By CrossFitting, we’ve changed our children in ways we have yet to fully realize.
Because I CrossFit and I talk about healthy bodies, healthy nutrition, and healthy choices, my children naturally learn a different viewpoint than what the world is (mostly) offering.
My fifth-grader vetoes McDonald’s among his friends (“That stuff is nasty”) while my eighth-grader has been known to rile his nutrition class with diatribes against the food pyramid (“Greg Glassman says the food pyramid is good . . . for rabbits”) or write an essay on the merits of the In-N-Out food quality and preparation process vs. McDonald’s.
But perhaps the best was the other day’s tirade against 8th grade gym class: “Our gym teacher is like a puppet of the government! She had us do leg lifts and a stretch for exercise. Said she didn’t want to wear us out! On another day, the kids in the other teacher’s class got to play Dodge Ball, but we had form these groups and start on the “Shore of Loneliness” and jump across the “Sea of Nothingness” over to the “Island of Togetherness” where we all had to hold hands and yell “We are together!” And this is gym class?”
Suddenly, I’m not so worried about the future. His indignation allays my fear: the kid is pissed about getting coddled in gym class. That’s a good, good thing. He knows that true fitness is intense, not therapy as sport. Jeff Martin of CrossFit Kids once said: “The rest of the world thinks we’re warped, but we’ve warped our kids in the same way.” Our kids are getting the CrossFit message, even if they’re not CrossFit members yet. Hope — and the chance for something better for this world — still lives. Well, that is at least if we continue to CrossFit and cross the Sea of Nothingness . . .
