Our Friend Alex

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for our good friend Alex, who is, as I write, on his way to Munich after a two-week stay with us.  Two weeks may seem like a long time for some visitors, but Alex’s visits are always too short.

Nicky and I attended one of the first CrossFit Gymnastics certs outside the US in Copenhagen, Denmark.  While the cert was awesome, the best part of that experience was meeting fellow CrossFitters across Europe. We spent the previous summer doing CrossFit in our driveway to the bewilderment of our Polish neighbors. We started to feel like we were the only people in the world doing these crazy things but the cert made us feel part of the CrossFit community. We fell in with a group of athletes, including Alex, who lived in nearby Berlin. We did WODs at the Brandenburg gate, in a Berlin firehouse and in front of the Reichstag building to the cheers of busloads of Chinese tourists.  We stayed in each other’s houses and formed some lasting friendships.

The lucky athletes who got some coaching from Alex know that he is an enthusiastic trainer with a talent for breaking down complicated movements into their basic parts.  By his nature, Alex seeks to understand and explain. It’s just what he does.

If you know Alex outside of the box, you know he doesn’t just do this with CrossFit. Alex is a renaissance man with a broad range of interests: Philosophy, computer programming, the sciences and public policy. You can’t hang out with Alex and not learn something. Something useful.

But besides being a great coach, Alex is an awesome friend with a dry sense of humor, a sharp mind and an even temper. Most importantly, he has one of the best qualities a friend could have: He encourages his friends, by his example, to be a little better, to know more, to master something.

Once again, we were tempted to steal Alex’s passport, so he couldn’t leave.

Maybe next year.