Mr. Kuiper might be the Happy Gilmore of the Champions Club, owning two of the most obscure records in the gym: most website tags to his name, and the only person to have a parking lot tornado damage his car. Those two are confirmed, but he might also have the unofficial record for most second-place finishes in Athlete of the *blank* awards: He almost won it during the lockdown spring, last spring, and last winter. Lauren Higgins, Erika Banet, and Jacob Augustine are on that list as well.
This winter was not shaping up to be Mr. Kuiper's time to break his streak as he he re-aggrivated his knee in late November and that thing just kept lingering and lingering. It kept him out of jumping, squatting, running, stepping, and GHD stuff; the one thing it did not keep him out of, though, was the gym. He still showed up and did push-ups, knees to elbows, overhead press, handstands, and tons and tons of hamstring mobility in hopes that the rest of his body would be better off by the time his knee recovered. I think he missed a grand total of two days from December - March.
It is now March and I would say he's... what... 80% full capacity now? But the how he got here is the story. When things aren't going our way the first instinct is to, obviously, make an attempt to fix it. Or two attempts. Or a week's worth of attempts. And this is the point where it gets really awkward for me as a coach because I am supposed to have the answers more often than not. When nothing is working to fix the problem, the two solutions I see the most are 1) give up altogether or 2) continue banging our collective heads against the wall. A third option seems best though, and that is to temporarily move on and work around it.
As an example, I was throwing some batting practice to Aaron last week and his swing was off. After about a half hour of continuous adjustments, tweaks, cussing, and bat-throwing, he decided to give up. But this was a great opportunity for practice of a different thing, so after some, er, gentle persuasion on my part he went back to the plate with a different goal in mind: instead of trying to fix his swing right this very moment, he worked on situation stuff that might come up during a game: 2-strike approach, runner on 3rd, bunting, etc. Those are all things Aaron never would have worked on if his swing was feeling good but now he is more prepared for the inevitable time when it's not but his team still needs him to come through regardless.
Make no mistake, there was plenty of frustration and impatience this winter for Mr. Kuiper. But that was the beauty of this mini-journey, though; it wasn't Elizabeth Banet-style perfection from start to finish, it was a dad who had never been hurt like this before in his CrossFit career learning on the fly. Once he accepted his situation was not going to be fixed by the voodoo band he worked around it and found other stuff to get better at. Now he's halfway to a handstand push-up and his hamstrings have normal range of motion.
Sometimes the problems facing us don't require fixing, sometimes they need to be given time to just kinda go away. These stubborn buggers are on their own timetable and are outside of our abilities. Knowing when to intervene and when to leave them be comes with experience, and Mr. Kuiper got himself some good experience this winter. Great work big fella!
...........
I was really, really pleased with how this winter turned out at the Champions Club. Going into it we had a ton of nagging injuries and aches and pains, and coming out we are looking to be almost at full strength. I thought the dads in particular picked their game up from the Summer and fall. Still gotta get Coach Casey back in the swing of things, though I think his momentum picked up within the last few weeks.
There are a few people that need special shouts, though, and they are Aaron Sexton and Cecilia. I've said it before but I hope you all realize how lucky you are to have these two in the gym with us right now. Their presence and personality are hard to put into words, and they are about as good of a mentor as any of our younger athletes can hope for. Cecilia was the runner-up in Athlete of the Winter, and had she been here all of December she might have edged out Mr. Kuiper.
We also brought in two new kids who have made our 3:30 session entertaining to say the least: Derek and Loop. Both are showing a significant improvement in form and work capacity and will also probably destroy the backboard during one of their cringeworthy games of one-on-one.
Our highlight of the winter had to be the Christmas Workout, though. 91 people crammed into this gym at that time was probably not the best idea, but no harm done; the food was great, the workout was tougher than usual, and the gym has a new calendar. The thing that workout (and this winter in general) illustrated for me was just how strong, connected, and supportive the Champions Club network is. We got a good group, y'all, now let's have a great spring!
Athlete of the Winter 2010-2011 (we didn't do awards then)
Athlete of the Winter 2011-2012
Athlete of the Winter 2012-2013
Athlete of the Winter 2013-2014
Athlete of the Winter 2014-2015
Athlete of the Winter 2015-2016
Athlete of the Winter 2016-2017
Athlete of the Winter 2017-2018
Athlete of the Winter 2018-2019
Athlete of the Winter 2019-2020
Athlete of the Winter 2020-2021
athlete of the winter, 