Why reinvent the wheel?

Nice, Keith.

hey, keith, i just wanted to thank you for the great class on sunday. i had a great time and hope to be back again before the end of february.

QMan -
I think you’re asking two different questions:
1. To what extent is CF a “rightwing movement”: CF is a fitness community whose members hold diverse political views. CF globally has a large proportion of military-affiliated members; not surprisingly, this portion of the membership appears (through their postings) to hold consistenly right-wing views. Opposing (liberal) views are also posted frequently on the site.
2. To what extent is CF leadership rightwing: To a very great extent.
The choice you have to make is whether you can accept, at no cost, an incredible product from a source whose originators hold political views different from your own.
As for your question of what politics has to do with fitness, I’m not quite sure myself. But as Coach has made clear, it’s his website, so if you can’t take the bad with the good you’re welcome not to come.
Anyway, best of luck with your training. You should stick around (because if you don’t, that means you hate freedom, of course).

Thanks, guys. I completely understand and agree with the idea that it’s a fitness movement only. It’s just strange to see agendas being pushed on the primary website for a fitness movement. I would feel the same way if there were links to Richard Dawkins and Noam Chomsky being posted on the WODs.
Tommy A: I understand what you’re saying, but I take issue that it’s “at no cost”. Aside from the coming costs of Black Box membership, there’s ancillary money going up the CF chain, and indeed there’s even the idea of advocating a movement that seems to have a political component. I don’t think this is a dealbreaker, but there is the idea of “voting with your wallet” — and so the feeling that from the $25 I might spend on a CrossFit Journal subscription, $1 might go to the GOP does kind of turn my stomach.
CF seems to still be growing, so I guess part of the question too (and something I see alluded to in both your responses) is whether CrossFit is bigger than Coach Glassman (or “lauren”).

I agree at times, that the political postings on the main site get a bit heavy handed, but I also think that coach puts it up strictly for debate. Its obvious that he and many on the site are Right-wing conservatives, but I also think that he gives us the opportunity to ignore that. I also truly believe that the money he generates from the journals and other costs all go back into maintaining and growing the Crossfit community as the premier fitness program for everyone. I mean, I’m definitely a liberal (probably a little more moderate than most here in NYC because I was born and raised in the south) but I find it pretty easy to just ignore most of that stuff, and wouldnt want to “throw the baby out with the bath water”.
The question of whether or not Corssfit being bigger than the Glassman’s is a very interesting one, and one that I’m not sure I have an answer for. But I guess for now its kinda like “my house, my rules” type of thing.

crossfit is built on the open-source model, so asking “Is Crossfit bigger than Coach Glassman?” is like asking “Is Linux bigger than Linus Torvalds?”. the answer, of course, is yes; plenty of people have taken the crossfit methodology and run with it, sometimes without giving due credit (*cough*gym jones*cough*). that said, the crossfit community-at-large revolves around the Santa Cruz gym where Glassman tests his theories and even more around the website where he posts all these remarkable workouts he designed, archives advice about how to do them, and which hosts the message boards where you can get virtually any exercise-related question answered by experts.
all that information really is free for the taking. you don’t have to subscribe to the journal, and you don’t even have to join the black box (although you should, the more the merrier): you can just go to the site every day, get the WOD, and do it on your own.
whatever percentage of gross income from subscriptions and product sales that don’t go for bandwidth and upkeep of the site and production costs of the journal undoubtedly go in the glassmans’ pockets, and that’s how it should be. it is, after all, a business. but once that money is in his pocket, what he does with it is really none of our business, is it?

Q
I am a firm believer in the First Amendment and Coach has every right to express his views. I think despite whether you agree with it, he has had the desired effect of getting you to discuss these issues.
You are free to write to Coach and Lauren and share your views. You are also free to post your own thoughts or links to articles that share your views on your own site.
Although, I understand and sympathize with your concerns. I think that you are putting your energies in the wrong place. I think you can learn to live in harmony with conservatives. I think you should focus on diet and exercise. We don’t want to live in a world where us liberals are too weak to fight the conservatives.

I never would have imagined I would need to know this, but thank goodness for the internet

This blog was well done. I have been searching for just this type of article.Thank you for this information.

The blog was great. I have been looking for just this type of site.I am indebted for this information.

The article was awesome. I have been looking for just this type of blog.Thank you for this information.