Empower: A Home for All
Okay, this might get a little personal. Whenever I get the chance to meet and chat with Empower members past or present, the one thing they always remark on is the incredible community at Empower. And CrossFit has always been about community, that’s what drew me to it. But members who have CrossFitted elsewhere insist that Empower has something a little extra. I think I know what they mean. At Empower you are welcomed and accepted at face value. You’re not judged by your fitness, athleticism, body composition, age, appearance, race, religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation or fashion sensibility.
We really don’t care about any of that. At Empower we welcome good people in all their uniquely wonderful flavours. Good people are good people. And they are always welcome at Empower. In a recent catch-up over coffee with a beloved former member the subject of community came up again about the spirit behind Empower. Here’s where it gets personal.
Empower was born out of a very lonely start in Vancouver. By the time I began my freshman year at the University of Waterloo, my parents were already separated and to avoid the drama, I had moved in with my girlfriend of four years. We’d been together since I was seventeen and I knew that she was the one. It was around Christmas time that my father’s incarceration made the front page of our local newspapers and with my unique last name and the notoriety of my parents’ business, there was no way to avoid recognition that led to questions from my classmates.
So, it was not an unwelcome surprise when my girlfriend announced that she was applying to UBC instead of the University of Waterloo. Though initially dismayed, I quickly recognized the opportunity to escape, trading in local infamy for anonymity in a city as far from home as possible. Instead of registering for a second year at Waterloo, I applied to UBC. I was accepted, my girlfriend was not.
No matter, we were committed to starting a new life together on the West Coast. Well, at least one of us was. I worked 70 hours a week on top of full-time classes saving money for our trip out west. When the time came, we packed our belongings in the trunk of my uninsured Camaro (who could afford insurance bussing tables?) and bid farewell to our families. I’m more of a homebody than an adventurer but with my father going away to serve his sentence and my mom and brother living in social housing, I didn’t exactly have a home to go to. But I figured, with the love of my life beside me, I could face anything the world threw my way.
The drive across Canada was beautiful but strained. My eyes were focussed westward on the future ahead of us but hers seemed to be glued to the rearview mirror. Long story short, after our first night in Vancouver, my girlfriend of four and a half years, the only love of my brief adult life so far, used the last of our savings to fly herself home to a guy she had been seeing on the side while I was busy working overtime shifts to pay our way across the country.
I found myself alone in an unfamiliar city where I had no friends or relatives or even the money to afford long distance calls home. Even if I’d wanted to go home, I hadn’t the price of gas or a plane ticket. I was stuck in Vancouver almost as if someone had wanted it that way. But stubborn as I am, it never occurred to me to return home. After all, there was no home to go to. But even if there was, there was no way I was going to return to my friends and family a defeated, a guy who couldn’t hack it in the big city.
The first couple years were long, dark and lonely. The University of Waterloo was a very friendly campus. People came from all over Ontario to attend and though there were a few of us locals there too, most students were new in town and looking for new friends to hang with. UBC was a different animal. A large number of students came from surrounding municipalities along with a ready-made collection of their high school friends. For out of towners, it was not easy to break into these cliques. I was once told: “I have enough friends; I’m not looking for any new ones.” Ouch.
But I did make friends. First at UBC Judo and later working security in the Student Union Building. You will be familiar with some of my early Vancouver associates such as Bruiser, Magnum, Dr. T and Crusher. It was still lonely. At night I would walk by the lit windows of houses and remember what it was like to have a home and somebody waiting for you there. A place you could go and be welcomed in. It was a painful reminder that no such thing existed in the world for me anymore. Which was just as well because that first Christmas I could not afford to fly home but instead stayed on campus and worked as many hours as possible with the other UBC orphans.
It's all very sad and Charles Dickens but, spoiler alert: it turned out well for me in the end. My life in Vancouver has been wonderful. I have made so many great friends over the years and my family eventually moved out this way. And of course, I met my wife at UBC. But when I look at Empower, I see the home that I was missing. So many of our members came to Vancouver like me, alone and with no friends and family before they met us. And then we became their family. And that is what this former member told me Empower is to her: her Canadian family!
I’ve been to member weddings, graduations, thesis defenses and birthdays. But more important than that, Empower members have become family to each other. At the Open or the 12 Days of X-Mas or the Annual Awards Ceremony, I like to stand back and watch all the love in the room. All the meaningful relationships. All the amazing people who have come together to love and support one another. And I think back to that lonely, heartbroken Vancouver orphan alone in an unfriendly and unfamiliar city and I want to tell him that he did it. He was not defeated. He stuck it out and he managed to make something beautiful. He built the family that he wished he could have discovered when he came to this city alone. A place that anyone with a good heart can call home.
It means a lot to me when members tell me how much they appreciate the community we have built at Empower. Thanks to you for helping us build something extra special on Vancouver’s West Side. Thanks for opening your arms to all the people searching for a family and a place they can call their home!
Monday
Today we will be doing benchmark workout Grace. We will go in 2 heats, one person working, one person counting. Your goal is to complete the workout in under 5 minutes (6 reps per minute). If you have completed Grace previously in under 5 minutes at the Rx load, your goal today is to finish faster. If you completed under 5 minutes with a load lighter than Rx, this time add 5 lbs to your barbell and try again. If this is your first Grace, you want to use a load that represents 50% of your clean & jerk 1 rep max.
Warm Up
Partner A: 1 min Sandbag Get Ups
Partner B: 1 min each:
1. RDL
2. Bradford Press
3. Power Clean
4. Push Jerk
5. Clean & Jerk
Tech
Clean & Jerk
WOD
Grace
30 Clean & Jerk
