Coach Cheri Wissmann

Doing WOD 12.1 this morning inspired me to take a look back at last year’s open.

Again, thanks to Gabe Najarro for the action shots. Video credit goes to the MartiQ. 🙂

Video of the ground-to-overhead WOD. I was blown away by how many strong ladies did this WOD with squat clean thrusters. The load of 110# was very close to my squat clean PR, so I definitely did this WOD 1 clean and jerk at a time.

A few pictures from the wall ball + knees to elbows WOD. I think there was another exercise in there too? Plus one from the chest-to-bar pullup and thruster WOD.

My good friend, and life coach, Stephanie Vincent issued a challenge today.

She asked her friends to take a picture of themselves holding up what they seek, what matters most to them.

This request was in response to a talk show episode that she participated in, where guests and audience members wore signs on their chests listing their current weight. Check out her blog post here, and please watch her video response, it is awesome stuff.

After quite a few years of chasing a number, I’m now in a place where the number of my current weight no longer matters to me. I haven’t yet let go of chasing a certain appearance, but I’m getting there.

Struggles aside, what matters most to me, what I seek, is FEARLESS CONFIDENCE.

After snapping this picture, my phrase inspired me to do something a little more than Steph asked. Nothing symbolizes my journey into fearlessness more than putting myself upside down, so I filmed my sign and I on the rings. 🙂

My CrossFit peeps on Facebook have been asking each other one thing lately — are you signing up for the Open?

For me, signing up last year was a no-brainer. I registered as soon as the site went live, and then spent a month convincing as many Sandbox athletes as I could that they should sign up, too. CrossFit is all about community — how could we miss the chance to experience that on a world-wide scale?

This year, I’m in a whole new place, literally and figuratively. I’m living in a new town, and have been CrossFitting solo (and inconsistently) since November. While this weekend I finally found a CrossFit home where I can do the Open WODs (a new military affiliate, CrossFit Rifles), my current level of fitness leaves a lot to be desired.

Despite all of that, I’m signed up for the Open.

It doesn’t matter that I haven’t trained consistently since I began marathon training over the summer. It doesn’t matter that I will probably post some pitifully low scores because of my lack of conditioning. It doesn’t matter that I might have to scale down some of the loads to keep things safe for me.

None of that can matter, because as a coach, it’s imperative for me to keep some skin in the game.

I try to always hold myself accountable to do those things I ask my athletes to do. Signing up for the Open, and putting my scores out there for all to see, good or bad, is an important part of my commitment as a coach. If I believe my athletes will benefit from the experience of competition — then I need to provide myself that benefit as well.

Feel free to follow along to see how I do via my athlete profile. 🙂

Many thanks to the talented Gabe Najarro who captured these images of an 8:30am CrossFit class at Sandbox Athletics. Lots to talk about that day — I was putting the class through Fight Gone Bad.

Sumo deadlift high pulls…

Wall balls…

During a recent conversation with my life coach, Stephanie, she asked me what was missing for me right now.

Coaching!

Since moving away from my Sandbox family in August, I haven’t had the chance to do any coaching, except for the random post-WOD conversation here and there. (Shoutout to CrossFit Inception for being my temporary home.)

Stephanie took my answer, and gave me a homework assignment — write down my coaching philosophy.

It was awesome to take advantage of my situation, and turn it into a positive — a chance to really think about why I am a coach, and what it means to me.

I’ve created a Coaching Philosophy page here to share a part of what I wrote, and I plan on posting more of it in the future. Please take a look and let me know what you think!