The K Word

Kindness: It's an essential element of CrossFit.

What? How the heck do I figure kindness as a part of Elite Fitness? To stand on the top, you gotta stand on top of somebody, right?

Yes and no. It's all in the way you do it.

Pulling yourself up does not have to mean pushing someone else down.

See, this whole CrossFit thing was never about putting anybody down. It was always about lifting. Lifting bumpers and loads, lifting yourself up, lifting others up, lifting this world up.

Except you just kind of hope you get some help. Deadlifting the world by yourself is pretty hard to do. That's why all these other people are here too.

Competition motivates, but it should not undermine.

Drive yourself to higher levels. Motivate others to join you. Refuse to accept less than the best. That's all cool. That's what this thing is about.

Belittling? Denigrating? Maybe not so much.

Now, don't get me wrong: Political correctness is NOT the goal. I don't want everybody wearing shawls and holding hands and singing "Kumbayah." (The shawl totally gets in the way of triple extension anyhow.)

We can dish it out and we can take it. Joking and messing around in CrossFit is totally cool. In fact, those are some of the best parts of CrossFit. Especially if the joke's on you.

But, somewhere, underneath all the bravado and the bluster, let's remember to be kind.

Some people want to eat their cake and have it too. We want to have elite fitness and improve humanity too. (We're not so much into that whole cake thing, you know.) It's a tall order, but what the heck, nobody ever said we were rational.