You all know that I seriously heart Crossfit. Not interested in debating the merits of your dance class or your video series. If you like it and are seeing results, keep at it. I've seen so many fantastic results when people are passionate and intense about their task. Whatever kind of pretzel you're contorting your body into, please enjoy.
There are a few reasons I've tied my wagon to Crossfit as the means to drag my carcass off the couch. I've found that my reasons can be lined up with my teaching experience as well.
Nothing is ever the same. Yeah, there are crossfit benchmarks that roll by every couple of weeks or so, but the scheduled WOD are always different. If your gym is doing good programing you'll se your favorites mixed in with your not so fav and that unknown keeps your growing.
This couldn't reflect the classroom any better. There are children who come to you daily and you expect them to return everyday. But they don't! Their evil doppelganger comes in and takes up shop in your room and all you can do it adapt and respond. Got to deal with the Child of the Day that showed up in your room just like the WOD.
No matter how tough it is...you're getting better. There are the tough skills that you just don't seem to get, but over all you're getting better. Currently I'm expecting the Crossfit genie to bring me a muscle up. I've been waiting for his cousin Teaching genie to make this job easier everyday as well. But what I've noticed is I'm getting closer to my muscle up and I'm getting better at teaching. The more I use resources like Beyond the Whiteboard and ClassDojo the more I see that I'm getting strong and eventually I'll get that muscle up and I'll probably be a good teacher, too.
Teamies are the best! I work with some of the best people. I'm very happy with my school. I feel the school has my back just as much as they want th best for the kids. That translated into my gym. There are some great people there. Most of our interaction is spent between near death experiences with barbells and burpees, we've really grown.
Everything looks crazy until you give it a shot.
One thing about CF I've learned over the years is that it's not for most people. Once you start rattling off the latest WOD description and how excited you are, your co workers/friends/family immediately start calling Dial a Shrink. The same applies to teaching. May people don't see WHY we do it. Most of the time we talk about just how tough it is to get through to Johnny or Sally. Many times we don't KNOW why we do it, either. We do know that we find fulfillment in this career. We just know that we're supposed to and somewhere in this hay stack is big, shiny needle. And we're going to find it. Kind of like 50 #135 power clean for time. "Why?!"
"Well because that's what was on the board today."
Planning leads to success. The more I plan and prepare for class the better lessons get. I feel that "break through" happening with my students. The worse prepared I am the more it shows in my students. The more I plan and schedule crossfit into my life the more it fits into my life. Especially eating. When I plan my meals to compliment my workout I see great results. When I eat when and whatever I tend to derail my results. When I plan to hit the gym right after work, but before I pick up my girls I just works. That keeps me on track and on pace.
Every second counts. Imagine a workout that goes on for 12 minutes. You're beat down. You won't want to pick up that weight one more time. You look over to your neighbor and they're feeling the same way, you can tell. You notice him looking over at the clock and he makes a mad dash to the weight and hoists it up. You do the same. You two are in an all out sprint. That weight it flying. TIME! You collapse to the floor in a total exhaustion. Afterwards you find out that you and your neighbor were within a few reps of each out, but you pulled it out. You didn't let the last few seconds fade away. You ended strong.
Everyday in school is like that. When the 2 pm time comes around I can either lean off the the throttle or keep plugging away. Do I let off cause I've been working with these students for 6 hours already or do I keep pushing on? Whenever I push on and make the kids practice fact familes or spell something hard until the bell rings I have a much better day the next day. The kids will come back having thought about the book we read or have some new insight. Every second counts.
Crossfit and Teaching need each other. The stress teaching causes me can only releaved through hard vigorus exercise. Throwing the weight equal to my entire class over my head makes it very easy to sit that class down and breath a sigh of relief. The exertion that CF causes on me really helps me to mellow out through the day. I'd be bouncing off the walls by 11:13 am if I didn't blow off a lot of extra steam during my 430 forrays to CFSC.
PS. CF convinced me to leave Team Adidas!
Wouldn't trade my INOV8s for the world!
Alright got to get hustling. Group warm up starts in 20 minutes. Here's a little video of a a 47.5 inch box jump.
