BODY’S
A photography essay exploring nine testimonies of personal physical history.
Heavily inspired by the collective works of the ESPN Magazine Body Issue, BODY’S will serve as a spotlight on the experiences of everyday athletes and encourage personal reflection on its concept among the audience as well.
Tara
AGE: 33 | Body Work: Krav Maga
She forged a new relationship with her physicality when she began Krav Maga training in 2018. Soon after, she was severely injured in an unrelated incident and began working to find peace with the scars left behind and how recovery would impact her training.
“I’ve gotten a little bit more used to seeing my body like that and the more I see it, the more I like it. Especially as a woman, it gives me a different aesthetic to think of myself as than just pretty or beautiful.”
Ryan
AGE: 52 | Body Work: Distance Running / Cycling
He felt shame about his slim frame when he was a boy, but found a positive angle in his running speed. Competitive distance running followed throughout his adolescence.
Running became more difficult to do as he aged. His family eventually influenced him to switch over to cycling and, paired with meditation, the routine became something he could safely continue into the future.
“My grown son was a cyclist, and my dad switched over to cycling, so I switched over to cycling about 2 or 3 years ago and man, it’s been so great! Cycling during the pandemic has been so important. I get out and I go on like a 12-mile bike ride or something and I come back and I’m just on top of the world.”
Tenille
AGE: 30 | Body Work: Dance / Resistance Training
Her childhood was filled with a variety of sports, but adolescence centered on competitive dance and its appealing combination of fluid full body movement, individual challenge and teamwork. After several stress-filled years away from a structured exercise routine in college, she stepped into a local gym and found new information about her body’s potential with resistance training. She let go of earlier influences to shrink her body’s size, and began a new life chapter as a competitive body builder and fitness model.
“There is no reason at all for me to try to shrink anything. I need to grow my legs. I need to grow my back. Some people can’t put on muscle at all, I have this ability and I’m shrinking it for what? Based on whose aesthetic?”
Jeff
AGE: 36 | Body Work: Krav Maga / Jui-jitsu
Based on his six-three, two hundred pound frame, Jeff was often expected to defend everyone invovled if a physical threat ever presented itself. After a real world scenario almost escalated to that degree, he signed up for a Krav Maga self defense course and continued his training into the following years. Today, he uses his varied martials arts background to empower others in his community to feel safer and develop their own defense skillsets.
“I walk around the world with a lot of privilege. I’m a 6’2, 6’3, big, bald, white, cishet; the probability that someone’s going to target me on the street is very low. But, it’s important to me that if somebody else was targeted that I’m not scared to step up.”
