Posters
I'm getting posters soon. I ordered two posters from Hookgrip, a company that weightlifting fans most definitely know. But for those who aren't familiar, they go to the big weightlifting competitions and take pictures and videos. And they also happen to do custom posters, and sell other stuff like shirts and hoodies.
I did a little bit of research, and seems like Hookgrip is mostly a one man show, run by Nat Arem. He was great with my poster requests; got me proofs very quickly, both pictures almost exactly what I wanted. Replied to my questions very meticulously. Would love to buy from him again. Definitely recommend.
I was initially going to buy the posters from IronMind, the Milo cover posters. I was thinking the Lasha, Ilya and Dimas ones, for $45. And they were great posters of legendary lifters, but I felt like, i needed some personal tailoring.
So anyways, about the posters I got. So the two pictures I got were:
1. Torokhtiy in the 2012 Olympics and his celebration after his 3rd C&J attempt, which I still think to this day is one of the sickest celebrations ever (lift starts at around 1 min), and
2. Loredana Toma in the 2019 WWC, preparing for her 2nd snatch attempt. The vid is here, and it's like right around 33:28. So it's her staring at the floor in that position.
I want to post pics of the proofs here, but I haven't checked with Nat about that and I don't want to get in trouble so I'm not doing it for now. But the pictures were so good.
So I guess I'll start with, why posters? I mean because posters kind of quite frankly feel like something middle schoolers put up on their room walls right, like with Eminem or Tupac? Or at least I thought that way, because I was never really a poster kind of guy. My walls were pretty much uncovered in high school, definitely in college. But what got me to think differently was this book I'd been reading about art. And the book stressed the importance of having something to visually remember what it is I enjoy on this Earth. It told me I should rip out interesting photos from magazines and put them into a sort of collage on my wall, and I was like, man I don't know if I'd do that. I don't have any magazines. But anyways the point is, I didn't take it seriously when I initially read that exercise. But then as time went on I became more aware of times when I felt like life was pointless Like I didn't find any joy in anything I was doing, nor could I look to find joy from anything else. And those were honestly tough times.
And so with those experiences in mind, it made more sense to me that, it would be nice to have a visual cue of sorts, to remind me of what I like, what I find dear. And so I chose weightlifting; but not weightlifting per se, as I'll explain more of when we get into the details of why I chose each photo, which is right now, lol.
So, my selection reasoning. I think the thing that came up to my mind immediately when I made the choices for the two pics was, wow these will be two weightlifting posters where there isn't actually any weightlifting going on, per se. Not that that's a bad thing. But it seems that usually people like having posters of someone mid-snatch, in order to know what good technique is, and to engrain that in their minds. And now that I think about it, maybe some mid-snatch photos would have been cool. Maybe like this one by ATG (ironically, the same snatch I got my poster photo from).
But I don't regret my choice, and that's because I feel like, the more I thought about it, even though the two pictures weren't about lifting the weight, they symbolized what I really liked about weightlifting.
I love how pure the intent is of each lifter. That they only have 3 tries for each lift, the 1 minute timer is ticking and they have to make the lift. I feel like I've said this on the blog sometime ago, but it feels like I'm watching the clutchest part of any sport, condensed into this one competition. It's like a basketball game being determined by each team having to hit 3 buzzer beating threes, each one further away from the basket. And so each lift really counts, and it's interesting to see how each lifter approaches this tension.
I usually love the loud aggressive guys when it comes to that. So I honestly might have gotten a Klokov poster, especially from 2008, had Hookgrip done posters from that long ago. They don't, since they only do things after 2011.
Like there were some pretty loud women in Toma's weight class, with the Colombian lifters and also the one USA lifter. They were pretty cool. But I kind of felt myself drawn more into Toma's aura. How intense she is. She's not really loud, but it's honestly quite palpable how much she cares. And I don't really sense fear from her. Almost like there was no need for her to hype herself up because it wasn't like she was nervous, and had to channel that nervous energy into fierceness. Which is what I tend to do, or like to do, and what I assume other lifters like doing too. There was this real sense of determination I got from Toma's lifting. And that I think is what really drew me into getting a poster of her, and especially of her getting ready for a lift.
So that's like 50% of the reason. The other reason is that she looks cute lol. There's something about how intense she is that's really cute. Also the way she wears her hair. I'm convinced I'd fall for any girl that wears her hair like Toma when she's lifting. I don't know what to really call it, I guess it's like a ponytail bun hybrid thingy.
Anyways yeah, that's why I chose the Toma poster.
As for the Torokhtiy poster, so I kind of knew I wanted a focus-themed poster (Toma), and then I wanted like a celebration poster. And of all the recent lifts I saw at big competitions, I really liked Torokhtiy's celebration. It stood out to me. It felt really strong and genuine. Also looking at the poster/ picture from an aesthetic standpoint, Torokhtiy was wearing all blue, a light blue singlet and a blue undershirt, with some yellow as design. The background for the London 2012 Olympics was blue. So this poster's gonna be mostly blue. And I kind of liked that, not only because blue's one of my favorite colors, but also because I was going to put it right next to my bed, and kind of wanted a calming color, despite the poster itself portraying something intense.
Well, that's pretty much all I want to say about the posters for now. Feel like I've been watching so much weightlifting lately that I almost feel burnt out to a certain extent... trying to take a little break. Really excited for the posters though. I'm guessing they might come in like a week or two. Have to wait and see.
I did a little bit of research, and seems like Hookgrip is mostly a one man show, run by Nat Arem. He was great with my poster requests; got me proofs very quickly, both pictures almost exactly what I wanted. Replied to my questions very meticulously. Would love to buy from him again. Definitely recommend.
I was initially going to buy the posters from IronMind, the Milo cover posters. I was thinking the Lasha, Ilya and Dimas ones, for $45. And they were great posters of legendary lifters, but I felt like, i needed some personal tailoring.
So anyways, about the posters I got. So the two pictures I got were:
1. Torokhtiy in the 2012 Olympics and his celebration after his 3rd C&J attempt, which I still think to this day is one of the sickest celebrations ever (lift starts at around 1 min), and
2. Loredana Toma in the 2019 WWC, preparing for her 2nd snatch attempt. The vid is here, and it's like right around 33:28. So it's her staring at the floor in that position.
I want to post pics of the proofs here, but I haven't checked with Nat about that and I don't want to get in trouble so I'm not doing it for now. But the pictures were so good.
So I guess I'll start with, why posters? I mean because posters kind of quite frankly feel like something middle schoolers put up on their room walls right, like with Eminem or Tupac? Or at least I thought that way, because I was never really a poster kind of guy. My walls were pretty much uncovered in high school, definitely in college. But what got me to think differently was this book I'd been reading about art. And the book stressed the importance of having something to visually remember what it is I enjoy on this Earth. It told me I should rip out interesting photos from magazines and put them into a sort of collage on my wall, and I was like, man I don't know if I'd do that. I don't have any magazines. But anyways the point is, I didn't take it seriously when I initially read that exercise. But then as time went on I became more aware of times when I felt like life was pointless Like I didn't find any joy in anything I was doing, nor could I look to find joy from anything else. And those were honestly tough times.
And so with those experiences in mind, it made more sense to me that, it would be nice to have a visual cue of sorts, to remind me of what I like, what I find dear. And so I chose weightlifting; but not weightlifting per se, as I'll explain more of when we get into the details of why I chose each photo, which is right now, lol.
So, my selection reasoning. I think the thing that came up to my mind immediately when I made the choices for the two pics was, wow these will be two weightlifting posters where there isn't actually any weightlifting going on, per se. Not that that's a bad thing. But it seems that usually people like having posters of someone mid-snatch, in order to know what good technique is, and to engrain that in their minds. And now that I think about it, maybe some mid-snatch photos would have been cool. Maybe like this one by ATG (ironically, the same snatch I got my poster photo from).
But I don't regret my choice, and that's because I feel like, the more I thought about it, even though the two pictures weren't about lifting the weight, they symbolized what I really liked about weightlifting.
I love how pure the intent is of each lifter. That they only have 3 tries for each lift, the 1 minute timer is ticking and they have to make the lift. I feel like I've said this on the blog sometime ago, but it feels like I'm watching the clutchest part of any sport, condensed into this one competition. It's like a basketball game being determined by each team having to hit 3 buzzer beating threes, each one further away from the basket. And so each lift really counts, and it's interesting to see how each lifter approaches this tension.
I usually love the loud aggressive guys when it comes to that. So I honestly might have gotten a Klokov poster, especially from 2008, had Hookgrip done posters from that long ago. They don't, since they only do things after 2011.
Like there were some pretty loud women in Toma's weight class, with the Colombian lifters and also the one USA lifter. They were pretty cool. But I kind of felt myself drawn more into Toma's aura. How intense she is. She's not really loud, but it's honestly quite palpable how much she cares. And I don't really sense fear from her. Almost like there was no need for her to hype herself up because it wasn't like she was nervous, and had to channel that nervous energy into fierceness. Which is what I tend to do, or like to do, and what I assume other lifters like doing too. There was this real sense of determination I got from Toma's lifting. And that I think is what really drew me into getting a poster of her, and especially of her getting ready for a lift.
So that's like 50% of the reason. The other reason is that she looks cute lol. There's something about how intense she is that's really cute. Also the way she wears her hair. I'm convinced I'd fall for any girl that wears her hair like Toma when she's lifting. I don't know what to really call it, I guess it's like a ponytail bun hybrid thingy.
Anyways yeah, that's why I chose the Toma poster.
As for the Torokhtiy poster, so I kind of knew I wanted a focus-themed poster (Toma), and then I wanted like a celebration poster. And of all the recent lifts I saw at big competitions, I really liked Torokhtiy's celebration. It stood out to me. It felt really strong and genuine. Also looking at the poster/ picture from an aesthetic standpoint, Torokhtiy was wearing all blue, a light blue singlet and a blue undershirt, with some yellow as design. The background for the London 2012 Olympics was blue. So this poster's gonna be mostly blue. And I kind of liked that, not only because blue's one of my favorite colors, but also because I was going to put it right next to my bed, and kind of wanted a calming color, despite the poster itself portraying something intense.
Well, that's pretty much all I want to say about the posters for now. Feel like I've been watching so much weightlifting lately that I almost feel burnt out to a certain extent... trying to take a little break. Really excited for the posters though. I'm guessing they might come in like a week or two. Have to wait and see.
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