Sometimes life knocks you in the head so much that you finally stop and listen. This is the story of how I got here today. I grew up in Santa Fe, tried to finish school, but in the end was your average high school drop out at the ripe age of 16. I dabbled in sports during some of my earlier years but never pushed myself to my fullest abilities. I had no drive and no ambition to better myself.
Therefore, it’s no surprise my choices never led me back to school. Instead, it started me on my long string of dead-end jobs that supported my “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. I had no real goal, I just wanted to be the “cool” kid… the kid that everyone would go to… for something… anything really. I was hungry for attention, so eventually going to social hangouts and outdoor parties peeked my interest. I was finally good at something: socializing. At least good enough to get the attention I desired.
The local fame was so good it carried on into my adulthood. I knew the whole town, I knew all the ins and outs of everybody and was constantly surrounded by impulse and selfishness… and I was directly in the center of it all. It was just the attention I had always longed for. But there was more to be had. So I crossed the line of the law and started pushing small weight around town.
Lightweight eventually turned to heavy weight. My successes moved me from Santa Fe to Austin where the lavish lifestyle followed suit. My life was a 24-7 party which had no end in sight. Silly me… January 9th, 2009, you could say shit got real. That night, a very large package made it into the wrong hands: Those of the Texas Drug Task Force. That’s when the Federal Indictment started to slowly build upon me and my partners.
I left Austin for San Diego in February of 2009 thinking I could fly under the radar, and just maybe the Texas DEA would move on. But I was already in over my head, I was just too blind to see it. Even still, my brush with the law was the wake up call I never saw coming. The one you can’t set your alarm for. I left the drug hole I was in, started to slow down on the booze and work a normal job. I began surfing and was enjoying life more than I ever had before. I was grateful for every little thing, and compared to the lifestyle I had just left, it was very little. But I was happy and I hadn’t felt like that in who knows how long. I was excited about getting healthy. Deep down inside I always knew I was a different man, I had just kept making the wrong choices and it had been leading me further and further away from the real me.
In November of ‘09 I was introduced to CrossFit at US CrossFit in Encinitas, CA. My first thought was “Meh, this looks boring…” as I was already very experienced in traditional lifting. But I said “Fuck it,” and went to a class. I believe the first exercise we learned was the damn burpee! We ran a mile to the beach, made lines in the sand 25 meters apart, ran back and forth and did 10 burpees for 20 minutes. I was instantly hooked.
You know sometimes when you’re going about your life and you start to daydream, you kind of wander off into visions of the future and different ideas or such? Well I would, and for some crazy reason I couldn’t see anything past the day that just happened. Just blank and desolate. Being that present was amazing but I knew something was missing… or coming.
On June 28th, 2010 that blank desolate space from TX came smashing through my door looking for me. That was the day everything became very fucking clear. I was going to prison for 60 months. I spent the next 3 months in different facilities until I got bonded out and moved back to Santa Fe. I immediately ran into my dear friend, Tait Fletcher, and he offered to let me train at CrossFit Santa Fe until I had to turn myself in. So for the next 3 months I trained hard and heavy. I loved every minute of it. It helped me stay in the present moment and kept my mind off the inevitable near future.
When you’re driving yourself to a 60 month sentence, the feeling really doesn’t register. I knew I was leaving my family, my loved ones, and my life, but I had to keep myself centered. I had to keep myself strong because the look on a mother’s face had wounded my heart deeply and I knew I had to make things right. My choice was to make a difference in my life and those around me. My desire was to be the man I knew I was deep down.
So it began…I went in and started to figure out my daily routine. I figured out the lay of the land and began my WODs at the weight pile. The looks and questions I got from other inmates were wild, and I think a lot of people were actually concerned for me. It was quite funny. Eventually, other inmates came right out and asked me “What the hell are you doing?!” I explained what CrossFit was and the methodology behind it.
As interest started to grow, I began teaching a few guys what I had learned at CrossFit Santa Fe. Interest grew and grew as the word spread, by the end of my first year in, I had 2 classes at Englewood FCI in Denver totaling about 14 men.
The thing is, I had never really taught anything before. I mean, I had taught a few snowboarding lessons when I was younger, but that was nothing like trying to get structure and keep a bunch of imprisoned men engaged. But I said “Fuck it,” and took the leap. I read, studied, and then read some more about the different movements from my coaches at CrossFit Santa Fe and CrossFit Journal.
I was constantly tracking the programs I would set up for the classes, and the progress the different inmates were making. We didn’t have bumper plates, med balls, rings or anything to the degree of what you have out in the real world. But we improvised and made it work.
By the time I left in May of 2012, I had the whole yard stoked to watch us work out and even more people interested in trying. I got moved to another prison in Florence, Colorado. Needless to say, I started another crew and it blew up beyond belief. At one point I had about 30 men trying CrossFit.
We had a tradition: when a buddy would be getting released, we would make a hero WOD for them. This way they would be sent off sore and remembering what they spent their last moments confined doing. Hopefully, this would remind them of the focus and drive they had to be better on the inside, which would then translate to their new lives on the outside.
I sit here now and think about the impact I’ve made on the inmates I came into contact with. I created a sense of community, and not to say that community wasn’t already present in a house of confinement, but I gave these men something more to look forward to. Life is so redundant in all of those places. You literally remember the day you walked in and the day you walked out. Everything in between meshes into one. Nothing really ever changes… faces may, but life as a whole stays the same.
The friends of mine who made it through my brutal WODs and long monotonous days are still to this day doing CrossFit, whether it be at home or in prison. My programs are still being used in the 3 prisons I was in. In order to have an actual functional fitness-type program introduced into prisons would be a long, grueling, government process that at the moment isn’t realistic. But the men I left my programing with still use it to this day. I am in contact with them on a regular basis and help to keep them motivated. In turn, they help to keep me in the present moment and remind me to never forget where I came from, as well as how long it took me to get to where I am today.
Today I am me, the real me, the athlete I always knew was inside. Today is not a day to waste. Today I will be better than I was yesterday. I will strive to make a difference in someone’s life every opportunity I can.
My dream and passion is to continue to bring smiles to peoples’ faces and to see that light in their eyes when they achieve something they never knew was possible. My heart thrives on becoming stronger, faster and pushing my limits on all my dreams and goals. CrossFit changed my life and I am grateful to have been able to pass this gift on to others in need of a community. One day I will run into these men and be able to witness their successes. It will be one of the most rewarding feelings ever to know that I have been a part of their journey to becoming better individuals, as they did the same for me.