I couldn’t believe when I met some of my idols and actual CF stars of the day – I got checked in at the entrance by the incomparable and beautiful Eva Twardokens, stood behind Josh Everett for the weigh in, got judged by Nicole Carroll on my back squat, and competed against Brendan Gilliam and others from Santa Cruz. I also competed against folks I had ‘seen’ on the main page, like a then-not-too-well-known Chris Spealler, and others, C.J. Martin (now owner of CrossFit Invctus, who at the time was a fellow lawyer in a San Diego firm) new friends, like Freddy Camacho (CF One World), The Serranos (CF Marina), and Jake Tsypkin (CF Monterrey), and others with whom I remain close to this day. And I got to meet the mind behind it all, my future boss and friend, Greg Glassman. At the end, Coach asked me to write an article about it for the Journal. The truth is, that article wasn’t great. I couldn’t really capture what was so amazing about it in words, but I think I understand it now. Tony and the Media Team didn’t ask me to write this, but I always wanted to make up for that first, rather middling, effort.
Community.
That first year, there were only 76 men and about 40-50 women (I think, that’s off the top of my head)- that wasn’t the size of the community, but that was the size of the contingent that could come to represent the CF community in Aromas and show our belief in Coach Greg Glassman’s definition of fitness – and our commitment to it. And make no mistake, that’s what the first Games were. It was entirely members of the CrossFit community, the believers, who had bought in and wanted to come be a part of that first attempt at a true competition to determine who was “fittest.” It was those of us who had read “What is Fitness?” and knew at the end of the article that the man and mind behind that had done something different and special in regards to fitness. I’m proud to say I was there (and I’d like to briefly brag about my 4th place in the final event, the CrossFit Total…. except that it would now be a warm-up for the male athletes in the Games).
By 2009, it had grown, but it is still a tie that binds. The threads that run through the Games for me always come back to community. Mikko Salo and “the two Juhas” (Juha, his coach, and Juha, his nutritionist, who now works for Rogue Europe) were standing by the fence while I was helping to roll out matting in the hot sun. We chatted briefly about the upcoming competition and their easy, but stoic, manner stuck with me. “Nice guys,” I thought. I was in the athlete area when the final chipper was announced and I watched Mikko grab a crummy, long rope that was laying around and try to figure out double-unders. He’d never done them. I tried to teach him briefly, as did some of his competitors, and then I went outside. I happend to run into Annie Sakamoto, standing near the fence. I jokingly told her what I had seen. Her eyes flew open. “What? Hold on, I’ve got my rope in my car. I’ll go get it!” Off she flew to get her rope. Turns out Mikko had spent a week before the Games working out at Annie’s affiliate and she felt an obligation to coach him. Back she went with her much better, and newer rope – and better knowledge – and the rest is history. That as the same year that a young lady named Annie Thorisdottir got her first muscle-up in front of a screaming throng of 3-4,000 sympathetic CF’ers – and wound up doing 7 or 8, but she cried at the exercise that cost her a chance at a win. She wouldn’t let that happen again.
In 2010, we got kicked out of the Ranch by San Bernadino County and we got to the Home Depot Center. And that got the attention of some crazy CF’ers who worked for a company called Reebok. Two years later we’re on ESPN, we set an attendance record at the HDC, and we had the Good Year Blimp overhead. The freaking Good Year Blimp. I ran into friends old and new. Jerry Hill of CrossFit Olde Towne (Alexandria) was competing in the Masters Division and he was my coach from a month while I was stuck at the Pentagon a few years back. I ran into Jacinto Bonilla, the ‘older gentlemen’ who inspired so many of us in the early days of the Games with his competitive fire out in the hot sun of the Ranch. He looks like a man ten years younger, chiseled, but with the same great spirit and smile.
The community is now 4K affiliates around the world, but the CrossFit community is still bound by those relationships and ties. I saw Annie Sakamoto come by to ask for Coach’s son, and Jake Tsypkin, who lent me his weight-belt during the deadlift portion of the CF Total back in 2007. I popped into media to say hi to Josh Everett, one of my CF man-crushes, and later got a hug from Greg Amundson, one of our SMEs. That was while I was standing next to Jeff Martone and after I got a chance to hang next to Bill Henniger and Caity Mater-Henniger. I hung out with my legal team, which includes an intern named Gretchen Kittelberger and my own paralegal, who was there at the Ranch in 2008.
It’s still the same as the Ranch. It’s just that now instead of only 130 believers who could find their way to Aromas (and find the house!), we now have thousands of people who believe in this model we have for Fitness, born and bred from their boxes, the web, and conjoined by a respect for their fellow community members. The power of CrossFit is this community. It always has been, whether it’s virtual or in real life. That’s the secret sauce, folks. It’s not monolithic – we don’t always agree. We have those who come in and go, those who disagree and we occasionally fight and have to cool off, but what makes it so powerful is our agreement on Fitness, our commitment to that admixture of lifestyle components – of exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle choices – including community and friends, that makes us all seem like a cult, and yet it is a movement that demands no belief in higher authority, that welcomes those who do (CrossFit Faith) and those who don’t, those who like the same sex and those who like the opposite sex, that wants to help prevent children from drowning or dying of early disease, that wants to build schools in Africa and provide opportunities for that community to become a part of ours, that wants to raise itself up through its commitment to education, a community that honors its veterans and those who serve selflessly as first-responders, and a community that asks only that you believe in our definition of fitness, that you’re committed to empiricism, and that you’re willing to put in the work in order to achieve your goals.
I suppose I sound like I’m proselytizing, but I’m really not. I’m just glad that I found CrossFit, for the friendships, for the impact its had on my life, and the opportunity it’s given me to practice my calling on behalf of a good and worthy cause. So, celebrate 2012 CrossFit Community. And please remember to pay it forward for the next generation.