Hot for Teacher

Well it's been a while and I've been hassled by a few folks back home to get my act together so here I am.  Everyone likes to blame the holidays for not making time to do shit, so that's what I might as well do.  I'm not going to say I haven't had time, because that is just a damn lie.  I'll take accountability for my behavior; I haven't made an effort to utilize my time to write up any blog posts.  How often do you hear that?

Since it's been damn near a month and a half, a lot of shit has gone down.  But let me start where I left off.  December was a crazy month all around when it came to the CrossFit Football portion of my Job.  We had two seminars, one in Tampa FL, and one in Del Mar CA.  On top of that we had a little local gig that required a whole lot of prep work (logged over 100 hours a week and a half, kind of like Price Books).  Well I got to travel for both seminars, and more importantly I had the privilege of presenting on the Nutrition portion of the cert.

Let's talk Tampa.  I traveled there the weekend after my last post.  Tampa is the home of Raphael Ruiz's facility, which was also the hosting location for the CrossFit football seminar.  Raf is part of our CFFB seminar staff and when it comes to strength and conditioning he's a ninja.  His knowledge is immeasurable and he's had a ton of experience with sport specific training ranging from the amateur level to professional and Olympic athletes.  He's also a ninja in terms of his fitness level.  The dude is in shape in all facets of fitness.

Ben, my compadre from SoCal and fellow CFFB seminar staff member, and I flew in a day early to spend some time with Raf and pick his brain on a few things.  What ended up happening was a delicious BBQ lunch followed almost immediately by a "light" workout; a little "surf and turf" as Raf like's to call it.  It was a couple mile run, maybe, and then an open water swim.  It was god awful.  I'm not a strong swimmer; I struggle in a pool with goggles.  Open water with no goggles in 55 degree gulf water is far worse.  Not only did I think I was going to die, so did Raf, he was nice enough to swim next to me on the swim back.  Long story short is I beat Ben in the run and Raf and I basically tied on the swim.  Sure; he was making sure I didn't drown, but that's a detail.

The seminar kicked off the next day.  Our seminars are always held on weekends.  We lecture and coach for 8-10 hours on Saturday depending on the crowd's participation, and then another 7 hours on Sunday.  It's no joke and can be pretty grueling.  It's definitely grueling for the participants since there are 4 pretty tasking warm-up/skill sessions, and 3 killer workouts lumped into the seminar.

The Nutrition portion is on Sunday, after lunch.  We drop the Apocalypse on many people who are still all about "everything in moderation" and attempt break the stigma surrounding fats, red meats, egg yolks among other things.  We preach and follow a diet that is high in animal flesh, veggies, and "good fats" including saturated fats!  Lord help us!  Without getting into it, the nutrition portion is always a good block of dialogue.  Everyone has read or heard everything, and there is a lot of myth busting.  It stirs up some good debate at times and it helps that there are typically folks in the crowd who are familiar with the concepts and studies that we back our recommendations on.

The presentation went well.  I feel like I did fine, but world domination is not stemmed from mediocrity.  That's a "Welbournian" phrase.  At the end of the day I'm striving for perfection.  With that in mind I will always have room for improvement.