[This is the first time I have sat down to record anything since returning from the COVID shutdown in 2020 so bear with me as I sort out the details of audio engineering (at a very amateur level). There are some weird cuts in here as I removed a few instances of me rambling or not really contributing to the conversation. So each time you can hear a cut, just know I was doing you a favor] Will Black joined the Black Wolf team of coaches a few weeks back.  He brings with him a wealth of experience. From starting out under Jeff "Mad Dog" Madden at the University of Texas to being involved in his wife Janet's journey to 9 CrossFit Games appearances.  But specifically he sat down to discuss the details on Black Label Barbell's Holiday Lift Off which are hosting here at Black Wolf CrossFit on November 27th. Athletes can register through this link!  

Tomorrow, Monday 7/6, we are back with a full schedule. Here are the details on our return. 

Homer was kind enough to sit down with me and to share his perspective on the current social uprisings, the desired changes, and on living every day as a black man.  As mentioned in the beginning, the purpose is to allow me (and the listener) an ever so brief glimpse into the life of someone who faces obstacles and expectations that are not naturally occurring in my own life due to the color of my skin.  The Bloom Academy is the amazing charter school where Homer will be serving of chairman of the board this year. Check them out and donate if you are able!  The video demonstrating privilege in the race Homer discussed can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K5fbQ1-zps Find Homer on Instagram at @HBritton_VI

Happy Friday! The sun came out and it was a beautiful day. Y'all crushed "Nancy" (with Vanessa finishing the day with the fastest time at a blistering 12:13).  After competing at Hammer & Chisel this past weekend, the question has come up, how do you pick whether you should Rx or should Scale. And who is responsible for keeping the integrity in those divisions? Things are not how they once were.  Let me know your thoughts. 

Happy Friday everyone. I wanted to give my thoughts on 20.5 before y'all take it on tonight as well as some brief thoughts on the Open as a whole from the perspective of the affiliate.  I also wanted to encourage y'all to come out to Hammer & Chisel at Atomic CrossFit to cheer on Summer & Steph, Angie & Morgan, Manny & Adrian, and Hunter & myself. The comp starts around 9:30am and will be done or at least have the "final WOD" (only one division) by 2pm. Short and sweet. You know we appreciate that (Keep it simple stupid).  Finally, I leave y'all with my most recent mental exercise/struggle. One mistake does not have to lead to EVERYTHING being wrong. Though it certainly may feel like that. I talk about one mistake that has forced this business into an unsustainable position and how, on the tough days, that can mean I feel like it is all a waste of time. But this mistake (made twice in the last 5 years) is able to be remedied and, therefore, not worth dwelling on. Learn and move forward.  Y'all are awesome. I look forward to getting more content out to y'all in the coming weeks including a sit down with one of our newest one year anniversary athletes, Elle Belle herself! 

Today, July 17th, is Crystal's Birthday! Be sure to wish her a happy birthday on her Instagram page, @CrystalMarieWellness 24:12: The article in question written by science journalist Apoorva Mandavilli  My Son Got Lyme Disease. He’s Totally Fine. Find the article here.  23:44: Crystals first thoughts after reading this article  31:10: Crystal reads Ben’s favorite quote that she introduced to him earlier this week 44:12: The importance of sharing YOUR story, no matter how humble you believe your journey to be 53:52: Who has a responsibility/obligation to share? “Great news! It’s Lyme Disease! That’s the best thing it could be!” 1:06:47: “So in conclusion”  1:07:35: Surround yourself with the right people who support and push you

Crystal Dunlap joined our team here at Black Wolf two months ago as the second coach in our Freestyle program, working alongside the amazing Kim Coble.  Crystal's experiences developing coaches and programs around the world have positioned her to have a unique view on how to imprlment areas of focus into programs. We adopted this idea and now we roll out a theme for each month.  This month we will be looking at mindfulness, introducing different practices and ideas each week in order to help all of us remain not in the past, not in the future, but here in the now.  Resources:  Of all of the resources available, my (Ben) favorite is episode 122 from the Tim Ferriss podcast. Here he lays out a few best practices that he has utilized to help him remain in the now.  Another short post that was impactful to me comes from Ryan Holiday, author of Ego is the Enemy and The Obstacle is the Way on his blog

  1:57- Joel begins to lay out the schedule for the teams traveling to Austin for The Fittest Experience this weekend. Joel and Miranda are on separate teams but competing Saturday and Sunday.    4:20- The value of singing up for a competition    21:05- The Fittest Experience is becoming the Texas version of Wodapalooza    23:20- Ben thinks this years CrossFit games might just be a huge shit show   24:15- Cheating by CrossFit Games athlete in The Open? Here is a link from Morning Chalk Up catching you up on the controversy. https://morningchalkup.com/2019/04/24/elite-athletes-call-for-improvements-to-hqs-video-review-amid-devin-ford-controversy/   29:31- Quite a few CrossFit Games athletes are incredibly well educated and intelligent   33:10- We had 10 athletes compete at the Festivus Games hosted by CrossFit 1836 in Humble. And they all did awesome   34:05- Hey owners and coaches, Ben is sick of you teaching your athletes it’s ok to maintain poor standards of movement. We are done blaming the judges. This is on the affiliate and the local gym these athletes come out of. Why on earth is happening inside of your 4 walls? Take some pride in what you teach.    38:45- The story of the Houston Area Affiliate Community criticizing an affiliate owner for pointing out rampant trash reps at a competition that was $100 per team. All he said was this is not right and the response from literally everyone was that he should mind his business…………    41:30- Another example of how nobody can do a good deed without someone (many someones more often than not) having some shitty thing to say about it. Looking at you animal rescue “advocates.”  

The boys discuss Miranda's new passion project, The Strong Woman Project (sorry for the redundancy), why double days are not the way to go, and what hobbies actually fully serve the role of being a hobby.    :50- Check out Joe Rogan's sit down with Kevin Hart. Here's a clip: It's Not Cool to be Positive 10:50- Things get serious. Miranda is about to crack some skulls and kick some ass. What got her blood boiling and why is she going to be delivering a message to the community on Monday? 25:35- So you like double days do ya? You like to hit CrossFit at 5:30 then some Freestyle at 6:45? Well, we have some thoughts on why this might not always be the best idea.  28:55- Ben challenges you to do less in order to achieve more 37:05- What is your escape? Joel went for a bike ride around town and Ben completed a 2000 piece puzzle solo. What hobbies do you have or recommend?

Miranda drops some nutrition knowledge at 28:58, and Ben get's into the heart and mind stuff at 51:30. The best for the very last, right? Y'all are awesome!  8:00- Opening Day for MLB and is baseball still America's past time?  13:15- The Freestyle program at Black Wolf is growing!  18:49- The beginning of the Christopher Robin conversation. Have you seen it? Did Winnie the Pooh play a role in your childhood?  19:59- Ben gets a little judgy about comic book movies 21:26- the gym is haunted and a ghost moved the hoolahoop on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram Live. Call the paranormal investigators!  22:28- The Sound of Music had a 3 hour run time and they had the decency to program in an intermission. Will Marvel's 3 hour monstrosity, END GAME, have an intermission?  25:00- True artistry is delivering incredibly value in as little as possible, right? Use less words.  26:13- The fallacy of more is better. After all, some people would prefer we program "Murph" once a month if not more. 27:50- Ben thinks killing characters you eventually "bring back to life" is just Dollar Store creativity.   28:58- Miranda brings us Nutrition Tip #3. What do you know about protein? She'll be unpacking the 3 macro nutrients over the next three weeks so stay tuned.  33:43- Joel discusses comic books, escapism, and Stan Lee 34:44- Ben questions Joel's credibility when it comes to movie recommendations after last weeks Triple Frontier suggestion.  41:10- Ben's Man Crush Friday 43:35- Back to Christopher Robin for real this time. And everybody cried. You should too. Don't be too cool for emotions. Truly cool kids embrace vulnerability.  47:24- The bi-weekly Joe Rogan tangent 51:30- Ben really wants you to watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime  

Miranda and Joel sit down to brag about some of y'alls amazing performances over the last 5 weeks. They discuss the results from each week as well as the winner of the team competition at the end. Enjoy! 

I want to apologize for the past few episodes. They have been sloppy and unplanned and although that can be fun for those of you close to us because stream of consciousness from people you enjoy is entertaining at times, we did not launch this podcast to be just two guys shooting the shit.  Today is a new day. And, as we discuss in the episode, it is largely due to the relief that Miranda's arrival to Team Black Wolf has provided.  3:30- We start this episode with Coffe Talk with Joel. He takes us through his morning coffee routine and demonstrates the iced pour over method with 1885 Coffee. We add a shot of espresso that we made in our Brevel Espresso machine with Inteligensia Espresso Beans and the results were amazing.  24:20- We talk about how amazing it has been to have Miranda with us. I, Ben, feel like the old me that started this business four years ago with so much fire in my soul, and Joel finally gets to actually rest and recover between his bouts of high energy coaching and engagement with our athletes. Life is good.  SUB STORY: 26:45- Ben worked at Abercrombie and management was about as effective as you might expect from people hired for their douchiness instead of their work ethic.  35:50- We discuss our initial thoughts on our Enneagram (personality assessment) results and how some of us are raised being reminded of where our strengths are while others are rarely if ever told. Life is not equal and life is not fair. We have to keep this in mind.  51:35- There is not quantifiable proof that Ben and Joel are literally opposites. As in no overlap on strengths at all. Where he is strong, I am weak. And where I am strong, he is weak.  54:10- Things to come:  Freestyle at Black Wolf officially launches April 1st with 3 class offerings: Freestyle Grit, Freestyle HIIT, and Freestyle Enduro. On March 25th, we will be opening up the schedule. 6am Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 6:45 (INSTEAD OF 7PM), Monday-Wednesday. And the biggest news: all 5 classes offered on the Black Wolf schedule are open and available to our Freestyle athletes. We will be running Freestyle Grit and Freestyle HIIT programming every Thursday from here on out. Freestyle athletes are also invited to join us on Sunday at 10:30am (with FREE Sunday Yoga at 11:45am). That means you now have 13 classes to choose from each week. And, if you sign up before April 1st, the price is just $85!    Den of Wolves: We are launching the Black Wolf Business Directory in April. If you are a Black Wolf athlete that offers a service or product you would like to make known to this community, please let me know. Send me an email at Ben@BlackWolfCF.com with a description and photo (or I can just use one of Joel's photographs of you working out like a badass. Your call). We will feature one business a week on the podcast and on the social media accounts and we will have them all posted on the website.   

Miranda drops some nutrition advice in at 29:39 so be sure to check that out.  The rest is for your enjoyment.  We do ask toward the beginning for your help in building the future format for this podcast. Right now we are looking at  -Coffee Talk: Joel teaching me something he has recently discovered about the wonderful world of coffee -What did you watch, listen to, read: We are only allowed to reference Joe Rogan once a month. This may be business related or, like today, what we have really, really enjoyed consuming for our own entertainment (check out the F1 Docuseries on Netflix. It's AMAZING!).  -Upcoming announcements   What else would you like to hear us talk about? This can be a researched subject, or just our personal thoughts. Your call. This is for y'all and we do not want it to continue to devolve into Joel and I just having conversations we can have outside of the podcast.    Thanks for being awesome! 

The Black Wolf Team sits down to discuss y'alls amazing performances on 19.3 Friday night. 

Miranda and Joel sit down with Ben to discuss Open Workout 19.2 and the amazing Friday night event we had here at Black Wolf where so many of y'all put on incredible performances.    We will be coming to you every week for the 3 remaining weeks of the Open sharing our thoughts. We are also posting videos of these discussions so be sure to head over to the Black Wolf CrossFit YouTube channel and subscribe so you are able to stay up to date!    Y'all are awesome!