Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to work with Alexis on a project of his at King's Boxing Gym in Oakland. Alexis is super fun to work with, one of the things that I love about working with him is that we are so very different. I see the world in a very different way to the way he views it, so when we work together it is fun to see how he approaches a situation. I also love that he puts his talents towards charity. While I volunteer with Obugs and the Oakland Animal Shelter, Alexis is using his talents to help the people you see in these images. Many of the kids that come to this gym have little funding but very big dreams. Their ultimate goal is the Olympics and Alexis is doing what he can to help them.

Alexis, thanks for letting me tag along! It was a pleasure to see you in action. Your passion for the art is inspiring!

The cuteness is overwhelming. Yes, she was on stage for only a cumulative of about 2 minutes, but she was the star. Dancing across the stage in her purple tutu, smiling to the audience while she whirled and twirled. For those two minutes, Priya was the prima ballerina. Everyone in that audience was there just for her, she was sure of it.

We are entering week three of the crossfit games open, it has been an interesting experience. It is fun being part of something that is so huge, but the growing pains have been pretty rough. From what I know, over 20,000 people are registered to compete in the crossfit games open. You can learn more about the competition at the crossfit games website. Basically how it works is you can compete as an individual and/or as part of a team. Qualifying teams and individuals carry on to the regionals and so on. The culmination of the event will be the crowning of one man and one woman as the fittest on earth. That, and there is a $1,000,000 purse, thank you Reebok.  Unfortunately the problems with the website and questions about the quality of judging going on has left many competitors frustrated and a bit jaded. Their points are valid and for those competitors that are in that elite category, I can't really blame them. But for me, I am enjoying it. I do not intend on being crowned the fittest on earth (though I can think of a few uses for that $1M), I just want to see how far I can push myself.

Last week's workout:

As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes:

9 Dead Lifts
12 Pushups
15 Box Jumps

I got 8.5 rounds. Those push-ups about killed me.

Great work Crossfit East Bay! Thank you to Crossfit One World for hosting us!

Several of these images were taken by Doron Serban, Keep any eye out for the video, hopefully he will be making one soon.