Character

In my quest to continue our strength development we doubled up and hit the 2 best upper body pushing movements available; Ring Dips and Strict Press. I saw some amazing progress today!

As a coach it feels great to see you all push hard through the full range of motion of a movement so you can get some real results from your training. I can't measure progress from half reps...and feel as though we have something pretty special in the Blue Room cause half reps are a rare occurrence. I've seen environments where half reps go unmentioned, first you see one, then another, next thing you know there is an epidemic!

So thanks for keeping it real...

Those who have ever trained with me know my style; I throw things out there to see if you'll bite...a gentle push in a room full of CrossFitters always ends with some amazing things happening!

I look back over this past year and am so darn psyched about what you've accomplished...I look to the future and get excited about where we'll continue to go!

I'm sorry but...

I gotta share a story about my 5 year old Anna.

Several months ago I bought I climbing rope and hung it in our basement (right next to the rings). Now Anna is pretty talented. She excels at a lot of things and has done so since an early age. She walked at 10 months...and NEVER crawled again...no lie. She is also pretty tough on herself, tougher than I'll ever be on her. With her tough self expectations I've also seen a tendency for her to shy away from things she can't initially do, to get frustrated. I want her to experience the unknown - not to fear the possibility of defeat and then be paralyzed by it - to persevere through adverse situations - to feel the victory of picking herself up off the mat after a fall and have at it one more time...

So what's a Dad to do?

Hang the climbing rope and see what happens...

She wasn't even close...got frustrated...I was calm, told her it was OK, it's good to have a challenge you can't initially do...keep working at it and one day she'll get up that rope. I never pressured her...I NEVER once suggested for her to go "climb the rope" I simply hung it right next to my computer (my office)...she would take some attempts on it while I was "blogging" or doing some "computer work"...I let her evolve at her own pace and gave encouragement where I could.

I had to set up some rules though:
No swinging on the rope.
She could swing on the rings all she wanted, the rope was there to climb.
(This was a rule of constant contention!)
No jumping from stacked up boxes so she could get near the ceiling rafters and reach the top real quick, (like she had climbed it)...smart kid huh?

Ya gotta have Standards...

She wanted nothing to do with that rope for the first month...frustration!
I stayed cool, "it's OK honey you don't need to climb it today"...the FUN can be in the Challenge.

Something changed in the past couple of weeks...I no longer heard; "I Can't", "I'll never be able to do this", ...I saw a kid having some fun tackling a lofty but do-able challenge...I saw determination and perseverance.

...and you guessed it...she climbed that rope today!

What a look of pure joy on her face...it's all a Dad or a Coach can ever hope for....

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I'll post some Details about our CrossFit Workout later...

Here are some Flickr's of the action!