P90X Work Out Trial

          Two of John’s friends swear by the workout called P90X Extreme Home Fitness. One is a cop who does P90X whenever he gains too much weight. He claims that the pounds melt off. The other P90X friend is a former University of Hawaii football player and current discus thrower who is always in top shape.

           Johnny is friends with a couple in their twenties who decided to do P90X together. He came home and talked about how they’d lost weight and gotten stronger with P90X. He was very impressed. They loaned Johnny the program. The twelve DVD’s have been sitting on our coffee table for more than a month with no takers.

My Zumba teacher Kristyn is a fitness guru, so I asked her what she thought of P90X, and if she thought I could do it. She said it’s a good program and she seemed confident that I could do it, modifying it if I needed to.

So on Saturday I jumped into P90X. The first workout was 60 minutes of exercises for chest and back.  You do a circuit of exercises for thirty seconds at a time. Tony Horton, P90X trainer and creator, urges you on, “You can do anything for 30 seconds, right?”

For chest and back, most of the exercises were varied forms of pushups and pull-ups. Since I injured my rotator cuff doing pushups, I modified most of the exercises. I managed to make it through.

           John and Johnny, who were sitting on the couch watching me or standing on the couch holding a band for me to pull down on, were disappointed that I wasn’t sweating much. That was because I was doing my pushups against a wall, not on the floor, and I usually don’t sweat much unless I’m doing cardio. I didn’t think my back got much of a workout. Maybe it was because of my modifications.

Following the chest/back workout, there was a 30-minute ab workout. It did not include the usual crunches. Most of the exercises were Pilates which Kristyn has “treated” us to in her toning classes after Zumba. They’re hard and because of that, I know how to cheat. I let my hip flexors do most of the heavy lifting. I tried to remember what Kristyn tells us to do to keep from cheating as I struggled along.

         I wish I could say that the next morning I woke up sore, but in reality, I started hurting that night, so I took some ibuprofen. Sunday morning, it was worse. My hip flexors, and chest were not happy. I sat around most of the day, ripping out mistakes I’d made in a quilt I’m working on, and thinking of reasons not to tackle day two of P90X.

At 3:00 I finally dragged my stiff self off the couch and put my workout shoes on. How could I make a fair judgement of P90X if I only did one workout?

Day two was plyometrics—the major reason I was stalling. I hate plyometrics. My not very fond memories of Plyometrics date back to when I worked out at Puyallup Athletic Club, a small club that sadly went out of business. My teacher there would have us jump up onto a surface about two feet off the ground, then jump down, as fast as we could for a set amount of time. If you did well, your reward was to jump up onto something higher. Yay!

    Plyometrics are supposed to be explosive. They’re designed to improve athletic performance. To me, it was grueling and I always worried about catching my toes on the way up and face planting.

An example of Plyometrics.

I was not exactly giddy with anticipation when I slid the P90X DVD into the DVD player. At least these plyometrics stayed on a level surface. I made it through 45 minutes of jumping, and dodging our pets. It was a lot more cardio, so this time I did sweat, although not as much as I do in Zumba.

Plyometrics reminded me vividly of why I love Zumba, and why I was ready to quit working out before I started Zumba. The whole time I was jumping up and down, and side to side, I was breathing hard and thinking it was stupid and boring. There wasn’t any music to get into. I was worried about blowing out a knee or twisting an ankle. It was so boring I actually thought of grabbing a jump rope to break up the tedium. For me, there’s no fun in plyometrics.

Day three, Monday, it was even harder to get out of bed. My hip flexors were chanting, "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" with every step I took. I always hurt the worst two days after a hard workout. The best cure for me though, is to move, to flush the lactic acid out of my whimpering muscles. It was painful, but I managed to lift my feet high enough to get my pants on, and maneuver my arms into a shirt for Zumba.

An hour of Zumba did loosen me up. Afterwards, I did a half hour of Booty Ballet with Kristyn, and actually did some pirouettes! On the way out, Kristyn noticed that I was hobbling along, and asked if I was OK. I answered, “Yep, P90X.” She high fived me, and I headed home for day three of P90X: Shoulders and arms.

The program called for lots of bicep curls, flys, and triceps work. The guys on the DVD were using 25-lb. weights. I was using 8-lbs, and going down to 3-lbs whenever my left rotator cuff yipped at me. I’m hoping that the exercises will strengthen the muscles in my rotator cuff, since I quit doing physical therapy for it. This workout went surprisingly well. It didn’t have a lot of overhead work, my weakness. But it did have lots of curls, which I can usually do until the cows come home, so I got a taste of success. I would do this work out again.

No fancy equipment necessary.

I skipped the 30-minute ab workout, since I’d already spent 2-1/2 hours working out.

I’m sure that tomorrow I will be very aware of it whenever I move my arms. That’s why I’m writing this now. But, I’ll start my day off with Zumba to warm up again. I’ll skip the yoga class at my gym. Instead, I’ll do P90X yoga. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. Yoga is another great “cure” for me when I’m sore from working out. I have my fingers crossed that it’s more “stretching” yoga, than “strength” yoga. When I complete it, I’ll be a quarter of the way through my personal P90X challenge.

Laura Keolanui Stark isn’t exactly sure why she’s doing P90X—curiosity? Boredom? It was free? My friends are doing it? Stupidity? She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Quilts: Art or Craft?

          Sometimes people are paying attention when you think they aren’t. On Saturday mornings, I try to squeeze in watching the quilting/sewing shows on KBTC-Channel 12, PBS. www.kbtc.org They air from 8:30 in the morning until 1:00 in the afternoon, so my viewing depends on if I’ve got errands to run, or what the football schedule is. I’ve been tuning in long enough that my family almost considers the on-air quilting ladies as friends who drop in on Saturday mornings. They walk through the family room, glance at the TV, and say things like, “Is this the one who taught Special Ed. before she became a famous quilter?” (Eleanor Burns) as they continue going on their way.  

Recently, KBTC has added a new documentary to the end of the Saturday lineup: Why Quilts Matter: History, Art, and Politics www.whyquiltsmatter.org. It posed a question that led to a surprising discussion and more questions in our family room: What is art? Are quilts art or craft? Those questions were running through my mind as the experts weighed in.

One of the art quilters seemed insulted at a common response she gets when she tells people that she’s a quilter. They tell her that their grandmother made quilts. She retorts, “These are NOT your grandmother’s quilts.”  

This one IS my grandmother's quilt!

I looked at my grandmother’s Hawaiian quilt hanging on the wall and thought, “Wow! I aspire to being able make quilts like the ones that both of my grandmothers made.” Maybe her grandmother wasn’t a very good quilter. Or, maybe the person sharing that their grandmother was a quilter didn’t seem very impressed with their grandmother. Who knows?

Other people on the show talked about the fact that once you took the quilt off the bed and hung it on a wall, especially of a museum, it was recognized as art. It had moved from being something utilitarian to keep people warm, to being something precious that should no longer be used, but admired instead. That was a valid point.

I have sewn a sleeve on every quilt I’ve ever made, no matter what size, so that it can top a bed, be snuggled under as a lap quilt, or hung on a wall. I’ve probably made more quilts as wall hangings, than bed coverings. They’re faster to make, and I have four places in my house to hang quilts. Several times when I’ve shown these wall hangings to non-quilters, they’ve said, “Well, that’s not a quilt. It’s not big enough for a bed.”

Does that automatically make it art? When it’s hanging, it is being used as art, but most of my wall hangings are made up of traditional quilt blocks. 

I think of “art quilts” as being landscape quilts, or abstract quilts with lots of embellishment, more like paintings. I’ve made a few quilts that fit that description, but I don’t consider myself artistic enough to be an “art quilter.”

The show moved on to talk about the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. “The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend.

 The Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition has received tremendous international acclaim . . .on its twelve-city American tour. Newsweek, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, Art in America, CBS News Sunday Morning, PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the Martha Stewart Living television show, House and Garden, Oprah’s O magazine, and Country Home magazine are among the hundreds of print and broadcast media organizations that have celebrated the quilts and the history of this unique town. Art critics worldwide have compared the quilts to the works of important artists such as Henri Matisse and Paul Klee. The New York Times called the quilts ‘some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.’" (The Quilts of Gee’s Bend™ Quilter’s Collective History.)

I was lucky enough to see these quilts when the exhibition traveled to the Tacoma Art Museum. The Gee’s Bend quilters break many of the “rules” of quilting. These women didn’t run down to their local quilt store to buy enough new cotton fabric to fit a recipe for a quilt. They used materials they had on hand. Some of the fabrics used were from polyester pant suits.  Pieces weren’t cut straight. Blocks within the quilts and borders aren’t squared off. 

They had a free flowing “plan” as they pieced their quilts. They wouldn’t have earned anything more than a participation ribbon at a county fair.

Images of the Gee’s Bend quilts flashed on the TV screen in our family room, and suddenly Johnny who’d stopped to sit down and put his shoes on said, “Didn’t they have rulers? Nothing’s straight.”

The Quilts of Gee's Bend.

John looked up from his laptop, “I don’t like them.”

Was this a “hey, the emperor is naked” moment?

I pointed out that the quilts are very graphic in a modernistic style. I preferred the ones that are just two colors. They are striking.

The show commentators debated again: art or craft?

Johnny wasted no time choosing a side. Gee’s Bend quilts were a craft. Part of his argument was that art is created intentionally. He felt that these quilters weren’t purposefully trying to make a statement. Yes, they looked modernistic, but it was an accident.

He is a music composer, so he has learned to view art through a composer’s eyes (and ears). He asked, “If the cat jumps up on the piano keys, is he a composer? It sounds like some modern music. Did the cat intend to make music?”

John added, “I wouldn’t hang them in my house. They look very primitive.”

I countered, “OK, but there’s lots of art I wouldn’t hang in my house. It’s still art.” And to Johnny, “Those quilters intentionally chose to put each of those pieces of colored fabric right where they are. They aren’t randomly placed.”

I had also thought of that old saying that you need to master the rules before you can break them. Did they know the rules? Were they purposely breaking the rules, or were they just not that great at quilting?

In the end, I didn’t turn either Johnny or John into fans of Gee’s Bend quilts. To tell the truth they aren’t my favorite quilts either, but I do think they are art as well as a craft too.

Quilting is very much like cooking.  There are cooks and chefs. The cooks can open their refrigerator and pantry and throw a tasty dinner together with what’s at hand.  They are practical, make it up as they go, on the fly, and don’t mind surprises. They are direct and want to put food in your belly.

The gourmet chefs spend time gathering just the right ingredients, carefully chopping, and sautéing, planning and striving for a sublime combination of flavors. They have a very specific idea of how they want their dish to turn out. They want what they create to be memorable as well as something to satisfy your hunger.

Cook or chef? Quilt crafter or art quilter? I appreciate both ends of the spectrum. Most of the time I’m a cook and a crafty quilter, but every once in awhile I create a dish or quilt that is art---  sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

Laura Keolanui Stark has solved her quilter’s identity crisis by calling herself simply a quilter. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.