I train people. It’s my passion. I do my best everyday, for my actions and mentality to reflect whom I want to be physically, spiritually and emotionally. It’s not always and easy task, but I do it because I love it. Helping others achieve goals that were impossible now become a stop along the journey, one ninja at a time.
Why do I workout? First and foremost I do it for me, I love the mind body connection, I love the zone, the burn, the successes and failures. I love what it teaches me about myself; its very spiritual to me. But it’s not always about just me when I workout.
I’d like to share a recent experience I had one Saturday morning coaching at Shinobi. Enter Joanne or “Mojo” as she is known by many. First let me say,Mojo is like a sister to me. She gives me a hard time, drives me crazy at times, but loves and supports me, my dream and encourages me to be better than the last day. I took this photo because I saw something I wanted to share. The photo only slightly reflects the power of the message I want to send. As I watched Mojo push and challenge herself through a Saturday morning workout with intent and focus, I was drawn to something even more awesome happening in the background, can you see it?
There is a young impressionable girl watching Mojo workout.
Without getting into the personal details of their relationship, know that Mojo is an important role model in this young girls life.
She watched Mojo like a hawk. Moments of awe from station to station & rep to rep. She was in it as much as Mojo was. So much that she even put her iPad down to watch. As Mojo finished her last box jump they unknowingly both smiled in sync as the satisfaction of the victory was shared between them.
Before they left I shared the photo. “This young girl who looks up to you for so many reasons, just found one more…” I said.
I’m proud of you Mojo, for many different reasons, I also just found one more.
Kids need to see their role models face challenge and struggle. They need to see us put in work. They need to see us succeed and fail. Although I currently have no kids of my own, I am fortunate to have wonderful kids in my life through family and past relationships.
They’ve all seen me train & compete whether it be on a soccer field, football field, in the gym or at a CrossFit competition.
To these kids I’m am the strongest person in the world. They look up to me, they want to become strong like me and want to own a gym someday(so they say). Kids learn from our behavior, some things don’t always come easy to us, or them. When kids see us believe in ourselves, push hard and not give up, we automatically give them the right to the same thing.