{"id":984,"date":"2019-04-27T00:44:45","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T00:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mayalaylor.com\/?p=984"},"modified":"2020-04-08T19:58:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T19:58:28","slug":"alter-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayalaylor.com\/alter-ego\/","title":{"rendered":"Alter Ego"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/mayalaylor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/thumbnail-2-1-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"986\" data-link=\"https:\/\/mayalaylor.com\/?attachment_id=986\" class=\"wp-image-986\"\/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m sure you guys are aware of my Unleash The Beast shirts, right?? Well there&#8217;s a reason for that slogan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an athlete you&#8217;ve got to have an edge, you&#8217;ve gotta be raw and get grimy\u2026. well that\u2019s what I believe anyway. You can&#8217;t be too nice during training. You&#8217;ve gotta rough the weights up a bit, like someone who owes you money, show them who&#8217;s boss. You&#8217;ve gotta own the weights, the weights don\u2019t own you. But you have to always remember to respect them, always show respect to your craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;When I train I am not Maya anymore, my alter ego comes out and we&#8217;ve named her \u201cthe Beast\u201d. She&#8217;s raw and she&#8217;s not about the games. She doesn\u2019t play around but gets right to business. She&#8217;s always angry,&nbsp;<em>furious<\/em>and dominates anything that gets in her way.&nbsp;&nbsp;She doesn&#8217;t entertain doubt and she&#8217;s&nbsp;<em>always<\/em>on&nbsp;<em>GO<\/em>!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People already know that I don\u2019t talk or smile much while training. I only chat when I&#8217;m on breaks or when I&#8217;m finished. If you&#8217;ve read my blog \u201cRefocused\u201d then you\u2019ve heard this before. With my type of training I can&#8217;t be nice, I can&#8217;t be all happy go lucky while breaking my back every&#8230;single&#8230;day. I just can\u2019t do it, its not possible. I really decided to let her out during training after I went to the Dominican Republic for the Pan Am Championships, because I saw how unapologetically fierce the other female athletes trained, and I was like \u201cOh, no way! This is how I&#8217;ve always wanted to train!\u201d But held back because I worried how others might perceive me. However, right then and there, I left that fear on the training hall floor and found my Beast. If people don\u2019t like it then that\u2019s on them.&nbsp;<em>I<\/em>know what I&#8217;m working for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know it sounds a little weird or crazy to hear of an alter ego, like something from a movie. But art imitates life, it&#8217;s real. I\u2019ve read of many Olympians, business professionals and entertainers who have created one to get through tough times, for example, Beyonc\u00e9, Bo Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, etc.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unleashing my alter ego, my Beast, helps me through the darks days. Days when I don\u2019t even want&nbsp;<em>see<\/em>the gym. She&#8217;s got my back!&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m sure you guys are aware of my Unleash The Beast shirts, right?? Well there&#8217;s a reason for that slogan.&nbsp; As an athlete you&#8217;ve got to have an edge, you&#8217;ve gotta be raw and get grimy\u2026. well that\u2019s what I believe anyway. You can&#8217;t be too nice during training. You&#8217;ve gotta rough the weights up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alter Ego - Maya Laylor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mayalaylor.com\/alter-ego\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alter Ego - Maya Laylor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m sure you guys are aware of my Unleash The Beast shirts, right?? Well there&#8217;s a reason for that slogan.&nbsp; As an athlete you&#8217;ve got to have an edge, you&#8217;ve gotta be raw and get grimy\u2026. well that\u2019s what I believe anyway. You can&#8217;t be too nice during training. 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