20 minute read
Pictures of Health
Six-pack abs. Smaller dress sizes. Swole egos. In an exercise culture that flexes skin-deep gains, these four find deeper meaning in daily fitness.
Portraits by Chris Bickford
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swim or swim For Jaime Vanacore, sinking is not an option.
Her exact title is “Aviation Survival Technician.”
The more familiar term is “Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer.” But folks who know Jaime Vanacore just call her “bad ass.”
How else could you describe someone who’s spent more than a decade jumping out of helicopters into heaving seas at a second’s notice — or making sure the next generation of service members is up to the challenge? Both of which require either handling — or inflicting — intense mental and physical stress in the most punishing conditions, from a pool that recreates Cat-1 hurricanes to notoriously intense workouts known as “The Grinder.”
“That’s when you line up for the physical training,” says the 37-year-old KDH mom. “All the burpees, the push-ups, the sprints. And a lot of people, that’s where they hang it up. They either physically can’t do it, or they decide they don’t want to take it anymore.”
Of course, the whole process is designed to weed out the weak — resulting in an 80 percent attrition rate for the Coast Guard’s elite branch of special forces. Yet Jaime not only survived; she thrived. In fact, out of the 13 people in her class, just she and one other finished. When she graduated, Jaime became only the sixth female rescue swimmer in the history of the Coast Guard. But then, the South Florida native was basically born and raised for the job.
“I grew up in the ocean,” says the lifelong surfer. “And I grew up fit. My mom was an aerobics instructor. My dad coached all my sports teams. Even my daycare was called Court Sport.” [Laughs].
By high school, Jaime was a star athlete, playing volleyball, soccer and softball. In fact, she was shopping colleges for scholarships when it struck her that she was done with desks. Her solution? Enlisting in the Coast Guard.
Except the idea backfired.
“I spent my first 10 years on administrative duty,” she recalls. “I hated it. But in hindsight, it worked out well because they won’t let you fly pregnant. So, I had my two kids, and six months after my daughter was born, I put my name on the list to change jobs.” training class was teenage boys — not a 27-year-old mother of two. And yet, Jaime says, she never felt singled out.
“That kind of environment levels the playing field,” she says. “Because you’re all suffering.”
So what’s suffering? Well, some days they might add a weighted vest to The Grinder’s non-stop list of workout tortures. On others, it means swimming laps until you can’t breathe, then have an instructor jump on your back and flail like a panicking victim. In every case you either overcome the situation — or you sink under the pressure.
“The entire training is building up for you to rescue someone,” Jaime says. “It’s also meant to mentally test you to make sure you won’t quit. Because you never know what’s coming next.”
Once on duty, swimmers rotate 24-hour shifts, waiting to hop in a helicopter and race out to sea. A lot of times it’s as mundane as pulling a sick passenger off a cruise ship. Others, it’s as dangerous as diving headfirst into a freezing Nor’easter in the middle of the night.
“When I was stationed in New Jersey, a sailboat got into really rough weather,” Jaime recalls. “One of the guys onboard cracked his head open and needed a hospital. They couldn’t put me down on the boat, because of the pitching and the masts, so they put me in the water, and I swam.”
Jaime literally chased down the sailboat and snagged a trailing rope to climb aboard. Then she grabbed the passenger and plunged back in the maelstrom, where the waiting chopper could hoist them up.
And what if she missed the rope? Or even worse, went under? why training is so tough. Because once you go, you’re on your own.”
These days going to work is a lot less dangerous. In fact, it’s been three years since she’s performed a rescue, thanks to a stroke of bad luck while scuba diving on her day off.
“I got a bubble in my spinal cord,” Jaime explains. “By the time I got to the dock, I was fully paralyzed from the waist down. It took six months before I could walk again. I’m still in physical therapy. I can do all my swimming responsibilities, but I can’t run; my calf strength won’t propel me forward.”
So, instead of jumping from choppers, she drives to Elizabeth City, where she “brings the stress” to the next class of would-be rescuers, whittling down dozens of would-be heroes to the final few who can handle the job.
“There’s totally a personality type,” Jaime says. “You can see the ones who are circling the drain. They’re just waiting for us to blow the whistle so they can get out of the pool. And then you see ones where a switch goes off like, ‘I got this. I can do this.’”
Jaime had just that switch. But, this fall, she’ll retire with 20-years. When she does, it will be a sad moment for the entire Coast Guard, as she’s the last female rescue swimmer left in the service.
“It’s a real bummer,” she says. “When I started, there were three of us out of 300 active rescue swimmers. Now I’m the only one. But it’s hard, because females are naturally smaller. I’m 5’5” and I’m the smallest you can possibly be, because you have to be able to put your arms around and tow a 200-pound person.”
While she’s confident more women will come along to make the cut, Jaime won’t be there to see it. In January, the aviation school moved west to Petaluma, California. Jaime? She says she’s staying right here on the Outer Banks, where she and her family love to surf, spearfish and go to CrossFit. And while she’s not sure what her next career will be, she’s got one pressing job: to get her body back working 100 percent.
“I really want to run again,” she says. “Maybe I’ll get there; maybe I won’t. But there’s no way I’m quitting.”
— Emerson Atwater
head
head strong Khalel Sibugan combines brains and brawn to beat his competitors.
Khalel Sibugan doesn’t say a whole lot —
at least during press interviews. Like most seventh-grader grapplers, he’d rather wrestle or workout than talk about his record. But under all that humility lurks the quiet confidence of a lethal competitor. Last November, the Corolla teen traveled to Las Vegas’ International Brazilian JiuJitsu (IBJJF) Con Kids tournament, where he took third against foes from around the globe. Prior to that? He can’t remember the last time he tasted defeat.
“Before [Las Vegas], I did the Fuji [BJJ tournament] in North Carolina, I was 13 and zero,” says Khalel, who’s now 13. “I didn’t have any losses, and I got five gold medals.”
But, then again, Khalel excels at most martial arts. He started with kickboxing when he was around eight. Today, he focuses mostly on Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling. And while the initial goal was to “learn about self-defense,” he’s finding the long-term rewards ripple across everyday life. Like the camaraderie that comes from training with friends. Or the mental strength that stems from working toward goals.
“Trying to focus on stuff helps me in school,” Khalel explains. “Grades are like workouts and staying in good shape — you’ve got to keep studying.”
The results are apparent at Corolla’s Water’s Edge Village School, where he brings home As and Bs. Even better, nobody has to tell him to do it.
“I don’t have to hound him about homework, because he has discipline,” says his father, Trinity Yanez.
He’s also got drive. It’s that combination that makes Khalel such a strong competitor.
“The way he approaches things, it’s phenomenal,” says Khalel’s coach and mentor Rick Bateman, founder of Nags Head’s OBX Martial Arts. “He’ll take any challenge, and he’ll hit it head on.” So, Rick puts Khalel in situations where he should be in over his head — older competitors, heavier weight classes. He may not always win, but he always comes back.
“I’ve thrown that kid to the wolves so many times,” Rick laughs. “And each time I’m like, ‘Dude, how did you survive?’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t know. We’re just supposed to keep working.’”
Rick opened OBX Martial Arts studio five years ago to help kids like Khalel learn this very lesson.
Rick grew up in Manteo, was homeless for a while, and credits wrestling with saving his life. He excelled on the mat, too, placing second in the state his senior year of high school. After graduating, he joined the military, where he fought in Afghanistan. In 2012, he returned home with a Purple Heart — and a vision of what to do next.
“I was thinking I would try to heal up and be a wrestling coach, because wrestling was something I really enjoyed,” Rick recalls. “One of my best friends, Shane Brinn, who won the state title for Manteo the year after me, was training for a fight. And he asked me to come help him.”
One problem: Rick didn’t think his prior injuries would allow him to participate.
“I broke my elbow. I broke my knee. I destroyed pretty much my entire left leg,” he says.
His friend, though, insisted, and it changed everything.
“He took me to a Jiu-Jitsu practice, and it was like I never left,” Rick says. “Without Jiu-Jitsu, I wouldn’t be able to walk correctly. I definitely wouldn’t be able to grab things.” Today, Rick sees the sport as a key to helping kids succeed in life, because it is more than walking on a mat and defeating an opponent. It’s about teamwork, building character — and teaching them important life skills.
“In order to grow, to get your next belt, you have to be a good partner,” Rick explains. “I don’t care how good you are — if your partner is not getting better, you’re doing it wrong. It’s not good enough to be the best person in the room if you can’t bring people with you.”
Rick must be doing something right. Nine of his 10 students are ranked first in North Carolina. His daughter, Ryder, who turns nine in May, recently placed number one in her group at the Fuji BJJ tournament in Virginia. And there’s Khalel, who’s not only Bateman’s first internationally ranked student, but a top wrestler as well.
In fact, according to Trinity Yanez, his son may be even better at traditional wrestling than he is at Jiu-Jitsu — partially because he’s faced so many challenges.
“He went to a really good wrestling school and he was getting smashed everyday,” Trinity recalls. “But he said that level of competition makes you better. And it did.”
We’ll see how that strategy plays out this fall. Khalel’s family is moving to Dare County so he can enroll at First Flight Middle School to take advantage of their wrestling program.
But if history is any indication, facing a bigger talent pool will only make Khalel stronger. After all, he may not have won at the IBJJF Con Kids tournament in Vegas, but his just getting there is what put the rest of the world on notice. And from international competitions to local workouts, he’s learned one valuable lesson:
“You only get better with better competition.”
— Kip Tabb
HE MAY NOT ALWAYS WIN, BUT HE ALWAYS COMES BACK.
forward
forward motion Rita Ayers only has one exercise routine: just keep moving.
Everybody can have a better life if they move their bodies more. That’s Rita Ayers’ philosophy.
“I’m a firm believer in the benefits of exercise,” Rita says. “You can’t get away from genetics, but the next biggest factor is how hard you exercise.”
A 70-year-old with an athletic build, visible muscles under tan skin and a vibrant, ever-present smile, Rita is an active participant in the Outer Banks Silver Riders cycling club, runs and walks daily, practices HIIT and weight training, plays golf, and standup paddleboards. She’s medaled in 20k and 40k bike races in the Senior Games National Olympics and will compete in the national games again this year. She’s run dozens of half marathons and ridden her bike across North Carolina and Missouri and around the Big Island, Hawaii. In 2018, she biked from San Diego to St. Augustine, more than 3,000 miles, in 53 days.
It would be an impressively active life for anyone of any age, but Rita has the added challenge of doing it all with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Not that you can tell.
“Some days for me [being active] is getting up and getting dressed,” she says. “But fortunately, there are not many of those.”
Rita had always been preternaturally energetic, playing volleyball, softball, and tennis and practicing aerobics until, at age 42, she started having strange episodes with her vision and handeye coordination. Jumping to spike a volleyball or swinging a bat at a softball, she would completely miss. When she started experiencing numbness in her limbs and torso, involuntary muscle contractions and fatigue, she knew something was wrong.
Doctors suspected Rita had MS, but she wasn’t officially diagnosed with the disease until age 51. And since her form of MS is relapsing-remitting, not progressive, it was easy for her to hide her symptoms. want it to impact my career. I didn’t want people to make judgements about me or to remind me that I might be sick. I did what the doctors told me to do (which included a daily injection of medication and getting more sleep) and otherwise ignored the fact that I had it.”
Mostly, Rita kept moving. Unable to play some sports or practice aerobics due to her vision problems, she took up running, competing in fourto-five half marathons a year, and, at 57, running her best time. In her early 60s, she turned to cycling. She met Jack McCombs, de facto leader of the Outer Banks Silver Riders, who took her under his wing and taught her to race. (It was McCombs who brought up to Rita riding across the country and also suggested that she go public with the fact that she has MS.)
“I’m pretty fast on a bike and I love riding,” Rita says. Her racing strategy, whether running or biking, is to push hard, then pull back and rest, then push hard, over and over again.
In 2018, Rita decided to truly push her limits by cycling across the U.S. She joined a group of 46 riders ranging in age from 53 to 79 for a fully supported ride with Bubba’s Pampered Pedalers. The pampering included hauling gear and breaking down and setting up tents, so all the bikers had to do was ride — an average of 65 miles a day. They started the trip with their rear tire in the Pacific and ended with their front tire in the Atlantic. Inbetween, Rita blogged and posted on social media daily, raising $15,000 for MS research.
Rita says she was the last to leave the campsites in the morning and the last to arrive at night, due to her need to warm up longer in the morning and rest more along the way. Some days she felt great, and others were tough. “At some points I honestly didn’t know if I’d make it or not,” she says. “Some days were so physically hard and painful I just had to stop and cry for a while.”
But she never complained and kept pushing herself to the end, where her fellow racers voted to have her lead the last mile to the beach. “It was a huge honor for me,” Rita says.
In May 2016, after more than 20 years of living with MS, Rita asked her doctor if she could go off her daily medication. She had permanent damage in her body and occasional fatigue, but the disease was not progressing with new symptoms.
“I admit I was partially motivated by going on Medicaid, and my medication expense was going to rise tenfold,” she says. The doctor agreed to let her try it and come back for an MRI in six months. She’s been off the medication ever since.
Rita credits her high level of movement to keeping new MS symptoms at bay. So, instead of spending her money on prescriptions, she spends it on new equipment and adventures. She has six bikes, one for every possible riding opportunity, a couple of SUPs, and a puppy to paddle, walk and run with.
She also makes sure she gets at least eight hours of sleep each night.
“If I don’t get enough sleep,” Rita says, “it’s hard to get up and move and exercise.”
Still, staying active remains her foundation for physical health and stress relief. (“It’s a way to get rid of the negatives.”) Which is why her number one piece of advice for others is to do something physically hard every single day: “It doesn’t matter what you do as long as it pushes you physically — even if it’s just walking around the house.”
As for the future, she doesn’t have a bucket list of activities, just a single mantra — keep moving, no matter what.
body of work Al Bailey brings together mind and muscle to practice physical and spiritual fitness.
Each morning as the sun rises over the horizon, Al
Bailey stands at the ocean’s edge. Barefoot, he walks a circle — repetitively, purposefully — putting one foot down, then the other, his mind immersed in the rhythm of his breath and the bottoms of his feet. Bailey is practicing Bagua QiGong, or circle walking meditation. It’s an ancient art he learned in China in 2002. Bagua is not only a mental and spiritual exercise, but also a physical one.
“Ba represents the number eight in Mandarin, and that’s related to the human structure and eight gates in the body — jaw, neck, shoulder, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles,” he says. “When you walk the circle, those gates open, releasing inflammation and stiffness in the joints.”
The location is as important as the practice. Because sand moves constantly, slowly walking on the beach activates his core muscles, requiring balance, building strength and bringing up memories stored in his body, which he has taught himself to breathe away. Also, “Being near the ocean is purifying. Negative ions help repair and replenish the elixirs and essences of what we need to grow and heal.”
Al is muscular, lithe and smooth-skinned with clear, bright eyes. Even with his graying hair and beard, he barely looks 40 — much less 65.
“It’s the practices,” he says. “My philosophy is to be in the moment. The more you’re in the moment, the more you stunt the aging processes, because you’re not being bound or influenced by time.”
Al is well-known on the Outer Banks as a healer, body worker, massage therapist, breath coach, doulo (birth assistant), life coach, and general wise one. But he sums up what he does differently: “I introduce people to the natural rhythm flow that their body remembers but their mind forgot because of their distractions.”
Growing up as the fourteenth of 14 children in Elizabeth City, Al was a farm boy, fisherman and athlete. He was a Junior Olympian race walker, ran low and high hurdles, competed in high jump, and played football. After graduating high school in 1976, he was playing soccer, partying and struggling to find meaningful work when, in 1978, a brother-in-law talked him into going to an insurance sales school in Chicago, the William Clements Stone School of Positive Motivation — “a success system that never fails due to a positive mental attitude.”
Al didn’t sell insurance for long, but the skills he learned soon became extremely useful. In 1980, he was driving on a rainy night when his vehicle hydroplaned and hit a tree. He was blind for 20 minutes and could not walk. While he recovered from his head injury, he used the tools from the School of Positive Motivation to heal himself.
“I watched my old self die in that wreck,” he says. “All my wild partying stopped. I still have a piece of glass in my left ear from the situation. I call it a situation, because it wasn’t an accident. I understand it now.”
One of the gifts from the experience was a newfound appreciation of breath.
“The breath is related to all thoughts and movement,” Al says. “It started in the ambulance when I was aware of the power of my breath and how I could use it to calm my body. Without watching the breath, my movement was in pain.”
Al recovered, moving to Norfolk then the Outer Banks and working in various jobs, from construction to the corporate world to food service. He helped open a restaurant at the Village at Nags Head, where his employer loaned him the money to go to massage school.
Once he was on the path of healing, doors flew open. Al met one of his early teachers, a West African shaman named Malidoma Patrice Sumé, and then was invited by a client to learn Bagua in China. He discovered a gift for playing digeridoo and other instruments and began incorporating sound into his healing work. Then he was invited to travel to Peru to the study the plant medicine of ayahuasca. After a trip deep into the Peruvian jungle and two days of preparation, he drank the “mother vine” under the guidance of a Peruvian shaman.
“That was the deal for me,” Al says. “Ayahuasca slowed down the rhythms for me to see something greater than myself.”
He did not want to leave the peace of the jungle, but back at home, the purpose of the experience became clear.
“She [ayahuasca] locked it all in — integrated the breathwork, the massage, the bodywork, the Bagua,” he says. “And everything took off. I started witnessing healings that were happening to myself and my clients. It motivated me to do more.”
Al bounced between the Outer Banks and Asheville, then spent three years in Elizabeth City caring for his ailing father. He came back to the Outer Banks permanently during COVID. He lives and works in a small house on Colington Island, helping others through bodywork (his practice is called Nowon), teaching, coaching and training people to “breathe about life rather than thinking about life.”
“Thinking repels life,” he says. “Worried and stressful thoughts repel solutions. Breathing about life is where the healing is.”
He’s also developed a retreat system known as LITRON, which stands for Living in the Rhythm of Now. It’s a three-hour online class, then a three-day retreat followed by a 21-day coaching period.
“It’s a Re-Treat, not to get away, but to treat yourself to your own personal rhythm that your body remembers before all the stress,” Al explains.
He plans to develop a school based on LITRON.
“I’m a healer, but I don’t do the healing for people,” he says. “I introduce people to a way they can develop their own response practice that will begin to heal them from the inside. Through practicing and doing their own work they become self-motivated, self-inspired and selfreliant.”
And to keep helping others heal, Al practices Bagua, walking the circle, to heal himself.
