Raphael

Yesterday I spoke and broke a few things at a Powerlifting meet in Dover, NJ. It wasn’t a particularly huge event- except for the competitors that is.

I’ve never competed in one of these events but the whole concept is pretty basic. How much weight can you lift?

3 chances at 3 lifts- the Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift. According to weight class and gender, whoever lifts the highest total wins.

What I love about these meets is that EVERYONE wins. But not like the nonsense in kid’s sports today where they don’t keep score and everyone in the league comes home with a HUGE trophy at the end of the season (that policy makes more Wieners than Winners).

You see everyone wins at a Powerlifting meet but not everyone gets a trophy. Everyone wins because of 2 reasons. The lifters get a chance to give 100% effort and they get a chance to set a Personal Best. THAT is very rare in sports and rare in life.

In most sports, athletes must compete at less than 100% because we all start to fail after 10-20 seconds. Anything longer than that you have to pace yourself- which is okay but the absolute RUSH when you have to explode at your maximum is incredible.

And anytime you get to establish a Personal Best is fantastic. No one is banished to the loser’s bracket or eliminated from the competition. There are no playoffs or even tryouts. Just show up, give it everything you’ve got, hear the cheers of encouragement and go home happy.

So I gave my talk and did some feats in between events. The audience was great and they seemed to appreciate my effort. Most came up later to thank me including a happy looking kid named Raphael.

Raphael was tall and muscular. You could tell that he didn’t have a whole lot of competition experience but he was really giving a strong effort. His smile lit up the room.

I asked him where he was from and his story started to unfold. He was 25 years old. His parents had brought him to the United States from Poland when he was 8. They lived in Jersey City and then Bayonne for a while before settling in Parsippany, NJ. He had an older brother and a younger sister.

But then the ‘happy’ story changed. Raphael had gotten in with the wrong crowd in high school and had been strung out on drugs until about 7 months ago. He ended up in a place in Morristown called the Market Street Mission. There he lived with about 60 other men whose lives were in chaos. It sounds like a live-in 12-step program.

Raphael told me it’s been a really tough stretch but he has stayed ‘clean’ the entire time. The folks there have guided him in his thought processes and his spiritual life.

Along the way, he was introduced to our old friend Pastor Pete. A couple of years ago, Pastor Pete had scrounged around and put together a GYM for the guys at the Mission. Then he taught them how to train their bodies and he encouraged them to ‘compete’ because he knew how important it is for all of us to be strong Physically as well as strong Mentally and Spiritually.

Like the 3 legged stool, we cannot ignore any part of our being- especially when we are facing some of the biggest challenges of our lives.

It sounded to me like Raphael was ‘getting it’. I’m not sure if he captured a trophy yesterday but he did set a Personal Best. AND he’s due to EARN his release from the Mission just before Christmas- filled with a new found Dream and Hope for the future. If you’re a prayin’ person, send one up for this kid. Thanks.

Next time we begin our talk about Cardio (unless I get distracted :)).

As my friend David DeNotaris always says, “Make it a Great Day”...bye4now...

Your friend (iC),
Russell Jones