Virtual Class Zoom Room
Password: CFSBK
CFSBK @ Home: 7am, 12pm & 6pm
Morning Mindfulness with Coach Fox: 8-8:30am (free!)
Kids: 4:30pm
Warm Up
Shoulder CARs
Cat Cow
Quadruped Hip Extension
Inchworms w/Shoulder Taps
15:00 For Quality:
5ea Windmills
40 Crossover Jacks
20 Hollow Rocks
10ea SA KB/DB Swing
Strength:
Single Arm DB/KB Clean + DB/KB Hang Muscle Snatch + Single Arm Strict Press or Push Press
3 x 5 – 15 Reps Each
Eric Roza, CrossFit’s new Owner and CEO
As many of you know by now CrossFit was recently purchased by Eric Roza. This Morning Chalk Up profile has a pretty clear history of his professional background if you’ve never heard of him before. I was pretty surprised that Greg sold the company, knowing how fervently he’s held onto his role through CrossFit’s history but I think him leaving was the first thing that had to happen in order for fundamental changes to actually happen in the organization. According to the live zoom Eric did with Dave Castro, his ownership begins sometime around the end of July so I wouldn’t expect to see too much really happening until after then. They did recently launch the CrossFit Scholarship Program which is a step in the right direction
I had never heard of Eric Roza before this, but based on what I’ve read and seen so far I’m optimistic about him and the direction he could take CrossFit. Two gym members who worked under Eric (one at Datalogix and the other at Oracle) reached out to me letting me know that he was amazing to work under and he did a great job leading the company and fostering an inclusive and professional environment. Other members familiar with the tech space also mentioned to me how good of a reputation he has, so I’m happy to hear all that. For me, it’s really important that he’s a 10 year affiliate owner who understands CrossFit and has seen the good, the bad and the ugly along the way. I think if an outsider VC came in that would have been disastrous. On top how the company will evolve politically and culturally, I’m interested to see how a someone rooted in the data/analytics world is going to change the interface of CrossFit digitally. Things like social media, the open, an app, media departments, competitive CF etc.
David Woods, who is Eric Roza’s chief of staff, reached out to me to say that Eric wanted to set up call with me about CrossFit and CFSBK. Woods had actually dropped into CFSBK before and said “you (CFSBK) are an integral part of the CrossFit community. Without CFSBK I feel like there is a hole in our heart. Hopefully we can regain the trust of the community.” Eric is traveling now but I’ve been emailing a little with David and they seem to be proactive about reaching out. Woods is also a former member of Noah’s gym Lumos Fitness Collective so they’ve been chatting as well and I know Eric has already spoken to Charmel, Maillard and Chris the owners of Dean CrossFit, one of the few Black owned affiliates.
Regarding rebranding, I’m not really in a rush to do anything right now, we’re still Community Fitness South Brooklyn. Our 2020 affiliate dues were paid last November through the year so I have some time to see what happens and make a decision before I would legally need to do things like clear the name from anything associated with the business, change our liability insurance, etc. We’ll continue to fly that flag until CrossFit has begun to turn the ship around to restore faith in the brand as well as meeting this moment in history. At this point knowing that completely new leadership is coming in and has been talking to a lot of people about how CrossFit can step up gives me patience to wait and see what happens before doing anything else.
As mentioned before, Greg not being the owner or CEO was the first thing that had to happen in order for me to believe the company could change. I couldn’t in good conscience be connected to the brand if Greg was still at the helm. His history of sexual misconduct, the tweet and response to the BLM movement coupled with the complicated history behind him all crossed the point of no return. I think if there had just been a media fallout from it, nothing would have happened, they’d take it on the chin and move on. My opinion is that seeing how many athletes, coaches, brands and affiliates chose to distance themselves from the CrossFit because of all this is why we’re having this conversation about Eric now. The writing was on the wall that it was time for change.
What are you thoughts/predictions on Eric Roza and the future of CrossFit?
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The Secret to Pull-Ups CrossFit Journal
Trust, as they say, is earned in drops and lost in buckets. I like that they said “hopefully we can regain the trust of the community” — starting out that way, rather than “well, Glassman is gone, now can we start over?” is a ray of hope. I’d love to see them back that up with a dues-free 2021 to give affiliates time to see the team in action before making a final decision on whether to be with the brand or not.
I would like to see Crossfit embrace the mission of creating an exercise methodology that enhances long term health impacts for all people across the world while embracing transparency about all of its activities, especially about where its revenue comes from.
I see three important branches to this work:
Methodology: What is the work that needs to be done in order to achieve long term health benefits. What is the role of benchmark workouts in this? What is the role of competitions in this? Rest? Duration? Warmup? Cooldown?
Research: Consistent peer reviewed studies of the short and long term health benefits of the methodology. Injury histories, rehabilitation durations, etc. Partnerships with universities worldwide to ensure scale.
Access: A commitment to inclusivity across race, age, gender, sexual orientation. Just adopt the CFSBK statement of inclusion.
Finally, let’s rebuild the nomenclature around hero and “the girls” workouts (assuming these types of benchmarks fit the methodology). Hero workouts are names overwhelmingly dominated by white men, and the history and reasoning behind the girls workouts (why they’re named as such) is so problematic.
I really agree with the last part. And beyond the hero workouts being white dominated, the fact that they are all military or law enforcement focused sends a bizarre message that the only “heroes” we have are those that carry weapons or participate in state-sanctioned violence. I think Noah @ Lumos and the Black Power Cleans crew have started moving in a better direction in trying to recognize heroism and valor in all types of people with different workouts that commemorate other types of sacrifice. Creating new versions of these workouts are a good opportunity to call attention to different types of sacrifices made to address all sorts of challenges, and would be a cool way to highlight how the community can expand and be more involved in a variety of different causes.
This will end up being a follow up post, but some of the things I’ve decided internally regarding how we run the gym fall in line with some of these ideas already.
– We already removed the leaderboards
– We don’t plan on doing the “girls” workouts, perhaps keeping the workouts but renaming benchmark workouts in some other novel way.
– Expanding what a hero workout is and who they honor, beyond primarily LEO/MIL communities.
– Removing gender designations from loading options in the workouts
<3
In that first interview with Castro it seemed weird when he addressed "the challenges" as: "COVID, the press, and so on. And not just the press but the realities." So press and "the realities" but can't even say them out loud. Sounded like a non-disparagement clause exists. 🙂
Nothing to add that hasn’t been said other than the depth of thought and considered action put forth by David and the members of the gym yet again makes me so happy to have found this place, and so proud to be supporting member whatever comes next.
Yes!
Thanks for sharing David and fully agree with all your observations so far. I’m optimistic about Roza too. I chatted with Chris at Dean Street last week when I passed by and he made a good point about them rather being part of the change instead of walking away.
I contacted you and voted for deaffiliation right after the tweet, but with this change in leadership I feel it might be worth seeing what’s next. I do believe CFSBK can do so much good and be a big part of that change.
Thanks for being transparent and showing leadership. <3
finally a possibility of WOD named after me – my mother will be proud of me…
Classic Runit comment for the win.
Well done.
“Runit”
For time
1000 Burpees
2000 2k Rows
3000 Burpees
David, your decisive stance helped bring about this surprisingly quick turn; I appreciate your leadership so much. It’d be cool if there was enough change in the larger community that we could remain a part of it.