There’s been a lot going on in the CrossFit Community. Over the weekend and into Monday, it felt like we were watching CrossFit, Inc. (HQ) go down in flames. Like the black knight in Monty Python who keeps getting his limbs severed but continues claiming, ‘tis only a flesh wound!’ It was hard to watch.
As many of you know, MOEfit was born from CrossFit. Our mentor and sister from a different mister is a CrossFit affiliated box and will forever be a part of our family and our story. When we chose to push the MOEfit dream into existence, we struggled the most with defining our philosophy. THAT was the single most important element of this whole labor of love… what did we want MOEfit to be?
CrossFit introduced us to their style of fitness and we thought long and hard about whether or not to carry the legacy of our birth forward through affiliation. We argued about it – [Joy] wanted to spring-board from the existing brand and marketing which (probably) would have provided a much easier and faster growth-rate right out of the box; [Marc] wanted to use it as a foundation to build something new, realizing this option would take longer but he felt very strongly that it would be the better route long-term. Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess. We love what MOEfit has grown into and we’ve never regretted our decision to go our own way and we are still very much engaged in our local CrossFit community.
MOEfit’s philosophy has evolved as we’ve grown – 100% because of our weirdo family. We had dreams of what MOEfit could be, but truly and honestly never ever thought it would be what it has become, and we are beyond words proud of every single athlete. Seriously, we love you all! But back my point on our philosophy… we knew already that CrossFit put quite a bit of focus on competition. There’s nothing at all wrong with that but it didn’t really align to our goals of making people healthier for life. Don’t get me wrong, we like a little friendly competition and we love the elite athletes that build their lives around their workout routines… but that’s really the exception to what most of us have time for. I love the Olympics too but we’re not out to create a Jamaican bobsled team… we just want to make people stronger and healthier and why not have a little fun doing it? We chose to build it from the ground-ish up (giving credit to our CrossFit roots). We spent a LOT more time, sweat, energy, tears and stress to make MOEfit its own brand. Did I say stress? Some of you older weirdos may remember those first few crazy months. There were so many conversations about the future of MOEfit and what our commitment to it looks like and how to mold that into something we were proud of. It was and IS worth it all every single day.
It’s a very long post to say that yes, we know there’s a lot going on with CrossFit currently. It’s tragic that a great community has been put on blast because of poor leadership choices and the ignorance of a few. CrossFit’s founder and executive leadership have made those poor choices (pre-dating the most recent even) and truth-be-told, we felt glad to have dodged the bullet of having to choose between our business affiliation and our own personal philosophies. We are also saddened for our CrossFit community who ARE dealing with this backlash. It’s a shame when your brand becomes a liability by no fault of your own. I very much want to draw a distinct line between the “brand” and the “community.” There is a very big difference between the business side of this and the small-box-community.
We don’t care who you are, where you come from or what your politics are – MOEfit is and will always be a place of community and encouragement. When you walk through those bay doors, you’re a weirdo in a family of weirdos!