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cloveroctobers · 4 years

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ANNA-JULIA “AJ” (JONES) JARLETT

IG bio/info: @/annajj9x_ | 20.1k followers| Athlete | hey peeps can you stop asking me to throw it back cuz the answer will always be no! K thx take it easy 🏳️‍🌈🌻🏒🐶

21 years old

From bath, England

Hockey player as her profession for the past three years

Her position is defense

Their team name is “rowdy alphas”...yeah some team names just didn’t make sense or they’re cringe for no reason at all

Was raised by her mom,(her mom was a teen mom & had her at 17) maternal grandmother, and her paternal aunt (dad’s younger sister, who’s more like a big sister to her at 28)

They’ve made her into the person she is, literally

Her grandmother has a bed and breakfast that they all live in

the house is Victorian style—almost as if they walked right out of charmed! Instead of a big pink house, think yellow AND purple. It was hideous but homey and charming on the inside

growing up in a house with multiple temporary strangers wasn’t odd to aj at all, in fact it felt like the norm. There was always someone around to socialize with so that was quite nice

Her father was a pro baseball player & passed away due to a automobile accident

she has his smile & freckles

aj was also involved in the accident at the age of 6 & miraculously survived with intense injuries

Has scars as a reminder

used to have night terrors because of the accident...it took awhile—years!!! for them to subside

they’re all vague memories now (but the pain is something she’ll always remember) but she preferred it that way

she’s named “Anna” after her mother’s old best friend/roommate and was supposed to be aj’s god mother but she went missing during their uni years

the name“Julia” came from her paternal grandmother who she gets her wide doe eyes from

her athleticism definitely came from her dad

Her mother luckily liked to document things so there’s a bunch of home videos of her dad in them & pictures/scrapbooks that her mom has for safe keeping

She’s more of a klutz, tiny, and wears huge prescription glasses

extremely close to the three most important ladies in her life, so she’s always been able to be open with them about anything!

when she first expressed her interest in liking both genders around 17-18 her paternal aunt was all smirks, “i knew Britney Spears was so your type, yeah?”

more like shakira but Brit was just as pretty

her mother was a “cry baby” so ofc she burst out into tears squeezing aj’s limbs and peppering her face with kisses. She didn’t view her child as anything different... as she shouldn’t & was glad that her daughter trusted them with this significant moment in her life and wanted to be as supportive as she could

got books, watched Ted talks and everything but knew she could come to the source even tho aj was still figuring it out herself

her grandma dipped her head at the new info sitting at the round kitchen table, “been there. had a few broads in my life after and during my marriage with your no good grandad. Thank goodness the bastard died before you even got to meet ‘em.” “Mum!”

what felt like the biggest weight on her chest was lifted. She knew they’d understand but a part of her had a little bit of doubt, she’s heard so many horror stories where those like her didn’t have the support she has and that made her extremely sad to think about

i see her as a person that has/had many friends in secondary. She’s always open to chat and her being on a few sports teams helped her out in her case

very competitive in anything that she does & will guarantee that she’ll beat you. (“ You wanna race to the car from here?”wins. “Who ever cleans the most dishes the fastest gets the last slice of pie.”) majority of the time she’s right but if she loses?? oh don’t let her lose to you, it’s a pity party for the rest of the time ur in her space. Such a sore loser omg

stays active, always working out + has a gym membership and makes sure she goes at least five times a week

she’s very strong, loves leg day & working on her core

she’s about 5’10

loves wearing “gf jeans” since they’re super comfy but doesn’t mind skinny Jeans with rips in the knees every now and then

trainers and chucks are her go-to sneakers

has no issue shopping in the men’s section ‘cause who’s gonna stop her? Nobody that’s who

owner of over a 100 graphic tees + vertical stripped shirts are also her favs, SWEATPANTS/joggers?! How many does she have? A lot. Snapbacks? Plenty. Will she wear them backwards? Obviously.

Physical touch is her love language. She’s comes from a family that has no issue showing their affection by touch. There is NO such thing as personal space and that still stands with aj when it comes to relationships, she sees no other way

It’s what she shows and what she wants in return, if you’re not touching her in some sort of way, then automatically she thinks there’s something wrong or that she did something

Is the jealous type. It has shown in relationships and ruined a relationship or two

Has cheated on a significant other out of pure jealousy & is not proud to admit that

Does have a wandering eye but feels now that she truly understands herself when it comes to relationships, she’ll never act on it again

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I get libra tendencies from her so that’s what I’m sticking with. She likes to keep the peace (unless she’s jealous) , idealistic — always looking on the bright side of things, outgoing, romantic, and professional— especially when it comes to her team; her true leadership comes out, yet she can be indecisive, hates confrontation, self pitying — if things don’t go perfectly how she imagined/planned it to, the world is ending and everyone is out to get her, and can be unreliable—never on time

September libra to be exact

if she’s really in love/taken a interest in you then she gets nervous: blushing, sweaty palms, cracking her knuckles, tongue tied—the whole 9

she’s already defined as a puppy by her coach but when she’s in love? She’s a lovesick puppy!

her fav holiday is Valentine’s Day

thought she was going to be a pro skateboarder growing up but it took one bad fall where she thought she was paralyzed for her to choose something else

she likes her weed on occasion

Obsessed with all types of cheese except cottage, “can I put cheese on this?”

more of a jumpsuit kinda girl or dressy top with jeans & hoops on a night out

has a solid group of mates outside of the hockey team, they’ve all met and hung out a couple of times, as they should since aj feels they’re going to be stuck with her for awhile so why not?

They’re a riot when they all go out, let’s just say that there’s never a dull moment

fav color is periwinkle

enjoys ASMR, mostly in the mornings when she’s waking up. You know how people love podcasts? (Sorry seb & Nicky, she still wants to be on the show soon!) ASMR is her thing

loves tangerines, you can count on it that she’ll have one on her, “where did you pull that from?” “I’ll never share my master plan.” “You’re such a tit.”

Definitely prefers “fresh squeezed” orange juice & will make her own, she has the tools & the strength 😏

Very rare for her to get sick ;) & if she does she’s a complete baby about it

Will fight that she’s sick before she admits it, trying all sorts of horrid remedies & vitamins

loves summer & all things that come with it, the number one thing is leaving bath for however long she can for a new place to enjoy

when she arrived to love island, she was thrilled for the weather. Yes she was looking for love but most importantly a nice get away & that it was (depending on your route that is lol)

closest with seb, vieve, elladine, and tai but don’t tell the others that! (She doesn’t care if you tell Yasmin, honestly)

just because her & seb “dated” and it didn’t work out doesn’t mean they can’t be friends right? It was almost automatic for them to be platonic after it was determined there would be no romance between them, almost like sibs! like those celebs like to say—except this time these two won’t turn around and actually find romance

vieve came with seb so...but no shade aj did like vieve. She gave great advice (while seb sometimes didn’t say the right things unintentionally or what aj needed to hear) when needed, especially from a medical view and is very sweet

elladine was the one who had all the tea & ideas to match, she’s quite organized and always down for DIY’s and could suggest almost anything. If you needed someone to help you get things tidy or match/find your Aesthetic, she’s the friend you call to help

tai was the one she could be a “bro” with, sure elladine has her competive side (or controlling, depends on how you view it) but tai was the one you can run to for much needed “bro hugs”, partying, going to the pubs, playing sports with or against, checking out/flirting with babes, etc...

it was not long after the villa that aj had a revelation with her sexuality & fully owned and labeled herself as a lesbian

She was happy being in relationship with someone else or with herself, life was short and she was young so there wasn’t time to dwell and stress over things so what the hell?! Live your truth the best way you know how ya know?

probably smells like sweet citrus, almond flower, and sea salt

on chest days, she’s a sweets snacker. Loves gummy bears (also with vodka) , swedish fish, sour patch kids, etc...basically shit that sticks to ur teeth

put all her chips into hockey, while it was advised by her Counselors & mum not to do so, aj went about it anyway. She thought about the pros and cons but knew there was nothing else for her. So there were more pros than cons. She was meant to play sports, its what felt right in her soul

Made her feel connected to her father, when she’s on the field she feels that he is with her

scrunches up her nose when she’s frustrated or confused about something

Doesn’t always grasp concepts right away, she’s a soft dummy but most of us are and that’s okay! We’re all smart in our own ways

Feels like sunflowers are always around her especially if she sees them wherever she is. They must symbolize SOMETHING, therefore she loves them

spf queen. All about it, get with it or let the sunrays ruin ur skin that’s on u

loves a good filet mignon medium-well & is probably the only good thing she knows how to make alongside a salad, baked potatoes, & her oj

sucker for romantic-comedies...it’s basically her life duh!

If she has a dog, it’s a Dalmatian or Great Dane. She needs a companion that’ll keep up with her

loves kissing, it’s her favorite form of intimacy

Quarantine life included the push up challenge for her. Gaining a few pounds in muscle and fat, bothering seb via ft, viewing old letters she wrote to her dad, spending time with her fav ladies since they were now restricted from having guests in their home, and letting boredom consume her + she hated the whole lockdown that came with it, she hated being indoors for long periods of time but she knew that’s what partly needed to be done

Posts a lot of beach, park, outings with her friends & team, moments with her fav ladies, workout videos, and guests at the b&b with their permission and if only she befriends them along the way. She’s just as active on the socials as she is in rl but she’s not obsessed with it, she knows how to live in the now. She’s all about balance!

I also feel like she never keeps her phone charged and it’s always dying on her! She had a car charger but...that’s a jungle. She needs to invest in a portable charger stat

crushing on/finds attractive: Jared Padalecki, Keanu Reeves, Barrett Doss, Camilla Luddington, Sandra Bullock, Adrian Kempe, Harry Kirton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Naomi Osaka, Ming & Aoki Lee Simmons

who does she listen to? Shakira lol!! Bea Miller, Dua Lipa, Daya, XYLØ, Elley Duhé, Stela Cole, Aloe Blacc, Maroon 5, Lewis capaldi, Charlie Puth, girl in red, Hayley kiyoko, king princess, dodie, & tessa violet

Anthem: Icona Pop — we got the world

#litg #litg3 #litg s3 #litg aj #litg mc #litg oc #litg seb #litg genevieve #litg elladine #litg tai #litg yasmin #litg headcanon #litg moodboard #I felt like the pressure was on for her so sorry if this sucked lol #litg headcanons

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ronxnb · 5 years

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CISMALE — ever hear people say RONAN BARONE looks a lot like LORENZO ZURZOLO? I think HE is about 22, so it doesn’t really work. The BIOLOGY major is a JUNIOR that is from LIVINGSTONE, VERMONT. They can be COURAGEOUS, but they can also be DESTRUCTIVE. I think RONAN might be SHEEP. They are living in KIERAN.

aesthetics

spots of blood on white satin sheets, the first invigorating sip of coffee in the morning, hand-rolled cigarettes between paint stained fingers, waiting for a happy birthday call that never comes, the tempting smell of salt and grease as you walk past fast food restaurants, & running until every muscle is on fire

hello honeys, i am back after the absolute nightmare of the past two and a half months. i’ve missed this place dearly and am excited to get the ball rolling again. for anybody i haven’t met, my name is ashley! i’m gonna place my little bio for ronan under the cut, i’d love to plot with each and every one of you, so, pls, hmu

ronan is the eldest of two boys born to extremely wealthy politicians. they may have entered the political arena with the intention to make the world a better place, but by the time ronan was born, they’d become much more obsessed with rising in the ranks, schmoozing the bureaucracy, and keeping up appearances. you couldn’t leave the house with a single hair out of place in the barone family. this meant that his parents openly preferred his brother: the golden boy. he was charismatic, engaging, well liked, and a star athlete whereas ronan preferred to sit under the bleachers with a cigarette, his sketchbook, and a small group of close friends

so when a girl overdosed on some pcp and the investigation lead the police to the barone’s front door, ronan was the obvious suspect

the boys were never particularly close, their parent’s bias creating a divide between the two of them, but when his brother sat on his bed crying to him about how scared he was, ronan was overcome with the need to protect him. that was what big brothers were supposed to do, right? and so ronan confessed to selling drugs; taking a plea deal that meant he’d spend two years in juvie before being released on his 18th birthday. his time in juvie was far from pleasurable. he was tall but scrawny, making him a prime target for bullying. on top of that, he didn’t see or hear from his family once. not even the brother who he’d sacrificed so much for

it seemed one of the guards felt sorry for him because he took it upon himself to teach ronan some basic self defense moves. he discovered his brother might not be the only star athlete in the family. soon he wasn’t just able to defend himself in a fight, he was winning. by the end of his sentence, no one dared lay a finger on him

the day he was released he was returned his now too small clothing and an envelope with a check for 10,000 dollars in it. it turned out his parents knew his brother was the one dealing all along and this was the first of his monthly hush payments. the knowledge that his parents knew he was innocent and still preferred his brother sparked an anger so hot inside of him that it finally killed off the soft, quiet spoken boy he once was

ronan, who had gotten his GED while in juvie, returned to his hometown and enrolled at gifford university. he was always a very intelligent kid, especially when it came to math and science, so he actually enjoys school. he’s majoring in biology, but his ultimate goal is to combine his love for science and art to become a textbook illustrator

you’d likely never guess he was a straight A student, though. he frequents an underground fight club as well as argues and picks fights with anyone who annoys him (which is most people). he’s almost always sporting bruises and his knuckles are permanently scabbed. he uses the hush money his parents send him to pay for his lavish housing, top notch art supplies, and anything else he desires

the only people that know he covered for his brother is him, his brother, and their parents. the boys look eerily similar and his brother always wore a hat and used an alias when he would deal, which is why it was so easy for ronan to cover for him

possible connections:

people he grew up with in livingstone. there are a lot of different options for this one. they could have been friends before he was arrested and they lost touch, or they were friends before he was arrested and they don’t like the person he’s become, or maybe they knew of each other before he was arrested but are just starting to get to know each other now)

close friends!! ronan is difficult, but when you worm into his heart, he’ll rip apart anyone that upset you

exes. they could have broken up when he went to juvie or it could be more recent

hook-ups. my boy is very sex positive

roommate(s)!! i’d love to have a roommate(s) for ronan. he lives in kieran

people who are friends with his brother (who did a semester at gifford, but is now a major league baseball player)

an ex of his brother’s, maybe??

cousins!!

a really interesting connection could be a family member or friend of the girl who overdosed on ronan’s (his brother’s) drugs

people he doesn’t get along with. ronan is a prickly pear who will pick a fight with just about anybody

somebody that’s a part of the same fight club as him

#( ooc )#livingintro #livingooc #overdose tw #violence tw #drugs tw

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rinnnyxr · 3 years

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ALICE: you have/had long blonde hair you constantly day dream of another world you have an active imagination you’re very curious you try to show off your knowledge you are polite or talk very formally you don’t like books without pictures you love or have a cat you tend to act more mature than your age you have been called that you’re mad or not right of your head Total: 5

ARIEL: you have/had long red hair your curiosity has led you into trouble you have a father who doesn’t understand you and you often break his rules you are a romantic and often your head is on the clouds you’re adventurous & curious over the world you prefer sea animals over any other kind of animal you’re impulsive & sometimes stubborn you’re headstrong & strong willed you believe in love at first sight you are willing to change who you are for the one you love Total: 5

AURORA/ROSE: you have/had long blond hair you have been called “very beautiful” by others you are a hopeless romantic you love to sleep you are graceful & lovely you have a very beautiful voice you’re a bit naive or innocent of the world around you you are adopted you prefer forest animals over any kind of animals you are very kind to others Total: 2

BELLE: you have/had medium brown hair you love to read & you are consider book smart you are outspoken and a free thinker you value character on people over beauty or wits you don’t judge a book by its cover people have called you odd you have at least one eccentric relatives many have called you a “beauty” you are very protective over the one you love you very passionate over your interest Total: 9

CINDERELLA: you have/had short blond hair you live with cruel relative you are forced to do horrible chores you’re hard working you love to sing and to dream of better days you prefer pets’ animals/farm animals of any other kind of animals you are an orphan you are optimistic & cheerful you have been called sweet or kind you don’t speak for yourself or you’re a little submissive Total: 4

ESMERALDA: you have/had long wavy black hair you are fearless & streetwise you defend others who can’t defend themselves or are been treated cruelty you are or have been called “outcast” you are selfless and only think of the misfortune of others you value freedom you love or do tarot cards, read palms or similar things you love to mock others especially authority or guards or those who are cruel you have a “sex” appeal you had a bad experience with someone who was obsessed with you Total: 5

JANE: you have/had a long brown hair you’re talkative & sometimes talk fast you’re charming & winsome you prefer jungle animals especially gorillas over any other kind of animals you talk formally or proper you love or do some sort of art you live with your father you sometimes talk to yourself one of your parents is dead you value the wildlife Total: 5

JASMINE: you have/had very long black hair you prefer love over wealth you long for freedom or adventure people consider you a rebel you have a relative who want you to do something you don’t want to you have/had run away from home you’re stubborn and willful you/d love to or have a pet tiger people consider you clever or intelligent your kind of beauty is consider “exotic” Total: 6

KIDAGAKASH/KIDA: you have/had long white hair you are brave or physically skilled you’re curious of the history of your family/people you are caring & kind you are willing to sacrifice your life for your loved ones you’re eager to know the things you don’t know of you have witnessed the loss of a loved one you are curious of those who are different from you you are very trusting you are a healer or likes to heal others Total: 5

LILO: you have/had long black hair you live or would like to live in Hawaii you lost your parents at a young age people consider you weird or eccentric you love to photograph especially things normally people won’t photograph you love to listen to Elvis Presley music you love to surf you have an older sister whom you live with you have obscure or weird tastes you value family above all Total: 2

MEGARA/MEG: you have/had long brown hair you are independent you have been burnt by “love” you’re sarcastic & quick witted you’re cynical and don’t trust others easily people consider you sassy you’re flirtatious you live by yourself you are afraid of heights you’re hesitant on trusting others Total: 7

POCAHONTAS: you have/had long black hair you love the Native American culture you love the environment and often defend it others consider you wise beyond your years you are more spiritual than religious people consider you noble or selfless you are free-spirited you’re adventurous & playful You are aware of your dreams and often let it guide you you have an exotic beauty Total: 2

RAPUNZEL: you have dyed hair color you have an overprotective mother who doesn’t let you see the world outside you’re daring & brave you’re energetic & spirited you love art or astronomy you’re independent and don’t need others to take care of you or defend you you’re sarcastic or witty you are a bit naive of the world around you you’re charming or charismatic you’re very determined to make your dreams comes true Total: 4

SNOW WHITE: you have/had short black hair you are consider gentle & sweet you are also very kindhearted you’re juvenile or childish you have others who envy your beauty you are very gullible & too trusting that others sometimes takes advantage of you you love to sing and to be with forest animals you are joyful & cheerful you are motherly to those who are younger than you you are considered “adorable” or “cute” to others Total: 2

TIANA: you’re motivated & determined you are willing to go through hard work to achieve your dream you love to cook or to own a restaurant you don’t like to ask for help you are respectful to others you don’t give up easily you often too busy doing hard work to have fun you don’t believe in wishes, you do the things on your own you are very persistent even if others don’t believe in you you are humble & grateful Total: 5

WENDY: you love to dream you love to tell stories you have 2 younger brothers you have a caring but strict father you don’t want to grow up you have a vivid imagination you are dreamy & imaginative you’re responsible & polite you are very motherly & protective you are a romantic Total: 8

MULAN: you can be a tomboy sometimes. People wish you could be a bit more girly You’ve pretended to be someone you’re not You’ve had a physical fight with someone You have/had considered running away from home Your parents try to plan your life out A lot of your friends are boys You sometimes find yourself in bad situations TOTAL: 6

I am: Belle.

Your name begins with a T

You have a boyfriend

(IF you have a boyfriend), your aninversary is in the wintertime

You were born in the summer You hate seafood

You love to write You love listening to music You’re SHORT/small You are in high school

You like little kids You are artistic You liked to watch Nickelodeon when you were younger Your favorite color is either blue or purple

You have dark hair

Your eyes are blue/green You have siblings (If you have siblings), you are the youngest child

Your guilty pleasure is chocolate

Nothing tastes better with chocolate than peanut butter!

You watch either of the following: American Idol, Man vs Food, Family Guy You live in the United States

(If you live in the US), you live in New England

The house you live in is white

You have at least one best friend You have more girl friends than guy friends

You prefer dark-haired guys over light-haired ones Musicians = hot, in your opinion Baseball players also = hot, in your opinion

You spend more time on the internet than watching TV

You read the Twilight series

(If you read Twilight), you are Team Edward

You have lost at least one friend this past year You feel that you are too nice to people at times You have taken a foreign language class in your life Your favorite food is either: chicken, pizza or sandwiches You are left handed

Your favorite movie genre is either comedy or romance

You think a lot of girls these days are immature Your biggest turn-off is cockiness You’re very shy around people you don’t know, or in large crowds You have been told you look like one of your parents Your parents met as teenagers You hate large crowds You tend to cling to the past too much You have been told you are too hard on yourself You like even numbers more than odd numbers

You could NEVER go vegetarian You are afraid of death You are a self conscious person You like taking surveys like this :P

Check off the following that you relate to:

Do you drink oat milk? Has oat milk changed your life? Before oat milk, were you more of an almond milk person? Are you interested in nut milks in general? Do you love Trader Joe's? Do you love Trader Joe's seasonal candles even more? Is the pumpkin/vanilla one your jam? Did you have a matcha phase? Do you love thrifting? Do you wish you were thrifting right now? Is what you're currently wearing "thrifted." Do you use the word "aesthetic" as a noun? Do you buy things because "aesthetic." Do you consider using only lowercase letters your aesthetic? Did you have a vegan phase? What about gluten free? Do you like fast casual vegan restaurants like By Chloe? Do you say "this is sending me." Do you say "love that for me." Do you say "mood." Do you own fairy lights? Do you have a disposable camera? Do you have a polaroid picture wall of some kind? Do you own a tea kettle? Do you drink tea before bed? Do you own glass straws because the metal ones kind of gross you out because you can't tell if they are clean or not? Have you made a TikTok? Do you know what your "FYP" on TikTok is? Are you currently rewatching "Gossip Girl"? Do you have anxiety? Do you identify as an ambivert? Do you have a YouTube channel? Is there actually a video on it? Do you own airpods? Can you not live without them? Have you cried today? Do you feel guilty about buying stuff on Amazon but use it anyway? Do you feel guilty for shopping at Brandy Melville because it's problematic? Have you ever eaten at a Sweetgreen? Could you eat Sweetgreen everyday? Do you NOT have a Facebook? Do you call school "Zoom University"? Do you get "Sunday Scaries"? Are you afraid of Mercury in retrograde? Do you make life choices based on astrology? Do you have less than 10 photos on your Instagram grid? Do you Facetime more than you actually call your friends? Do you know what Cottagecore is? Are you into it? Is your go to pose in pictures a sideways peace sign? Do you say “we love” when referring to something only you love? And lastly, are you always tired?

This is a list of songs from my Spotify Master List. Bold what artist you have heard/like. It is very long. I made it a while ago so some more recent songs I listen to aren’t on here. I am going to list my favorite song by them or in some cases the only song I have of that artist on Spotify.

3 Doors Down (Kryptonite) 3OH!3 (ICANTDOITALONE) A$AP Rocky (Wild for the Night) Alien Ant Farm (Smooth Criminal) The All-American Rejects (Gives You Hell) All Time Low (Dear Maria, Count Me In) Alter Bridge (Ghost of Days Gone By) Amy Winehouse (Valerie) Anna Kendrick (Cups) Audioslave (Like a Stone) Avenged Sevenfold (Nightmare) AWOLNATION (Sail) Baauer (Harlem Shake) Beck (Loser) The Black Crowes (She Talks to Angels) Blink-182 (I Miss You) Blues Traveler (Run-Around) Breaking Benjamin (The Diary of Jane) Bruno Mars (When I Was Your Man) Cake (Short Skirt/Long Jacket) Chevelle (Jars) The Clarks (Butterflies and Airplanes) Coheed and Cambria (A Favor House Atlantic) Creed (One Last Breath) Crossfade (Cold) Daft Punk (Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger) Dashboard Confessional (Ghost of a Good Thing) Death Cab for Cutie (I Will Follow You into the Dark) Deee-Lite (Groove is in the Heart) Disturbed (Land of Confusion) Ella Henderson (Ghost) Ellie Goulding (Your Song) Eminem (Cleanin’ Out My Closet) Everclear (Father of Mine) Everlast (What It’s Like) Fall Out Boy (Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy) Feist (1234) Finger Eleven (Paralyzer) Foo Fighters (Learn to Fly) Foster the People (Pumped Up Kicks) Godsmack (I Stand Alone) Good Charlotte (The Anthem) Gorillaz (Feel Good Inc.) Green Day (Jesus of Suburbia) Guns N’ Roses (Sweet Child O’ Mine) Gym Class Heroes (Cupid’s Chokehold) Halestorm (Familiar Taste of Poison) Hozier (Take Me to Church) Imagine Dragons (Radioactive) Incubus (Drive) Jasmine Thompson (Titanium) Jay-Z/Linkin Park (Numb/Encore) Jefferson Airplane (White Rabbit) Jet (Cold Hard Bitch) Katy Perry (Roar) Korn (Twisted Transistor) Lacuna Coil (Heaven’s A Lie) Lana Del Rey (Video Games) La Roux (Bulletproof) Lenny Kravitz (American Woman) Lily Allen (Fuck You) Linkin Park (One Step Closer) Lorde (Royals) Lynyrd Skynyrd (Simple Man) Macklemore (Thrift Shop) Marc Cohn (Walking in Memphis) Men Without Hats (The Safety Dance) Meredith Brooks (Bitch) Metallica (Nothing Else Matters) Missy Elliott (Get Ur Freak On) My Chemical Romance (Under Pressure) Nickelback (Photograph) The Offspring (You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid) Of Monsters and Men (Little Talks) Owl City (Fireflies) Papa Roach (Scars) Paramore (Ain’t It Fun) Passenger (Let Her Go) Pearl Jam (Daughter) Pierce the Veil (Bulls in the Bronx) The Proclaimers (I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)) Red Hot Chili Peppers (Scar Tissue) Relient K (Be My Escape) Seether (Careless Whisper) Semisonic (Closing Time) Shinedown (45) Simple Plan (Welcome to My Life) Skillet (Hero) Sleeping With Sirens (Feel) Slipknot (Before I Forget) Snoop Dogg (Drop it Like it’s Hot) Stone Sour (Through Glass) Sublime (What I Got) The Sugarhill Gang (Rapper’s Delight) Sugar Ray (Every Morning) Sum 41 (In Too Deep) Switchfoot (Meant to Live) System of a Down (Lonely Day) Tenacious D (Tribute) Theory of a Deadman (Bad Girlfriend) Thirty Seconds to Mars (The Kill) Thom Cooper (Mr. Brightside) The Ting Tings (Shut Up and Let Me Go) Train (Marry Me) The Used (Yesterday’s Feeling) Vertical Horizon (Everything You Want) Volbeat (Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood) *This was a hard choice Weezer (Say it Ain’t So) The White Stripes (Seven Nation Army) Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Maps) ZZ Ward (Put the Gun Down)

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junker-town · 4 years

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No sports, no fun

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Good bye, maybe.

I’m afraid I won’t ever feel again the way I did on Nov. 4, 2000, when I was not yet 13 years old and the pain was new and all-consuming. I loved sports so much it hurt, and that love bore bitter fruit when Anthony Thomas fumbled a football for no good reason, and Michigan lost to Northwestern, 54-51, in the most stunning game I can remember.

I couldn’t question the feeling, nor did I think it could be questioned; my amygdala pulled its trigger and I buried my face as deeply as I could into our cold, wave-patterned couch in the next room. My shock even erased the memory of the steps I took. I remember the twin feelings of a cold couch on my face and injustice. Or maybe not quite injustice, but something unfair. It didn’t feel targeted. For the first time maybe, I felt impersonal, unmotivated and heavy cruelty.

Thomas was a football player of mythic proportions, a torso of concrete and legs made thick just from making sure his upper half didn’t topple over. He was marvelous, and at all times mildly disappointing, a perfect picture of inefficient smashmouth football just before the sport discovered better ideas. Thomas carried the ball 37 times for 199 yards, but he was outdone by Damien Anderson, who rushed for 268 yards on 31 carries in a Randy Walker offense that was one of the first examples of spread football on a big stage.

That game would come to be known as one of the most influential in college football history because of the way an underpowered team shocked another team of Thomas-ian proportions. But lost in the final score is the way Thomas fumbled. He broke through the line for what should have been a game-winning first down, then he simply dropped the ball.

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There was and is nothing to be learned from that. The whole was instructive; the details were not. Michigan would have won but Thomas dropped the ball, and then I hurt and I couldn’t make it stop.

I obsessed over that play. At the time, I obsessed over every aspect of Michigan football. I remember falling asleep thinking about Michigan’s ongoing high school recruiting class, its deficiencies and how the current commitments might shape the team. I used to take a football out to our front lawn and play out the upcoming games drive by drive, hucking the ball up in the air and running under it to make a big catch. If I was feeling generous, I’d give the opposition a rare interception. On a related note, I was a pretty lonely kid.

Before I developed a better relationship with sports, I approached them almost exclusively as something my team either won or lost. I decided I ought to take them very seriously, to the extent that everyone should think of me as a person who knew sports. I wanted to have the best answer to every question; I wanted to be a vessel of knowledge that others would rather submit to than challenge.

At the time, it seemed like a hobby. Now I know I was compensating for being a pipsqueak in every other regard. The problem, either way, was how much I had staked my confidence in being right.

In college, I took an internship at a fantasy sports website and learned how dumb I was. I found out there are people who seem to know every bit about everything — things like baseball — who could not only hold a greater mass of information in their brains than me, but could also do so without being an uptight dick about it.

What I should have learned was that caring about things intrinsically, and not for egotistical reasons, opens up our capacity to both know and love more about the world. Instead, I felt like I was drowning, like every moment more evidence was piling on top of me about what a fraud I was, faster than I could claw from under it.

I wondered if I could say I loved sports like I used to, or if I ever loved them to begin with. That period showed me a couple things: 1) That I could bull shit anything in writing, and 2) maybe I should readjust my relationship with sports.

I never stopped wanting to be a sportswriter, which I’ve wanted to be my whole life. But I also picked up a knack for editing, the process of turning your first thought into your best thought, of shaping and shielding and censoring an unvarnished self. That unvarnished self was often a truer self, perhaps. But it didn’t sing, and it never won.

I consider SB Nation my first real job, though when I started it only paid $1 more per hour than the fantasy gig. The difference was at SB Nation I saw a path to who I newly wanted to be. Which is to say, I started chasing a sense of superiority on moral grounds.

Working at SB Nation has never not been exciting, but my first and maybe last thrill was getting to say I worked with Spencer Hall. He’d become my favorite writer by crafting guttingly funny and guttingly poignant things about college football. A universe unfolded out of EDSBS.com, one that was weird and empathetic and antagonistic towards the capital-S Sportswriter lens and voice. Reading him gave me a physical sensation like my belly was made of splintered wood and a family of feral critters was tearing through, and that I ought to be happy for them.

I’ve read Spencer’s 2011 essay GOD’S AWAY ON BUSINESS dozens of times now and it never fails to scare the shit out of me.

None of this matters now. The man or woman in the desk is gone. They will not be returning anytime soon. Outside there are men roaming the streets. No one’s wondering who’s in charge, and that’s why the doors are locked, and the children inside quivering. When the desk is empty, it means anarchy is at your door. There are no permissions or courtesies. Shit just happens, and it happens all the time, and there’s no stopping it until everything you have is gone and bouncing out the door on the shoulders of thieves.

God, or anyone like him, is away on business.

I started aping Spencer then, and I’m still aping him now, though I feel more like myself. Mimic something long enough and you might accidentally discover some of the substance that makes the aesthetic work.

SB Nation taught me a better way to love sports. That what is true and good wasn’t in the results — on the field, or off where discourse boiled down to soggy debate — but in the ephemera. It was in baseball players taking pitches right to the beans.

SB Nation was dedicated to silliness and inclusivity. It highlighted the good people that sports elevated on rare occasions. It never fought along the chauvinistic battle lines that can feel like a mandatory part of fandom; in fact, it emphatically ignored them. And yet even after a decade-plus of existence, people still get upset when we suggest sports don’t have to be experienced in rote, tribalistic ways. Typically all you have to do is check the replies.

We never stated this mission very clearly, which has always kinda been a problem. Probably the problem. But if you paid attention, you saw it reiterated in countless ways. (Just click a letter, and note that none of these people work here anymore.) GOD’S AWAY ON BUSINESS was my value set among the many options, however. It told me that what we love most sometimes isn’t scored; that everyone has a responsibility to define and find joy for themselves, even if it may be outside the rules; and that to invest oneself in wonder and silliness also means taking on the duty to defend them.

At SB Nation I learned I didn’t have to identify by sports. I could have a relationship with them, I could be objective towards them, and I could turn them off. I learned that I have a self outside of what I like.

Working here has forced me to look back and figure out what I truly loved about sports. So far I’ve found two things: Charles Woodson, and the way sports helped a shy kid introduce himself. For me, sports’ best utility has been the way they facilitate genuine connection. Which is almost funny, because we know now the extent that sports are artificial by how easily they’ve disappeared.

But to know that sports have had some importance in one’s life is proof they can’t be trivial. They are real in the fact that we choose to empower them. The score has never mattered. Sports live because we give them life.

I don’t always feel good about that fact. Although I’ve come to terms with being mildly stupid, and I’ve gotten better at appreciating things intrinsically, I still often hate that sports are integral to me and that I’ll leave this mortal coil defined by something that never gave me agency.

There’s an image I’ll never shake. My last visit with my grandfather as he lay on the bed he’d die on. He was person I’ve perhaps wanted to emulate most in this world. A French history professor. The funniest, most considerate person I knew. He made everyone feel heard. I said this at his funeral:

He always paused before he laughed, turning over what you said and taking even the bad jokes and finding their point of redemption. Funny enough, this was a sign that he took you seriously, that he thought what you said mattered, even if you were five years old and nothing you had ever said to that point had ever been important. And because he laughed with you, you couldn’t help but laugh along side.

Just a month or two before I saw him among his final days, prostrate, suffering terribly from dementia and barely able to speak. He no longer embodied the self he had curated over 85 years. I talked to him about Michigan football because that had been the thing we talked about the most. He responded only in smiles and hmphs. I didn’t know if he retained anything I said until I started to leave the room. He said the last words I’d ever hear him say: “Go Blue.”

The image that haunts me isn’t my grandfather: Every memory of him makes me love him more, and I’m more grateful than words can say that in our last interaction we felt connected and happy.

Rather it’s my imagination, seeing myself dissolved layer by layer, body and soul disappearing. What would be left in a reduction of my experiences, love, regrets and relationships that I cultivated or destroyed? It might be sports’ afterimage, an outline of Anthony Thomas.

I feel sports’ absence. Maybe I’ve become accustomed to a constant hum of play, or maybe this pandemic has, in a terrible roundabout way, helped us see what is intrinsic.

But I do miss sports, even if that feeling is a byproduct of muscle memory. I miss fun, and sports have been the best outlet I’ve even known to find it. I’ve had a hard time not seeing this period as an attack on fun, that, more and more, the world is becoming something I don’t want to go back to: stodgy and bitter, a self-perpetuating game to see who’s winning at any moment. It feels like there’s no room left to be quiet and gentle.

I don’t know when fun will come back, and it feels fair to ask if it can. There has never been a good answer whether dumb anger is simply the natural state of things, or something we’ve reinforced on one another. There’s only the imprint that anger has left, deep with slippery walls.

The only thing I know is we all want to belong; that at the root of every fight is ostensibly the same impetus — to be full of love and free of worry once again, to feel complete and want for nothing. We just can’t agree on terms.

But I believe there is a healthy definition of belonging. One that does not subsume you, but lets you position yourself amongst the world, and create your own space as opposed to being dictated its rules. A way of editing that doesn’t entrench self, but amplifies it.

The end of the world is demanding, but we have options. And when I close my eyes, I can still see the world I want.

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hermoanie · 7 years

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rowan young (26, exotic dancer, camille rowe)

definitely not a stripper. except she’s totally a stripper. should be rolling in money bc shes good at what she does, but she’s terrible at saving and managing so shes constantly barely getting by. honestly really sweet, but can turn on the drop of a hat. her aesthetic is crying in the club bc some guy called her fat. grew up dirt poor. dad had a second family. super daddy issues. perpetually lazy.

needs: exes?? current hook ups/boys to make theo washington jealous with :))) other coworkers?? she lives in that madhouse with all those ladies but she needs other friends too!!!!! also she could use a couple more siblings if you need a fam for your character!!

leia scott (27, radio host, fc tbd)

daddy was a professional baseball player so she literally never had to try for anything in her life. but she did!! kind of. thinks shes hilarious but shes only a little funny. mostly people laugh at her jokes cause shes pretty. literally grew up the Pretty Girl. prom queen. cheerleader. the Perfect Daughter TBH!! got knocked up when she was 21 by a loser. is honestly a fairly boring old mom now, never had a rebellious phase. is in desperate need of one probably.

needs: all of the friends!! friends who try and get her to Live her Life!! other people to work at the station?? people who she dated between her baby daddy and her current bf?? thx

aviva hart (28, psychic, emily browning2)

honestly the human definition of means well but always fucks up. really loving, really dumb, really fucking sensitive. cries like once a day, at least. sort of psychic, sort of just good at reading people. all about saving the planet, stopped eating meat when she was 19. probably puts on cowspiracy every time someone comes over. currently pregnant and trying not to Fuck Up

needs: other eery people?? childhood friends?? normal friends?? idk

mila baldwin (30, interior designer, jamie chung)

a hardass but i swear she means well. sorta. adopted from birth, doesnt give a fuq about her bio parents tbh. literal dog mom. has been with the same guy since she was 16 (mostly) but refuses to marry him or give him kids whoops. tries to act like she’s a Cool Girl but she’s really too high strung and obsessive to pull that off. probably could use a vacation.

needs: more friends?? she has her core Clique but she could use dude friends. an ex from when she and her man split up briefly while they were in college (9 ish years ago). maybe one more baldwin??

#eswrp #my laptop is overheating i dont wanna open up photoshop #so take this boring post thx #also excuse my terrible ratios #hmu plz i need to plot but lazy #emma6370 @ discord #site stuff

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healthandfitnessrecipes-blog · 6 years

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The Viral Video Star Behind the Fitness Fad That May Replace CrossFit

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=8769

“Bro, what kind of muscles you have?” asks Ido Portal in a short video introducing his philosophy. He’s barefoot and shirtless, his long hair pulled back as he tumbles across the frame and does handstand push-ups in the rain. “No—bro, what kind of patterns you have? Can you flip? Can you invert? Can you crawl?”

The 48-year-old Ido Portal has spent the past three decades honing a physical credo and method that’s now practiced by thousands of people all over the world—from office workers, to former CrossFitters, to NBA players, to the ever-controversial UFC titan Conor McGregor. Known as The Ido Portal Method, or simply “movement,” his approach purports to take the “most potent” parts from a range of physical disciplines by shedding the dogmas that often accompany them. As he puts it: “I want the contents, not the container.”

Videos of Portal in motion began circulating in certain physical circles in the mid-2000s—entrancing clips in which he flows along the floor like liquid, playfully combining capoeira-inspired flips, hand-balancing, and animalistic movements. But it’s only in the past few years (in no small part thanks to McGregor’s influence) that his profile has exploded, his following has expanded, and his business has revved up.

Star athletes reportedly pay Portal six-figure sums for two weeks of in-person training. He spent chunks of the past year doing “movement design” (something akin to choreography) for a multi-million dollar Bollywood film, and is set to star in a mini-series in which he works with elite athletes in sports ranging from surfing to fighting. (Some of his closest students have landed similarly glitzy gigs, with two recently serving as advisers to the current season of Israeli Ninja Warrior.) Portal has been called a “guru” and a “movement master” more times than I can count; one interviewer even called him “the smartest man in the world.” But the question—hotly debated on Reddit and on MMA blogs—endures: Is there value in the movement, or is Portal simply slinging snake oil?

“Most people don’t have the user manual to their own machinery,” Portal told me emphatically when we connected over Skype. “Your being is a physical being. You brush your teeth everyday, you need to move everyday. It doesn’t take five minutes, and it does take a certain education.”

Portal seems like the the right guy to be dispensing such an education. He appears in control of every vertebrae and muscle fiber, he’s charismatic, and he looks the part. (“Why do all these movement teachers look like Jesus?” comedian, MMA commentator, and member of the Intellectual Dark Web Joe Rogan once joked.) For years, Portal tied his hair in a topknot and was so jacked he says he was once asked to shed muscle for a photoshoot. These days he’s ponytail-less and a bit less buff—he told me his muscles were getting in the way of evolving his movement practice in certain directions—but his body-fat percentage still hovers in the single digits and he can bust out a one-arm handstand or helicopter at will. The only clear sign he’s aging are the flecks of grey in his dark-brown beard.

And he is, fittingly, always on the move. Born and raised in Haifa, Israel, for the past decade he’s been effectively nomadic, carrying his possessions on his back as he brings his method across the globe. A few weeks before we spoke, he’d been leading a movement camp in Phuket. The week before it was Seoul. Next up: Cyprus. In between camps, he works with elite athletes—from Olympic swimmers, to MLB players, to professional mixed martial artists—applying his broad perspective to their sport to try to give them that extra edge. That might mean focusing on spinal articulation for a swimmer, or developing a baseball pitcher’s shoulder mobility through oft-neglected hanging work. Portal described himself as an “information-and-systems broker, mobilizing knowledge from one discipline to another.”

In Tel Aviv, much of this work takes place in what looks like a CrossFit box, but with more free floor space. The walls of the Ido Portal movement school are covered in handprints, scuff marks, and phrases like isolation → integration → improvisation and Let them DIRTY the walls, motherfucker! The equipment scattered about is basic: gymnastics rings, monkey bars, wooden sticks, tennis balls. As Portal—who tends to be either barefoot or in basic canvas shoes—puts it: “The more expensive the toys, the cheaper the mover.”

Some 700 people have joined the school since it opened in late 2014, he said. Throughout the day, you’ll find muscular men and women bouncing a tennis ball against a wall with their fists, working on inversions, experimenting with different kinds of squats, or slowly swinging a dowel while a partner evades it using spinal waves and soft acrobatics. Or, to hear Portal tell it, in each session students “step into the cloud of movement and attack a subject” by doing drills or challenges, “maybe it’s coordination, or speed ... ” Training in “movement” might look or sound frivolous to outsiders, but Portal and his tribe are nothing if not serious about it. “It’s not some hippie concept as many people make it out to be,” he said. “I am a radical person, for the good and the bad.” He and his “inner tribe” train from six to ten hours a day.

“How many movements did you learn today? This week?” he challenged me. “A contemporary dancer might learn hundreds of new movements in one class ... and the neurological connections being made, the type of brain that is being developed ... ” Portal has long preached that learning new, complex movements betters the brain in ways straightforward cardio or weights do not—and some recent research supports this. One 2015 study found that adults who undertook a regime loosely based on freestyle wrestling performed better in cognitive tasks than people who spent the same amount of time performing tiresome brain-training tasks or gutting it out on a stationary bike. Similar benefits have been seen in those who practiced Tai Chi as compared with brisk walking. But Portal believes his method is superior to other forms of training. “It makes you smarter, I know it, I feel it,” he told me. “There is no more potent tool to make people sharper, more complex, more ethical, more realistic.”

Portal presents his approach as a sort of atavistic antidote to our lifestyles—a bent that aligns him with the recent “evolutionary fitness” movement. Chief among the movement is Erwan Le Corre, the former parkourist and founder of the popular “MovNat” (a portmanteau of the French term for “natural movement”). Supposedly modeled after the challenges faced by our hunter-gatherer forebears, Le Corre’s wilderness workouts involve vaulting across rivers, heaving boulders, and climbing trees. Though Portal’s approach is perhaps more palatable for the urban set, the men lament similar things: Our 9-to-5 cubicle jobs, smartphone addiction, hyperspecialization in sports, and the rising obsession with fitness for aesthetic purposes have robbed us of our capacity to truly move, leaving us empty.

At the heart of movement culture is an emphasis on play. Animals and kids play as they navigate the world, Portal often says, but as adults we channel this instinct in futile or destructive directions. “That workmate of yours who’s always clicking his pen? That’s his body screaming, ‘Let’s play! Let’s play!’” he said in a recent interview. Portal frequently cites a Dutch text from the 1930s called Homo Ludens or “Man the Player,” which argues that play preceded mankind and is central to thriving societies.“ Most people think play is juvenile” he told me, “but it’s actually a training tool of all animals and must be undertaken with utmost seriousness.” Which explains why he’s as inspired by monkeys as he is by guys who break orbital bones for a living.

Portal lizard-crawled into the popular consciousness in 2015, when he was recruited as the “movement coach” of soon-to-be UFC “champ champ” Conor McGregor. The brash Dubliner was just beginning his rapid rise from little-known fighter to the UFC’s most-bankable star when, in 2013, he tore his ACL. While recovering, he started to look at training through a new lens: He discarded his more-conventional workouts, he studied footage of predators hunting their prey (and he got the ink to match—his sprawling chest tattoo depicts a crowned gorilla devouring a human heart). “I learned a lot more about how important balance is, how important control of the body is," he told Esquire. McGregor came across videos of Portal in motion and, fascinated, sought out the Israeli.

Numerous UFC fighters had dabbled in broader training before Portal appeared on the scene, aiming to improve not just their conditioning, but those qualities that sit somewhere between striking and the ground game. Carlos Condit had been frolicking outdoors with Le Corre since 2014, and Georges St-Pierre had been training gymnastics for years. Back in 1999, jiu-jitsu-legend-turned-MMA-star Rickson Gracie showcased his own discipline-melding workouts in the documentary Choke. But Portal’s approach—thanks to his loud-mouthed star student and his own habit of calling out doubters on social media—was immediately much more polarizing.

When videos emerged of the Israeli brandishing a pool noodle to test McGregor’s reflexes, the fighter Nate Diaz taunted McGregor for “playing touch-butt with that dork in the park” and criticized Portal, “that goofball with the ponytail,” for using the exposure to promote his own schtick. (McGregor would soon suffer his first UFC loss at Diaz’s hands, by second-round rear-naked choke, before winning a bloody rematch months later.) Sports writers and keyboard warriors mocked the seriousness with which Portal spoke about silly-looking drills. “Using the chaotic trajectory of a flying card to keep [Conor McGregor] sharp” reads Portal’s caption for a video of him flinging playing cards at the Irishman in preparation for his boxing bout against all-time great Floyd Mayweather. Here’s McGregor “risking a severe paper cut as he gets ready for his megafight,” one sports blogger rejoined. McGregor’s cartoonishly loose-armed warm-up, a product of his work with Portal, was memed to no end.

Some MMA commentators have suggested that any gains Portal provides might be mental. But McGregor credits movement training with his ability to ”fight in many stances, from many different angles,” with feeling “loose but connected at the same time.”(“I’m more a squeeze of the lime at the end of the dish,” Portal said about his own influence.)

As McGregor racked up wins with Portal in his corner—most memorably knocking out longtime champ Jose Aldo in a record 13 seconds—Portal says he was inundated with coaching requests. “I got some NBA players, some NFL players reaching out,” he told SBNation. “Tony Robbins reached out.”

“Whatever you do, don’t call him a guru or a master of movement,” a couple of his students told me seriously. “He hates that.” When we spoke, Portal emphasized that movement can’t be mastered—it’s too encompassing. “When people say ‘I’ve got it,’ I think, you’ve got nothing; you didn’t get shit,” he once put it, ”That only shows me how much they didn’t get it.”

Portal may shun the “movement guru” title, but his narrative about how movement culture came to be only bolsters this image. As he tells it, his method was born of a personal quest of sorts. Growing up in the beachy city of Haifa, he was an active kid, practicing kung fu. At 15, he took up the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira. Skeptical of the dance and drumming aspects of the discipline, he was dragged to his first class by a friend but quickly became hooked. “I was living it, training night and day,” he told me—not just mastering the techniques, but dressing the part and learning Portuguese. Within a couple of years, he’d earned himself the nickname “The Missionary” for his radical dedication, and had started an academy in the basement of his family home.

Feeling constrained by the limits of the martial art, Portal soon began experimenting with other disciplines. While dabbling, he came to the “epiphany” that he wasn’t satisfied with any one realm, but was obsessed with movement as a whole. So, Portal says, he embarked on a years-long journey to find a movement teacher. “After countless searches, I could not find anyone who HONESTLY could represent that title,” he writes on his website. He decided he would become the movement teacher the world lacked, by continuing his travels and curating knowledge from experts in an array of fields.

Portal’s old blog recounts stints training with former U.S. junior national gymnastics team coach Christopher Sommer, balance expert Claude Victoria, and circus performer Yuval Ayalon, as well as a “crazy year” spent working as a physical theater performer in Bangkok and Berlin. He has cited as influences “strength sensei” Charles Poliquin and paleo patriarch Robb Wolf (who, Portal told me, sent him money to keep his capoeira school afloat when funds were tight). Over the years, he’s practiced boxing, jiu jitsu, and yoga; learned from parkourists, dancers, and osteopaths. All the while, he read voraciously—about speed, coordination, “the riddle of the fight”—and documented his evolving method on a blog and, later, on Facebook and Instagram.

In the mid-2000s, Portal founded a new training space in Haifa where he and his devoted capoeira students began experimenting with movement outside of the martial art. He built a “special-ops unit” of movers, he told me, doubling the gym fees and “eliminating all the unnecessary ... the people who weren’t willing to train many hours a day, six or seven days a week.” When he began traveling frequently to teach hand-balancing workshops and perform physical theater, he closed the school. But his students weren’t content to stop training; one of his closest students, Odelia Goldschmidt, started a small training group in a local park called “The Freaks.” Shortly thereafter, with Portal’s blessing, her brother Roye opened the movement facility in Tel Aviv, and Portal started a mentorship program to pass on his methods. (Each of the 40 mentees check in with Portal regularly, receive personalized programming, and attend a couple week-long camps each year.)

Critics in the MMa sphere often attribute attribute Portal’s fame to McGregor’s star power or the Israeli’s cult of personality, rather than the substance of his ideas. But the rise of movement culture maps onto a broader shift toward more-functional approaches to fitness. Beginning in the 1970s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Nautilus machine helped usher in an approach to training that privileged form over function. By the 2000s, the fitness pendulum had swung so far in this direction that even kids’ figurines were more jacked—scale up a GI Joe Extreme doll from that era to the height of 5ft 10 and his chest would’ve been just three inches smaller than Schwarzenegger’s at his steroid-inflated peak. In 2003, the word “bigorexia” appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary, and a decade later, a condition called muscle dysmorphia—anorexia’s brawnier counterpart—abruptly entered the DSM.

A forceful countercurrent to this image mania emerged in the 2000s, led by CrossFit. Within a decade, thousands of mirrorless “boxes” had spread across the country, whose trainers touted “functional fitness” through daily workout challenges drawing from gymnastics, Olympic lifting, and sprinting. Soon, freerunning and parkour gyms began cropping up, and a number of more-traditional gyms traded machines for floor space and some battle ropes, to allow for more bodyweight work. Tough Mudders, Spartan Races, and their ilk made a take on Le Corre’s favored training format—the outdoor obstacle course—more accessible, and continued an emphasis on a more versatile body.

Then, in 2013, David Epstein’s best-selling The Sports Gene prompted fevered discussion about the “epidemic of hyperspecialization” in sports. Epstein pointed to a spate of studies showing greater rates of injury and burnout among high-school students who honed in on a single sport before their teenage years. Even more compelling, his book debunked the so-called “10,000 hours rule” to mastery, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers in 2008. Epstein cited research showing that those who entered the topmost rung of their field tended to dabble across disciplines further into their teen years than those who topped out at a sub-elite level. Kids who played a range of sports for longer tended to develop “physical literacy,” Epstein explained, which meant they were quicker to pick up the skills of the sport they ultimately settled on quicker than peers with a narrower sporting background. Epstein advocated that kids and teens do the very things Portal preaches for adults: experiment with a range of disciplines, play in unstructured ways.

In Just Move, a 2017 documentary about movement culture, one of Portal’s students says the community aims “to bring movement and life and everything we do out there to as many people as possible.” And in the past couple of years, his inner tribe has begun to fulfill this prophecy. Movement schools have cropped up around the world—in Boulder, New York City, Miami; in Europe, Hong Kong, Brazil, and Australia—mostly started by the students of the Ido Portal mentorship program.

Matt Bernstein and Zack Finer were both heavily involved in CrossFit when friends sent them YouTube videos of Portal in motion. Intrigued, they reached out to him, attended camps and workshops, and quickly became hooked on his method. They started introducing elements of Portal’s method to their personal-training clients and, after a few years, left their respective jobs and cities to start a movement school together in Boulder, Colorado. They told me more than thirty people uprooted their lives so they could regularly train with them, and talked at length about the various ways Portal’s approach had impacted their lives for the better. “Ido’s nickname for me was ‘the refrigerator,’ because I had the build and athletic prowess of one,” said Finer. “The stuff I can do now, I would never have dreamed about doing years ago.” (Their Instagram profiles feature videos of them nailing inversions, working on acrobatic maneuvers, and learning to balance a soccer ball on their head for a minute, among other things.)

Bernstein added: “CrossFit is physically hard, but [Portal’s method] is physically challenging, it’s intellectually challenging, it challenges your ego ... a lot.” (This, too maps onto a larger trend: A 2015 study by students at the Harvard Divinity School noted that as feelings of loneliness have risen and young Americans have become less religiously affiliated than ever before, “spaces traditionally meant for exercise have become the locations of shared, transformative experience.”)

But such personal transformations aren’t accessible to just anyone. Portal makes no bones about the fact that involvement in the community requires a significant investment of both time and money. In a 2013 Facebook post, he wrote that his movement camps were for the “got money and a ton of motivation and willing to travel kind of person” (for the “no-money, little motivation, want to fuck around kind of person” he recommended Zumba). In 2015, he lost fans in the parkour world and beyond when he announced he wouldn’t train vegans, saying they wouldn’t be able to keep up with his meat-eating “tribe.” The dozen or so movement schools that have cropped up in these past few years have made Portal’s methods more readily available. But even now, those wishing to take part in one of his camps are required to sign non-disclosure agreements and fork over between $600 and $1000 for two to three days.

“I’m willing to elevate the crowd by providing them with some of the things I’ve found to be useful. But I’m not willing to be pulled down by them into some watered-down thing—some P90X, some CrossFit-certification weekend event,” Portal told me, when I asked if he seeks to spread his method further. “If [the public] come with me, that’s fine, but I’m not going to them.” He added: “Sometimes I think, let’s let the trend die already for God’s sake, and have only the really hardcore practitioner group.”

When we spoke, Portal kept emphasizing that his approach has to be experienced, not just described. “It sounds very vague because there is nothing that I can say beyond these descriptive words,” he said. Maybe Portal’s elusiveness is just a way to convince outsiders he’s offering something new and revolutionary, as some have argued. Maybe movement just another cultish fitness fad with a short shelf life. Maybe you could achieve similar results, and the promised “paradigm shift,” training some other discipline multiple hours per day—like dance or martial arts.

All of these “maybes” are good for business: How will you know, Portal and his followers insist, unless you try it?

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2018/08/Ido_Portal_FINAL/lead_960.jpg Credits: Original Content Source

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nancygduarteus · 6 years

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The Viral Video Star Behind the Fitness Fad That May Replace CrossFit

In the mid-2000s, Portal founded a new training space in Haifa where he and his devoted capoeira students began experimenting with movement outside of the martial art. He built a “special-ops unit” of movers, he told me, doubling the gym fees and “eliminating all the unnecessary ... the people who weren’t willing to train many hours a day, six or seven days a week.” When he began traveling frequently to teach hand-balancing workshops and perform physical theater, he closed the school. But his students weren’t content to stop training; one of his closest students, Odelia Goldschmidt, started a small training group in a local park called “The Freaks.” Shortly thereafter, her brother Roye opened the movement facility in Tel Aviv and helped start a mentorship program to pass on Portal’s methods. (Each of the 40 mentees check in with Portal regularly, receive personalized programming, and attend a couple week-long camps each year.)

When we spoke, Portal kept emphasizing that his approach has to be experienced, not just described. “It sounds very vague because there is nothing that I can say beyond these descriptive words,” he said. Maybe Portal’s elusiveness is just a way to convince outsiders he’s offering something new and revolutionary, as some have argued. Maybe its just another cultish fitness fad with a short shelf life. Maybe you could achieve similar results, and the promised “paradigm shift,” training some other discipline multiple hours per day—like dance or martial arts.

All of these “maybes” are good for business: How will you know, Portal and his followers insist, unless you try it?

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/ido-portal-the-player/566687/?utm_source=feed

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ionecoffman · 6 years

Text

The Viral Video Star Behind the Fitness Fad That May Replace CrossFit

In the mid-2000s, Portal founded a new training space in Haifa where he and his devoted capoeira students began experimenting with movement outside of the martial art. He built a “special-ops unit” of movers, he told me, doubling the gym fees and “eliminating all the unnecessary ... the people who weren’t willing to train many hours a day, six or seven days a week.” When he began traveling frequently to teach hand-balancing workshops and perform physical theater, he closed the school. But his students weren’t content to stop training; one of his closest students, Odelia Goldschmidt, started a small training group in a local park called “The Freaks.” Shortly thereafter, her brother Roye opened the movement facility in Tel Aviv and helped start a mentorship program to pass on Portal’s methods. (Each of the 40 mentees check in with Portal regularly, receive personalized programming, and attend a couple week-long camps each year.)

When we spoke, Portal kept emphasizing that his approach has to be experienced, not just described. “It sounds very vague because there is nothing that I can say beyond these descriptive words,” he said. Maybe Portal’s elusiveness is just a way to convince outsiders he’s offering something new and revolutionary, as some have argued. Maybe its just another cultish fitness fad with a short shelf life. Maybe you could achieve similar results, and the promised “paradigm shift,” training some other discipline multiple hours per day—like dance or martial arts.

All of these “maybes” are good for business: How will you know, Portal and his followers insist, unless you try it?

Article source here:The Atlantic

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ronxnb · 5 years

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aesthetics

hello, my loves! my name is ashley and below i have included my very rambly bio for ronan and a few wanted connections! come plot with me, pls

so when a girl overdosed on some pcp and the investigation lead the police to the barone’s front door, ronan was the obvious suspect

possible connections:

close friends!! ronan is difficult, but when you worm into his heart, he’ll rip apart anyone that upset you

exes. they could have broken up when he went to juvie or it could be more recent

hook-ups. my boy is very sex positive

roommate(s)!! i’d love to have a roommate(s) for ronan. he lives in kieran

people who are friends with his brother (who did a semester at gifford, but is now a major league baseball player)

cousins!!

a really interesting connection could be a family member or friend of the girl who overdosed on ronan’s (his brother’s) drugs

people he doesn’t get along with. ronan is a prickly pear who will pick a fight with just about anybody

somebody that’s a part of the same fight club as him

ummmm that’s all i can think of right now, but i’m very open to suggestions! give this a like and i’ll pop into your ims

#( ooc )#livingooc #livingintro #overdose tw #violence tw #drugs tw #( about )

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