the sculpture and the lighting programs are conceptually linked to his sacrifice and hard won accomplishments. The sculpture is a literal and symbolic beacon that not only depicts Cesar Chavez but also illustrates his spirit, ideas and philosophy. The sculpture is 25 ft tall and announces the entrance into East Austin on Cesar Chavez Street and brings attention to the Terrazas Library as the repository for the largest collection of writing on Cesar Chavez in Austin. The sculpture will with be lit at night making it highly visible during the day and at night."

"His words have power and the lower part of the sculpture will hold one of his inspirational quotes. Two pieces of metal will be rolled to form a cone and the text will be created using perforated holes to create positive and negative spaces.   Inside the cone, near the top stands the figure of Cesar Chavez.  Behind him, rises the vertical elements that create the stepped and stylized wings of a soaring Aztec Eagle with the head in silhouette at the top.  In addition, the soaring bird is an allusion to the Phoenix rising from the ashes. This symbolism speaks directly to the sacrifice and life of service of Cesar Chavez. We are using a programmable LED lighting system that will further the concept of the rising phoenix. This lighting program slowly cycles through fiery colors of reds, oranges and yellows."

"During his life, Cesar Chavez endured three fasts to bring attention to the plight of the farm workers. We have designed a special program in homage to this heroic action. On the nights that he fasted the sculpture will be lit in shades of purple, the color of penance and sacrifice. This program will run on these nights:"

"In addition, we will celebrate his birthday on March 31st with a special lighting program. The colors we have chosen to use are vivid colors taken from the Mexican Piňata used to celebrate birthdays and holidays. This program will be festive and celebratory."

"The sculpture will be made of highly durable 6061 schedule 40 aluminum. It will be approximately 25 feet tall and sits atop a concrete foundation. The scale of the work is harmonious with the surroundings, easily viewed from vehicles and with enough detail to engage pedestrians."

"We have created an area for the community to gather adjacent to the sculpture. Two benches will be made of perforated metal. The perforated metal is similar to the perforated cone that is part of the sculpture. The kiosk will have a curved vertical column made of sheet aluminum. The curve will be created using a sheet metal break with breaks made on the vertical. The use of sheet metal and the vertical lines of the column are another visual link to the sculpture."

"The lighting we chose is extremely durable. It is a low voltage LED programmable system that can withstand harsh weather conditions, the average life span is 80,000 hours or eighteen years.  It can withstand lightning strikes, ½ radial ice, and continuous 70 mph wind. This is an ideal exterior lighting system because it provides exceptional performance and design flexibility while having inherent energy efficiency and minimal maintenance requirements."

About the artists and Chavez:

Connie Arismendi is a nationally recognized sculptor and installation artist living and working in Austin, TX. She received a BFA from The University of Texas and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is in major public and private collections in the United States and Mexico. She recently completed three public artworks for the Roy Montelongo Scenic Overlook, Nash Hernandez Sr. Road, and Perez and Ramos Plaza along the Trail of Tejano Legends. Arismendi has been awarded public art commissions in Austin, Fort Worth and Chicago.

Laura Garanzuay has a BS Degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Texas and extensive experience in the field of Industrial Design. Her work as an Industrial Designer has been prominently featured in the catalogs of Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn. Through the use of restraint, simplicity and naturalness she creates sculptural work that is stylish and streamlined. She has created large scale public art projects and numerous private commissions that have culminated in a body of work defined by an elegant fluidity and strength.

César E. Chávez is recognized as one of the most heroic figures of our time. For a more information on the life and legacy of Chávez, visit Life and Legacy of César Chávez, a comprehensive biography by the University of Texas at Austin at www.utexas.edu, or the César Chávez Foundation at www.chavezfoundation.org.

(breath) (breath) I hear you.

(breath) (breath) I hear you coming.

(breath) (breath) I can sense you trying to catch me

(breath) (breath) But you will not

(breath) (breath) I will push harder

(breath) (breath) I will last just a bit longer

(breath) (breath) I will not break down

I don’t know how many times its happened to me, but sometimes the biggest weapon I have in my arsenal of competition is knowing that someone is just behind me. That they want so bad to catch me, and unless I keep on top of my game, they will catch me. So I dig deeper, I search my soul for that extra bit of juice. I shake my legs out during lifts, I check my form during a run, I make sure my form is tight. Then, … I push. I find that switch deep inside my body and the one that is even deeper inside of my mind. I flip them on, and then I just try to hold on. 

To those behind me: If you think I am just going to give up to you, you have another thing coming. Because as much as you are trying to chase me down, and putting all of your energy into overtaking me, you can’t forget this one thing. 

I am putting all of my energy into taking down the person ahead of me.

Competition, an element of strength and energy.

Check out this success story...

With a little help from V23 Athletics Original Workout Shirt....and Bam!

The Estrada Fly!

https://www.facebook.com/cameronamyers

This month I picked a client who makes me proud to train him. Everything I have to teach is something Dru craves as a client. He is an achiever and he seeks out mentors/coaches to get him where he wants to go. If there is something you know that he doesn't, he will find you and get you to teach it to him. I haven't seen many people excel to the level that Dru has in a shorter amount of time. Ambitious, Hungry and Humble are rare qualities but this guy has them.

Dru has a story that needed to be shared in a way that was his voice. I had a chance to sit down with Dru to talk about his CrossFit experience. Here is part of that conversation:

Me: You got picked as client of the month for pretty obvious reasons – super committed in terms of seeing what’s possible for yourself, really taking on training like a CrossFit athlete, saying “What am I not capable of and what do I want to achieve," and next, next, next, next. You’ve been doing that since you joined our gym 7 or 8 months ago. And I know it started off as weight loss, so you came in as kind of a non-athlete…so tell me a little bit more about that story in the sense of who you were when you started CrossFit, what kind of athletic experience you had, and what CrossFit changed in you to make you bring that inner athlete out.

Dru: So when I moved to Austin I did CrossFit as just a weight-loss technique. I had got my first physical in a long time when I was 27 and my cholesterol numbers were very high so I decided that it was time to start working out, start taking care of my body. I tried swimming, I tried running, I initially just joined a local globogym and was “attempting” to weight train but I really didn’t know what I was doing. Thankfully, a friend of mine knew what he was doing and he kind of took me under his wing. We started working out, and his sister actually has a CrossFit box up north in North Dakota. So he went and visited her for Thanksgiving. She made him do a CrossFit workout, kicked his butt, and as he was driving back he called me and he said “You gotta go check out this thing called CrossFit, that’s what we’re gonna do and you gotta go buy this book called The Zone because that’s the diet we’re gonna do.” He was sold hook, line and sinker.

So we started doing it. It was just the two of us working out of this globogym that we had memberships to. And that was a lot of fun. I still remember the first time we realized Fran was supposed to be done in like 7 minutes…not 20…and that brought a whole new level of CrossFit to us because we were not really doing it for time, we were just doing it, and then when that time domain came in it was just a whole different workout. And that got me quite a ways, got me in a lot better shape, I felt a lot better. And then I got the job down here in Austin. I had already Googled CrossFit in Austin. My job is up north so it was by coincidence that Central was just the closest box to me.

The difference for me here is, when it was just me and my friend, we had to push each other and it was real easy sometimes to just say “You know, I’m just not feelin’ a 21-15-9 kind of day, let’s just do 15-12-9." You know, we’d scale it down because we were already having to scale, we couldn’t do a lot of the workouts. We didn’t have that unbiased third party saying “Oh no, no, I know you can do it. You’re gonna do it.” And that’s been the big change for me here at Central, whether it’s you [Big Mike] or the assistant coach always helping me find what my next level is.

Nothing is as hard in my day as the WOD is. If I can survive the WOD then I can survive the day, …easily. Nothing gives me as much confidence in life either. I just lifted twice my body weight off the ground. What did you do this morning?

As far as the “becoming an athlete” part, that’s kind of my life story, I find something, I get into it and it’s like “Well, I don’t have Olympic lifts and I just got my butt handed to me at Godai because of that. All right, there’s an Olympic lifting badass here, I’m gonna go train with him.” And now my Olympic lifting is great. So now that my Olympic lifting is great, I’m looking at what’s next. I’ve lost a significant amount of weight, I’ve had a couple of coaches tell me it’s time to start eating, so I have to start figuring out how to eat for weight gain instead of eating for weight loss now, and that’s proving to be a challenge.

When I found CrossFit I was 30 years old, weighed 220 pounds (size 38), lived a sedentary lifestyle, and ate absolute crap for food. When I came to Austin, I was 190 pounds with 23% body fat after a year of CrossFitting on my own and really pushing my diet with Zone. Now I’m 163 pounds, 9.7% body fat and my size 31 pants are falling off.

Me: So you were having cholesterol issues, basically your health was on a serious decline. Did a doctor advise you to start taking care of your health or was that something you just decided on your own?

Dru: Yeah, I just decided because that’s what everything pointed to - if you would run, if you would eat better, these are the thing you need to do to get your cholesterol under control. So that’s what I started doing.

Me: So let’s talk about this. You are taking on CrossFit as a serious endeavor for yourself, saying “I want to get into this as a sport.” Now, you were not an athlete ever before right? So why now? How old are you?

Dru: I’m 33 this month (February)

Me: All right, why now?

Dru: I was never an athlete and why now is because the things I do at work I’ve achieved a certain amount of success in and to go to that next level is going to take a whole lot of work. CrossFit is a very high-reward thing for me now. I don’t put a whole lot of effort into it and I’m getting a lot back out of it because I’m constantly improving, I’m constantly getting a PR. That’s very nice, it’s a reinforcing circle. Also, a friend of mine back home and I were talking and he said “Crap, when we have kids, they’re gonna be running circles around us and we’re not going to be able to play catch with them, we’re not going to be able to do the things that dads do.” That’s scary! So, on the off-chance that I would eventually have kids I want to be healthy enough to be around them, to keep up with them and go out and do all the things that would be fun to do as a dad.

The reason why I took on Godai as my first elite level competition with CrossFit was that I wanted to do something beyond just class that would be fun. I’ve run a couple of 5Ks and a couple of 10Ks and I love that event experience where everybody is amped and excited to do what it is they are about to do and I wanted to see what that was like as a CrossFit athlete. So I signed up and really had no idea what I was getting myself into but I knew in the end that it was me against myself and it didn’t matter if the 2011 winner of CrossFit showed up, it was still going to be just me and myself, off in my own little area, playing with my toys and we’re just going to score it and see what shakes out. As soon as I realized that, it stopped being scary, it stopped being anything other that just a challenge to prepare for.

With The Fittest Games, I thought this was something I wanted to take a little more seriously, so I stepped it up. I did not only morning classes 3 days a week, I did 2-a-days on Monday and Wednesday, I sacrificed some personal time in the evenings to make that happen, and then when time could work out I would schedule some PT sessions. I feel like I did a lot better at The Fittest Games and it was a lot of fun being out, having all those people cheering. That’s an experience I didn’t get in high school and I didn’t get in college since I didn’t play competitive sports.

CrossFit is a lot of fun because it’s picking up heavy things and throwing them around. I feel more confident as a person as well, especially having done the competitions. I think it will be really cool as CrossFit continues to grow to be able to say in 10 or 20 years “Yeah, I was at the first Godai. I’ve been to The Fittest Games. I was there.” And then with the Open…clearly CrossFit has excelled to a point where I’m not going to the Games. And I’m OK with that. But I’m excited to see what I can do in the Open and how far I can go. And this year and next year is about how far can I get. So for two years, I’m going to be focused on CrossFit and just see how far I can go.

Me: So you get into a really good point: knowing the athletes that are competing in the Games, knowing who’s out there in CrossFit, what they’re capable of, the tremendous amount of work that they are actually able to perform in a short amount of time and over extended weekend competitions, and just knowing how far advanced those guys are and this is still an open sport for you to get into and compete in and you don’t have to be on that level to still be interested in being competitive in the sport of CrossFit. So what do you really see in the next two years for yourself as you get more experience, still being able to enter a competition like The Fittest Games, knowing that you might not podium, that you might not even be able to get into the top ten but still seeing realms for improvement. Why is that important to you?

Dru: Well I think you have to constantly be improving in life, and if you’re not improving, you’re dying. Whether that’s in doing what I’m doing for my career or in what I’m doing for myself physically, you’ve gotta just keep pushing yourself. Yeah, I’m not going to get to the top 10, that was pretty clear after The Fittest Games, but that’s OK because I’m catching up to Tim. Tim Bougie I see you! I’m coming! Or Lisa Thiel, I’m just saying, I know you’re kind of a badass but I’m coming for ya. You just find somebody that’s in your area and just chase after them. Pick them off, find somebody else. How many people can I pick off before I stop. And then ultimately there’s a sense of feeling like I’m being a good role model for my family, for my sisters, that fitness is important. My coworkers now all CrossFit because I came in and started CrossFitting and I’m seeing dramatic changes for my coworkers as they continue to get healthier. How can I spread that concept that fitness is important and you can do it - three times a week for an hour and see really amazing results.