Let's call Bullsh * t the newly discovered belief in social justice that is being spread through CrossFit partners. CrossFit's high school musical of dysfunction was no longer interesting years ago.
Many of the original enthusiasts moved on or became indifferent or indifferent. And what's left are people who either got into the affiliate business because of the myth of the brand. You know, our warm-up exercises are like your workouts. Yadda yadda yadda and we are the strongest on earth, community, blah, blah, blah.
And some are just wounded warriors who have managed to survive all the members standing in front of them, who have shot up and crashed, and they are basically the last to stand, just happy to be alive and that to do what they undoubtedly really do love.
You can believe in the sincerity of these partners when they say they are disgusted by Glassman's comments, but you can't pass them off when they try to CrossFit from the comments of its great size and the culture for which it is ultimately responsible to separate has repeatedly defended.
The affiliate diet: have and eat your cake
De-affiliation is something that is not over yet. How can it be if ultimately money from affiliated companies still flows into the pockets of the man who started the movement away from CrossFit?
When I read things about how CrossFit is a great community and was built despite what CFHQ has done, it sounds great to people trying to understand all of this in CrossFit, but for those of us it absolutely does no sense the exterior in the real world.
Again, I don't blame affiliates and CrossFit fan boys for justifying everything and putting them in the context of a reactionary political movement or a high point in the spirit of the times, but that often forgets that what has happened recently is just one point in one is arch that bends towards thickness.
To be fair, the following video by Andy Stumpf must be seen as a counterpoint to what I'm saying, but if you only hear minute 16, you go somehow, dude, why end it with a meaningless Kumbaya session with the Powers who are now at CFHQ when it's nothing more than polishing the jerk moment? I was about to take a pitchfork and join a crowd after 16 minutes driving to the CFHQ.
(16:18)
The biggest, not the biggest, and best answer I can give you is that I'm actually surprised that it took so long. And I asked myself a few years ago when it was in the middle of my movement.
And I've seen some of these reports and wondered how the hell does that happen? How does such behavior occur and how can it continue to occur? And then I had the crashing realization that I know exactly how it happens because I was complicit in allowing it to happen.
At least in the interactions that I observed or heard during my time at CrossFit, I cannot count how often derogatory and specifically sexual comments were made directly to female employees in my presence. Sometimes the employees were not there and often in mixed company.
(17:20)
And very often the overtures were much more open. It was an open secret who might have been in Greg's sexual crosshairs. And whether this is manifested in uncomfortable travel arrangements such as for female employees, traveling with Greg and a trip is imminent, but only booked a hotel room or female employees are sitting alone in a vehicle, with the CEO being what Greg prefers from his women.
Or even directly from Greg that he suffers from what Tiger Woods does and the list goes on and on and owns. And the closer you got to Greg, the more you saw and the closer you got to Greg, and the more you saw and the less you did or what essentially, it seems like we all did what was nothing .
The more we have activated this behavior, the more things I have spoken about, examples from abroad, and I am deliberately diversified because I do not want to involve anyone other than those who need to be, but there are many of them tell these stories.
Not enough for you How about:
(18:35)
And the bottom line, they're not mine, but these people deserve a platform. And the reason they're not talking now is out of fear.
(18:45)
I'll give another example, hoping it brings clarity, color, and context to the environment that some of these women had to tolerate. Imagine an employee who had already spent a lot of time in Greg's crosshairs. And I say this based on what I saw, what I heard, and comments that Greg directed directly to me. This employee is in a vehicle, mixed company.
(19:20)
She happens to be in a relationship with an assigned service member and Greg inquires about this service member and realizes that he currently has four abroad. His response to this information directly to this employee was that we hope to be able to name a hero WOD soon after him.
And for people who don't know what a HERO WOD is, it's training that's named after someone killed overseas or as a law enforcement first-aid worker in his country here in the United States.
And there is no more precise window into the area that some of these people had to work with. Then this statement from the CEO and that person owns 100% of CrossFit inc.
It's not enough for CrossFit partners to behave like stags caught in the headlines if they know exactly who they're dealing with and know exactly what's going on. You can't have your cake and eat it – that's why there are clichés.
Go villain
I know someone from Breaking Muscle on Facebook or anywhere said we were done with CrossFit and we just call them box gyms. I'm not sure if that will work, but I know one thing: you can call them all Rogue gyms, and you would probably do it as well.
Everything in this partner is from Rogue, they hang the banners, the company has a good brand and even if they have skeletons in their closets, they don't film them and put them on social media.
In the early 1970s, Nautilus devices made a big change in the world of bodybuilding devices, and the brand did indeed drive a segment of the fitness business. Rogue can do pretty much the same thing, and if you want to get involved, they have done more than CFHQ by venturing into Maces, Strongman, Powerlifting, and all sorts of different product lines that, interestingly, match training methods.
Drop CrossFit, become a Rogue gym, and let Rogue market the crap of bars, bells, assault bikes, oarsmen, and all the other things Reformed CrossFitters need to do what used to be called training .