**First welcome to my new blog, its very basic, I’ll keep working on it to make it schmancier. My name is Sean McCullagh, I am the co-owner of South Baltimore Crossfit, and now on to something else.
HAVE YOU BOUGHT IN?
This question sprouted in my brain this morning while cutting mats on the floor of the gym with some loud music playing from the band — “Explosions in the Sky”… Great thinking music. This music connected my brain to the movie “Friday Night Lights.” (an excellent movie if you’ve never seen it) From there I started thinking about team sports – football initially, but then team sports in general.
We always hear coaches and commentators talking about a team “buying in” to the coaches methods or philosophy or techniques. As a rower throughout my high school and college athletic career, and finally a coach of high school and college rowing teams – I know intrinsically what it means for a team to“buy in.” I have been a part of teams that have “bought in” and teams that have not, I have coached teams that have “bought in” and teams that have not.
What does it mean to “buy in?” In high school a good coach will find a good way to channel all of the raging hormones and constant soul searching of teenagers - into something bigger than themselves. In college, a good coach does a similar thing, just now with humans with a bit more self-control, intelligence and usually a stronger sense of who they are. In college its a bit trickier to harness the collective energy of the group, but not in any way impossible for a good coach.
Coaching adults is even trickier still. Adults have jobs and children and mortgages. Adults don’t believe in magical things anymore. Team sports, Rah-Rah attitudes — foolish, things of the past. Adults have to be serious now, we need retirement packages and minivans. Right? Well we can talk about the necessities of these things later (actually I already have somewhat HERE) but why does it have to be this way. The answer is – It doesn’t. I have coached plenty of adults who can grasp the idea of “buying in” to something–to me, to our gym, to something bigger than just themselves. You see them every day in class.
They are the ones that go hard for every second of an AMRAP. They stay after class to do some extra chins, or work on double unders. They cheer for every last classmate during a workout. They make that last rep on their 3×5 press, when they easily could have bailed. They are supportive of their fellow classmates, with a positive comment or a kick in the ass.
So here we are as adults, young and old, some of us having the experience of being part of a great team, and some not. Some of us exhibiting behaviors like the ones listed above– some not. One of my beliefs for our gym, is that this feeling, this experience of “buying in” is available to any who are willing to lose themselves in their workouts. This feeling doesn’t just come because you want it to, it comes from a collaboration of ridiculously hard work and sharing that work with people of a like mind. “Buying in” is an feeling incredible feeling of community, intimacy, passion, and unbridled enthusiasm directed towards a common goal. That goal can be winning a race, pounding another team into the turf, or storming a gun turret. But the constant theme that runs through all those goals is that they could not have been accomplished without the inspiration and support of your team. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
So…… ask yourself today, and every day when you come to our gym, our fortress of solitude, our freedom from your shit desk job, our concrete jungle where you can express your human form in one of its purest ways…. HAVE YOU BOUGHT IN?
I’ll leave you with a quote that whenever I read it – I get a chill of passion that runs down my spine… You’ve heard it before, but have you felt it?
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” Vince Lombardi
HAVE YOU BOUGHT IN?
Great post…Also, that pic is definitely from The Last Boy Scout
haha yeah it is. thanks buddy.
Workouts are interesting, one moment I will be talking to myself trying to get through a long workout (like the one on Sunday Jan 8) thinking how miserable I felt in the wall sits…then it’s over and the exhilaration that I DID complete it! The concept at SBCF is one that I’ve never heard before in relation to “working out”. Most “claims” want you to turn yourself over to them so they can “work” their “magic”. At our gym the responsibility of our result lies in us “buying in”, bringing our best to the gym physically and mentally. None of this could happen (obviously) without dedicated and awesome coaches and an equally amazing facility that continues to improve! When I tell people that “cross fit” has changed my life, it is really the coaches believing in us, the positive attitudes that I am surrounded with and the feeling that their are no limits! I sometimes try to do the workouts at home and the effort at home without all the support fall short of what I could have accomplished at the gym.