Saturday, July 16, 2011

What Is Crossfit?

Yes what IS Crossfit?  This question gets asked many times.  You see it asked at the seminars and there is a whole lecture devoted to this. I have a little speech I give to beginners carefully honed over hundreds of presentations.  It was asked again recently on a the One World site.  It got me thinking again that there was something missing in the explanation.  Well today I had a moment of clarity.

I have been involved with Crossfit since about 2007.  In that time I have participated in many WODS and coached a good number too.  I understand the science. Task specific or time specific, across broad modal domains, functional movements, constantly varied.  These are all phrases you will hear when people talk about "what is Crossfit?"

But it is so much more than just science.  A friend of mine regards it as a cult, a bit extreme, but sometimes I can see where he is coming from. All those pictures of people doing handstands and over head squats, taken around the world, are no different from planking and owling!

A client came to the Saturday class to say goodbye today. She flies home on Monday to Oz.  April has been travelling and has spent some significant time over here in the UK.  April was a Saturday regular always there with a smile and a funny story about her students and talking about her adventures with couch surfing. And has great taste in cute hats too.  I was amazed that April brought me a present a home baked apple pie. I was amazed for two reasons, one she went to the trouble to bake this for me and two, she knew it was my absolute favourite desert.

I was even more surprised when it all got a bit emotional I am a big softy really.  Later thinking about this I realised that Crossfit is a place where friends meet with a common interest.  Years ago I used to be an officer safety instructor for the police. I used to talk about how are colleagues are more than just co workers. We know each others first names spend time with them outside of work socialising, playing sport, or more.  They become our friends and this I would use to emphasise how important our colleagues are to us.  This is surely the same about Crossfit clients.  How many staff in the globo gym world can say the same about their clients?

April, thank you for this. Todays lesson learnt is that the opportunities Crossfit and Crossfit London UK have provided me to broaden my horizons in all aspects of life are priceless and the friends I have made are invaluable.      

 

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