Whales in captivity don’t learn to jump out of the water by actually jumping out of the water.
Trainers begin by placing a rope towards the bottom of the tank and then reward them for swimming over the rope. As the whale begins to connect the reward to swimming over the rope, the trainer raises it higher and higher, rewarding the whale each time it swims over. Eventually, the rope is placed just above the surface and voila! The first jump happens.
While I can’t say I endorse Sea World after having watched Black Fish, I can tell you that your first open is like learning to jump.
If you have never done an open before, your goal isn’t to do excellent, its to “just do it” *sorry Reebok.
Don’t worry about impressing a crowd of fans. Just swim over the rope. You don’t have to make the jump into performing all of the workouts Rx or trying to be the fittest in your community. There is a scaled (rope in the water) version of the open workouts, so yes, you really can do all of the movements.
We are expecting over 60 people from our box and surrounding areas to do the open with us. We aren’t asking them to jump. That’s totally up to them. We just want them to get in the pool with us.
After 6 years of talking people into doing the CrossFit open with me, I have yet to meet 1 person who regretted it. But some of those 60 people I mentioned above came to me last year and said: “I wish I signed up, I’m doing this next year.”
