"Is this Jodi better than the last Jodi that stepped on stage?"

I asked this question in an earlier entry, just days before the Junior Nationals.  And I think I've taken a long enough break and allowed enough time to pass between the show and now, so I should be able to write about this without becoming too hurt, too tearful, or too angry.

My ultimate answer is yes.  After all, I pulled up photos from the Jr. USA's and the Emerald Cup and compared them side by side with the photos from the Junior Nationals, and as an overall package, my answer is yes.  But is it the Jodi that I want to consistently bring to the stage?  No.  I haven't quite decided exactly how I want my physique to look, and this dilemma will be lurking in the murky corners of my mind for quite some time.  I tried to do instinctual training, but because I don't completely have a sense of direction for the shows next year, I desperately need some guidance for the workouts in the gym, or I will drown in confusion and will lose motivation.

I'm a complete paradox.  I hate being confined; I hate remaining within boundaries when it comes to thoughts and ideals, but I still need to pack my future into nice, neat, little boxes so that I can see the world clearly.  I can't even explain it to myself.  I should be able to walk into the gym, understand what my body needs, and then nourish it with the right exercises.  But it's not that simple.  Without a plan in sight, I sit and stare at the weights and ask myself, "What next?"

See, I need to visualize myself doing the exercise, struggling through it, lifting the weight.  I need to be able to contract the muscle and feel the tingles right to the very core of my being.  I need this before I ever step foot into the gym.  That is the backbone of my training.  That is what helps me to reach total euphoria in the middle of a workout.  I think it's much like writing.  If I don't even have an image in my mind, then I have a staring match with the computer screen, and I tend to lose, for I may write some sentences, but they invariably end up deleted because I couldn't feel the emotion in the words.  In fact, my poems are usually written in just 10, 20, at the most 30 minutes.  But I thoughts, scents, and sights have lingered in my head for weeks, much like my mother's White Shoulders perfume would fasten itself to the air particles long after she had left a room.

Today's workout was no different, for I need a definitive direction where my shoulders are concerned.  My whole goal for shoulders is to add thickness, to make them round, to help balance out these quads.  I've finally learned that my quads are incapable of downsizing.  And you know what?  I don't want them smaller.  I cannot even begin to explain the utmost power I feel when I do squats.  Wow!  Little me under 175 pounds of iron.  I think about this, and I wonder what else I'm capable of.  I am totally aware that I cannot go overboard unless I truly decide to switch to bodybuilding, and even then, my upper body will always play catch up.  But this is me.  Take it or leave it.  I have thick legs.  I have extremely full glutes.  I spent years building that portion of my body.  For judges to tell me to make my legs smaller is basically telling me to throw away years upon years of sheer determination.  You're telling me to erase the 250-pound squat.  You're telling me to take the 600+ pound leg presses and throw them on the ground and stomp on them until they meet with oblivion.  I cannot do that.  I can't!  I won't.

Again.  This is me.  Take it or leave it, I just don't care anymore.  It's my body.  I'll present it on the stage the way I want to.  A year ago, I was told to make my legs smaller.  There was no mention of my upper body except to not lose size in it.  I achieved that.  Now, this year I'm told my legs are fine but my upper body is too small.  For whose standards?  Who makes the decisions?

I guess this connects with social ideas and mores.  How does a society determine what looks good, what will be accepted, what is right, what is wrong?  Is it the media that produces this decision?  Is it our parents, our community leaders, our churches, synagogues, and other religious factions?  Is it the people themselves...away from the groups...just the individuals?  I guess I ask this because I'm watching as figure pops its head out of the womb and takes its first breath.  Really, it's a toddler now in the industry.  It's very impressionable at this age and this state.  But who really controls it?  Is it the girls who make individual decisions and step on stage and the majority rules?  Or is it the judges who just happen to pick a certain look at a certain time, which then makes the girls act in a certain manner?  This is the whole chicken and the egg question.  What determines the future of the bodybuilding industry:  the fans, the judges, the media, the pocketbooks, or the competitors?  Who do you think should determine it?

I just don't want to see figure become the angry, rebellious teen.  I'm not sure if that makes any sense, if any of this post makes sense.

What does make sense to me is that I'm training the way I want to train.  I walked out of the gym today with aching shoulders.  The very fibers of my being burned, and that excited me.  Five exercises and 15 sets later, I could not pick up my arms.  And right here, right now, sitting at the computer in a pink tank top, I can spread my lats and tense my shoulders and actually connect my mind to the rear delts...to the side delts...even to the front delts.  It's no longer me and my shoulders.  It's me and the three heads of my delts.  I've waited a long time to create that connection.  Maybe now the growth can begun.

Jodi