Be Scared But Do It Anyway with Celia Mulderrig

This is the first of a two part episode recorded on La Misión Surf Trip with the Surf Continuum. When I was in the very beginning stages of learning to surf, I was completely clueless about surf etiquette and all of the rudimentary steps that precede actually standing on a surfboard. Then, I found KookCast, hosted by the Surf Continuum and everything started to make sense. Coaches Chris and Ev do a fantastic job of breaking down the fundamentals of learning to surf and they teach you how to stay safe in the water. After following their podcast for a year, I jumped at the chance to join their Baja Surf Trip. It was spectacular. 7 days of 4 hour morning surf sessions in uncrowded lineups, lots of followup feedback, video sessions, and a local’s experience in Baja. In addition, we were only 7 students, the coolest group of people with whom you would ever hope to share this kind of intense experience. In the following two episodes I interview the other two women who were on the trip with me.

In this episode with Celia Mulderrig, we talk about embracing fear head-on by doing scary things such as improv, Muay Thai Kickboxing, Tough Mudder obstacle courses and of course learning to surf. We discuss how to set clear intentions before a surf session or any challenging activity, and the vital importance of creating community wherever you go. Celia will challenge you to be scared but do it anyway because more often than not, the stakes couldn’t be lower.

Show Highlights:

[0:00 - 5:14]  Doing Improv: The Stakes couldn’t be lower

[5:15- 9:42]  Muay Thai Kickboxing: Do I cry or throw up?

[9:43 - 13:47]  Tough Mudder: For the love of strangers

[13:48 - 16:29]  La Misión Surf Trip: Setting Clear Intentions

[16:30 -22:54]  Kookcast: The ultimate beginner tool belt

Quotes by Celia:

“The first Muay Thai class I did was an hour and a half. At the end of it, I didn't know if I was going to cry or throw up because it was such an intense workout and I was really hooked!”

“In Tough Mudder, we intentionally build obstacles where you would have to work together to complete them. There's something really powerful when you're doing it for a stranger. You reach out a hand and a stranger just grabs it and helps you over. There's no questions asked, like, who are you? What do you need? It’s just I see you and I help you.”

“I don't want to look back on my life and say I didn't do this thing because I was afraid. I think recognizing that fear has a purpose. It's to protect you and our bodies don't always recognize what is a real fear versus a perceived fear. Don't let it hold you back. Life's too short.”

Get in touch with Celia

• Instagram celia2001spaceodessey

More about Christine Foerster

• christinefoerster.com
• Instagram @christinefoerster

Transcript

Christine: Hi Celia.

Celia: Hi. 

Christine: Welcome to the podcast. 

Celia: Thank you for having me. 

Christine: Your personal motto is be afraid but do it anyway and that seems very applicable to your experimentation with improv in 2020. So tell us about that. 

Celia: It was something that I'd wanted to do for a long time. So when I first moved to New York, I had this idea in my head that I would go to UCB or Upright Citizens Brigade and I would try this thing that I wanted to do. And then suddenly it was five years later and I'd never done it. So in 2020, I decided to sign up and it ended up being one of the scariest things I've ever done, but it was actually amazing because the group I was with, even though we were very different people, a lot of them were like 20 year old theater students who were,  making it in New York, and I think there were four of us that were over the age of 30.

Celia: It really pushed me outside of my comfort zone and it made me explore this more theatrical part that I'd wanted to explore, but I think I'd been too afraid. And the funny part about it was that the instructor had this motto, the thing that she said stuck with me that I use quite frequently, which is, the stakes could not be lower. I mean, it's so useful because we were an adult improv class like what could go wrong? And the worst thing is that it's just not funny and no one dies and it's fine. Right? So just thinking of it that way, there's just been so many situations in my life or my friends' lives where I've used that. The thing that was the scariest to me was that we had to put on a show at the end of it. It all leads to something eventually, right? Like, Do this in front of people. And, , and we did it, and it was great. And, nobody died. At the end of it we all stayed in touch and some of them are trying to still make it in theater and acting. For me, that was enough. I was like, okay, I've tried this, but, it was scary. It just felt like using muscles I'd never really used. 

Christine: You have to think on your toes a lot, right? And you're basically given some kind of a concept or a very nice idea, and you just have to run with it?

Celia: Totally. So the whole idea is that someone will throw out a word, so let's say pineapple. And you have this idea of what the scene would be and who you are and where you are. And then your partner's like, and we're in space. And you're like, okay, now we're in space. And we've got this pineapple and so it was a really good sort of reframing. You're trying to take things along one way, but it can totally change and take you in a completely different way. 

Christine: Excellent. So along the same lines of being afraid, but doing it anyways, you also practice Thai kickboxing. And you actually moved to Thailand with the idea of competing. So please to tell us about that.

Celia: I found Muay Thai when I was about 23, my last year of college. I just tried a boxing class and then I found this other MMA gym, but it was much more like karate based martial arts. That was happening in the front of the gym. And then in the back of the gym, there was just these guys and I would just hear like grunts coming from there and really intense workout sounds, and I was like, oh my God, that seems like really too much. But I was curious, but it was intimidating. Then I went for the class one time and the instructor wasn't there and the other instructor was like, why don't you come back here and try this? And so the first Muay Thai class I did, it was an hour and a half and at the end of it, I didn't know if I was going to cry or throw up because it was such an intense workout and I was really hooked. For a couple of reasons, the instructor was amazing. He was so charismatic, welcoming. He brought people together. So immediately I felt like this intimidating community was welcoming and then also it was really hard and I was just pushing myself. I ended up training during the week because I was a student. I had a much more flexible schedule and started training with them, and really had this idea that I wanted to progress to amateur fights or to professional fighting, to represent that gym. But in the meantime, life happens. And I was in my last year of college.

Celia: I got a job teaching in Japan after college because I thought that'll be great. I'll have my year after graduation sorted and I'll get to travel and I'll get to hopefully pay back some student loans. But before that, my friend and I went to Thailand and we ended up doing what 23 year olds in Thailand do which is partying and going on fun adventures. I was going to go to a training camp at the time, but it was way less popular and it was more difficult. You had to be almost a professional to go to one of these camps. So I didn't do it. Instead, when I went to Japan, I started working, and my career became a focus. It was hard to find gyms that did that style. There's different types of martial arts. So, it didn't really happen. And then I got into running. I moved from Japan to London and I found a gym there and then I got injured. So it had been this long sort of time of like doing it for a while and then not doing it.

Celia: Finally, in 2020, I decided I'd been at my company for five years and I was like, I'm going to leave and travel and do this stuff that I've put on the back burner. And so that's when I decided, okay, I'm going to go to Thailand and I'm going to do this training camp. I'll sign up for two weeks and I'll see how I feel after that. I was there for a month and this was directly before COVID, and it was amazing. But in the process of actually being there, I realized I didn't want to really do a competition. I didn't want to do an amateur fight. When you go to Thailand, there are different sort of shady gym owners who can push you into doing a fight whether you're ready or not. So it's really important to find the right gym and not just end up competing before you're ready. And that's where I think the relationship between like your coach and you as an athlete is really important, that you have that trust bond, that they're not going to put you in a situation where you're in danger.

Celia: But I didn't know that going there. I was like, let's see, I'll see how I feel. And then in watching the commitment it takes to actually train for a fight, the level of risk of injury. That's huge. You're lucky if you don't get injured. And you get injured just training anyway, but actually very badly injured. I don't want to risk that. It made me realize I can do the sport and appreciate it and try and get better at it, but I don't ultimately have to get to this level of competing. 

Christine: You were the VP of e commerce marketing for the company Tough Mudder, which is also kind of this crazy obstacle course, intensive thing. But, that sport has a sense of community, right? And I was wondering at what point that ties into the Thai kickboxing. And then to contrast that with surfing.

Celia: Yeah. This was a bit strange. I was working in e-commerce and retail for a British retailer in London and my partner got a job in New York. When I moved to New York, it was a bit of a reset. My company didn't have any offices there or any presence in the 
U. S. So I was looking for jobs and I was looking big retailers, working on their project management and development. Then I saw this job for Tough Mudder and they were looking for somebody to come in and set up their e-commerce program.

Celia: The job description was like three pages long and I was like, well, I think I can do two of these three pages worth of stuff. The CMO was very thorough and detail oriented. So I started working with them and, every time I thought about leaving, they gave me some new opportunity and it was a really wild ride.

Celia: It was really fun, great people worked there. 

Christine: Can you describe the obstacle course? So anybody who doesn't know what Tough Mudder is, can have a vision of what this race is?

Celia:. Yeah, absolutely. Tough Mudder, a typical obstacle course would be like 8 to 10 miles and it would have about 20 different obstacles that you'd have to complete and the obstacles themselves could be like going over this series of barrels or carrying these logs. And then there were the big obstacles where you had to grab onto a bar, swing, hit a bell, and then fall into a pit of water. Or, one of our famous ones, you had to run up a half pipe and jump, grab the top, and usually you couldn't grab the top of the rail yourself, so there would be people at the top pulling you over. And these are also participants. 

Christine: So this is the community aspect of it? I'm just thinking also about Thai kickboxing, where you are actually competing trying to win. Eliminate your component and in this case you're kind of competing in a way with these participants, but you're all helping each other through the course. 

Celia:. Yeah. None of it was timed and that was very intentional. The CEO had done a triathlon and was struggling to get out of his wetsuit and he asked someone for help and they brushed him off. Pushed past him and so just a feeling of like you can't even ask someone for help in this moment I was sort of fostered into the ethos of the company. We actually intentionally build obstacles where you would have to work together to complete them and there's something really powerful when you're doing it for a stranger. You reach out a hand and a stranger just grabs it and helps you over. There's no questions asked, like, who are you? what do you need? It's like, I see you and I help you. 

Celia: You've got the endorphins from the full exertion, 

Christine: But then there's all these other endorphins from this person who did this nice, kind gesture to you, right? It's gotta be really thrilling.

Celia: I think that's it. So many people had amazing experiences because often it was forcing yourself to do the thing that you thought you couldn't do. And then when you accomplish it, you have that amazing feeling of achievement. And then also you're doing it with people, you're doing with friends, you're doing it with strangers. It’s really just fostering that sense of accomplishing hard things together. With Thai boxing, you’re the individual in the ring, but you have a team behind you. And I'm part of a gym in Los Angeles right now, where some of the athletes are competing and the gym comes out for them and supports them. I think it's really important to have that. You might be the one in the ring, but you've got that team behind you. 

Christine: Well, let's move on to surfing. We are currently on a surf trip in Baja, organized by the Surf Continuum and you are my roommate. I think it’s quite risky to room with someone you don't know, especially when you're doing a rigorous week of four hour surf sessions in the mornings as we have been. But I felt this immediate kinship with you, and it's been a joy to be your roommate, mostly because you're always joking and you're really open to sharing yourself. 

Celia: Aw, thank you. It's been great. 

Christine: In Baja, we've been working a lot with the fundamentals of surfing, these are developed by Coach Chris and Coach Evan. Shout out to the KookCast, they've given us beginners a really good tool belt. 

Celia: Yeah, absolutely. 

Christine: I would love it if you could walk us through your progress this week and discuss a few of the fundamentals that you focused on in your surfing. 

Celia: I've been trying to surf for a long time but really got more serious since last spring, so almost a year. That's part of why I came on this trip because I felt like I was just sort of plateauing by myself. I surf with a friend in LA who's about my level and I just need some focus. I need somebody to help me understand what are the things that I’m doing or not doing that are holding me back. I did a session with them the week before we came. And I found that really useful because they pointed out some things that I hadn't realized I was doing. I was too far back on my board. So I was going for waves and I was just slowing myself down. That gave me a focus coming into this. I'm very goal oriented, so I'm like, okay, what's my intention for this? I had three intentions coming on the trip or three goals. One was to improve my surfing. One was to meet other surfers because it can be very lonely and it can be difficult to find that community within surfing, especially people who are at your level. Either above or below. I'm meeting lots of people who are absolute beginners and a few people who are like more experienced But it's hard to meet people who are sort of in the same place as you. The third thing was, because I'm relatively new to California, to understand this area better and understand like different surf spots in Southern California, Northern Baja, that I could go to.

Celia: Those are my three goals. I think I've accomplished all of them, but more 
specifically about what I've been trying to work on with this surfing trip. It was a bit of a reset for me because I felt like I'd been surfing quite a bit and yet hadn't really felt like it was coming together or it would come together, but then I would regress and that's been really frustrating. What I learned this week was really looking to see the waves better, better positioning in the water to go and catch waves. I think I was going too much on the shoulder as opposed to actually going deep or I was going too deep too soon and then the wave would pass me by. So really trying to understand positioning. That was the first thing I think I've improved on this week. The other one was setting my rail. Making sure not to pop up right away, but actually making sure to take a beat and to angle one way or the other, and sort of set the intention on the wave. I've gotten better at that, but I still have a long way to go with it. I think just stability on the board and dismounting or the other things that I've been working on. So nothing to do with actually standing up on your surfboard and but all the other stuff that gets you there.

Christine: Yeah, it's been really fun because there's seven of us here on this trip. And we now understand all the fundamentals and then we do these video recaps. And it's really neat actually to see. It's really interesting to see not only feel our own progress, but seeing other people around us, our group’s progress, and then also seeing how that plays out on the video. I think it really cements it, right? If you're talking about, for example, the rail set. Okay, now I'm finally feeling it. I press it up, and I push it in, but then I'm seeing you do it, and then I see it on the video later, and it's just over and over and over again, I think that's what we need is that repetition until it's like finally drilled into our heads, but then also it feels natural in our bodies.

Celia: You've got that muscle memory to do it. Yeah, I agree, and I think this trip's been really supportive. We've talked about it at dinner, but having the team kind of behind you, and cheering when you get that wave cause we all know what we're all working on. If like one of us gets a wave, everyone's like, Oh yeah, way to go! It does feel like a win for the team. So anyway, we're going to nationals soon. And I think that in a very singular sport, it's good to have that camaraderie and that team spirit in the lineup. Maybe I can ask you, what have you learned this week? 

Christine: For me, I was very nervous coming in, thinking how am I going to be able to have the stamina to go four hours? I've never surfed for four hours in a row, first of all. 

Celia: Yeah, me either. 

Christine: To do that every day for a week. So to get through the first day felt like a huge win for me, just that, I did have the stamina. I could do it. And I'm also one of the definite beginners of the group. And that's fine. That's just where I'm at. It's been really neat, this sense of community. I've been learning to surf and most of the time,I go by myself and I try to find that open space in the water. So it's been a very solitary sport for me so far. Except for when I do these sessions, and that's part of the reason, the instigation behind the podcast is I really wanted to build that sense of community and spend the time to get to, especially somebody who knows a little bit more than me and like have that dialogue together.

Christine: I have to mention the fundamentals because I really think Coach Evan, Coach Chris, do such a good job at breaking those things down as a beginner where you have no idea what you're doing and they really like break it down well for you. But I feel that sense of community is so important. I have never felt so much glee and bliss in the water with a group of people because we're all here with that same kind of project and heart, you know, putting a lot of heart into it at the same time. So it's been really, really fun just to feel my progress, but then everybody else's progress around me.

Celia: It's interesting. Like you mentioned being afraid. And I think that's something that I very much felt like the first day we went out. The wind was throwing water in our faces. It felt really big and that feeling of like, can I do this? I've been trying to prepare for this, but am I going to just get out there and not be able to do anything? There's so much fear in surfing, fear of being in the lineup and getting in someone's way and fear of getting shouted at. Again. The stakes couldn't be lower, somebody's shouting at you. But but I also feel that just going for some of the waves, like part of the wave positioning was being like that wave looks huge and I'm still gonna go for it. I'm gonna three out of four times get rocked, but that one time it will line up and I'll actually get a great ride. I think so much of it is just overcoming fear. It’s routinely putting yourself in a place where you're afraid and you get a little bit less afraid every time you do it. 

Christine: I really respect you for that. Now that I understand your history too, you really do live up to that idea of be afraid and do it anyway. You see that through working with Tough Mudder, going to Thailand to learn Thai kickboxing, improv, and it's there. There are a variety of activities. It's not like they're all physical. Good for you.

Celia: Thank you. I think part of it is that I don't want to look back on my life and say I didn't do this thing because I was afraid. I think recognizing that fear has a purpose. It's to protect you and our bodies don't always recognize what is a real fear versus a perceived fear. Don't let it hold you back. Life's too short. 

Christine: It is. Alright. Thank you so much, Celia. This is great.

Celia: Thank you. I'm glad we did it. 

Christine: Me too. Now, more Baja. 

Celia: Okay, let's do it.