CrossFit Athletic Group

by, Mr. Kuiper

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Roughly five years* after Covid-19 appeared on the scene, I endured my first case this week of the nasty, lab engineered/bat soup/pick-your-conspiracy-theory stuff. Got home from Champions Club on Sunday afternoon and just didn’t feel right.

Was it a chicken wing aged to imperfection or some bad nacho meat from Cherry Hill Lanes on Friday night? Probably. Except later that evening came the cold sweats. And the headache. And Mrs. Kuiper demanding that I jam a giant Q-tip up my nose for extended time on Monday morning.

Quarantined to the bedroom, and not in the good way, I’ve had a few thoughts over the past five days. A lot of them are about cheaters prospering in San Diego, but others line up with what Chris has been discussing – taking things away and the space that creates. I’m writing this sitting on the floor, legs out in front of me, because I didn’t go to the 5:30 session today.

Would that have been better for me? Maybe most days, but not today.

I’m not happy I got sick, because I miss my friends, family, Champions Club family, and didn’t get to see an absolute beatdown of Southfield A&T by Chase and Blake. I do, however, appreciate that the disruption in routine created space to think of some new things:

• Days are long – 1,440 minutes (Mr. Ron, is this correct?) is an enormous amount of time, particularly if you’ve had your throat replaced with sandpaper and just generally feel awful. But that means it’s also a lot of time when you don’t feel awful. There’s so much more time available in our day to work on mobility, journaling, jump shots (JB) than we think.
  
  
• Champions Club is a choice – it’s a great group, culture, workout, vibe, but sometimes I just show up. As I felt better, I admit it was sort of nice not to “have” to be somewhere from 5-7 p.m. every day. This makes me want to focus more on getting something out of every trip to the gym.
  
  
• Damn, I eat (and drink) a lot – since my young adulthood, this is absolutely the longest I’ve gone without coffee or alcohol. I’m not going to become part of the sisters of temperance, but feel comfortable thinking that I’ll shave my regular consumption down. Being forced to stay away from the pantry and refrigerator, I’ve just eaten better and less. It hasn’t been excessively adherent to the CrossFit nutrition credo, it simply hasn’t been as much, or as often.
  
  
• Things have weight – for five blessed days, I couldn’t wash a dish, cook (I do these things!), or take care of anyone’s car or phone problems. It’s nice to have stuff, but every piece of stuff you have ultimately makes demands on you. And it was great to be free of those demands for a few days and read about the Pilgrims (thanks Mr. Carey!).

So, is it worth considering creating your own small disruption in life? A break in one routine or habit that creates space for something new or something better? For me – though I’d not want to do it this way again – the answer was yes.

*as god is my witness, I'm so brain-addled that I had to look up the origin year of Covid-19. It's in the name, dipstick!