A mentor of mine often said that, “rules are born of principles.” People seem much more willing to be told what to think rather than figure out for themselves what’s the best thing to do.

What’s more is that “functional” fitness and once counter-culture movements have become “the establishment”; not in rhetoric or policy, but by the principles demonstrated by their actions.

man surfing on sea waves during daytime — Photo by Fernando muñoz on Unsplash

I want to start with a story, but first, a little context. For the last several months, for my own efficacy and honesty, in addition to maintaining my BJJ practice and half-marathon training most mornings, I’ve been traveling around to different CrossFit gyms on Fridays.

This is part of the marketing campaign I use for somatic fitness and experiential stress management seminars. I use a 9-point evaluation tool to assess categories of coaching, business, and training.

In complete transparency, having done dozens of theses assessments now, I’ve had to be more critical of, honest about, and adjust how I teach and train others myself.

Story Time:

A thunderstorm knocked out most of the traffic lights in a major metro suburb as I was already running behind to the 4:00 drop-in class I had scheduled and paid for.

I kept checking the light, the clock, my watch, and wondering if it would be faster to park on the street and run the last few miles to they gym. About 15 minutes after the hour I arrived at one of the most expansive CrossFit boxes I’d ever seen. The facility was fantastic, and also without electricity at the moment.

A 23 year old coach leaves the class on the floor and meets me at the front desk. She curtly informs me that there’s a policy that if someone misses more than 5 minutes of the warm up, they cannot attend class “for safety reasons.”

“However,” she continues, “you can get ready quickly and still do the WOD if you want to.” I replied, “yes.” She looks at me like I have a third eye.

As I’m getting settled, the coach starts to make small talk and states the obvious, that the gym is without electricity at the moment, but is fortunately well lit naturally. I jest that “Aren’t we supposed to be training to be ready for anything?” She looks confused. I continue, “That’s what CrossFit is supposed to be right, unknown and unknowable?”

Based on her facial expression, my forehead must have sprouted yet another, fourth, eye.

As the main WOD — 500m row + 100 wall balls — heated up, I turned to the patron next to me and asked what number (of wall balls) he was on. He took his ear buds out and I repeated the question. “95” he said. I chuckled and kept plugging away, counting out loud “67, 68, 69.”

He knocked out the last 5, turned to me and said, “Try to do it in small sets.” Without looking back I replied, “I did BJJ last night and ran 4 miles this morning, tonight is just marketing for me.”

The advice from the coach, “let’s go guys!”

As we continued to the second segment — work up to back squat 1RM in 15 min — I notice that myself and others have to keep asking the coach how much time is left. Instead of watching the stopwatch on her phone and calling out intervals, she’s busy curating a playlist of dentist office pop music.

Intentionally, I finished my sixth and final single rep seconds before the clock ran out. I was the last to finish. I’m perplexed that I was almost banned from a class I had paid for “for safety”, yet, not single rep of mine (either in the warm up, nor WOD, nor 1RM attempts) was form-checked or even supervised by the coach.

There was no cool down. The only clean up chatter was about obsessive smart watch metrics — sleep score, recovery score, body battery, etc. I had to speak up, “Your watch will lie to you, your CNS never will.” Everyone looked bewildered.

Before leaving, I made sure to do my job and market myself to the coach, at least handing out a business card. If not for that, I would have received no further commentary, let alone an apology for the abrupt “welcome.”

Pay your money and get out.

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The Paper Moat:

Unfortunately, the transaction at this facility isn’t anomaly. It is the logical conclusion of an industry that prioritizes credentials without scars. Weekend certifications serve the optics of corporate authority and satisfy the insurance actuaries.

Many of these certifications are designed to protect businesses from athlete litigation, not actually develop an athlete through coaching; despite innumerably similar sales pitches and rhetoric.

Corporate gyms have made their choice clear — $1,000 and a long weekend seminar means you get the job. Decades of experience and a myriad of accolades means you’re overqualified and are going to ask too many questions — hard pass.

The collective internet made it’s choice too. It’s a well trodden trope that an attractive female in revealing attire has “15% off codes” on every Instagram post, and is titled “coach” in her bio, right above the Only Fans link. In addition, there are droves of “doctors” that sold out to Patreon and talk show television (or podcasts) under the guise that “they could reach more people” — and conveniently dodge professional licensing board ethics in the meantime.

It should be noted that this isn’t necessarily an individual coach’s problem. Just like athletes, we all have to start somewhere, exactly where we’re at. However, that doesn’t mean we’re off the hook for our mistakes (see below).

Credentials are a license to begin learning, nothing more. The attitude and perspective you carry forward are exactly what will dictate your outcomes.

A good place to start is often a terrible place to stop.

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Thermodynamics of Service:

Across virtually all helping / service professions, the idea of a “wounded healer” is grossly misunderstood. In pop-culture, even in clinical settings, this seems to mean something like Red Skull’s musing in Infinity War; that he “leads others to treasure (he) cannot possess.”

This is backwards. It’s the same inverted bastardization as assuming that because a particular intervention has produced a powerful change for yourself, that you must shoehorn it into everyone else’s life and every conversation ad nauseam.

The reality is that getting good at producing change for other people, helping them from one place to another — the literal definition and etiology of the word “coach” — is a costly process.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything costs, and everyone pays.

In physics, not only are energy and matter not created “out of nothing”, they are also not transitioned freely. Such is the microcosm we see here on Earth in our precious meaning-making activities like sport and fitness.

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Savage Zen Athletics

Credentials Without Scars