2016 Open: Some Closing Thoughts
The 2016 Open has come to a close, and we want to thank all those who participated as competitors, judges, cheerleaders, and supportive partners for making it another great year. Thank you to Jenny and Brian for the awesome documentation, and to the Arena Ready coaches for keeping everything running smoothly each week. Thanks also to Super Judge Chad, and everyone else who volunteered their time to validate each of the competitive performances.
As always, the close of the Open brings a lot of opportunity to reflect on the year, and evaluate things we did that were awesome, and also some of the things we could have done, wish we had done, or didn't do quite as well as we thought we did.
First off, every year the Open reminds me of when Rob and I decided to open Arena Ready following the 2012 Regionals. We wanted to create a place where we could develop and share our passion for people, and our accumulated knowledge about sports and fitness with other like-minded people. Four years later, we couldn't be more thankful that Arena Ready is a reality, and filled with all of you. Watching each of you develop as athletes and competitors, especially putting yourselves out there in the Open over these past five weeks, has been a great source of joy for us, and as always, thank you so much.
Second, there were tons of awesome competitive moments this year during the Open, and we'll post about this more once the scoreboard has settled and we can see how everyone ended up. In short, we were so proud to see so many first-time Rx'ed scores, so many first bar muscle ups, toes to bar, and chest to bar. So many of you learned that you can move heavy weight more times and faster than you thought, and you looked great lifting it! We were stoked to see you succeed.
Next, as most of you know, this year was personally very challenging for me, especially in the last few months. I want to thank you for being patient with me as I was sometimes overwhelmed, stressed out, and distant. Thank you for giving me so many things to be proud of you for, and for offering me grace in some of the moments I didn't really deserve it. I've never been through anything this difficult, and it's been really nice to be part of our community and to benefit from your support. I may not always act like I notice, but I'm very grateful.
Finally, there are likely some of you who, like me, will reflect on this year and wish you had trained a little harder, tackled a few more weaknesses, been a little more consistent, and generally arrived at the Open a little fitter. While it's easy to look back on the year and second guess yourself, it's far more productive to look at the year ahead and evaluate whether you want to make any changes now to drive a different outcome in a year. If you're happy with how you spend your days, and your priorities are aligned, be proud of the choices you make, and try to brush off the fact that you finished a bit below where you would have liked. If, on the other hand, you're actually motivated to make some changes and be in a better place next year, speak with a coach about what you need to do to improve at a faster rate.
Again, thank you for participating in the Open, and thank you for being a part of Arena Ready. We hope this has been a good experience for you, and that you'll also enjoy getting back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Please plan to join us for an End-of-the-Open Party on Saturday evening, April 2. We'll announce the time and location on the private Facebook group and in class - we hope to see you there!
WOD for 03-30-16:
Alternating EMOM for 7 Rounds (21 Minutes):
MIN 1: 2 Front Squats (across)
MIN 2: 15/12 Calorie Row
MIN 3: 30 Double Unders