Note: I was asked to take down the links to the photos for ownership reasons, which makes total sense. That's why the links are no longer in this post.
I will post a longer description of the weekend later (see previous post), but right now I'm still kind of having it all sink in. If I'm having trouble, I know the graduates of the camp are. It was so incredibly awesome I'm going to have to let it digest for a bit so I can put it into words. Met terrific people, watched the studends to amazing things mentally and physically, and came away very, very inspired. Met some terrific people and I can't wait for April!
I came away wanting to be a Kokoro (the camp's name) coach...to do so I'll have to go through it myself. (I'd also like to recruite more women to go through, and to do that I'd also have to have gone through it). There was one female who did at this camp, and she was amazing (only the fourth woman to complete it).
All of students were, as was Colin McLafferty, the fellow I sponsored. (At the conclusion -- immediately after the class was secured! -- to stay in the CrossFit open games he did another WOD -- workout of the day -- to post a score and stay in. Enormously impressive).
Sunday night, after it was all over, I did something I haven't done since college (none of us had, actually); my rental Hundai takes four passengers and me, a total of five. Yet we stuffed six of us in there (five coaches, including Brad -- my coach and who is also a Kokoro coach, and me) and drove to a movie (Act of Valor). Not my personal first choice, but when you're outnumbered by 5 to one you have to go with the majority. It was a decent enough movie and loads of fun all around because of the company.
I gave Brad and Mike (another coach) a ride to the airport yesterday morning. I mentioned that I'm now really leaning towards a yes of going (I kind of always have, ever since I saw the videos of Kokoro), and Brad was quite pleased to hear that.
"But," I said, "the problem now is that it's like having a bunch of friends convince you to join a fraternity and you do...which makes the hazing that much more intense."
Brad then let out the most evil chuckle I think I've ever heard from anyone....Oh dear!
You can either click on the first picture/video and go through one-by-one, or just pick random ones. In the upper right corner of the field with all the pictures, you'll see a small slider bar; if you slide the dot all the way to the right, that will enlarge the thumbnails if they're too small for you.
Me, Colin McLafferty (the fellow I sponsored) and Brad McLeod, my coach.
Many of you on my blog list know that my beloved grandmother died this past July on the 7th, 4 days after my 40th birthday. I was left some money, and I knew I wanted to do something with part of it that would go outwards, rather than all inwards. I considered a charity such as The Wounded Warrior Foundation which puts its funds towards helping soldiers wounded in the line of duty, or the Lone Survivor Foundation -- a similar foundation that was founded by Marcus Luttrell, the only SEAL to survive what was, until this past August's shoot down of the Chinook in Afghanistan, the largest loss of SEALs in a single operation (Operation Red Wings).
Both are excellent foundations, but it didn't feel like the donation would go far enough. And then I knew what I wanted to do.
A few years ago, I was poking around online doing research (I was starting to look for alternative fitness ideas that went beyond the normal gym routines), and I came across a website for something called SEALFIT (this was prior to my getting into CrossFit). It's run by a man named Mark Divine, a former Navy SEAL, for his SEALFIT gym and academies in Encinitas, CA. The SEALFIT gym is much like CrossFit (he also runs US CrossFit from the same facility), just geared more towards training special forces candidates and people looking for workouts a notch harder than CrossFit ones (yes...there is something harder!)
What really intrigued me were his academies which are structured to provide military-oriented training to anyone...not to become a soldier, necessarily (many graduates do, but it's also for the "everyman", too.)
The one academy he has that utterly fascinated me is called Kokoro.
It's a 50-hour camp that goes for, well, 50 hours straight. It's based
off the SEAL Hell Week training where the candidates stay awake for
about 5 days straight and get pretty much no sleep...or at least nothing
of real consequence. I thought the concept of having a workshop, for
lack of a better word, was enormously cool.
Looking at it from the point of view of having been in the military and having worked as a life coach for many years -- as well as from the aspect of doing really hard personal work -- I knew exactly what it was that Mark Divine wanted to do with the camp -- to provide an experience that would help you dig way down into yourself, crack open all preconceived ideas of what you think you can or can't do, and discover that you're infinitely more capable than you thought you were. Which is exactly what I try to do with my clients every day at work. In a cliche -- it's about trusting your belief in yourself.
As I watched the videos, I kept thinking how cool it would be to get to watch the camp unfold in person -- not necessarily by taking part in it (though there's a part of me that keeps considering it). But how on Earth would I ever get to just watch from the stands? And, yet, I kept thinking, Wow...it would sure be cool to watch it happen -- !
And so when I began considering what I wanted to do with some of the money I knew I wanted to sponsor someone through the camp. The way I saw it, I would firstly get to see where my money was going (which felt important), and, secondly, it would spread out beyond a PayPal payment. It wouldn't just be something for the person I sponsored, it would also help Mark Divine's business and everyone involved with it. It felt like I would get five or ten times more for each dollar.
Brad McCleod, the former SEAL from whom I've been getting training since last July (via email; he sends workouts, I do them and report my scores back) is a coach at Kokoro. But what's funny is that I knew about SEALFIT and Kokoro before I even knew Brad existed.
Well, that's kind of not true.
I did read all the bios of all the coaches when I first came across the camp, and it wasn't until after I began working with Brad when I reread them that I remembered reading his; what had stuck out was that he'd gone through BUD/S (SEAL boot camp) twice. Including Hell Week...twice. My thought was that anyone who could do that would be one cool dude to know. (I also remember thinking that Mark Divine would be a neat guy to meet and know, too).
Rolling back to my original research that led me to the SEALFIT site, I'd begun thinking that it would be really neat to get fitness training from a Navy SEAL, given how fitness-oriented they are -- and I knew it would be a push. But how? That I didn't know. Rolling forward to last May when I joined my CrossFit gym my thought was, "Well, maybe I'll meet one through CrossFit, given how military-oriented it is...."
I then began scouring Facebook for any CrossFit-oriented group or page that sounded interesting. One I came to was called "SEAL Grinder PT", which then led me to Brad McLeod's website (yes, the same Brad McLeod whose bio made me think, "Gee, he'd be a cool guy to know!"). Great stuff. Good articles and workouts that left my eyeballs reeling (I'm proud to say that they now sound doable, as do the workouts on the SEALFIT site...though I'd still have to scale them). I noticed he had an ebook about learning how to do pull-ups, and, given the equally-eyeball reeling number of pull-ups you do in CrossFit...and the fact I could do nary a one...I bought it.
I did notice on his site and in his book that he offered personal coaching. Too bad, I thought, since he's out of Atlanta and I'm in Portland. But what wasn't clicking, even though I read the damn offer several times, was that it was done by email. And still I kept thinking, "Gee, I'd sure like to get training from a Navy SEAL...." And then, all of a sudden, the dim bulb in my head got suddenly brighter as it hit me that, ta daaaaaa! here was exactly what I wanted. Just wasn't local.
(When I thought that, I remember hearing the answer back in my head, "Heather, you never specified local...you just said you wanted training from a Navy SEAL. "..............Uh, well...true.)
I've had a marvelous time working with him, and, I immediately started hoping there would be a way I could meet him in person. But how, I had no idea given our relative distance from each other.
I still hadn't made the connection, though, about how I'd read his bio quite some time prior, even he left for Encinitas to coach at a Kokoro camp a few weeks after I signed up with him. It wasn't until around that time -- maybe a little later -- when I reread the bios for the coaches that it clicked.
When I received the money, I emailed Brad and told him I knew he trained a lot of men who wanted to either become a SEAL or go into some form of special forces -- as well as men who just wanted to push themselves further (Brad does have a few other women on "Team SGPT" as he calls us, but we're definitely the minority). I said I also knew that many of them wanted to go through Kokoro, but didn't because of finances. Because I knew what it was like to really want to do something but have more dust and moths fluttering out of my wallet than cash, I told him I wanted to sponsor someone. Did he know of anyone?
He wrote back utterly amazed by my offer and said he didn't know of someone offhand, and really couldn't say anyway because he was a coach at Kokoro (which made sense)...but he would think of something. The idea he came up with was that the people who wanted to be considered needed to post a video explaining why they should be considered. (One fellow wrote an essay instead).
I watched each video and took notes about what they said, and then, anonymously, through a special GMail account I created, I interviewed each candidate. My questions were not easy, and were geared towards having them dig really deep and were exactly the kind I'd ask clients at work. I wanted to know if they "got" the experience and if they would be committed to it. Thankfully only six people applied; had there been more I think I would have crumbled. (One fellow later told me that, because of the kinds of questions I asked, he thought I was either an active duty or former SEAL!)
They were all excellent, and after thinking long and hard, I decided to make it so each person got a prize; I ended up offering two partial scholarships, three full (I was going to go to Hawaii for a couple of weeks this winter, but I decided to use that money towards another full scholarship), one nearly-full one; that fellow had already started making payments so I paid off his balance.
When I announced the winners, Brad asked me, via email, if I would be going to "all" of the camps -- he certainly would be! I replied that was wholly up to Mark Divine, given it was his show...just because I was paying for the candidate and just because the guys wanted me to be there for them it didn't mean I had the "right" to be there, and that while I would dearly love to be there, I would likely be in the way and I would have to be content with his picture feed.
"Oh no," Brad wrote back, "I can make sure you get a behind the scenes look!"
I thanked him, but I really didn't expect the answer to be yes. To my great surprise, Christine, the manager of SEALFIT and the one with whom I arranged the payments, told me I would absolutely get to come down and watch. I was floored. And not only that -- I could stay on site with the coaches! But since each guy -- the woman hasn't yet signed up for a camp -- chose a different camp, I wasn't sure how fair it would be to go to one but not the others; to me, it felt like I was picking a favorite.
Not a problem, Christine said, I could absolutely come down for the others and, at the very least, touch base throughout the weekend to check in on the camp. That actually made me speechless. And for anyone who knows me, that's a rare occurrence.
The first camp will be this coming weekend, so I'll fly down on Thursday, February 23 and come back on Monday, February 27. (I'll also take Tuesday off so I can decompress). I'll be giving Brad a ride from the airport, so I'll have some time to talk to him before he hits SEALFIT soil and goes into uber-coach mode.
I've been in email contact with Christine, and one of the things I did recently was tell her to please put me to work when I'm there; that way I won't feel like I'm underfoot. If I'm going to mill about, I may as well mill about with a purpose. She said that was awfully kind of me...and I may regret asking; she definitely would need help with the BBQ at the conclusion of the camp. Upon telling him of my offer, Brad answered that I would certainly be able to help with the food throughout the weekend.
As Andrew, my brother said (in jest), I can't imagine why they'd need help with food throughout the weekend....Ha!
I am unbelievably excited. I can't wait to meet Colin, the fellow who's going through the February camp, Brad, Christine and Mark Divine. And it's going to be so much fun staying in the "condo" with the coaches. I did email Brad and ask him if that would definitely be okay -- meaning, would, as I put it a "cog o' estrogen" get in the way of the "wheels of testosterone" -- ?
No, he replied; if I'd been given permission to stay at the condo it would be great if I did. (I was going to stay at a motel up the street).
As I said to a friend at work, "It's going to be the most bizarre "slumber party" I've ever had in my life!"
I'll most likely have to stay at the motel for the other camps (April, late June -- which butts up against my birthday -- July and August), but that's okay.
So this Thursday I leave gloomy, soggy, gray skies behind for sunny SoCal weather and beaches where the nighttime lows are Portland's daytime highs.
Funny how it all works out. Talk about serindipity! But, I guess,
too, it's also about putting out there what you want and then following
the little breadcrumbs that get left out for you, even if you don't
realize that's what you're doing.
1) Getting training from a Navy SEAL ✔
2) Meeting said trainer who is also happens cool dude who went through BUD/S twice that you thought would be neat to know ✔
3) Getting to see Kokoro unfold without having to participate ✔
4) Getting to meet Mark Divine, founder of SEALFIT and Kokoro ✔
All exactly as I wanted!
Here's a great video about the whole Kokoro experience:
