Kill your own food

Whoa Sister those Tabata Front Squats were a monster today!  I’m feeling you all.  My quads are still a little shaky hours later.  Tony B.’s power cleans were looking sharp too.

I found a new CrossFit Affiliate that I want to visit…CrossFit West Santa Cruz, co-owned by Cliff Hodges, author of an article in this month’s Performance Menu Journal (a great read by the way if you like to geek out on training and Paleo Diet info).  I have included a clip of his article here.  If you want to read the whole thing buy yourself an on-line copy of Performance Menu and read it.  But don’t think you have to go to West Santa Cruz to find yourself a CrossFit trainer who can make their own Stone Age weapons and hunt their own food.  You have one right here…in your very own Bryon.  He can do some very amazing things and he knows our home, the Sonoran Desert very well.  Ask him.

THE PERFORMANCE MENU  ISSUE 60 JANUARY 2010   12

“That was my first day as a true paleo hunter. It was many years ago, and needless to say, I did not shoot an elk that day. Nor did I shoot any animal for a good 2-3 years. It took countless days of practice: tracking, stalking, sitting , and shooting, before I would make my first kill. My equipment alone has hundreds of hours of work put in to it—bows are the culmination of many weeks of refined woodworking, and a single arrow made of earthen material can take upwards of 2-3 days to complete. And when it’s all said and done, I head out on to the landscape, like my ancestors before me, with a quiver full of weaponry that most people in the modern world would put behind glass or display on their mantel.  The thrill, excitement, and pride I take in harvesting my own food is immense and wholly incomparable to anything else. There is a spiritual connection that takes place in the depths of my soul when I am able to feed myself not from aisles of a supermarket, but from the plentiful earth herself. The meat on my grill was once a living, breathing creature. I know this not because I am told it is so, but because I was there. I have that moment, etched in to my memory forever, when I felt the wind on my face, the sun on my skin, and my senses stretched out in to the open space around me in a deep meditation of awareness. I can still see that animal moving gracefully in front of me as we carry out that timeless dance between hunter and

prey that has been played out time-and-time-again for over 100,000 years. I do not expect that everyone has the time to learn the art of bow-making and flintknapping, or the opportunity to spend hours on end in the woods tracking their prey. However, just as in our box here at CrossFit West Santa Cruz, I hold you to a higher standard. You’ve dedicated yourselves to a level of fitness or performance that is well above average—your diet should be no different.  If you’re not eating paleo, than you need to seriously examine why you are even training so hard. If you are eating paleo already, then go kill something. Just once. Kill what you eat. Your diet already necessitates the taking of life, so I am wholly unwilling to have a debate with you on the morality of hunting. Have the courage to do it yourself at least once in your life and make that connection within you to your paleo ancestors. It will, forever, change the way you look at nutrition… and the world.”