on the differences between his experience at his original CrossFit gym and CrossFit Anywhere.
#1 I started there in Sept 2011. I passed out of his foundations class after just 1 class and went onto the on ramp and into the general classes. I progressed fairly quickly and knew by the February of the new year I needed to do more volume as I was finishing on the leader board in all the met cons, but my strength lacked. I asked to do the competition team programming. It turned into a big ordeal where he was resistant to it. Finally I had to tell him I was going to quit the gym so I could go find a place that I could do more. At this point he finally agreed to let me do the advanced programming. I flourished.
At CrossFit Anywhere, I was told ANYONE could do the level 2 competition programming that had interest. It wasn’t some exclusive club within a club, it was truly inclusive and was based on your desire to do more, to compete. It didn’t matter if you had muscle ups, were 50 yrs old, or whatever. Blair welcomed you to do what you could do.
#2 Usually in CF, you go at a certain time and so you see other members that go at that time. You end up forming a community within a community as you get to know some folks better than others. I got to know Cory and Alex very well and we trained together a lot. I started to see 2 things go on. First, Alex was being treated rudely on a regular basis by the ownership and one of their longtime members. It was weird. Cory and I were kind of baffled at how blatant they were dissing him. Secondly, since we were doing the competition programming, we got very little coaching since the coaches were with the main class. That’s fine but all of thesudden we were being told that helping others was discouraged unless you were a coach?? So not only were we told that we weren’t allowed to help people (who were clearly in need of help since a coach can only be in one place at a time), but now we weren’t even really supposed to help each other??
At CFA, Blair encourages us to help each other, get to know each other, and work as a real team. It was a huge contrast.
#3 2 of the coaches left this gym and came to CFA, other members have come to CFA (I’m sure that they get members from other boxes that go there too) but in the end, I’ve had conversations with folks and ultimately it wasn’t the programming that drove folks away (although I will touch on that in a second), it was the management’s handling of people and policies. And the facility is pretty nice compared to many of the boxes I’ve visited. A problem was that you rarely saw the owners unless you came at night. Barring that, you might never get to see them. As a business owner for the last 19 years, I can tell you there is a huge difference between on site accessible owners 8+ hours a day and what can be considered absentee owners that are there only an hour or 2 a day.
At CFA, Blair is there EVERYDAY and is always very accessible. His gym is ridiculously clean for a CF box. It’s actually kind of a joke with all of us, that its too clean to be a CF gym. His programming accounts for atlas stones, gymnastics, air dynes, and has lanes and lanes of Oly platforms. Ultimately what we thought was good programming/facilities turned out to actually have some holes in it once we showed up at CFA. The 1st week we were at CFA, Jason andBlair coached Alex and Cory 1-on-1 in their Oly lifts and Cory PR’d. The next week Cory PR’d his deadlift cuz his setup and been off the whole time.
So in the end, yes there are differences in the 2 places. Yes, I didn’t like how my friend Alex was treated. But I thought the place was a good gym and I didn’t really have a problem with it per say. But once I went to CFA, I saw what the next level looked like. Did I disparage the owners or lie or try to steal members? No. I just told folks the truth as you see above. That I had opinions as stated. But if the owners can’t look at themselves as a cause of trainers and members leaving and instead cast aspersions on those that leave, that’s just cognitive dissonance to help them sleep better.
Every business has a culture. I’m allowed to appreciate one over another. It doesn’t make the one I don’t prefer bad. It just makes the one I do prefer better (in my opinion).