Cheers!

guest post:  Jessica Suver

Clean, 1 rep

Bench Press, 1 rep

Overhead Squat, 1 rep

Clean, from ground power or squat.

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Its the where’s Suver game! (photo showing CrossFit certification seminars)

Over the Holiday break I decided to sign up for sectionals. After filling out all the forms and finally pushing enter I immediately felt a wave of nausea. Why did I just do that? I can’t even do a muscle up! What am I thinking? I eventually calmed down and spent the next few days (as I spend most days) reading crossfit.com articles, reviewing the journal, and stalking other athletes on beyondthewhiteboard and Facebook. When on the main site one day I realized that a San Diego cert had opened up, and on a whim, I decided to enlist. Though the pod (Eddie and Karen) could not accompany me as they were going to a wedding, I still decided to brave it alone

Realistically, I have no idea why I wanted to go to a cert. I don’t want to open an affiliate, and I probably won’t be coaching anytime soon; however, I still felt it might give me a little more insight into this insane world I had fallen in love with. This past Saturday morning, I arrived at Crossfit San Diego for my cert. As I walked in and placed my nametag on my chest I looked around at the friendly faces in red Certification Staff t-shirts. Many I recognized, none as much as Jason Khalipa’s, who I immediately got excited over, much like a spastic 12 year old girl seeing Miley Cyrus at the mall.

I had watched him in countless videos, sat front row for many of his events at the ’09 games, and heard his name over and over again within our community. Looking at the large crowd I saw athletes who ranged from fit, to thin, to even a bit chubby. They also varied in age and were from a wide range of ethnicities.

The first lecture began with “What is Crossfit” and I internally groaned wondering how a group spending so much money on a cert would not know what Crossfit was. But it was more than “knowing” what it was. I learned through hours of information, not just what Crossfit is, and why it is important for our lives, but how it creates such a strong community. Every person was there for a different reason, some wanted to coach their kids, others wanted to start their own box, and some were globo gym trainers who wanted to cross over from their “darkside.” One thing remained consistent: we all wanted to become faster and stronger, and we all wanted to share the beauty of Crossfit with everyone we knew.

The coaches were amazing and unbelievably humble.

They thanked all of us for making Crossfit what it has become, and hoped we would continue to share what we had learned with everyone we meet. The first night Chris Spealler (another Crossfit celebrity) came in and as he warmed up for the Coaches WOD (that everyone had done at lunch), and Khalipa cheered him on as he crushed his own time by five minutes, I saw one of the immeasurable parts of Crossfit. We have created a community that supports, cares, and trusts each other. Your coaches learn not to just train you, but to take care of you and for that Crossfit will always remain unparalleled. The focus on form was at some points tedious, but it truly drove the point home, that we will not become faster or stronger, if we cannot execute each movement with excellent technique. The community becomes a part of this, we tell each other when we aren’t setting up properly for a lift, or if we aren’t getting low enough in our squats. We all want each person to get better as we work on bettering ourselves. Our community at Paradiso is just as diverse as the group this weekend, and we too share a common goal.

We not only come in to crush WOD’s, and get our next PR, but we come in to support each other, and as I continue to watch this amazing thing called Crossfit come to life, I, like the coaches at my level 1 cert have nothing but unending gratitude for my community.