My Beautiful Ladies and Gents
This past weekend many of us in the Lando community got to celebrate the union of Kyle Hicks and Lauren D’Ariggo (pretty sure now Lauren Hicks). Both of them have stories with me, my family, and my business that in my mind explain what community in relation to CrossFit actually means. Strap in everyone, because here it comes.
First the quick stories as how they pertain to my rambling, and they involve Kyle’s evolution as a coach and Lauren’s evolution as a member and friend. Why I feel this exemplifies what community means is because their stories are both ones of evolution, education, and symbiotic existence that breaks down barriers of status and labels.
As a coach Kyle has come a long way. I’m known to write things that come off way stronger than I intend so let me preface this with never was Kyle a bad coach in my opinion. I just am very particular, and honestly much in step with Stacey’s views as well, about what I want out of my staff. (Hey, back to back Best of Boston awards, I think there’s something there…mostly in the name Stacey Kroon…). Anyways, Kyle was a coach for about a year at another gym and he did an amazing job with what he was given from a leadership standpoint.
Lauren could be similarly described in how she started as a member here in that she was definitely a newbie. I smile when I think of both of their stories but especially with Lauren because for whatever reason I vividly remember all our interactions, from her coming to our Grand Opening at Woburn to her first intro class to finally committing. All in all I think it was a 3 month process. She certainly did her due diligence! Here is where I get in trouble, but if you saw her now you would be shocked at how she started from a physical standpoint. The ripped, tenacious, heart on her sleeve fitness lover you see now was a timid, quiet, and a bit soft around the edges woman. Nothing about her when she came to us was bad or wrong, and who am I to judge or comment on anyone physically. But she came to us for a reason and she worked on that reason from day 1 with tenacity. Her transformation has been astounding to where she is now a staple of our community, a leader in the gym and outside, and a great example of how hard work gets you what you want to both veteran and newbies. This past weekend and the weekend of her bachelorette party show just how much this is true, where 20+ girls from high school, college, and CrossFit all came together to celebrate her.
What gives me the most joy with this development is how she and my wife Sarah have developed a friendship that is truly one of love and care, a BFF situation that we all know to be rare once getting to our age. People close to us know there have been some difficulties in our personal lives that were compounded in difficulty because it seemed a disaster always happened right around the time of an event of great joy. New business opening/loss of job, wedding/health problems, the timing is almost funny if it wasn’t really bad for both of us and equally distributed. Lauren’s friendship I know for a fact helped buoy my wife through so much of this and I will always, always love her for this.
My man Kyle has gone from coach I cringed evaluating to one I have grown to expect the random member email telling me how great a job he was doing. The one thing that Kyle had without any of our coaching was his personality, the warm always positive heart driven guy we all have grown to love. If anything Kyle is one of the most positive people I have ever known. He might be the only person who has made me feel uncomfortable and bad about myself in seconds without saying a word, an interaction that included my internally fighting off wanting to fire him, punch him in the face, bite him, and kick him in the leg during a roller coaster 5 seconds of time during which he smiled and stayed silent. Moral of this total story : Great people who have enriched us all while being enriched themselves, contributing to the greater entity that we have developed an understanding of being called a community.
So again here we are, that word community. What is community pertaining to us? To me there’s one word that pertains to all definitions I end on : Evolution. A constantly evolving entity that every stop along the way brings it back to it’s roots in some way. People, programs, locations, leaders, staff, members, goals, always evolving yet coming from the same method or place. With us it’s CrossFit Lando.
Education and development is in there too. The CrossFit community is constantly changing. Look at it on the grand scale. When I started CrossFit a partnership with Reebok would be laughed at, universal Regional competition unheard of, tens of thousands at the pinnacle event mocked, yet it all happened. Us who were involved then experienced the evolution of CrossFit entirely, that big bad corporate was not only not evil but a partnership that brought our sport to levels we never dreamed of, and all in about 8 months. With this development brought so many things, some bad, but so many good, the most important in my opinion being the expansion and broader osmotic flow of education and information. New athletes, new coaches, even entirely new sports in our community has been a HUGE part of the education and development of our everyone who identifies as a CrossFitter. While the respect within other communities for CrossFit as legitimate, like Weightlifting, Track and Field, or Strength and Conditioning in the major sports is still not there like it should, so many of the elite in those sports, athletes and coaches, have accepted CrossFit methodologies and in turn given their knowledge to us. What has happened is a symbiotic relationship to many outlets that is constantly churning, constantly spinning, constantly reinventing while maintaining it’s central messages, values, and output. What we have is something that was just a way of training that is now that and a sport followed by millions every day.
The development of a community, or a methodology, or company, whatever we want to think here, I liken to an asterisk * where each spoke resembles a part of that entity. The evolution/development is represented by the spinning of this asterisk which by definition of a shape within our three dimensional universe means it is a new shape. Imagine that upon each full revolution a given spoke’s content or message or output changes specific to it’s intent, making in some way a new “thing” rooted in the original. Think learning the snatch, going from “jump and pull!!” to understanding weight shift, 3 pulls, and pulling under a manipulated object. Same subject, same “thing” totally advanced output.
Kyle and Lauren are spokes to our huge asterisk that is the CrossFit Lando community. So is the coaching program, our coaches, myself, each location, the list/spokes can go on forever. As the asterisk evolves to whatever it changes to it will never be the same while maintaining it’s physical similarity. Like our always evolving CFL that will always have a physical home. We will always celebrate anniversaries, marking the concrete aspect that this community started on a specific day, but it takes one look around to see how much we have changed in 3 years/almost 1 year depending on location. I am blessed that the changes we have incurred have almost all been for the better. My most cherished thing is that I have somehow convinced these great members of my staff to stay through our history, having only 1 coach of all staff members leave. Considering how great each and every coach I have is it’s more like they could fire me before I fire them. We will always have tangible aspects of community that allow for the more ephemeral spokes that invoke and receive change.
If it isn’t obvious I finish by saying I define the community for us as the ever changing place that contains pieces which will always maintain shape yet constantly change. That last part I guess isn’t a given and ties into the business aspect of it all, where the community is a reflection of a good or bad, successful or failing, CrossFit business. Surely there are exceptions to this rule but I’ll be willing to bet on a solid majority. But the whole of this is why our communities become such places of serenity for people because they literally take on the physical aspects of a safe place or home, especially for sick people like we all are in some ways.
Corny as hell as I am, but my community is your community just as much if not more, and I thank you for letting me be in it.
Kyle, get back to work.
MONDAY
BootCamp Sprint
1. 2m AMRAP, 3 rounds resting 2 min between rounds
– Straight arm plank walk across floor, 50′. Max distance. Any time you stop/rest perform 5 burpees before restarting. Arms/legs must remain straight.
2. For Time
100 Double Unders
75 Wall Ball, 9′ target
50 Situps
25 Broad Jumps
100m walking lunges (One sign and back from threshold)
CrossFit
Strength : Front Squat/ Back Squat Complex
2 Front Squat + 1 Back Squat (5 second pause)
– hands remain on bar from front to back, entire complex including 5s pause must be completed in 15s from start to finish (top of back squat). Have partner count/notify every 5s.
– Work to a max in 15-20 minutes
WOD : For Time
20 CTB Pull-Ups
20 Push-ups
20 Squat Clean 135/95
20 Burpee Box Jump Over + Pistol (both legs each side), 24/20*
*do a burpee, jump on and over box, then one pistol each leg or 2 air squats. That is 1 rep.
S : Jumping Pull-Ups, 75/55, step ups + 2 Air Squat
L1 : 20 CTB Pull-Ups, 95/65, Scaled Pistols to Box
Rx+: 10 Muscle Ups (Bar MU can be done but not Rx+) 185/125, jumping pistol over mat line
The Program
1. Strength and WOD Rx+ or at least Bar MU
2. Max Yoke Carry, 5-6 attempts, 50′ only. No Drops!
3. High Bar Back Squat : inactive to active practice
– This is a new concept I am introducing to The Program. The idea is to squat and pause being inactive but as much as you can with weight on your back. This must be done with light weight right now and safely. This might mean barely being different than active. Then after 2 seconds get active, hold 2 more seconds, then stand. Be light the entire time. I have tried this out but want to see how it goes a few times through.
