Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Sunday musings …

1) Chew toy. What “The Heir’s” dog apparently thinks when she sees a Pekinese.

2) Wind. Lake Erie is a’boil, and the flag stands at attention. NOW I understand.

3) Airs. As in “taking on”. I have before me an ad for “Single Estate” Vodka. What does that even mean? “Single Estate” like wine? Am I to somehow equate a “Single Estate” vodka, potatoes presumably harvested from a single farm on which the still resides with, say, Chateau Margaux?

That’s just silliness.

4) Marines. Happy Birthday to the U.S. Marine Corps. There’s a quote floating around about savages with clean bodies and dirty minds, attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, I think. Pretty much fits the crew I’ve come to know, though YMMV.

There are too many Marines hereabouts to send a shout-out to you all–I’d surely miss someone important. Happy Birthday to you all, but especially my “extra” son Alex, recently promoted to E5 and off to EOD school very shortly.

Semper Fi to you all.

5) Community. We speak of the CrossFit Community as if it is a single whole. Omnibus. All of a type, all rowing in the same direction, a single coxswain at the helm. Non-CrossFitters, especially external critics, always talk of the CF Community in this way. More so, when CrossFit is spoken of in the plural, it is done so with an “understanding” that everyone is having the same experience in the same way in the same kind of place, and that we all have the same singular point of view regarding fitness.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Once upon a time, back in the days of the Giants, the real OG’s, this was a little closer to reality. Everyone could track themselves back to CF Santa Cruz, and the only people who did NOT have a common CF experience were actually the people who worked out at CFSC–all the rest of us did the WODs as posted here on CrossFit.com. We kinda did all act the same back then. We had that alternative rocker, first to plant the flag swagger of Discoverers, and we fought tooth and nail to defend our tiny fiefdom. Fitness evangelicals with bared teeth and low body fat–that was us, almost to a person.

It ain’t like that anymore. How could it be? ~8,000 Affiliates and –what–1.5MM people CrossFitting? All defined in a single way and labeled the CrossFit Community? Everyone’s CrossFit the same? That’s silly. Maybe not “Single Estate Vodka” silly, but silly nonetheless. There is an ethic, a style, a culture that has its roots in those early days of CrossFit Santa Cruz and a CrossFit.com with 800 posts per day, but that culture includes a very important version of CrossFit and CrossFitters that harkens back to the earliest days of CF and some of the single-digit issues of the CFJ–the solo CrossFitter.

One of the earliest issue of the CFJ was filled with a “how to” instruction guide for constructing a garage gym. Many’s the athlete who did her WOD in a commercial gym–my first 6.5 years as a CrossFitter took place in a fancy Globo. The earliest manifestation of the CrossFit community was the coaching and support that took place on CrossFit.com and the Message Board because there simply weren’t any Boxes available. While most of us have emigrated to a local Affiliate, there are still thousands among us who work out solo, many by choice and many of them in the shadow of a Box. They are part of the CrossFit Community at large, though they eschew working out in a communal setting.

Why is this so? For sure there is a financial aspect for some, but it appears that this is actually a very minor consideration for most. Fitness for the solo CrossFitter is sometimes simply best pursued alone. For still others the growth of CrossFit, and the concomitant growth of members in any single gym, has changed the local atmosphere enough that on balance they’d rather CrossFit alone than in an Affiliate. This should surprise no one. There are very few Boxes that have been open for more than 5 years that are the same size with the same feel as they were on Opening Day, and for many an OG this feel doesn’t fit.

And that’s OK.

The solo CrossFitter is part of our culture, maybe the linchpin of our culture, at least historically. The majority of CrossFit has evolved such that most WODs take place in a group setting. For many (most?) this is part of the attraction of CrossFit, that you share your efforts and your discomfort right there with another CrossFitter in the neighboring rack. The CrossFit Community has room for both, the solo CrossFitter who craves the solace of solitude and the gym member who can’t imagine making the effort without the energy of the entire class. Everyone, both those inside the Community and those outside, are at their own peril should they fail to realize this.

Because we are, in fact, all the same because we are different in the same very important way: we each, in our own way, on our own or in our group, have used CrossFit to take ownership of ourselves.

I’ll see you next week…

Posted by bingo at November 10, 2013 6:48 AM