I just returned from a five day CrossFit bender out to Nuremberg Germany to teach the CF Gymnastics Trainer Course to 46 brave souls over two days.  I flew direct from Los Angeles to Berlin, after a five hour lay over and a quick hop of a flight I landed in Nuremburg.  I was greeted at the airport by the resident badass Drake Sladky (Reebok CF Nuremburg gym owner, CF Level 1 instructor and father of Ian, who was in the backseat).  After a meal of steak, grilled vegetables and beer (that is water in Germany) I scooted off to bed to begin my battle with jetlag.  Usually I’m pretty good at tricking myself into hybernation, but not this trip.  “Brutal” would be the word that lept to mind in terms of my struggle with sleep while in Germany.  Anyways, after sleeping through my alarm I met the crew the next morning: Jessica “Tiny Dancer” Gray and Gretchen “Part Time Lawyer” Kittelberger and cruised down the street to CF Nuremburg.  

One thing is for certain: CrossFit is exploding everywhere!  The gym is ten thousand square feet of pure ass kick.  All brand new equipment all from ROGUE: Congrats Bill and the crew! Crash mats, cheese mats, room to rope climb, Ardynes, rowers, plates, did i mention plates? and more plates.  Needless to say DogTown was feeling a little jealous that day.

Jessica, Gretchen and I went about preparing the course like Jon Gruden preps his football teams: Precision, seemless transitions and FUN!  We literally had enough people to roster an entire NFL football team at this one.  HAHA!

I love light bulb moments that happen at these courses, i love the little community that we develop over two days and I always meet someone at each course that humbles me.  He will remain nameless, but one individual that weekend -two months recovering from a bullet wound to the hand suffered on the job in Afghanistan, performed his first strict muscle up.  Yes I said it.  Now, the jury is out on whether his hand will every fully recover but he decided that day he was going to do something extraordinary.  The look on his face was remarkable.  This is why I travel 5 thousand miles!

This course was so much fun, the attendees were engaging, excited and really responding to the elements we introduced.  They applied technique and by the end started making connections to incorporating better gymnastics in their gyms as coaches, trainers and athletes!  Can’t wait to do it again!  Its amazing to me how much people are watching and learning on the internet and how much they are watching what happens at other gyms like DogTown as well.  Big thanks to Jess, Gretchen, Tucker, Drake Sladky and the crew in Nuremburg!  See you all soon!

Humbly yours,

Dusty Hyland