Teaching and CrossFit

I joined a CrossFit gym around the same time I started the K-8 Teaching Certificate program. And for the last 6 months that has been about the only thing my life has consisted of. I've always used CrossFit as my mental break from all the school work, and also used focusing on school work as my distraction from beating myself up for not having a very good workout. While I have always know that CrossFit has kept me sane, I didn't realize how much over lap there is with teaching and CrossFit until my dad sent me a video earlier this week.

One of the teachers in this video makes the parallels very clear to me by saying:

"You walk in and you are performing. It's a weird sense in that it is a little bit of a show. There is dialogue and stuff like that but there is so much energy that goes into walking into that room. And at the end of it you walk out of it with this rush. This really amazing moment and I am always drained because I put everything into it. And it was fun at the end. Not always fun going in because I have to summon a lot of energy to get this done. But once it's done it is awesome."

For me, this is exactly how I feel regardless of if I'm walking into a classroom or into a CrossFit gym. No matter how exhausted I might be at the start of my day, I always end it with thinking how great it feels to accomplish the things I did. It could be working with a struggling student and finally having a break through, or it could be that I got a new squat PR. Even on the not so great days, I leave both places at the end of the day and feel like what I've accomplished IS awesome.