How Are You Liking...at CrossFit?

How are you liking your membership at Bombers CrossFit? I received in my Inbox yesterday. Indeed, how am I on my CrossFit journey these days…?

 

As ever, I’m thoroughly enjoying my CrossFit life, practice, rhythms. I recognize these rhythms are changing, which feels healthy and responsive to what I’ve been experiencing (however I might describe or interpret the experience). Easing into this transition gently has placed me between two “boxes,” for now, which can lead to a comparative/contrast frame of mind. Or not, simply appreciating the gifts I get to experience with each, both, right now.  

One gift is that I have multiple options each day to move and flex my work, need for a workout, need for a community-social space while I workout. As my job is so solitary—higher education, much of it online now—the social needs not getting met at my original box pushed me into considering other options to meet this need. Bomber’s has begun to meet that need, for which I am grateful. The challenge, of course, is honoring the rest-day that my body needs in its rhythms. So I listen for that too, recognizing that I will always choose a playful WOD (adult recess) whenever I physically can. I’m slowly learning coaches’ names and recognizing fellow CrossFitters’ names with faces.

I’m also receiving a whole lot more coaching in my CF movements, skill development, which is fabulous. With so many different coaches I now have access to, I’m re-invigorated in learning to refine skills I wouldn’t even attempt in my original box. I did a tempo-negative-handstand-pushup for the first time this week, for instance! Did the handstand kick-up, slowly lowered myself to my head (on top of two abmats), more conscious of my hand-placement and direction of my elbows, thanks to diverse coaching. I stood up, delighted and surprised that I’d done it!

 

This broader expanse of CF community has also made it easier to dip into my old 8 a.m. class without the anger or frustration in someone being rude to me. Don’t care. Don’t engage much there anymore. This is neither here nor there, because my rhythms are already clearly shifting toward the sabbatical patterns to come: first thing in the morning writing-reading, midday WOD, then return to work/administration in the afternoon.

 I will guess that dropping into Community Workouts, perhaps an afternoon WOD/week at my old box, will allow me the continuity and sense of community I’ve loved but also had to grieve with CFDedication. And the deepening of my own CF practice and skills will be fed by Bomber’s CrossFit. For now, my family and I are fine to expend financially for the gentle transitioning my relational heart needs.

 

Eventually that will become unnecessary, and I’ll be at the Box I need to be at. It's a gift not to have to choose at the moment…