By Christopher Lestan
As I fly home from my very first Worlds I can’t help but think of what I just experienced from the competition. To start off, the event was wonderfully organized. The banquet was great, and the lifting was so much fun. However, there is more to express. The emotions are hard to describe. I feel happiness, confidence, joy, appreciation, and gratitude. Its as if I just saw the greatest movie of all time and left the theater with such a bag of emotions that I just need to put them down on a piece of paper. Tell the world what I am feeling.
If there is one thing I am completely convinced with its that I finally realized what the USAWA, IAWA, and just All-Around lifting is about.
My mentor Frank who introduced me to this sport!
When I first joined the USAWA I was probably like most in the federation when they first join, for I had a background in a sport or strength discipline. I was a powerlifter who only competed to win, and that’s it. I didn’t care about the people who I competed with because I didn’t know them, and they felt the same way about me. Powerlifting at the end of the day is an individual sport where competitors go in with one goal in mind and that is to win. Very similarly when I entered the USAWA that was my mindset too. I wanted to come in and win in my first meet. When my first All-Around meet I placed 2nd in the overall lifters score. However, I didn’t feel defeated. I felt something I never have felt before at a Powerlifting meet….. happiness. I didn’t get happiness from the personal bests that I got in the lifts, or the medal that I got after. It was the people. I basically lifted, competed, and socialized. The last word is where I knew this federation was different. I socialized… I laughed… I talked about lifting, life, family, goals with people I have just met.
That is where we segway into the next part of this blog. This weekend’s Championship! I have never experienced such openness at a lifting competition. When I walked into the venue for the first time on Friday I was greeted with such friendly faces. It was amazing. On Saturday what I experienced at my first USAWA meet was soon the same here. I was socializing with fellow lifters about life, their passions, how they got into All-Around lifting, making jokes, and laughing. During all this conversation I still managed to hit personal bests in most of my lifts. Then after I would be cheering on my fellow lifters to make their lifts and break world records! It’s insane. You will not find this in Powerlifting, for when I made it to the national level meets fellow lifters would become less and less friendly. They would see you as your enemy. They wouldn’t talk to you, or even look at you. To me this is strange.
Stevie Shanks! First time meeting him and what a great guy. Always supporting other lifters!
As lifters, we all came from a very similar place of why we wanted to compete. TO IMPROVE OURSELVES. To gain confidence and in the process make relationships that will last forever. Am I still a competitive person. Yes, I will not deny that. However, I will never let that get in the way of never making a relationship with someone who has similar goals as me. I never felt the need to be aggressive with lifters, or be rude to them to gain the upper hand.
Lastly, All-Around lifting is about challenging yourself to do things you never thought possible. These lifts are very unorthodox, yet there is a beauty and humbleness about them. I am absolutely terrible at anything in which hook grip would allow more weight to be lifted. Therefore, I respect any lifter who can take the pain of the hook grip. It’s the ability to understand your weaknesses that make this sport amazing. Thus, the courage to enter a competition in which you have a very small idea of what you are able to lift is huge!
This weekend will be in my memories for the rest of my life. I will remember the laughs, jokes, the new friends I made, and the personal bests in lifts, and the courage to make risks in lifts I have very little experience. This is what makes All-Around lifting special. This is what makes this sport so great!
