I spent a solo weekend in Las Vegas with strangers. Wild, right?
It was, but not how you might think.
We were about a month into opening the gym and I had been coaching "illegally" during that time since I hadn't yet done my CF-L1 course. This was the first weekend I could go and it was the cheapest place to fly into. So I went. I stayed in a hotel by myself. Took a shuttle to the gym each day. Met a few people that I could walk to Whole Foods with to grab some lunch and chat.
My instructors were Nadia, Zach, Pat, and Kurtis. Legends in CrossFit at the time.
I learned plenty that weekend.
We worked out. Fran was one workout and it took me over 10:00. They time capped me. We hung out a bit after the first night to talk with the trainers and one of them asked if there was any movements that were intimidating to coach or anything we felt like we needed to work on. At the time, I couldn't kick up on the wall, but I was suppose to be able to teach someone to do a handstand pushup. I've got some issues being inverted. It's not something I ever did or felt comfortable doing. I was not the girl in the playground doing cartwheels and handstands. To this day it is the thing I have probably progressed the slowest at.
But that night, the trainer worked with me on some progressions. I didn't kick on the wall that night, but I did a few weeks later and I sent him the video thanking him. I use those same progression on people who struggle with this too.
We took the test the second night and wouldn't find out our score for several weeks so what else was there to do, but enjoy the final night in Las Vegas. So I did and came dangerously close to getting my first tattoo which would have been terribly cliche. One of the guys from the class, a nice guy from OK, and I were going to have dinner. But as I was going to get on the shuttle to head to the strip, I met this random girl in the hotel lobby who was traveling with her boyfriend from CA to somewhere and they stopped in Vegas for the night, but he had broken up with her on the way so she didn't want to go to her room cause he was there. So, naturally, I invited her to have dinner with us. And she did. We ended up walking all over town, riding the New York, New York roller coaster, eating at an Irish pub, watching the Bellagio fountains, and trying to find the tattoo parlor from that reality show about tattoos. That guy from OK and the girl from the hotel lobby seemed to hit it off so I made my way back to my hotel entirely too late and left them to figure out their lives. It was a weird, fun night and makes for a great story!
So, yeah, wild weekend. The craziest thing is that I'm sitting here 6 years later remembering that weekend and I'm so humbled by it all. I knew very little then. My understanding of business and class management and communication and coaching were juvenile. I've literally learned something new every day since and still do. I don't think I'll ever stop learning about this world of health and fitness and business.
Those first few years of owning the gym were so fun. And so hard. We had some terribly hard months, but we kept believing in what we were doing. Over those hard months, I developed confidence that had been shadowed by feeling inadequate and less then in the dynamics that we had originally established. I realized how much I wanted this. It was not just Chad's dream that I was facilitating, but in fact, my dream as well. 6 years ago, at that course, I thought it was just his dream that I was supporting. Over time, through what seemed like endless months of anxiety and stress, it become very clear that this was a dream I was going to fight for. We could make a powerful impact in peoples' lives by what we could offer them in this little gym. A
That wild weekend in Vegas opened up a door for me that I didn't realize I wanted. I love this job so much. I say that after having a 14 hour day that included coaching 3 morning classes, a one on one member meeting, a meeting with a food service rep, a test out for a new member, co-coaching a class for a local sports team, a no sweat consultation, and a foundations class. I, personally, didn't work out today. I don't love that, but I loved today. I don't do days quite like this often with so much and such variety, but every day is different. Some action packed and non-stop, some are more leisurely paced. All of them involve me spending some time trying to make this little gym in the middle of Kansas something it's members can be proud of.
It's a really a gift wrapped up as a profession.
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