Who are you really? I mean, when all the chips are down, when the shit hits the fan, when your back is against the wall, who are you?

The Bear: A Retelling

May 16, 2025•9 min read

“He who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” – Benjamin Franklin

“The greatest adaptation to CrossFit is between the ears.” – Greg Glassman

Who are you really? I mean, when all the chips are down, when the shit hits the fan, when your back is against the wall, who are you? Because we never really know. Character is revealed in hardship. We tell ourselves comfortable, wishful stories about who we want to be but, are they true? Is that who you really are? Is that how others see you?

The Bear is the CrossFit workout that broke me. CrossFit is hard. Many of the workouts will confront you. But now and then you will discover among the workouts, your nemesis. The one that breaks your spirit and makes you want to quit. Or actually quit.

Funny thing, I told myself I was mentally tough, that I possessed grit. Heck, I’d been competing in combat sport since I was nine years old. I’d worked as a bouncer in a biker bar from the age of sixteen. I told myself I was no quitter. And then the Bear made me quit. Repeatedly. In front of an audience.

What’s the Bear? A 20 minute CrossFit EMOM. Every minute, on the minute, for 20 minutes you perform 5 dumbbell deadlifts, 5 dumbbell hang power cleans and 5 dumbbell thrusters. The weight you complete it at is your score. The weight we were given was 35lbs, the standard women’s weight. Not so bad, right?

Context. I discovered CrossFit in 2005 and after following the workout of the day at home for three months, was fascinated. Every morning for the next three years I checked the website religiously for the workout of the day. Sometimes, when I felt motivated, I even tried doing it. In 2008 I finally decided to hire a CrossFit coach to take me through the beginner curriculum in preparation for the World Judo Master’s Championship in Brussels and for my CrossFit Level 1 trainer certification in Golden Colorado. In fall 2008 I attended a few CrossFit group classes at CrossFit Vancouver to sample the group class experience and with that limited experience I affiliated CrossFit Empower.

But how to start my own CrossFit business? Lucky for me, late 2008 CrossFit Vancouver hosted the first ever CrossFit Affiliate training weekend. As the fifth affiliate worldwide, opened in 2005, their team of nine coaches, Patty, Shep, T-Bear, Kermit, Kelly, Andy, Popeye, Charlie and Joel had more experience than almost anyone. The attendees were the founder of CrossFit Rocky Point, the founder of Langley’s Campus CrossFit and me. Nine instructors, three participants.

I remember nothing from the first day apart from the Bear. That WOD experience eclipsed everything else. At day’s end, in true CrossFit tradition, we three attendees were invited to complete the workout while the CrossFit Vancouver coaches looked on.

We were all given the same weight dumbbells. I considered myself reasonably fit. But I wasn’t. And as the Bear proved, you can’t fake fitness. I was about halfway through when I quit the first time. I couldn’t bear it anymore (pun intended). The coaches watching exhorted me to pick up the dumbbells and get back in it, but I couldn’t be convinced. I sat out the minute and would have been happy to call it a day, but shame combined with their encouragement convinced me to hop back in at minute twelve after having taken a round off. After all, the other guys were still grinding through. But within a couple rounds I quit again. Again, the CrossFit Vancouver coaches encouraged me to get back in the game, to see it through to the finish line. I don’t recall everything I said, I don’t even know if I was coherent at the time, but I do recall that I was protesting, offering up every lame excuse I could muster to justify quitting. I was a fountain of excuses. The only one I remember however is the argument that my hands were beginning to tear and that I had a major judo competition the following week and in judo you can be disqualified for bleeding on the mats.

So, basically, I was trying to argue my way out of the workout to preserve my soft hands. They weren’t having it. I did squeeze out a few more rounds though I cannot recall through the blur of pain if I missed two out of twenty rounds or three. I suspect three. The other guys made it through without missing a round and without complaining once. I’d done enough complaining for the three of us.

I returned home humiliated. Not just humiliated but also dreading the next day when I would have to return to attend day two of the seminar to face the nine coaches and two affiliate owners who had just witnessed my humiliating performance. How could I convince them that I was not a quitter or a whiner? I began drafting CrossFit Vancouver owner, Patty, a long-winded email explaining myself, defending my actions, justifying my behaviour and, most importantly, arguing that I was not a pathetic loser who gives up the moment things get hard. But about five hundred words into the email I asked myself: is that true?

Am I not? It dawned on me – painfully – that maybe I had been lying to myself. That maybe I was a whiny, pathetic loser who had a habit of quitting the moment life got tough. Maybe that’s who I had always been, and everyone knew it but me. This cut me to the core. Is that how my family saw me? My friends? My wife? My son? Is this how I had operated in the world all the while lying to myself telling myself my excuses were reasons?

It was one of the most painful introspective moments in my life. To see who I really was. How I was actually being. Deleting everything I had just written, all the rationalizations and reasons and denials, I owned up to Patty sharing my humbling realization as well as my commitment to stop being that person.

That experience convinced me to sell CrossFit Vancouver all my CrossFit equipment and purchase a one-year group class membership. Why? Because I wanted to change and I needed to be held accountable. Those nine coaches had witnessed me at my worst and now knew me as a quitter. That’s what they would see every time I walked into their group class. I knew it. And everyday, it would be my job to prove to them that I was no longer the person they first met. It is hard to shake a first impression. It could take years. I needed that burden of proof hanging over my head to make sure I never slipped back into my old way of being. I needed to prove myself anew every day.

Through the following year, on my own between classes, I made several more attempts at the Bear. I’d like to tell you that I succeeded on my first retry but that’s not true. It took me a few more tries to finally slay the Bear but, eventually I did. And I never quit on a CrossFit WOD again. More importantly, the mental discipline I was developing bled into my life outside the gym as I began to recognize and reject excuses when and where they arose. Gradually, bit by bit, I began to resemble the person I’d told myself I was or wanted to be. And wouldn’t you know it, life got better. The people who had always loved and supported me still did but now I respected myself a bit more and felt more deserving of their love and support.

Addendum: the next weekend I did compete at the Burnaby Judo Championships. In the open age division, I suffered a partial shoulder separation in my second fight. With my dominant arm out of commission my first thought was to withdraw from the master’s competition bracket due to injury. But echoes of the previous weekend haunted me. The memory of my failure in the face of the Bear made it unbearable (another pun) to accept another defeat. Not even with a good reason (aka excuse).

So, I competed using my non-dominant hand and a furious determination making my way to the gold medal match. Which I lost on a hilarious trio of technicalities that had nothing to do with my fight performance. I gave it my best through all 5 minutes of regulation time, and my opponent had no answer to my relentless offense. Despite the result to the contrary, I knew that day that I gave a gold medal performance. That silver medal is the one I prize above all others because it represents a championship effort and a refusal to accept excuses. It represents a turning point in my attitude and my life.

Few moments have had the impact that the Bear had. I hate that workout. And I love what it has given me. And that pretty much sums up my feelings about CrossFit. It will change your life if you let it. But only if you have the grit to persevere through the WOD that confronts you. Let it break you and make you anew. Go out and hunt down your bear!

Friday Make Up Day

1) Empower Reset #55: HIIT
1 min breathing
30/30 sec head nods

5 mins
20 Crosstouch Deadbugs
10 Windshield Wipers
10 Shoulder Pullovers

1 min Hands & Knees Breathing
30/30 sec head nods/rotations
1 min neck lateral flexion with rotation

5 mins
20 Crosstouch Bird Dogs
10 Elevated Rolls
10 Sit to Squats (use hands as required)

5 mins
Max Bar Shuffle
5/5 Sumo Frogger
Max Post Squat Hold

HIIT Stations
4 mins per station 30 sec work/30 sec rest
1. Shoulder Blade Crawl
2. Medball Throw @4#
3. Crawl
4. Battle Rope
5. Gladiator Get Up
6. Slam Ball

1 min each:
Hands & Knees Rock
Upper/Lower Body Rolls
Egg Rolls
Rocking Chair