The Sevan Podcast - Gemma Rader | Games Bound
Episode Date: July 5, 2024www.affiliatevideocontest.com FITAID, 40% Off: https://www.lifeaidbevco.com/fitaidrxz-sevanpod?utm_medium=pdcst&utm_source=sevanpod&utm_campaign=promo__pdcst-sevanpod-qr My Tooth Powder "Matoothian"...: https://docspartan.com/products/matoothian-tooth-powder 3 Playing Brothers, Kids Video Programming: https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers/daily-practice ------------------------- Partners: https://cahormones.com/ & https://capeptides.com - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://www.vndk8.com/sevan-podcast - OUR SHIRTS https://usekilo.com - OUR WEBSITE PROVIDER ------------------------- ------------------------- BIRTHFIT PROGRAMS: Prenatal (20% off with code SEVAN1) - https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/program/mathews-program-1621968262?attrib=207017-aff-sevan Postpartum (20% off with code SEVAN2) - https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/program/mathews-program-1586459942?attrib=207017-aff-sevan ------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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it's a sebum podcast show it's a sebum podcast show everybody's welcome peace and love it's a
sebum podcast show bam we're live a hundred percent my fault i forgot to send j Gemma a link. Jeez Louise Seve. Jeez Louise Seve.
Oh no, I did send her a link.
Let's party.
I did send her a link. Okay. Not my fault.
Good morning!
Marissa, hi. Christine, hi.
Augustus, hi. Audrey, hi.
Marissa Hinojosa.
Hinojosa.
Good morning, guys.
Holy cow, 15 viewers.
It's a real big show today.
Cayman.
Cayman.
Cayman Cider.
Good to see you.
Draw Your Deck.
I get it.
I get it.
Sarah Cooper, what's up?
Justin V.
Happy birthday, America.
Yeah, happy 4th of July.
I didn't even know.
Except for the fireworks.
Fireworks stands. I'm always even know. Except for the firework stands.
I'm always surprised to see firework stands in California.
I don't ever see them in nice neighborhoods.
Only shitty neighborhoods.
I only see firework stands in shitty neighborhoods.
Gemma, what's up?
Hi, how are you?
Good, how are you?
I'm very well, thanks.
I've never known a Gemma.
Haven't you?
No, just on TV. I'm your first then. Hi. I've never known a Gemma. Haven't you? No, just on TV.
I'm your first then.
Hi.
I love a first.
I love a first.
How's it going?
It's been a while since I've had a first.
Me too.
Where are you?
I'm at home in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East.
Oh, that's home for you. Okay. God, there's so much to learn about you.
Yeah, no, I've been here for four years, almost four years now. This is my fourth year.
And how old are you?
32.
And you're going to the CrossFit Games.
I am. I still kind of feel like I have to pinch myself, actually.
First time as an individual?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Crazy. Congratulations, man.
Thank you. Yeah.
Like I said, I kind of think back to the weekend and I'm like,
who was that person on the competition floor?
You know, such wild.
You didn't have expectations to go?
Well, actually, like after the event, I've obviously been thinking a lot about that.
And there's been two times in my, I would say, like my CrossFit journey where I've written down like tangible goals.
And one was in 2022, funnily enough.
And one was this year, just after the Open.
And I wrote down, I am going to qualify
for the CrossFit Games. And both times I did. So I've never been one to journal or one to write
down things, especially to set like such heavy goals on yourself. But it's been really crazy
that both times I have, I've kind of pulled through with those those so I guess I didn't expect to qualify but I put every
measure in place this year compared to say last year which um kind of set me up for like if I
didn't if I didn't qualify then hats off to the girl who beat me but I felt like that was probably
the most prepared I could be to do it 2022 is with the teams yeah yeah 2022 is with the teams. Yeah. Yeah. 2022 is with the teams,
but like I went into 2022 with like,
I needed to find three other people to get me to the games.
Um,
because I wanted,
I knew we could qualify if we just had three people that were good enough.
Uh,
Gemma in 2022 is your last name Raider.
Raider.
Yeah.
I'm pronouncing it right.
Okay.
Gemma,
when in 2022, when you said you had to find three other people, so that was your ambition?
Were you sort of the team captain?
You organized that?
Oh, yeah.
It was a bit of a weird dynamic, actually, because I did organize it because I was working at Vogue Fitness at the time.
at the time um and my uh there was no one really at Vogue at the time who was I'd say fit to be in the team other than Paolo Russell who ended up being one of the teammates um and that towards
the end of the year there was three new coaches coming in to Yass and before they even arrived
um I was told Martha Cook is competitive.
I heard of Michael Macare, and I think I DMed them all on Instagram before they even got to Abu Dhabi, and I was like, so listen,
next year are you keen to, like, jump on a team?
I'm really keen to give Asia region a go.
What are your thoughts?
And they were all kind of like, oh, like, we don't even know Abu Dhabi.
We haven't met you.
We don't know how good you are.
But, yeah, we can chat when we get there.
And, yeah, that's kind of how it started.
Hey, where are you born?
Where was I born?
In Johannesburg.
Okay.
But when you went team – sorry, I got a little confused there.
One because I'm just just confused person in general
but um so when you went as team you didn't go from the africa region no so by this point i was
living in abu dhabi i'd been in abu dhabi for a year um was it 2021 yeah yeah i'd spent i i got
to abu dhabi in 2021 beginning of the year and i did that year because it was all covered crazy
that year so i did the online semi-final um german or lowlands i can't remember which one but i competed did that one
and then i was like now i want to give team a go for the following year so yeah good that makes me
happy because for a second i was like oh my god i have no idea who i have on the show good okay
well that's good i'm glad glad I... Proud person.
First place in Africa.
Yeah.
No other option.
Say that again?
No other option.
First place in Africa.
Born on the African continent.
Yes.
But I am half Italian.
Hey, you know what's really weird is you don't... don't, um, you don't, you don't,
I mean, I'm not, I don't hang out with a lot of people from, uh, South Africa, but you don't sound like you're from South Africa. You sound more Australian than, uh, I guess when you say,
yeah, but, uh, you, you, I didn't mean that as a dig. Uh, I wish I did, but you sound more
Australian than, um, South African. Cause sometimes South Africans can be hard for me to understand.
than South African? Because sometimes South Africans can be hard for me to understand.
So my family is English. And my grandmother and my mother have always proud themselves on like being more English spoken than South African spoken. Okay. So from that point of view, I guess,
when I'm around my family, my my South African part of my accent is a little bit less. But if
I'm around like my friends, I get very South African.
Coming to the UAE, I actually,
I'm in a relationship with a guy who's Australian.
So that's probably why I sound a little bit more Australian
because I'm like talking like him when I'm with him.
And then all my friends are like Brits.
And you have to speak very clearly as well
when you're talking to different nationalities.
Like in my gym, I'm coaching the locals here and people from Germany and all over the place.
The more clear I can pronounce my words, the easier people understand me.
What's the deal with Abu Dhabi?
What's going on there?
I live in a sleepy beach town in California, 70 miles south of San Francisco.
Most that we don't have like an Apple store.
We're not a major metropolis.
The people who were born here end up staying here.
There's like never anything new here.
It's just like, you know what I mean?
It's just, it's kind of, it's weird.
It's just kind of just a normal place
that for you know the 10 years i've been here i haven't seen any change what's going on in abu
dhabi it's a unique place right it's a trippy place yeah like it's probably one of the most
i mean okay listen i'm not very well traveled i've only traveled for crossfit really um but
you said you're 32 yeah okay yeah so i pretty much a lot of people who grow up in
south africa stay in south africa um because like number one depending on what job you get like it's
quite it's quite expensive to travel anywhere else in the world so anyway when i got out um in abu
dhabi i probably when i moved here is when i've done most of my traveling but what i can say is
it's like it's such a melting pot of cultures um I'm in South Africa you you know Afrikaans people and you know every other African um
culture that South Africa has you don't really see much other many other types of nationalities
there so when I got here I was like I didn't even know that the Welsh the Welsh had their own accent
like when I met some guys from Wales, I was like, they speak weird.
And then I realized, oh, wait, that's actually what the Welsh accent sounds like.
Because I thought it was just this guy.
And when you say Welsh, that's like basically just a country that sits on the island on the United Kingdom, right?
It's just like one of the adjacent, I guess, a state.
Is it a country?
Is it even a country?
Yeah, I think it's.
Oh, no.
Now you're speaking to the wrong person.
I'm going to embarrass myself.
It's okay. But they share the Island with the United Kingdom.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're in the South there somewhere. Okay. Okay.
Yeah. But yeah, so, so I didn't realize they had their own,
that's how they spoke. Like, you know, British sounds like British.
I didn't know the Welsh accent. So the, from the, from that point of view,
it's such a, such a culturally enriching place.
And then you have the locals who also, like, they love foreigners here.
Like, they just like to immerse you in their culture.
And they're so welcoming and understanding.
Because for a lot of us, like, it's so new and and um foreign that like it's very difficult to sometimes
understand and like we like I coach ladies only classes I get to mix with them and like
they're all just such beautiful people like um as a coach I just feel so like looked after here
like they really respect me and um yeah I absolutely love it. So from that point of view, the people,
it's a lot more open also than people think. Like I know there are other Emirates and other parts
in the Middle East that are a little bit more conservative, but Abu Dhabi and Dubai are very
open, especially Dubai, Dubai way more. But you can pretty much live life like normal as an expat. There's nothing really, um,
I would say that I can't do or don't do.
And then,
um,
yeah,
it's just safe.
And for me,
like,
that's a big thing coming from South Africa.
I didn't realize the anxiety I had just living life until I left.
And then,
yeah,
because as a kid,
like that,
um, that awareness of your surroundings and the
constant like um what's the word like when you're you're always like just vigilant about your lock
in your house and like you know being aware that you don't put your your handbag where it's visible
or you know you were born you were born in cape town i was born in johannesburg
johannesburg okay yeah i lived in cape town for five years yeah so i'm we'll get back to abu dhabi
in a second uh abu dhabi is the capital united arab emirate sits on the main uh land on an island
in the persian uh gulf it's the focus and oil experts and commerce is reflective okay thank you
uh from wales for fuck's sake it's a country you dip shit thank you i oh bye you got to hear that last
one it's a country you dip shits okay thank you um uh is canada country no canada is an experiment
for the world economic forum but thank you for asking um let's see uh okay that's a bit that's it for the abuse when the um johannesburg has a
a major airport there i spent a lot of time in africa months and months in africa all over the
african continent and um anytime i flew anywhere we had to go back to johannesburg it was a trip
we like even if even if i was just going to go like north let's say i was in malawi and i was going to go an hour north for some reason you had
to fly back down to johannesburg because the airport is such a major hub and i was actually
mugged i was attempted to be mugged in the airport there even though it's a beautiful uh airport
massive international with a gucci store but the actual tsa there i don't know what you guys call
them there but the actual security there when i went through there they surrounded me and tried to uh take a bribe from me it was
it was absolutely fucking crazy because it seems first world is all get out you know it's like
it's beautiful and modern um but the actual employees there tried to uh mug me it was it
was crazy yeah it was it was nuts – A little opportunistic there.
They see a foreigner and they see Target.
It was nuts.
You know like when you fly from one country to another country, even if you stay in the airport, you got to go through like the international security area?
It was in there.
The guys who were supposed to be there to protect you for your safety came and surrounded me and started yelling at me and calling me a fucking moron and asking me to give me money out of their wallet and it was just in a small and there were other
you know passengers there but it was in a small little narrow area where they could surround me
it was wild yeah but i was so ignorant yeah it was it was a little scary but i was so ignorant
that i didn't realize they were trying to like get me until i was out the other side i was like oh
shit yeah they were trying to fucking
they were trying to fucking mug me they were trying to take my wallet yeah and then of course
and then of course Cape Town unfortunately has the scary name of rape you know you hear
a rape town and so and when I was in when I was in South Africa I can't remember where I went
but I was downtown and it was beautiful and there were skyscrapers everywhere and I was in South Africa, I can't remember where I went, but I was downtown and it was
beautiful and there were skyscrapers everywhere. And I was like, where's the cafes with all the
people sitting outside? And they're like, no, you can't do that here. You can't just sit outside
with your laptop open at a cafe here. Someone will run by and take it or take it from you.
And I was, it was a trip. So when you say that you left there and the the stress you didn't realize how stressed you
were I can't I can relate like I can be like oh yeah that's and and it's funny because my family
I go back home I went back home obviously for the semis and my family doesn't uh they don't know
because they they've just been there their whole life so they don't know that like um the difference
between like going and going somewhere that's actually safe versus South Africa.
Like I was staying in, I stayed with my brother when I went up for semis.
And he's living in like a really beautiful area, like a gated community, because a lot of the suburbs are gated off in Johannesburg with booms and security.
Like you have people monitoring that.
And at nighttime, they close certain roads so that there's only one entry and one exit point for the street.
So this area was obviously a lot safer.
So I would walk or run to the gym from where he was staying because it was like maybe a kilometer and a half or so.
But it took me like a couple of days to get the courage to do that outside.
Because I saw a lot of other people in the neighborhood running every day so I was like all right if everyone's running that's fine but then
I'm like can I wear my watch can I wear my earphones um I just didn't know so yeah in in
Abu Dhabi it's uh beautifully safe and I feel very comfortable here which comfort's not always a good
thing but for now it's it's a good thing yeah um and we definitely have places like
that in the states also but the country's so big that if you wanted to there's tons of safe places
you could go i mean there's like you know what i mean like in in the united states we do have
very dangerous spots but you can't always get away like you could you could easily just drive
you know 100 miles from pretty much anywhere and be like, okay, I'm in a place where someone will stop and fix my flat tire.
I can't remember where I was.
I think I was in Dubai.
And I was staying at a hotel there, and I left my cell phone in a cab.
And the cab drove off.
And then like six hours later, I was just in the lobby talking to my friend to my friend.
It was actually Greg Glassman. And I was like, let's go to the store and get a new phone.
And there was a hotel employee there. And he goes, oh, you lost your phone. And I said, yeah.
And he said, oh, we can get it for you. I'm like, no, I left it in a cab like six hours ago.
He goes, no, no problem. Where were you? Where were you standing when you got in the cab?
And I go right there. He goes, OK, I'll get it for you. What hotel room are you in?
And two hours later, he got me my cell phone back.
So I was asking him, I was like, hey, how did you do that?
He's like, dude, this is the safest place in the world.
No one's stealing shit.
He said, you could travel around with a wheelbarrow with a million dollars worth of cash and just walk around with it.
And no one would take a thing from you.
I go, really?
He goes, dude, you could just leave it on the sidewalk.
No one is stealing here.
I'm like, wow.
And it felt that way.
Yeah, it does.
Yeah, it felt that way.
I think I went – I did Waterpalooza last year in a team with my friend Evie and Martha,
and I think on our first day in Miami, we were – not Miami.
Was it Miami? Yeah yeah miami we were walking
to like try and find a coffee shop in the morning and uh the first thing that happened was we got
followed by this homeless guy on drugs and we had to like run into a um like a hotel building and
um the guy was like why are you guys coming in here we're like no there's this guy following us
and then um the guy came straight into the uh the hotel and we were
so shocked and then afterwards that whole trip we were like oh crap like we're not in Abu Dhabi
anymore you know yeah yeah Miami can be Miami can be dicey yeah yeah so it's very fortunate yeah
and when you're born somewhere like South Africa you like you said you just didn't know any different it's
just it just is like multiple people in my family have been held up at gunpoint outside their houses
and stuff like that i don't want to paint south africa in a bad light because it doesn't happen
everywhere but there's probably majority of south africans could tell you a story of someone close
to them or themselves that have had that happen i don't know how common that is everywhere else but certainly yeah i uh where i live i i know no
one who's been um not a single yeah not a single person fascinating are guns legal in south africa
they are right uh you have to have licenses for them and it's quite tricky to get i know that
because my old boss was trying to get a gun license and it was difficult.
But hunting is big there, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Big.
So let's go back to that.
So do you know how your family ended up in South Africa?
No, actually, I don't.
My dad, because he's from Italy, his dad was working in South Africa. And then they moved
when he was a little kid, they moved on. And I think my mom was born in Johannesburg, lived there.
And how did they meet? Do you know?
On the phone, actually. Yeah, both were coming from like divorced marriages. And my mom knew some girls that knew my dad. And they said that we think you'll like this man. And they put them in contact because at the time my mom was living in this like, jeepers, this tiny, tiny town that takes about two minutes to drive through in the Eastern Cape. So she was living there. And my dad was, I don't know, working somewhere because he used to work like all over Africa and put them in contact.
That's how they met.
And he just quartered her like that, like old school.
Yeah.
Hi, how are you?
Do you want to go for a cup of coffee?
Pretty much.
And then do you have siblings?
I do.
So I've got quite a big family because of my dad's previous marriage.
He had two and then my mom had three and then my mom and my dad got married and had my brother and I.
So seven kids.
Yeah. But we like what we call in South Africa the late Lamakies, which means like the late children.
A Lamaki is a little lamb. So we like the late kids of the family.
And yeah, there's quite a big gap i think between me and my youngest
sister is like eight years and how about your oldest oldest sibling she must be like 45 now
my dad's daughter actually i'm very bad with the birthdays i can't keep up with how old people are
so like a 23 year gap though that's
20 23 years if i did the math like between your youngest and your oldest yeah yeah big gaps and
and what did your dad do what was his vocation um he was a geologist so he used to work all over
um the world like um up in africa he used to work in south america um yeah like he did mostly uh field work so he loved to go
out and like find the his speciality was gold and diamonds so he was like you know wherever that was
he was there for months at a time actually so he how people would survey land to find like oil and
water he would survey land and be like okay yeah the characteristics of
where there would be diamonds or gold this this spot got it start digging here yeah exactly and
he was um so back then as well like the technology wasn't as sophisticated as was today as it is
today so a lot of the stuff he did what had to be like um you know using paper maps and you know
all these kind of things like it was a lot more hands-on than it is today,
but he absolutely loved it.
Yeah, it sounds like a really cool job.
How old is he?
Well, he actually passed away in 2019, I think.
So he was 72 when he passed away.
I would say just probably factors of lifestyle, to be honest, was his reasons.
So five years ago and you were 27.
Yeah. Yes. You click maths.
And thank you. I'm very good at math. And is your mom still alive?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She lives in Port Alfred, which is where I grew up.
And then so you're born in Cape Town. And what was it like growing up there? What did you do
there? Was it just you went to school every morning, came home, stuff like that, just a
regular life? So I was born, I was born in Joburg, moved to Cape Town in 2015 or 2016, 2015. Okay.
2015 or 2016 2015 okay um but i i was born in joeberg and then we lived on the coast about 10 hours away from johannesburg and that's where i stayed pretty much my whole life until i moved
to cape town um so i mean it's small town vibes like uh as a kid i used to horse ride um and that
was my like main sport and then i pretty much try to do whatever else I
could. Um, but I was never in like a, a very competitive environment from like my family.
Like my, my mother never pushed me. My dad had, um, educational expectations of me, but not
physical. Um, my like physical drive all came like intrinsically, like I wanted to be a professional
at something sporty and my both my
older sisters were sports were horse riders and they actually reached quite a high level in horse
riding um but they lived in a city like an hour and a half away from where I was so I didn't see
them that often they lived with their dad um but I looked up to them massively so that's kind of
why I started horse riding and then yeah I pretty much spent my childhood horse riding and doing odd sports when I could.
It was great growing up there.
And what is horse riding?
Are you jumping over stuff?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I used to do like show jumping and I used to do dressage and a bit of like very little little bit of cross country type riding,
like jumping and yeah.
So I really, really, when I was a kid,
my goal was to be like a professional horse rider.
But that dream was soon shattered when I realized I didn't have the money.
I didn't have the support and I didn't have the time when I moved schools.
So a very unique culture in that sport.
It's its own world. It is, but it's, um, as a kid, it's like, I don't know, you develop like such a beautiful relationship with, you have to love it
to do it, you know, and you just like get so close to your animal. Um, yeah. So I was attached. I had
my own pony and I was, I was in the farm almost every single day.
Did you go to school or were you homeschooled?
No, I went to school.
I was in a public school and then I moved to a private school for my last three years.
Is horse riding a physically demanding sport?
Was it physically demanding?
You know, at the time, I didn't think so. But if I had to go and get back onto a horse now, I would be extremely unfit.
Because there is an element of fitness that you need to like, you don't realize it when you just get fit riding, you know.
So to a point, yes, it is physically demanding.
You have to be a lot stronger than you think, you know.
Kind of like a motocross.
People don't realize how fit those
guys are. And then it's like, they're holding on for dear life on a motorcycle doing laps. And then
yeah, you realize, holy shit, like it's a seriously physically demanding sport, but you just don't see
it because I guess people are looking at the horse and in motocross, people are looking at the,
the bike. Yeah. And you don't realize like the amount of force you need to
exert continuously to perform all the top the jobs that you're doing because you make it kind of look
a bit effortless yeah yeah yeah yeah uh horse girls have fat asses a big big glute workout on the horse
um i used you know what's funny is that um i used to actually think that as well um
i don't like i love i mean now you're the ultimate fat ass sport uh crossfit i mean
it's funny you say that machine everyone's a glute machine i mean even the boys like if you
don't have a big ass you're fucked well it's funny you say that because the other day i was measuring
myself because um i wanted to buy a swimming costume and I measured my ass and I used to do it a lot back at uni.
And I remember it was like around 101, 102 centimeters.
And I measured it and it was 94.
And I was like, oh, shit, my butt's actually shrunk since university.
I was quite shocked.
Shame on you.
You are no longer allowed to represent CrossFit.
I'm doing something wrong.
How do you measure?
When you measure when you
measure your ass you're basically measuring your hips you take like a tape and you go around your
hips yeah from like around the thickest part yeah and you called it a um a costume um i hadn't i
haven't heard the word costume it was like that but you mean like you were like it was a swimsuit
like you would actually use like you'd go to the beach in. Yeah, like a training bathing suit. I don't know.
Yeah, we call it costumes in South Africa.
Oh, OK.
Training bathing suit.
So a bathing suit that's like you're going to swim in.
You're going to something you would compete in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, that makes more sense why you'd measure it.
If it was just like one that you just went to the beach with your friends, you wouldn't you just go in and try it on.
Yeah, exactly.
OK.
friends you wouldn't you just go in and try it on yeah exactly okay um and um and so when was your first sport you played outside of the uh the horse riding so alongside horse riding i loved
field hockey like hockey was one of my favorite things um so i would play field hockey is hockey
with you're just in your shoes. You run around on a field.
Yeah.
With a stick.
And yeah, you hit the ball.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
I absolutely adore, like that was like one of my favorite sports at school.
I love the, the speed and the agility and the, like, to be honest, I don't think I was
that good with the ball, but I was fast.
And, uh, I just, I was, um, very like tenacious.
Like if the ball went past me, I'd run back for that ball, man.
I never used to let shit get past me.
So I loved hockey.
And then I played squash.
I played tennis.
I tried a little bit of netball, except I didn't really fit the profile of a netballer.
And I did athletics to a small degree. What degree what's that athletics is that track and field
yeah like actually funny if i'm only one 1.61 but at junior school um i was one of the best
at high jump which i thought was pretty weird because i was definitely one of the smallest kids
but in in um do you think horse riding helped that from just being in that? When I think of horse riding, you're basically just standing in like a half squat.
True, to an extent.
But as a kid as well, like I was obsessed.
Obviously, I was obsessed with horse riding, but I was obsessed with playing horse games.
So as a kid, I used to jump over everything in the house.
So I would build courses for myself to jump.
And then I would run around for hours just jumping
over shit and like i'll jump over the furniture um i remember my i once actually snapped one of
my mom's coffee tables in half because i jumped but my knee came down on the coffee table and
then the coffee table head snapped off so i don't know you get in trouble for that do you get in
trouble for that yeah my mom told me to stop doing that. And I nearly actually, I broke my pinky toe doing that as well because I ran around the
sofa and my pinky hooked on the corner of the sofa and I, yeah, I broke my toe.
But I love jumping.
So I think maybe that's where I got the, that from.
You're only five foot three?
Yeah, one six one.
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
If we talked, I would be looking down at you.
I never look down at anyone.
5'3".
I wasn't blessed with the tall gene.
I went through your entire Instagram account.
I didn't see anything that made me think
that you were 5'3".
You look tall.
You look tall on Instagram.
It's good to know.
Someone else said that to me.
They thought i was
taller i can't remember who it was hmm but yeah i know i'm short this uh this field hockey uh how
old were you when you played it so i played it i think i started she is not taller than me she is
not taller than me easy easy i'm staying i'm a five foot five. Okay, go on.
Five foot five still got a way to go. No, I started in my, my first year of high school,
that was probably when I properly started playing. And I played the whole way through high school, I think I ended on like second team. But I always had a little bit of
imposter syndrome when it came to my sporting ability. So as soon as I reached a bit of like a higher level,
I all of a sudden started to doubt my capabilities
and have a little bit of like self-sabotage of like,
oh, maybe I'm not good enough to be here.
And that probably has been like something
throughout my CrossFit development
that has been one of the biggest things to overcome for me
because i saw i've seen how many times in other sporting things that it's like held me back
because i know it's not my ability it's just my head um so yeah like from a competitive point of
view crossfit was the most crossfit is the most competitive i've been been in any kind of sport, I guess.
Are you married now?
No.
Do you have kids now?
No.
No kids, not married.
And when you played this field hockey game, what would be the longest you would run?
Is that basically like you run 20 or 30 meters explosively and then that's it and then you
get a few seconds break?
Yeah. I mean, it depended on how strong the team was that you were playing like if it was a really strong team and they ended up making you run back and forth back and forth you do a lot
more running i remember being pretty damn exhausted like playing hockey um especially when i moved from
a defense position to a forward position um because then you do do a lot more running up and down.
But I actually wouldn't even know how long we ran.
But I used to run a lot outside of sports.
So when I joined, when I started high school, I became like addicted to gym.
So I would do all my sport and then I would go to the gym
and then I would do whatever I thought I needed to do in the gym.
I would run on the treadmill, I'd do a million abs try and get a six-pack and um yeah just like
play around in the gym for hours and that kind of persisted after school into university I would
spend hours in the gym but mainly to uh to balance out the partying lifestyle because otherwise I
would have got really fat. Um, yeah.
Who, um, uh, Gemma, who introduced, did someone introduce you to the gym? Like,
do you remember the first time you went to a gym? Was there someone like, Hey, let's come to a gym. Let's go to a gym.
So my mom, my mom used to go to these like aerobics classes with this lady and she was,
I used to think she was so cool and so i started
going to her like i used to like taibo i don't know if you've ever seen yeah yeah yeah yeah
it's hard it's hard as shit so hard but also like yeah so i used to go and do taibo classes
um in the evenings and then um i used to do spinning i was like addicted to spinning and
then the spinning ladies opened up like a body con class and then i used to just do like i would go and do spinning in the morning and
body con in the afternoon and if i didn't have a spinning class i'd do cardio so i don't really
remember being i remember the taibo lady being like oh man i want to be fit like her
but i don't know how i got she have an amazing body yeah she did and she was really pretty
what was when when you see like what what
stood out for you for her like her shoulders her arms her hamstrings what did she have that you
were like oh that's a cool muscle did you remember a curve on her body and you're like damn that's
the one no i just remember her looking in shape and being like really toned like nothing like
what us crossfit girls look like i would say the first CrossFit girl I probably looked at and thought that's what I want to look like, look at was Brooke Ence.
And it was, I think, 20, 15 or 20.
That's a pretty high bar.
That's crazy.
Right.
Because she's a genetic freak, too.
I mean, I don't want to take anything away from her hard work, but she's I mean, if you see her family, like her mom is a genetic freak.
Yeah. Well, she, she was one of the first people I remember seeing and being like,
oh my God, I want to look like that girl. Like, how did she get like that? And that probably like stuck in my mind more than anything else. And then CrossFit wasn't really an option where
I was living. Like we didn't have a functional fitness gym in my university town.
We didn't even have a CrossFit.
So like it didn't really occur to me to do it.
And I didn't really know what it was.
Up until, I don't know if you know Dave Levy.
Have you heard of Dave Levy?
Yeah, yeah.
Why does that name sound familiar?
Was he a games athlete?
Yeah, so he competed through Africa. i think he competed at the games through
africa oh yeah yeah yeah i know who this guy is he's also done masters and like come second or
third yeah he's a cool looking dude he's a really cool looking man yeah hardcore so he came to my
uni and did a whole um like CrossFit seminar and like explained to
us what CrossFit was, had us all doing power cleans. And then I remember thinking, this is
a freaking cool sport because I spend about two hours in the gym anyway, doing God knows what,
like, if I think about it now, what the heck was I even doing? And, uh, and then Dave Levy comes
along and shows us this. And'm like this is competitive gym like
does not get better than that now I can do the gym but I can do it for a reason
so I'd say like Dave Levy kind of opened my eyes to what CrossFit was which was pretty cool
was he um was he a um he was an African Games athlete because it's weird because
normally African Games athletes wouldn't stand out to me but i fully remember this guy he's qualified multiple years and he's also qualified
as masters i mean he i think he qualified this year uh through africa yeah let me see if i can
pull up there's not a lot of pictures of this guy on the internet this isn't this isn't this isn't a a very good one
and when i tried to pull up his instagram i just got a little kid
i want i want to go back to that uh in one second so you so you don't you don't really have a uh a
seminal moment when you introduced to the gym you went to you were just your mom went and then you
just became comfortable in that space and like you were just comfortable just in gyms in general because it was introduced when you were little
just training and working out yeah like which i also thought was weird because like none of my
family actually went to gym other than my older brother but he's like a bean sprout he's so tall
he's like six foot something he likes um endurance sports and he would go to the gym um but none of my sisters or my even my
younger brother used to really gym and i i just became like super obsessed with the gym like um
yeah i was actually more obsessed with weight loss to be honest but not very much me too me too me
too seriously me too yeah i wanted to be i wanted to look I wanted to look like Mark Wahlberg in the Calvin Klein ads.
Yeah. No, listen. I want to look like Brooke Enns, so we have the same ambition there.
Hey, why do you think you're so normal?
Why am I so normal?
Yeah. Like when you talk, you're not embarrassed and like like you're you're so
you're so well adjusted why are you so well adjusted is that from is that from because of
the did the horse world require you'd like to talk to a lot of people because of the politics
like why are you so normal i think it's because i'm a crossfit coach oh yeah like listen i make i make uh i'm not i'm not um i wouldn't say like
i'm a prim and proper person like i'm very much what you see is what you get and yeah i love you
you're cool as shit you're this is easy i'm like fuck i don't want to interview some fucking kid
from africa who's fucking embarrassed at every third thing she says this is you're amazing yeah
oh thank you yeah i know i cross this is you're amazing yeah oh thank you
yeah no i crossfit coaching you weren't like that till you started coaching cross you think
like it forced you were you all were you ever shy or oh okay i still am very very shy if you
talk to me about something i think i don't know enough on so um if if i know that i've like maybe
under researched something i'm not confident in what I'm speaking about, I get really nervous.
So I was really bad at public speaking, really bad.
But from a coaching perspective, every time I moved, so when I first started coaching, I shadowed a lot.
And I said to my boss, I was like, listen, I'm not going to coach until I've shadowed enough to feel confident enough to give a class. And the same thing when I moved to Cape town, the guy made me shadow 80
hours before I actually took my own CrossFit class. What a dick. I mean, what a great coach.
Well, I was like, yeah, I'm going to get my 80 hours. And I think I was in the gym from
5am when the first CrossFit started until 7pm. And I did every single day,
when the first CrossFit started until 7pm. And I did every single day, shadowed every single class, I was just like, I need to be a sponge because as much as I am competitive, and I love being an
athlete, like my passion lies in coaching. And before I started thinking or like seeing the
um, thinking or like seeing the, the slight pathway towards maybe an athletic ambition.
Um, I wanted to be like on CrossFit seminar staff. Like the first thing, when I did my level one, I was like, I want to do this. I want to be those people giving the CrossFit seminars,
you know, traveling and doing that and teaching all these people. So like for me,
these people so like for me coaching is like a passion and it's a purpose and um yeah genuinely makes me really happy do you still want to be on seminar staff yeah i would i would love to be on
seminar staff like i um i just so many people have told me oh it's who you know like you know
and and i'm not well i could introduce you to i could introduce you to
the guy you would be great they would love you i mean you're you're made for it yeah yeah after
this i'm gonna after this i'm gonna connect you to my buddy my buddy runs the uh seminar staff
over at crossfit oh that would be amazing because like i still like now i'm coming up to actually
renew my level two and i'm thinking like do I take this further like this
CrossFit role that I'm that that was initially my goal when I started um do I pursue like going
level three level four or is it like a dead end because the chances of me even getting in is like
so minimal that I shouldn't even try so that was kind of where I was sitting because like being
an athlete is not forever and like i do have such a passion for
like the coaching side of it um so that's probably why i'm a little bit more open
when it comes to speaking um and i have a great record i think i've recruited probably at least
30 seminar staff in my career and all of them flourished oh yeah yeah so so you're in good hands hey i want to go
back to dave levy how where did he come that he introduced you to crossfit like where did he show
up so i went to university in a really small town called gramstown and gramstown is about an hour
and 30 minutes away from port elizabeth where dave Levy owns a gym. Okay.
And I don't know for what reason why he came to Grahamstown.
I think he had just won the Africa regional and maybe went to the games for the first time or something like that.
But he was coming to my, I was,
I studied human kinetics and ergonomics,
which is like a facet of sports science.
And he came and offered a talk to our department and
then whoever like it was open to members of the gym as well um and a talk and then like an activity
where we did like a wad and um yeah that's how i met dave for the first time and i was like wow
this guy's freaking impressive and like i I said, competitive gym, what gets better than that?
How many people were in the talk that he gave?
It was quite big.
Like there were quite a lot of us.
I think a lot of my year in uni was there.
I don't really remember all too much.
It's like a little bit hazy.
I just remember.
Was it like 50 or 20 or?
I think it was over 20 for sure.
And they were students or students and professors.
No,
mostly students.
And then I think like our postgraduate students.
So like,
yeah,
the guys who were our tutors and stuff like that were there.
They were all like more physically involved and practical
um do you was there obviously he's physically impressive but do you remember anything that
he said that caught your eye either like hey this is the greatest way to get adaptation or hey um
you have to stop eating sugar or um uh you know god didn't or none of these movements were created
by man. They're
part and parcel with your DNA. Like, was there anything that you were like, Whoa, what, what
did you say? Uh, I don't remember words. I just remember how I felt after my first wad. And I was
like, Holy crap, that was cool. You know, that's what Greg used to say. He'd be like, if anyone
ever asked you what CrossFit is, be like, Hey hey do you have an hour tomorrow morning on i need to show you yeah no that that was that was it and then and
then yeah like after that uh i had just enrolled in like a master's program at my uni and a friend
of mine who actually competed with me at semis she was studying studying the same as me, the same degree as me. And we used to
go to this like local coffee shop and get coffees in between classes. And on the wall, because
obviously Instagram wasn't really a thing and Facebook was a thing, but people weren't as active
with advertising and stuff on there back then. There was a little flyer on the wall with those
little tags you could rip off. And was a an advert for crossfit and it
was um crossfit gramstown opening this time get your first like on-ramp class on this date um
and then take the email how long after was that then that you met dave levy
uh so i met dave levy in 20 i think 2013 and this was 2014 okay okay so this was 20 at the
beginning of 2014 because i think i just started the master's program and me and my friend were at
the coffee shop and i took the tag and i said you're gonna do this with me um i told her i was
like you're gonna do crossfit with me because we were like really good fitness buddies we did
athletics together athletics training together and um yeah so I dragged her along to CrossFit and we did our first
on-ramp class before and I um and I was like one of those people that couldn't um couldn't do the
push jerk I just couldn't get the timing right and I was also the first to fall on the box jump so could you even do one pull-up oh no way no yeah yeah i hung there like yeah i know couldn't do
couldn't do anything really do you remember your first pull-up do i remember my first pull-up
no but it was probably a kipping pull-up yeah crazy it's those are the most amazing journeys
someone who can't do one pull-up or has never done a pull-up in their whole life
and then now they're a games athlete where it's just like i could wake you up in the middle of
the night and you could do i could wake you up at three and you could do 10 and go back to sleep in
in 30 seconds right i mean it's just yeah no it's it's um it's crazy like i remember we had to do the spartan race as like a
it wasn't a it wasn't a spartan race like why what do you think spartan is it was like
run on a field our field at university we got into like teams and we had to push
like roll a tire and someone had to do 50 push-ups someone had to do 20 pull-ups and
you guys had to run in this thing
and anyway it was called like this little Spartan race and I remember like uh one girl could do a
pull-up um one like a couple of pull-ups but I couldn't even do a proper push-up yeah yeah you're
gonna do the push-ups I'm like oh my god I can only do like five you know um and I thought I
was strong and I thought I was like fairly fit.
But like, yeah, joining CrossFit, like made me see. All right. No, you're not really either of those things.
So 2014, now it's been 10 years. So at 22, you find CrossFit and you dip your toe in after you after you go into that gym.
Do you become obsessed?
Like, do you immediately start doing it five days a week, six days, seven days a week?
Yeah. So me and my mates, Emma, we used to go, um, before uni started, we would go to the
seven 30 class or the six 30 class. And then we would normally train and then stay after and do
like, I don't know, whatever else we felt like doing.
And pretty soon after joining the owner at the time, it was only her and her husband,
and she needed coaches.
So I, I don't know, I stood up to her, I guess, and she offered, she was like, we'd love to have you come for an interview with us and whatever.
And then we'd love to have you, you know, working with us. Would you be interested in being a CrossFit coach? And I was like, we'd love to have you come for an interview with us and whatever. And then we'd love to have you, you know, working with us.
Would you be interested in being a CrossFit coach?
And I was like, hell yes.
So that was when they then decided to send me to Cape Town to do my level one.
Yeah.
And that was.
What year was that?
That was also 2014.
So I hadn't even been doing CrossFit.
I think it was like the middle of the year because I started CrossFit in the beginning of the year.
And then by the middle of the year,
I got my level one and then started coaching there at that gym.
But it's crazy because the perception or our perception of CrossFit then
is so different to my perception of CrossFit now.
Like it's probably the reason why I'm dealing with so many injuries is
because how stupid i was
back then you know oh oh oh yeah yeah um yeah uh chris beecher field is uni free listen don't ever
use that word free you don't even know what you're talking about it you mean do the rich people pay
for it yeah no it's not okay so the rich people don't pay for it don't ever use the word free
it's one of the dumbest things they say in the United States.
Your health care is free.
No, you fucking moron.
Someone's paid.
Yeah, someone's working really hard to take care of your ass and make them dependent on you.
Yeah, no, there's not many things you can, I guess, get for free in South Africa.
It's all from your pocket.
free in South Africa. It's all there, you know, from your pocket.
Hey, you know, when Americans meet Australian people, they're kind of like blown away by it,
because they seem so much more gregarious than us and free and open and like less judgmental.
It's always like, wow. And especially you probably we probably notice it in the women they just seem more fun i wonder if that's what i'm picking up
from you i wonder if it's like that in south africa too you have more of a culture of just
um like you guys yeah you just seem like yeah you seem like you're having fun in life
like like the box that they force you to grow up in isn't as um constricted and by box i mean uh
the the the cultural or psychological aspects of it yeah yeah well it's funny you say that
about australians because i actually thought the same thing like they drink out of a shoe
yeah we drink out of shoes yeah that's what i mean Shit like that. Like Americans will be like, oh, that's gross. Like, like we're so close minded.
from a training point of view but like I was I used to have a lot of fun like I used to go out quite a lot I was very social I definitely don't feel as social anymore um but uh yeah I just I
just think for me as well I've always been like what you see is what you get and I don't know if
this is an unfortunate thing but but like, I fairly regularly
embarrass myself not intentionally, but it happens.
So I've had to learn to get like, a bit of a thick skin when
it comes to that and like laugh at myself and not take myself so
seriously. And, yeah, I don't know if that's probably
contributed to me being a little bit more forthcoming. Because
fuck shit happens, you know, like.
Fuck shit does happen.
Yeah.
It's one of my favorite things that happens at my house.
Fuck shit.
But I have three little boys.
There's not it's been reduced.
OK, actually, just on that three little boys thing, I think I realized I think was yesterday
or today that I actually followed your boys and not you on Instagram.
Smart.
That's probably the best way to go.
In fact, your kids are probably the reason why I would have children.
And if I did, I'd want them to be as cool as your kids.
Oh, they're so cool.
Thank you.
They're so cool.
Honestly, I have watched so many of the videos, just like can't get over like how
incredible your children are.
I'm like, these kids are going to be who knows what they're going to be.
They can do anything, you know? So cool.
Thank you. It means the world to me. I'm so, uh, I'm so lucky yesterday. I just,
it was seven o'clock at night and I just sat down for an hour and watch them play with each other.
And it's just, it's, they're such good boys. God, they're such good boys. It's so,
it's so easy. Kids are so easy. Um, if you love them, I tell my kids, I love them a lot. And then I just crazy rules. There's just crazy discipline, you know, just crazy discipline and tell them you love them. And then they, they're free. They can just, yeah, it's great. Thank you. That means the world to me that you said that now I like you even more. You already had, you already had me.
you already had you already had me um so so you go you go uh you you meet dave levy you're already but at that point in uni you're already uh into um uh what'd you call it human ergonomics yeah
human kinetics and ergonomics ergonomics and um and then and then you start moving and you're
introduced to all these new movements and you get obsessed with it.
And then they, your coaches see it there.
So then they asked you to be a coach.
And what about the competitive side?
When are you like, oh, I'm going to turn this into something competitive for me?
Well, this is the thing.
Like, um, I feel like because I never had a real direction with what I wanted from CrossFit
as a sport, uh, the process just took so much longer than
it needed to be. Like if I had have got maybe my own coach soon after finding CrossFit, like my
progression would be so much better. I wouldn't have been so stupid by like training myself into
a hole because you think when you start CrossFit, it's just about killing yourself in every session
and hurting as much as you can. And your body obviously tells you otherwise in some way shape or form so for a good few years that's what i
thought i needed to do to get better at crossfit um and uh it was only really okay obviously i got
i think in 2019 i hurt my shoulder and then i realized, oh shit, you have to actually, I have to be a lot
more smart with how I train. And yeah, moving to Abu Dhabi, I got my own coach, but just going back
to the competitive side, I did a couple of local comps in Cape Cape Town in like 2017 2018 and then in 2018 I qualified for regionals
in a team uh in the Meridian Regional um so it was myself and then uh my boyfriend at the time
Mark Timlin he was there with me and um one of my boyfriend now I do yeah you do oh because someone
really I think this is my favorite
candidate for tyson bajan yeah you would be a great you would be a great girlfriend for tyson
bajan who's that am i gonna lose out now uh he's a guest that comes on the show frequently he's
he's young he's very young i think he's only 23 but he needs but he needs someone like you
that's not in my age category. You see,
I've tried younger and I don't really, I understand. I understand.
I prefer the dad type now. Yeah. I, I, I totally get it. Yeah.
I totally, I totally young, young men are a mess, but, uh, but, but man,
but man, he, he would flourish with you.
Someone with a rock solid head like you. Okay.
You can look him up afterwards and
he's gonna he's gonna be filthy rich he's the quarterback for the chicago bears we have a for
it's an american football team yeah yeah yeah yeah okay um okay so let's go back uh um so so uh
24 years in you do first a couple local comps then you qualify for a team on the meridian and
then also you threw in there that like hey it, it didn't have to be this way. You probably could have gotten
better, faster and healthier. If you would have known your goals and maybe gotten a coach or
someone more knowledgeable in the beginning. Exactly. But I think because where I was living,
the, if I looked at the caliber of athletes and then I looked at myself, it was kind of like,
if I looked at the caliber of athletes and then I looked at myself, it was kind of like, I would never get there, you know, like, yes,
I'm competitive. Yes. I love this.
I'm going to put everything I can into training because I did,
I trained a shitload.
But if I looked at what those other girls could do and how far,
like I couldn't even do a muscle up when I moved to Cape town. I could,
yeah. Like I couldn't handstand walk. Like I couldn't even do a muscle up when I moved to Cape Town. I could yeah,
like I couldn't handstand walk like I didn't see how I would get there. But yeah, and then
going to regionals and seeing also like how far I was away from like, just even some of
the team competitors. And also not having the resources like in in cape town i
wouldn't have even known who to have as a coach let alone be able to afford a coach there yeah
um like because i yeah it's expensive i mean you had a pretty legendary guy
the jason smith you have jason smith over that he's south african right
yeah but he's in johannesburg so i was in cape town
because he's because he's the the weird thing about him is is like anyone who knows anything
like who's dug into crossfit or been around i mean africa does have that's the guy in africa
right i mean everyone in the in the crossfit space knows who he is he's a great guy but i
guess so you're saying too far away yeah And then there was another gym that was super competitive in Cape town.
It was the one that did that used to run the seminars actually called Cape
CrossFit.
Okay.
Oh, who's the owner of that?
Chris, Chris Oman, Chris Oman.
Okay.
It's not, it's not who I'm thinking.
Cause there were also two level one staff there.
I think they were a married couple, super hot, tall blonde girl.
I want to say. Super hot. Tall, nice. Crazy nice. And I want to say she had a boy. Is the man's name Chad?
Oh, Chad. Yeah, Chad. Again, Johannesburg. CrossFit Josie, I think.
Oh, okay. That was Johannesburg. Okay.
Yes.
Do you know his wife?
Do you know who I'm talking about?
The tall blonde lady?
She looks like she's a movie star.
No, I haven't met his wife.
I've only met him.
And I don't even know.
Maybe they're not even a couple.
I just assumed they were a couple because I would see them on the seminar staff together.
I mean, just totally just.
Yeah, I don't like um she looked
like charlize theron yeah i haven't i haven't seen her okay i'll keep my eye out now though
now that i know what to look for okay well you're in dubai you're not gonna see her
um i saw chad though when i was in back in south africa now so but what was his last name now i want to say chad theron but now oh then maybe they are then maybe they are married and
maybe she did maybe that's what i'm thinking that she looked like charlize theron and let
me see who charlize theron is i don't know is charlize theron a tall blonde lady yeah but i
don't think she would be charlize theron because are you talking about the actress yeah oh yeah
yeah she did look like charlize theron yeah and maybe her last name was theron is charlize Theron because are you talking about the actress yeah oh yeah yeah she did look like Charlize Theron yeah and maybe her last name was Theron is Charlize Theron South African no shit
she is she is our claim to fame all right maybe they're related I never even thought of that
and he's really handsome too he looks like a like a buff Ken doll does actually yeah yeah okay sorry sorry um uh two so so uh 2018 let's go do you remember
help me out here okay let's go yeah so we actually qualified for that regional remember when um i
think you can still do it but if you have a roster and uh those scores go and get you into the regional yep so we had dina swift you know dina
swift does that ring a bell she's competing masters this year um 35 category is she um is
she australian she's in australia currently actually uh she's just relocated there i know
i know a swift in australia she just, yeah, she qualified now through Masters,
and she was going individual and did the Open
and then had to have knee surgery, but did really well in Africa.
So with her score, we were able to qualify a team to regionals.
I recognize her.
Yeah.
Okay.
So sorry, so you went on a team with her in 2018?
No, we used her score to get onto a team ah ah okay okay yeah yeah and and then and then and
then you were hooked your your trip to the regionals got you hooked yeah so that was that
was a really fun experience and like we ideally i would have wanted to do team
again but then the following year was when crossfit went crazy and they did the two opens
i think that was 2019 but the first open i i hurt my shoulder just after fittest in cape town
um and so then i was out for like a few months i couldn't do anything on my shoulder really
and i missed the open. And yeah, I
didn't think I didn't really think too much. I just wanted to get back to training and
being mobile because one of the biggest things that frightened me over that point was the
fact that like I couldn't coach properly with like having one arm, you know. So I remember
that was the first time where my mindset around like wanting to be the best and having such a big ego in such a small gym where like, obviously as a coach, like I was going to be good.
But I used to get real like upset when people beat me.
I know it sounds so stupid, but like I was really struggled to be happy for my friends when they were doing better than me in workouts and watching the open and having the injury.
when they were doing better than me in workouts and watching the open and having the injury.
And then it really humbled me and made me think like, I don't want to be that girl that can't cheer people on in workouts. If they're beating me, like if someone beats me, I'm going to turn
around and be like, fuck yeah, you deserve that because I gave my all and you you're better,
you know? And so that was a big learning curve for me, um me from like leaving your ego at the door and also just being a better freaking human and being able to be happy for other people's successes.
And then after that, I think I was okay by the next open.
That was 2019.
And then COVID came around in 2020, hey?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then I was off like obviously no one was
competing 2020 spent most of the time at home just training out of the garage and didn't stop at all
and then at the end of at the end of 2020 we decided myself and my boyfriend at the time again
Mark Timlin who moved to the UAae with me we decided we needed to leave
south africa like we hadn't got a salary increase in five years um i didn't move to be competitive
i moved to like be exposed to better people better athletes better coaches to be a better coach
myself and then i thought why uae why not australia or the united states or somewhere else why uae
had other people blaze
that trail for you like had you heard did someone tell you hey this is the spot
that's a good oh yes actually so I would never think of going there I've never heard of anyone
from the United States in my life being like hey I moved to the UAE yeah well I think um
it's not for everyone that's for sure but when you find your place here, like it's really good. But what happened was you want to train her six days a week. She wants to do CrossFit. She works out with a South African
lady in Abu Dhabi, Megan McDermott. So she was getting trained by Megan McDermott here in Yas.
And she was like, do, um, do I have space for her? So I was like, yeah, sure. So she came in
and trained with me for five weeks. And at the end of it of it she was like you need to come to Abu Dhabi you would love it there it's so amazing um the gym is amazing we have like really good athletes there
and I was then when I looked into what Vogue was and CrossFit Yas and then I saw oh my god there's
Jamie Green there and Elliot Simmons and Anthony Monks and I was just like holy shit this place
looks so cool so I actually got in contact with Anthony Monks' wife, Sabine, who was on the team with them.
And she was like, we started the interview process.
But then my boyfriend got like fired and rehired in one week.
So when he got fired, he was like, we need to get out of the country.
And then he got rehired and he was like, all right, let's stay.
And then thank God we stayed because COVID hit.
And I definitely would not have had the financial capacity to look after myself here in the UAE.
Like living is so expensive if you're not earning.
And it was just a bit crazy.
So, yeah, I revisited the Abu Dhabi thing after COVID when things settled down.
Sorry, sorry.
Where did you end up during COVID?
Where did you do COVID at?
In Africa or Abu Dhabi? No, in Africa. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so, but, so he said, let's leave when he said, let's leave. You weren't already in the UAE. I
got a little lost there in the story. No. Okay. You were in, okay. You were here. Yeah. I was,
I was in Africa and then he was like, let's go's go let's let's see if you can find another job
and then maybe i'll come if you get a job and so i looked and then he got fired and rehired in the
same week okay then because he got rehired we stayed but then covid hit and then it was actually
a saving grace because if we had have come here we would have like crashed and burned had no money
and hadn't been here long enough to form clients and stuff like that. So when we came in 2020,
2021, again, I didn't actually have the athletic ambition per se. It was more like, I'm going
to train my ass off. If that's good enough to be competitive, then cool.
That was kind of my thinking.
Be the best coach I can be.
Be the best.
Train as hard as I can and then see what happens.
And then now 2024, here you are.
You're going to the CrossFit Games.
Yeah.
So you went home to Africa to compete in the semifinals there.
Yeah, yeah. And did you know the semifinals there. Yeah, yeah.
And did you know the field pretty well there?
Like when you looked at the leaderboard, are you like, okay,
these are the girls, I have a chance?
So, yeah, I would say I definitely knew.
For instance, like going into the final event of day three, I knew that.
Which you took first.
Which I took first, yeah.
Yeah.
Which going into that event,
I knew Christina was exceptionally good at gymnastics.
Like she proved it in the handstand walk.
Last year in semis,
she did all those rock muscle-ups unbroken
and I couldn't freaking string like one
complex together properly so that was very stressful um but yeah Christina um I knew she
was good at muscle-ups and so actually I'd say the Wednesday before the event like even started
Before the event even started, I started visualizing my final.
I started imagining myself.
I knew Christina was good, so I knew I had to be just as good or better.
And that meant that I had to do 15 muscle-ups unbroken,
which I'd only ever done once, and that was when I was fresh.
Wow. So, yeah, I was like, my friend said to me, um, my coach and also my, one of my best
friends in here in Abu Dhabi, she was like, we sitting on the bike after event four. And, uh,
she's like, listen, do you want to hear the points? And I was like, yeah, man, tell me. I was
like, I'm not going to be one of those people that sees the leaderboard and freaks and cracks under
pressure. I was like, only one. Does only one person only one person go yeah only one so if you don't take first you don't go
yeah so leading up to this event this is what now we're discussing on the on the assault bike so i'm
sitting there and she's like uh listen if uh you want to hear the points or not and i was like just
give it to me i was like tell me what i need to do, you know, to win this.
And she's like, well, listen, if Christina wins this event, you guys will tie.
But she will have three event wins and you'll only have one, which means she'll go to the CrossFit Games.
So she was like, you need to win.
And I was like, okay.
And then we went down to the, like, athlete chill area.
And Evie was like, she's like, do you want me to stay with you here or can I go train
I said no go like go I need to think of a plan oh we called up my coach as well and he was saying
like what do you think you can do and I said I was like listen aunt like I've just been visualizing
wait who's your coach Anthony Monks oh okay okay yeah so um I said I said to him I was like I've
been visualizing myself performing 15 muscle-ups this workout for the last like maybe four days.
So I was like, I'm going to go for it.
Like, I'm just going to go.
And he was like, all right, mate, like we can maybe call, like have a break, have a chill, and then we can maybe call before your events.
I was like, sweet.
And then Evie left me and I lay on the beanbag and I just, again, sat there visualizing.
Because funnily enough, out of all the events that I did over semis, event six was the only one I never practiced in full.
It was the only one I never did.
That was the salt bike and then 15 muscle-ups and then carry the dumbbells with the lunging?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I didn't practice that one In its whole format
At all
I didn't even know like
What I could hold on the bike
Going into the
The master laps
Because
Yeah
I hadn't really done it
Um
Why hadn't you done it?
Why had
Why was that the only one
You hadn't done?
Um
So
The
Before the
After quarter finals
I had like something
Going on in my shoulder And Same The same shoulder that had bothered you before.
Yeah, the injury like I had a shoulder injury in 2019.
And then, yeah, I've got another one.
So just noticing that at the moment, but the shoulder was being a bit weird and I didn't really know what was going on.
So I was just being very conservative leading up to the semis.
And I didn't want to do too much high volume muscle ups and stuff. Because with Toaster Bar,
it was fine. And the only thing that really, really bothers my shoulder is butterfly chest
bars. So when I saw the workouts coming into semis, I was like, thank freaking God, there's no
butterfly chest bars. Because if there was, I would have to kip them.
I kip them in the open.
Like when I did the open workout, I had to kip.
And, yeah, so I hadn't done the muscle-up one just out of conservation
for the shoulder.
But then also the week before semis, the Saturday,
so Saturday and then we were competing on the friday i twisted
my ankle oh wow yeah so i twisted it like quite bad i couldn't walk on it for two days on on a
runner on an air runner no i was doing box jump overs and i stepped off the box step normal like
like a normal person and then i was turning to walk towards the wall to get to go to the war
balls and i don't know what happened my foot just like went on the side and i i felt a pop like a normal person. And then I was turning to walk towards the wall to get, to go to the war balls.
And I don't know what happened.
My foot just like went on the side and I felt a pop in my ankle.
What shoes were you wearing?
What shoes were you wearing?
Nanos.
Yeah.
But what I noticed the nanos have got quite a,
like a rigid border around them.
And if you turn your foot,
it's quite like rough. I don't know if that's normal in all shoes,
but anyway, I felt this pop in my ankle and I looked at my foot and I quite like rough I don't know if that's normal in all shoes but anyway
I felt this pop in my ankle and I looked at my foot and I was like oh shit I was like I think
my ligament is gone like I did have a little panic it wasn't painful which freaked me out even more
because I was like if a ligament pops sometimes it's not painful um and so I was with one of the
other girls who I was competing against. And she like,
I lay down and I sat there and I got some ice. And I was like, Oh, my God, I messaged my coach,
I messaged my chiropractor. And I was like, I think my ankles fucked up. I don't know if I'm
going to be able to compete this weekend. By this point, I called with my mate Evie,
who was coming as my coach to support me at the event. And I said to her, Listen,
I don't think you need to come
i don't even know whether i can compete i was like it's so bad like i can't walk on it it's a little
bit swollen um i don't know how i'm gonna do 70 box jump overs eight 4ks of running 500 double
unders and 70 where were the semi-finals were they in johannesburg yeah okay yeah so anyway i Johannesburg? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, I took like some anti-inflammatories the week before
and then, um, like that week of, and by Friday, um, I couldn't really, I could feel my ankle,
but it didn't not enough to distract me and obviously all the adrenaline and stuff so yeah that was that was that and um that's why i
couldn't really then practice that lunge event because i didn't want to lunge with those heavy
dumbbells on my ankle so you get out there um and only one person goes you have 560 at the at the
end of the weekend you had 561 and she has 555 when you went into that event it must have been closer
yeah she had just
taken first in event 5
so you guys were probably like just how many
points were you separated going into the event
oh
flip I can't even I don't know
less than 5
it was it was really tight
the whole weekend was tight like me
so she would have beat you.
Is each place five points or ten points?
Anyway, you only beat her by six points.
So you knew you had to beat her.
Yeah.
No, I knew I had to beat her.
But you know what was funny is that when I was lunging down the floor,
because I don't know if you actually watched the event,
but I'm lunging down the floor and the crowd is going crazy and out the corner of my eye like I can see a person
but I thought it was this other girl Tana Tana so I'm going and I'm wondering why is everyone
going crazy like I could see all my family there my friends everyone's screaming for me and I'm
like what why is everyone going so crazy like if Tana beats me it's fine I was like as long as it's
not Christina yeah but I didn't know it was Christina but I couldn't see because I'm like, what? Why is everyone going so crazy? Like if Tana beats me, it's fine. I was like, as long as it's not Christina. But I
didn't know it was Christina, but I couldn't see
because I was like, I didn't want to look
around and lose my balance. But she
was in the lane next to you, right?
She was, but she was just enough
behind that I couldn't see who it was out my
side. And when we got to the
muscle-ups, Tana was next. I could see
Tana jump up. So
I assumed that Tana had finished the muscle-ups before. She was next. I could see Tana jump up. So my, I assumed that Tana had finished the
muscle-ups before. Um, she didn't even finish the workout. No, I know. And then that's why when I
turned around after putting the dumbbells down on the mat, I saw Christina and I was like, holy
shit, Tana's over there. And it didn't click to me that it was actually Christina that was like
on my tail the whole time. That's why everyone was going crazy. Gemma, were you first off the bike?
I think I was like third off the bike.
Did you know if Christina got off before you?
I got off before her.
So I actually won the workout on the bike.
Oh, okay.
And then you did all 15 muscle-ups on broken?
Yeah.
Did you get any no reps?
No.
Because one no rep would have fucked you i know there my last
maybe five reps of the the 15 were like a bit of a struggle um and i just remember thinking
you can't i just actually didn't think you can't fuck out now because every other event i've had
ring muscle ups i always failed the last rep um so I knew that I couldn't think
that going into this event um I knew I had to think you're going to get this muscle-up and
yeah got it so that was that was really that was really exciting and probably one of my most proud
moments from a individual um growth point of view um just to back myself and um like do the work
that needed to be done yeah people poo-poo africa but 15 muscle-ups
unbroken is world class there were women high-level women all over the world who weren't able to do
that yeah i was did you put the did you put the dumbbells down no no shit good job that's crazy
that was a do or die moment for you it was and like yeah i would have
rather died clearly but um i looked at that was also one of my workouts that i looked at the time
and i was like holy shit like actually that was a competitive time in the world which was really
exciting for me like obviously the tears and the lauras are all under three minutes but like
the still like a few high level girls, like I was up there,
you know?
So that was really exciting.
The bus foot in the water there.
Yeah.
Uh, I'm looking over here at the, uh, yeah, that would have been, that would have been
third place.
That's what the, the girl you would have beat the, you beat the girl in, um in Abigail Domet who took first in California on the West Coast.
Yeah, that's crazy.
It's an insane time.
So then the event's over and they do that thing, at least here in the States.
I don't know what they do in Africa, but no one knows who won.
So you must know it's really close you think you won but you're still waiting for them to say something right well we kind of i kind of knew because uh i was obviously leading the whole time
and then if i got the hundred points or the hundred the the first which means i would have stayed ahead so um so you knew yeah i knew was christina
crying did you see christina was she crying no she was she was really good like a really good sport
um i think both of us had like higher expectations of ourselves last year and uh we we definitely
have improved how we navigate our expectations coming into the competition this year.
Yeah, because I could definitely see a difference in her demeanor compared to last year.
And I felt a difference in my demeanor this year compared to last year.
And you could sense hers.
You could sense her demeanor was different too.
Oh, definitely.
Yeah, okay. hers you could sense her demeanor was different too oh definitely yeah okay um uh when you win
do you know that you're going for sure or are you like oh i don't know if i'm gonna make it
out there to the united states what what a journey uh no i pretty much know i go i i'm going for sure
i'm just like i don't think i celebrate really well as a person in general.
That's when I get shy, I guess.
I get shy when all of a sudden the attention's on me and I don't know how to be.
I think there have been multiple occasions in competition setting
where I've won a lift or something,
and then I just drop the bar and walk away like I did nothing.
And I kind of felt like I stood after dropping and everyone's going crazy for me.
And I'm kind of like, Oh, okay. Uh, yeah. And I kind of like did the celebration, but like,
it wasn't how everyone else celebrated when they were all so happy. I don't know why,
I don't know why I couldn't be more happy for myself, but I kind of, maybe it's that expectation
of like, that's what I expected myself to do. Why, why but I kind of, maybe it's that expectation of like,
that's what I expected myself to do. Why, why am I happy about it? You know, that was what I needed
to do and I did it. And now, you know, like, I wish I kind of, I look back now and I wish I kind
of celebrated a bit more. Um, were your parents there or was your mom there? My older brother
and his wife was there. Uh, my mom, no, she couldn't make it, but she was there the year before.
So she visited me just before I competed this year and then had to go back home.
So, yeah, but I had my brother there, which was nice.
And who will you come to the States with?
I'm bringing Evie with me again.
Just the two of you?
Yeah, just the two of us.
And when do you arrive?
I actually still haven't booked my flights yet.
Oh, wow.
I need to get on that.
Are there any issues with coming to the States for you?
Is it easy?
No, it's fairly easy.
I get an ESTA visa with my Italian passport.
South Africa would have been a different story i would
definitely probably not had not had made it here because the wait list for visa um meetings is so
long um but yeah i haven't i've just uh you know i just need to get on it i've booked my
accommodation and everything i just haven't booked the flights i need to do that and and um and what what's the plan um when you come come will you come early
around probably the 28th 29th okay of of july um yeah i don't i just don't want to have
that's early i mean that's a week early yeah i don't want to get like jet lag and stuff the
flight's really far um and i would rather also have a little bit
of time to just adjust there like travel can be quite stressful um so yeah we're going to come
up a little bit early and it's also it's like such a long way to come like why would i why would i
this person ask you is evie the friend she started crossfit with no i started crossfit with emma holiday oh that's a great name
yeah she she competed at semis i think she finished sixth this year so you'll come a week
early you'll go straight to texas you'll go straight to uh fort worth so everyone well
initially one of some of the guys at my gym they said like i should stay in dallas for a while and
train there and then go to fort Worth. And then, um,
yeah.
And then I get like a little bit of exposure of a little bit more of Texas.
So I'm,
that's,
I'm still undecided as to whether I want to do that or not.
Um,
you know,
I don't really know.
And then,
and then how about afterwards?
Will you stay afterwards?
No,
because I can't,
the gym that I work at now,
there's only three of us coaching.
So when I'm gone,
there's only two and
yeah I can't leave them for too long yeah um and then the the heat um being that you're in Abu Dhabi
I'm guessing you have no concerns about the heat yeah I mean hopefully it can't be worse than this
um I don't think I don't think it is I mean it's bad but i don't think it's like i think you
have them beat uh yeah i i'm not too bothered by the heat to be honest like obviously it's shitty
sometimes and and like everything's air conned here so i could say that i'm not really exposed
to training in the heat however um i train out of vogue Fitness occasionally still because I don't work at Vogue Fitness.
I work at a gym called Sandbox.
And Vogue, the open gym doesn't really have like a proper AC.
So when you're training in there, it's like you're training outside.
Like it's really humid in there.
So I don't know.
Hopefully that's enough.
Hey, Gemma, what about your boyfriend?
He's not coming with you?
I don't really know yet what his plans are he's um he works between uh uae and australia
so um if he can get off work because he's just come back for his next contract here and um
yeah if he can get off work he'll come if he can't get off work, he'll come. If he can't get off work, then he won't come.
Is he a CrossFitter?
He has done a fair amount of CrossFit.
I wouldn't say he's a CrossFitter.
How did you meet him?
In the gym.
The only place I meet boys.
Oh, so he's a CrossFitter enough, meaning he came in there.
Yeah, but to the open gym to do weightlifting.
He loves weightlifting.
So he was doing Olympic
lifting and all that. And how did you guys meet? Did you go over and say hi to him or did he talk
to you? No, I had to go over and say hi. You did. Did you know you were like, okay, I'm going to
talk to this boy? I did. I saw him. He came in with a bunch of his friends and they were in the open gym.
And I actually never train late in the day. I always train in the morning or the early afternoon because I'm normally working.
But this day I had run out of time. So I was in the gym real late and he came in with all his friends.
And I saw this guy and I was like, I need to go introduce myself.
And he was actually the shyer one out of the other guys, out of the guys,
but he caught my attention the most.
And did you know, like, I'm guessing because you're there,
you know, everyone there, like you knew he was new.
Like it was his first time there.
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And like, yeah, definitely.
They stuck out a little compared to the type of people we have
in the gym so yeah i knew i knew i was like yep i gotta make the move here and then what do you say
you just walk over to him and say hi and then you like pretend like you were i mean you do work there
but you introduce yourself as an employee and let them know if they need anything they can ask you
yes is that really that's the move that was it yeah that's good yeah yeah you you could have written the the playbook there
um and then like were there sparks right away uh i don't know i still say that like i tell him that
there was like this look in his eye when he like looked at me but um i don't know whether i was
just seeing what i wanted to see to be honest but um
but yeah over the course of a few weeks i was like always waiting around in the gym to see if
him and his friends would come in and uh yeah and then eventually one morning i was on a morning
shift and i came up the stairs and i saw him in the gym and he was on his own and i was like oh
like a weak like a weak gazelle just by itself. Exactly.
So I was like, all right, snapped up at the waterhole.
Yep.
I was literally thinking if I'm going to ask this guy for his number, because neither of us had really done that.
I was like, it's going to be now when none of his friends are around.
And that's the only second time you'd seen him.
No, no, no.
We've been in the gym and I'd spoken to him like many times before.
Did you have his name yet?
Did you get his name yet?
Yeah, I did get his name.
So although I couldn't, I remember like there were a few of them in there.
So I couldn't hear properly and the Australian accent is quite strong.
So sometimes they would say their names and I actually would get confused.
So what I had to do was go to the front desk and ask the front desk person to tell me what the member's name was because I couldn't hear when they introduced themselves.
Anyway, so yeah.
So then did the front desk person know that you were crushing on this guy?
Oh, yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, so that was pretty much the rest was history after i got his
number and then you're like hey uh and then you just text them hey you want to do something
yeah this was the hard part because i was like what do i even say to this guy like it's not like
it's not like you meet them in a bar and it's like open and casual and you're just like hey
you know i was like now i gotta think of something to say i've asked him for his number so yeah i think i was probably really cringy
actually i was like you guys look like you could be fun to hang around with or something like that
very lame um you could have been like hey i couldn't help but notice that uh your second
pool is off do you want to come in and i'll help you with your lifting? I should have. That would have been better.
But this is where I get shy, you see.
I was like, oh.
So anyway, so I ended up, I think, going to like hang out with him and his friends at like a pool.
And then we all went out for dinner.
And then pretty much the rest was history.
And how long have you been dating?
A good few years now like two years oh wow
that's wild and he comes back and he comes back and forth does he come back and forth for work
or comes back and forth to see you ah for work but like it ties in quite well um yeah it ties
in well with with working and being here and and when he's away, I can just focus
on all my stuff and when he's back, then we have that time.
It's worked out really well actually.
Have you been to Australia?
Yeah, I went in December.
Oh, and you met his family?
No, we didn't go.
Australia is huge, so we weren't where his family
was we were just kind of like tasmania yeah yeah so i was in tasmania and a little bit of like
malban area but his family is all like on the other side but he stays on that side and is he
he's pretty mature and well put together yeah yeah yeah i mean i mean yeah i mean he's got a
job he travels back and forth he sounds like he's got his shit together yeah i mean i mean yeah i mean he's got a job he travels back and forth he sounds
like he's got his shit together yeah i would say so i mean we all we all in some ways don't
have our shit together but we make it worth yeah i mean look at me i'm 52 years old and i think i'm
a fucking youtuber yeah shit and no one's perfect yeah no so we're we're, we're happy. He's here now. And, um, so it's been quite nice having him back.
Well,
cool.
Hey,
absolutely awesome meeting you.
I can't wait to,
uh,
see you in person and,
uh,
cheer you on and put the camera in your face.
Thanks for doing this.
I know this was really last minute.
What time is it there now?
Oh,
it's only half a seven.
Uh,
in the evening.
Yeah.
Are you morning?
Yeah.
It's eight,
eight 30 here in the morning oh yeah okay
oh so you're like 11 you're uh what's the date for you is it is it the fifth
no it's the fourth oh you're ahead hey no i'm we're behind so it's the morning for me okay
okay yeah so we're still on the same day um yeah no i'm glad we actually got on the call because
when your person was trying to set us up i um every evening i was actually working so yeah it was a bit hard to i knew i
knew suza told me he's like hey you got to look for her whatsapp in the evening because she's
because i was like hey did we get this set up and he's like dude she's sleeping
yeah yeah i know um yeah but it's yeah for having me. Um, it was a surprise. Very welcomed one.
Yeah. Awesome to meet you. And, um, I'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Cool. And don't forget about the CrossFit seminar thing.
I'm going to hold you to it.
Oh yes. Send me, send me, send me, send,
remind me on WhatsApp so that it's there. Yeah. Okay. You're smart. Okay.
Good job. Okay. Well have a wonderful day.
All right, dear.
All right. Cheers. Good job. Okay. Well, have a wonderful day. All right, dear. All right.
Cheers.
Gemma Raider.
Wow.
Cool chick.
Yeah.
Crazy.
Cool.
Make you want to leave,
uh,
or the fuck you're hiding in Morocco or wherever.
Uh,
Mike,
Mike pool boy.
I'm leaving for Australia today.
I'm going to have so much sex with my girlfriend.
Oh,
that's awesome.
Congrats.
Uh, Just got here
to learn these guys don't know how time zones
work.
It's hard to understand when you
think the Earth is flat. When you're
flat Earth, you don't understand time zones anymore.
Okay.
Who's this?
What is this? Yeah, she'd be great seminar staff right she got her shit together oh yeah cool anola kai sweet
uh let's see if we can get a no back on uh no akai Souza.
Souza. Can we schedule?
Anul.
Saturday, $2,000.
Kill Taylor.
Crazy.
Two grand.
$2,000. Kill Taylor. Crazy. Two grand. $2,000.
All right.
I'm glad she was so cool.
I had built this whole story that this was going to be the hardest podcast ever
and it was so fucking easy
in my head
like I was expecting like
yeah I was not expecting
someone like that
I don't expect it ever to be
anyone who can talk
but then especially when I
think of a young. CrossFit Games.
Athlete girl.
I just think like.
Like.
Can't talk.
Then divided by two.
She's awesome.
Her boyfriend's stoked.
Can we get behind the scenes.
Of your firework display.
My fireworks display.
I'm going to.
I'm going to this., I'm going to this,
um,
this,
uh,
this,
I should show you her.
I'm going to this chick's house,
uh,
tonight.
Uh,
she's a professional fighter.
She's my kids,
uh,
striking and jujitsu coach.
One of them.
And,
her dad lives on a ranch with a giant swimming pool and horses.
And I think we're going over there at four 30.
I don't even think I'll be awake when the fireworks go off last night i went to bed at midnight which is late for me and like at 1205
i hear this crazy sound that i've never heard before in my house
so i go out the door i have these doors double doors in my bedroom that go out to the
backyard and i walk out there and i'm fucking barely clothed i'm in my underwear and there's
a the biggest fucking plane ever flying over my house like a big huge military jet
my wife's like what was that like i guess i'm guessing it's a military jet i said it was some
giant plane flying over our house.
Massive.
And when I mean over our house, I don't mean close either, but I mean, close enough to where I could see it's a giant plane.
No, it was not the sound of a female orgasm.
My whole house was rumbling.
I'm like, Hey man, we've lived here eight years.
I've never heard that or seen a plane fly like that over the house.
She goes, me neither.
It was a trip.
Crazy.
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Oh, what is this?
Someone just sent me a...
I'm watching Alex Ghazan videos.
Someone sent me a link to her story.
You know, usually this time of year I'm like panicking. Like, I'm shit i gotta get more athletes on more athletes on i'm kind of just winging it now just one at a time
i interviewed like like uh or interviewed i invited danny on i invited daniel brandon on
i invited jeffrey adler on i invited justin madaris on i think who Adler on I invited Justin Medeiros on trying to think who else
I haven't invited Lori yet I'm trying I just went through kind of all the names that I thought of
people oh I invited Tia on I kind of went through all the names that I thought like would not come
on first just to kind of like get them out of the way and then now I'm just I don't know how I'm
picking them but I think Enola Kai just popped up in my feed yesterday and
jemma just popped up in my feed so i'm just like okay pick them up start picking them off one by
one i thought of alex the other day we did alex right who else have we who else do we need to do
who else are we done uh sporty beth
uh if sebon says big military plane i'm guessing it was a private two person charter plane.
This thing was massive.
Massive, massive, massive.
Like bigger than a 747 massive.
But it was night, so I couldn't see what color it was.
Oh, yeah. Do we have Hattie Canyon on?
I think I have to have Hattie on again.
Oh, that's a good idea.
Try to get Danny and Danielle on together
and brand it The Healing Show.
I guess Danny did a podcast with Bryce Smith.
Someone sent me a link today.
Oh shit, I got a YouTube manager for my channel.
Oh shit, this is crazy.
Congratulations and welcome to the YouTube Partner Manager Program.
I'm Gerardo Leandro.
Oh, I wonder if I can check this guy.
Can you just like, wow, that's nuts.
Let me check this guy's uh this guy on instagram oh his name is a what
is that a good thing that makes me feel like i'm big time now
uh Hmm. hmm all right shit i wonder what suze is gonna say about this
hey all the behind the scenes are i think out from the west coast classic i watched the final
episode last night holy shit it's good it's an hour and 14 minutes i think i think that at least
one episode's free now too has come out from behind the paywall you will not be disappointed
absolutely beautifully shot and beautifully edited with fantastic audio.
I'm so fucking impressed with myself right now.
Oh, Zach Jones.
This show has really taken off.
Go figure.
I think I'm just going to have to call Laura Horvat. Maybe now is the time to do it. time is it there where does she live hungaria
or bulgaria what is she uh what time is it in bulgaria 6 38 p.m. What time is it in Hungary?
Is that the name of the country?
Hungary?
538.
So, oh, she's in Virginia?
How do you know that?
You got to go to her Instagram account?
Laura Horvath.
Laura Horvath.
Um,
how do you know?
Like you go to her stories or something?
Like,
how do you know?
I thought she was at Ben Smith's gym.
Instagram.
Is that his gym? damn that's a cool video
was that her biking look at her lats jesus criminy really a turtle where does ben live so this is Ben's gym where's this each day with the family
when's this posted 22 hours ago
what are those names up there something Nelson and something
cross Oh CrossFit Krypton up on the wall left-hand corner all right
shows just not as smooth flowing without C Beaver but we're not trying to
professionalize this podcast.
Dude, Chesapeake, Virginia.
So you're saying Caleb makes the show better?
That's weird.
I had him on to make the show worse.
I thought the show flowed fucking amazing just now.
What the fuck you're talking about?
25 governors visited the White House yesterday.
How's that?
Is that weird uh did you guys see president biden painted himself orange that's always weird
painted himself orange he dyed himself orange did you guys see that
to try to like jump on the trump bandwagon you can't make this shit up
You can't make this shit up.
First of all, this is not your father's Republican Party.
This is a different.
No, sir.
A different group.
This ain't your father's Republican Party.
Not not a joke.
This is not your father's Republican Party.
This is not your father's Republican Party. This is a different deal.
They are not. They are not who we are. They're not who America is. Because this is not your father's
Republican Party. This, I call them the new Republican Party. This is not your father's Republican Party. I remember working with
Republicans. Republicans. And by the way, this ain't your father's Republican Party.
This is not your father's Republican Party. This is a different group of folks, ladies and gentlemen.
Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican. Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology.
And not all Republicans,
but the radical right in the Republican party.
First of all,
this is not your father's Republican party.
This is 20 years of the same shit from this guy.
I can't wait to see what's going to happen this is so fun
do you guys think that
does anyone here think that
non-US citizens can vote
in our elections
does anyone think that that story's true?
Is there anyone who doesn't think that story's true?
Is there anyone who's like, no, that's bullshit.
Non-citizens can't vote.
That's just Republican propaganda.
What do you guys think?
Can non-U.S. citizens vote?
Can non-U.S. citizens vote? Can non-U.S. citizens vote?
What city, if you were to think,
if you were to think of a city in the United States
where not only they could vote,
but they were encouraged to vote
and that they already hold uh high level offices in the
city what city would you guess let's just say let's just say
and that's chicago great guess what where would be the last place you would want illegal immigrants to vote?
Let me help you out. Washington, D.C.
Yeah, San Francisco, fully, fully, full campaign, San Francisco, completely legal and local and state elections for
non-U.S. citizens to vote.
It's a
full-on blitz here. It's on.
It's on like
Donkey Kong.
You can just go. Washington, D.C.,
non-U.S. citizens,
it's not only legal for them to vote,
non-U.S. citizens D.C. non-U.S. citizens. It's not only legal for them to vote non-U.S. citizens
D.C. voting.
Not only is it legal, but it's fully
fucking encouraged.
Like fully
fucking encouraged.
Does that
make fucking any sense to
anyone?
House passes measure to repeal D.C. non-citizen voting.
They tried to take it away.
They failed, by the way.
They can fully vote there in Washington, D.C. San Francisco
they can fully
what if I told you
that the person in charge
of elections
in San Francisco
was a fucking Chinese national
the person in charge.
A Chinese immigrant has been sworn in
to serve on San Francisco's election commission
despite her lack of U.S. citizenship,
raising national security concerns.
Man, it is...
I was digging into this story last night.
Oakland's next.
She hopes to increase voting
engagement among immigrants
and non-U.S. citizens.
Sevan,
but how long do you have to live in the United States
before you can do that in these states
and cities?
30 days. You can live in San Francisco for 30 days and vote in all local elections.
No, if a community has a huge percentage of non-citizens does it make sense to have them
vote in the local elections that's exactly where you don't want them voting why wouldn't why
wouldn't someone just send over a hundred thousand chinese to fucking baltimore and
fucking vote and take over the city and then san francisco and then new york and then dc
what kind of fucking question is that?
A non-U.S. citizen gets to vote in our fucking elections? That doesn't even
fucking make any sense.
Uh, Clock, uh, no,
they're illegal. They're not entitled to representation,
not entitled to influence our politics.
Go fuck yourself, Garrity. Doesn't mean anything to be our politics. Go fuck yourself, Garrett.
He doesn't mean anything to be a citizen.
Yeah, I agree.
Even you asking that deserves a fucking slapping around, Daniel.
Hope you fall in a dildo today.
It's fucking nuts.
it's fucking nuts uh that's what omar somalians did in minneapolis yeah
oh good for you oh no get the fuck out of here's how i read it
Get the fuck out of here is how I read it.
Yeah, that story is unfolding crazy.
The Omar Illion story.
The progressive chick.
Have you guys looked at her background?
Her dad worked for one of the most vicious dictators in the world. It's nuts
Vermont, San Francisco, DC
the shit's
fucking happening everywhere
10% of the people surveyed admit to this
if this percentage holds
2024 election will be in jeopardy
this is in I think North Carolina
non-US citizens admit to being registered to vote
dude it's fucking happening man we're watching it fucking happen
but i'm concerned about the reversal of roe versus roe roe v wade or i'm concerned about the reversal of Roe v. Wade, or I'm concerned about a January 6th.
Oh, okay, cool. Stay focused on those things. That's smart.
Today we are calling on all of you to declare independence from foreigners deciding our elections.
The evidence you are about to see relates to illegal aliens being registered to vote.
This is a problem national in scale.
The United States of America is for Americans, and our elections only should be decided by them.
We come with a group that's trying to register people.
Are you currently registered?
Are you registered? Yes.
Are you a citizen? No.
Are you registered to vote? Yes.
Are you a citizen? No.
The apartment complex 220 at Branchview in Charlotte, North Carolina,
is occupied primarily by non-citizens.
We visited the apartment complex to ask residents two questions.
Are you registered to vote? And are you a citizen?
Shockingly, four of the 41 people we asked
confirmed that they were a non-citizen and registered to vote.
What the fuck is going on? I can't even believe this is fucking happening.
Can't even get our own fucking people in the country to vote.
Ken Walters, buckle up. It's going to get wild in november if you thought cities weren't upheaval over a felon just wait uh when dawn wins
a peaceful protest peaceful protests
uh the liberals up here just lost a vote in toronto that was held for 30 plus years to
the conservatives yeah canada is going through some shit i think i mean they but they have a
i mean they have a world-class piece of shit there i mean their country was taken over by
fucking carl schwab it's different than charles schwab and then Charles Schwab.
All right.
I'm pretty excited.
I'm getting my,
I'm having my wife look into flights to Fort Worth.
What a great day, huh?
I found a new superstar for the... Listen, the L1 team is fucking amazing.
But Gemma's amazing.
Don't you think she'd be a great addition?
Smart, beautiful, hard-working knowledgeable passionate tons of
experience variety of affiliates she's worked in did i mention hot like where i mean like fuck
jemma jemma jemma jemma jemma i wanted to ask her about her last name that's kind of a wild
last name raider right like i wonder if her last name. That's kind of a wild last name, Raider, right?
Like, I wonder if her family comes from, like,
a history of people who raided, like,
other people's homes and shit. you
yeah I'm glad you picked that up pink lady casually dropping you're going to the games. Yes. Yes. Very casual.
You don't want a coach that dates members, though.
Listen, listen.
Of course you do.
I got fit and I banged a coach.
No, listen.
He wasn't even a CrossFitter.
He's in a different section of the gym.
It's fine.
It's fine.
They're illegal, anything non non citizens
illegal all of them none of them
can vote put the rock
down
put the rock down put your hands
up turn around and walk
out of the room slowly
my ex-girlfriend only fucks coaches in her gym
what's a non-citizen you jonathan you
uh ken walters i dated and married my boss so marrying a coach is no biggie oh what's your boss's name what's his name hey listen remember yesterday i was it was it was
awesome remember yesterday i was telling you about i hate it when fucking uh the least attractive
thing about a woman is when she makes everything a man woman uh engagement and
fucking i saw one on the internet like right away when when i got off the show yesterday
there was a there was a it's on that thread with um uh that andrew hiller has going
and someone said to um i don't know who's writing the post but someone said to the crossfit book or
to to i don't even know to be honest with you i writing the post, but someone said to the CrossFit book or to, to, I don't, I don't even know, to be honest with you.
I can't even remember, but someone pointed it out to me as the example.
Um, someone wrote, Hey, I don't think Greg Glassman would be happy for you talking like this, um, from his representing his business or someone.
And I don't know if it was Emily or who, but the person responded, Oh, you think I belong in the kitchen?
Um, uh, pregnant. You think I should be in the kitchen um uh pregnant you think i should
be in the kitchen cooking and pregnant see that like dude no no one even like first of all no one
even knows if you're a man or a woman who's who's posting from this account no one mentioned whether
you were a man or a woman and now all of a sudden it's gone to like you playing the victim like so
you automatically thought that someone was talking down to you. Because you were a woman.
And it's like.
By the way that is a.
You can't have a relationship like that with someone.
That's just crazy.
I just couldn't believe what a great.
That was like a museum quality specimen.
It would be like if you honked at a woman. And she yelled at the car.
Oh you don't think women can drive. It's like the car, oh, you don't think women can drive?
It's like, no, you dumb fuck.
I don't think you can drive.
Yeah, it's just such victim shit.
It's like crazy.
But I just couldn't believe I saw it.
It was such a classic specimen.
You think I belong in the kitchen pregnant?
It's like, what?
Where the fuck did that even come from? classic specimen you think i belong in the kitchen pregnant it's like what where the
fuck did that even come from it just screams like hey look how insecure i am about my vagina
it's nuts i cannot imagine seeing going around like that that shit sucks hey and when i if i
do have things like that i push them down i would be embarrassed to show them you know what i mean
like i would like i like like i'm embarrassed to be embarrassed
it was crazy it was it was a perfect specimen someone sent it to me right after the show was
over they're like oh i got an example for you i got an example for you look at this
this person's fighting with this person this
person said oh you think i belong in the kitchen with kids it's like dude no like no one can even
tell if you're a man or a woman the person who's posting I can't unsee the picture of Sprague
that Juan Zombie posted
did you guys there's a funny funny
scene with James Sprague in the behind
the scenes holy shit it's so funny
Jordan Jason speaks
sign me up for the kill Taylor scaled workout
I don't think we do scale
I think we just do ass whoopings
Maybe you have a mental health issue
I don't know what you're talking about
Let me see
Wad zombie
Wad zombie
By the way that was really cool
that you posted Fidhead yesterday. I appreciate it.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is from the
this is from the
this is he called himself James
Spreagle. This scene was amazing.
And I really like it
because his fiance didn't get the joke, which
just shows how cool she is.
Look at that thing
dump truck
no cr uh the real stuff on college oh yeah thank you look at the wad zombie is just like a fool
this this this website just turned into a promotional campaign for the Sevan podcast.
If that doesn't make you thirsty. the way you can get 40% off
See upper right hand corner
Scan me
What else is going on here
No No.
No, man.
Shit, no, man.
I believe you get your ass kicked saying something like that, man.
Now we are going to enjoy this meal.
No one can stop us from enjoying this meal, so enjoy it!
Stop crying!
Wow.
Oh, Justin looks good.
No.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's have our own tier beer fest cup.
The VIP section.
Tier water, please.
So Cal VIP pass VIP.
The top Socal spectator experience
including single and three-day vip tickets found hey um at the uh at that socal event
we're gonna do a live kill taylor and at least that's the plan i mean that's what we're throwing
around but i think i actually think it's gonna happen we're gonna do a live kill taylor taylor
will go out into the center of the stadium.
He'll do the workout.
And then people from the stands can come down and try to beat him.
If the first person beats him, they get 500, and we'll take up to 10 people,
and the prize money will double every time a person comes out.
So if the first nine people don't beat him and the 10th person beats him,
that's five grand right there.
Bam.
Oh, I like that.
That's a good response.
Someone DM me and said,
if they taste like Flintstones vitamins with a nine volt battery.
I like that.
Yeah.
I like that taste or more well cat's out of the bag i was actually talking to gabe about this idea each person will have to do a shot of espresso before
the workout that's what will start the workout you'll do a shot of paper street coffee three
two one go hawk two eight three two one hawk two we'll do a shot of espresso and then you go shot of espresso
paper street coffee uh can athletes come out for it yeah anyone can come out for it but the thing
is is like you don't get to wave your hand and then like uh just because you're jeffrey adler
you get picked plus those people i don't think any games athletes are too scared yellow host is like a rare
a rare animal they don't want to put their shit out on the line
oh this is what i wanted to talk about this was fucking hilarious this if you If you're ever like, man, Seve's so out of touch,
you couldn't be further from the truth.
It's saying shit like this that makes it so that I might not be able to film the behind the scenes.
But this shit is fucking wild to me.
Look at this.
No offense, Lena, by the way, Miss Raker.
You're beautiful. You're cool.
Go get some.
But this shit's crazy
Someone recently told me they don't see team athletes
Competing at CrossFit Games as games athletes
And that hurt
What a great opportunity
Listen what a great opportunity listen
there's a guy in the united states like named michael jordan and so many people look up to him
and he's done fucking shit all with his fucking life he fucking bounces a ball around and runs
around with other men and has perfected throwing fucking a fucking wad up piece
of paper into a trash can and he can put it behind his back and he can run up and throw the trash in
the trash can he's world-class at throwing trash away and people call him a fucking professional
athlete that's what you want we have a sport here we pay millions of dollars for people to play baseball
you do you think those people like they're professional what
no offense but the whole shit lot of you can go fuck yourself
like you're fucking dancing fucking monkeys at best and we appreciate you for it
And we appreciate you for it.
And those of you who fucking perfected the craft of saying hut, hut, hike and throwing the ball at other people.
Cool.
Good on you.
But if you take yourself so fucking seriously that it fucking hurts to say that you're a fucking team athlete and And it fucking hurt. You have fucking way bigger fish to fry.
Than worried about being called a fucking professional athlete.
I don't consider any of the people out there.
Fucking professional fucking athletes.
I don't even fucking know what that means.
You mean your life is so fucking good. That you don't have to worry about fucking.
Collecting food every single day. just survive and getting clean water?
Like, go fuck yourself.
Team athletes, the best team athletes at best is a fucking community event.
At best, I'll give fucking Rich Phoning, he can be the cheerleading captain for all of CrossFit for all the fucking team events he won.
For all of CrossFit, for all the fucking team events he won.
There's like one professional CrossFit Games athlete.
Her name's like Tia Toomey.
I don't even know why I say that.
But, I mean, fuck, she's impressive.
I'll fucking throw her a bone.
But the NBA is a fucking joke.
There's not one fucking professional anybody in the fucking NBA.
The only fucking professional NFL player that's worth two fucking cents is aaron fucking rogers are you fucking kidding me do you know the social fucking
damage that those fucked hearts did in the last two years with their playing fucking along with
the fucking pandemic and then fucking hating on black people straight for two years under the
guise of loving them and you're worried because some it hurts your feelings that someone didn't say you
were that a games athlete's not a professional athlete jesus fucking christ man get a real
fucking job i respect someone that fucking scoops ice cream and puts gives ice cream cones to kids
then i do fucking 99 of all fucking athletes.
Play cricket for a fucking living.
Yeah.
And you know what Tyson Bajan does?
You know what's so fucking cool about Tyson Bajan?
Because he comes on here and he uses the fucking platform.
To show what a fucking great man he is on the fucking straight and narrow.
He's open minded. he speaks his thoughts he fucking brushes with metoothian yeah get a real job like podcasting thank you jonathan
and i like you lena and i'm fucking stoked and I'm glad you guys do all your shit
but dude this this this line here someone it hurt man that's all on you you gotta
unfuck that like just just be whoever you want to be just be whoever the fuck you want to be
you want to be like like hey, Hey man, the coolest athlete,
the coolest athlete out there would be someone who like just accidentally stumbled into the games.
Hey man,
that's why fucking everyone loves Ariel Loewen.
She wanted the sign.
They all put in the work and qualified.
She said,
that's awesome.
They inspired me.
That's awesome.
If you think that the individual athletes are the only one with privilege to inspire privilege,
I mean, just like another sign that something's wrong with you, dude.
Something's wrong with you.
Red flag. Red flag.
red flag red flag if you think if you think you're the only one with privilege to inspire i think you're wrong dude there's inspiring people everywhere why are you looking outside yourself
at all to even talk about this hey it never ends if you keep looking outside by the way
it never ends if you don't look inside if you want it to end, look inside.
If you're happy with the mental illness and the pathology, then keep looking outside for confirmation.
But it never ends.
Either you are a professional athlete or you're not, and only one person knows that.
The validation is not going to come from anyone else and dude listen and the validation and the validation you want comes from fucking idiots that spend money to watch the fucking nba the nfl the nhl i mean
just think of how fucking retarded fucking hockey is those dudes put on all those pads put on skates
and skate around on ice and hit a fucking puck around now i'm not I'm not saying that there's not like with crazy practice you can't do some cool Cirque du Soleil shit and they've honed their craft but let me tell you they're so high on the precipice of fucking being useless like when shit hits the fan we're not keeping the hockey players we're keeping the
farmers it's fucking nuts kids kids dancing at a school dance are more valuable to fucking society
than fucking any professional fucking athlete i just don't put any value in that Miss Richter
that's free
like who gives a shit
yes you're inspiring yes you
work hard
but dude
first of all your cohort
is some of the
least intellectually
inspirational of any group of people I've ever met.
This sport has the least intellectually inspirational people
of any group I've ever interviewed.
The slap guy was a thousand times more interesting than 99% of the CrossFit athletes I have on here.
Fucking nuts.
Worried about someone saying you're privileged to inspire.
My garden is more inspiring and what my plants do in my garden than fucking matt frazier rich froning and tia toomey put together Rich's commitment to his kids is more inspiring than anything and more valuable than anything
He's done in crossfit. Although rich is kind of a weird outlier because
His value doesn't come from the fact that he's so good at crossfit
His his value comes from the fact that he wears his values on his sleeves.
Uh-oh.
Hey, good morning.
Hey, this is – I think your YouTube – you got to turn your YouTube down for a second.
Hi.
Yeah. It's just an extension of
the Roman Empire.
Professional athletes are just the extension of the Roman
Empire. Oh, you mean like just like
catapulting people over
the wall and letting lions eat them?
You know,
entertain the people and
you can control them. sure sure so that they
validated professional athletes to this level of stardom goddom whatever you know deification and
you know people look up to them but for what because they could they could throw a ball
through a uh a hoop yeah you know it it's nuts uh but it's it's just you know the you know the the Roman Empire, they had these gladiator games and they entertained all the people and they kept them happy and until it all fell apart.
And I like entertainment and I am inspired by it, but it's not a it's not some pivotal component to happiness or as a contributor to society in any way it contributes to people
sitting on their couches eating potato chips and buying stupid products that they don't need
correct you know it's it's just part of the the whole decay of western society i mean we've seen
this cycle happen you know many times uh and uh and it continues because people aren't waking up.
But eventually, I hope they'll wake up and turn it off.
But you look at the amount of – look at colleges, for example.
example right you know people people spend tens of thousands of dollars you know training their kids to to become great athletes so they can get a scholarship to college well if you instead of
spending all that money on on club sports teams and travel teams and hotels and all that if you
spent that time on tutors and and sitting with your kids and educating them, well, they don't need an athletic scholarship to go to college.
You know, I mean, they just glorified all these athletes to the point where people have forgotten about what's important and what it takes to do well in life.
And it starts with your brain.
And I don't want to say, I know some people are going to mistake this.
I don't want to say that there's no place for sports, that there's no place for a lot of physical activity.
There's a place for all of that.
But to find your self-worth in it from your fellow citizens, you've gone too far.
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that.
Go to the park and pick up trash for an afternoon. You'll feel great. It's a great contribution to society.
Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
But the people are still hypnotized by it because
they've elevated these people by paying them, you know,
tens of millions of not hundreds of millions of dollars to go out there and,
and, and dance for them. And, and, and they, they, and wealth, I mean,
and the damage, the damage is done to the, you know,
black community is, you know, immeasurable, you know,
because you get to a point where people you know
where people in a community think that that's the only way they can get out right of their
economic situation right and they're devoting themselves to you know bettering themselves you
know mentally intellectually uh or learning to trade or you know just developing a strong work
ethic you know they they play sports
and when it doesn't pan out for them and for 99 of the people if not more it doesn't pan out for
them because the competition is so great uh they they you know they end up back where they started
with nothing and and i want to emphasize this too i don't mind the hundreds of millions of dollars
that they make i I don't care.
But the sad part is,
is when they take like someone like LeBron,
who's taking the money from Sprite and then selling it to little kids.
That's when it's like,
Hey,
fuck you.
Your value is done to me.
Like,
I don't know.
Now you've taken all of this fame and all of this money and used it to hurt
the people around you.
That's where I start getting,
but like,
I don't,
I liked it that,
uh,
I don't know who the rolando guy or rolando guy
who went uh he he took the monster energy drink or coca-cola and threw it under the table and
said drink water like fuck yeah right then he earned whatever money he ever made in life he
earned it right there for me thank you you know what i did the best player from the celtics uh
no it was a soccer player oh oh oh that guy oh yeah yeah yeah do you remember when he did that a
couple years ago he threw the some drink under the table and told everyone hey drink water don't
drink this shit that was awesome for me that that was worth a hundred million dollars that was great
well well you know think about this seven uh years ago i don't know when the when the laws
changed but you couldn't you know't advertise prescription drugs on television.
They had more than like three side effects.
That's how Europe is, right?
I don't know.
But nowadays, that's all you see advertised on television.
You turn on a football game, boy, they got Viagra and they got beer.
on television.
You turn on a football game,
boy,
they got Viagra and they got beer.
Yeah.
Right.
If you eliminated the, you know,
drug advertisements on television,
these sports franchises would collapse because they couldn't get the TV
contracts because,
you know,
the drug companies are spending,
you know,
billions and billions on these,
on these contracts to,
to promote all this stuff.
It's all, it's all interrelated.
Hey, did you get a football scholarship?
No, I had brain surgery, dude.
I know. I don't remember if that happened in high school or in college.
No, that was high school.
I was recruited by Michigan and Michigan State and some other big schools.
But after that, football was done.
Not worth it.
Yeah.
You don't want to take another hit.
No, I still don't.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, you know, with with a head injury in football, you know, chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a is a big deal.
And you don't necessarily see the effects immediately.
It can evolve over time, over 20, 30 years.
And a lot of NFL players suffer from it.
The NFL had a settlement with the players regarding it.
Your injury happened on the field?
The initial hit took place on the field and then uh three
weeks you know for three weeks i was having these bad headaches so i ended up having a
a cat scan done and i didn't find anything mris were really new back then uh and uh but i collapsed
on the field i you know my eyes are going in different directions they took me to the hospital
you know my dad was a doc and he knew you know you know they they knew you know what was going on and he called his friend we had
hadn't spoken to in 30 years and said he had to operate on my son and um they did the surgery and
uh i woke up the next morning uh in a hospital bed um stayed in the hospital for 10 days and, uh, got better. Um, but yeah, it was all a result
of a, uh, I took against, uh, Ann Arbor Huron football team. Well, it was actually a hit I
delivered. Did you and I have the same surgery? Did I have the same surgery as you? Do you know?
I think you had an epidural hematoma where the, the, the blood, uh, accumulated between the dura matter and the outside of the skull,
I had a subdural hematoma, so the blood would drain, actually.
I think yours was more dangerous because with an epidural hematoma,
the pressure builds up a lot more quickly.
hematoma, the pressure builds up a lot more quickly.
So, you know,
faster action is required to alleviate that pressure because there's not that much space between the dura mater and the, you know, the bone, the skull.
They cut your, they cut your scalp open too, like mine.
They opened up the side of your head.
Yeah. I've got a big Omega scar on the side of my head.
Yeah. My kids were looking at
mine last night yeah yeah yeah my my show is through when uh when i cut the uh you know the
hair short on the sides but uh um you know i try to comb the part in properly and whatever
what a trip that we both had that uh head injury that's so weird and our names are so similar what a weird uh yeah well what's crazy is that your sister and i have the same birthday yeah that's weird too
and you know and you know i have the same birthday as my um uh cousin on my dad's side
tamar no toline oh i did not know that i got my cousins mixed up yeah i did not know that. I got my cousins mixed up. Yeah.
I did not know that.
But, but yeah, no, there's, you know, there's so many things that are going on in this world that are interconnected
that people can't connect the dots to, but they, they,
they have to wake up and you know, I, I, I love, I love your,
your toothy and you know, for the toothbrushing because, you know, the fluoride, yeah, we don't need that.
It harms us.
And, you know, I think there are some efforts out there going after the states and the other water companies about fluoride in the water.
You know, are you performing a medical procedure here without our consent?
And, you know, people are waking up to a lot of these issues that you talk about.
And it's good to hear you out there every day consistently, you know, going after these
things.
Well, thank you.
All right.
Well, thanks for calling, dude.
All right, man. All right. Well, thanks for calling, dude. All right, man.
Take care.
Bye.
More of you should be praising me like that.
Sons of bitches.
All right.
What's today?
Thursday?
Do I have any more shows today?
Oh, Shut Up and Scribble is coming on.
Oh, shit.
Wait.
Hi.
Hi.
Did you see my text?
No, I'm doing a show.
I'm a professional.
How dare you?
I'm a professional podcaster.
I don't read text while I'm on the show.
Oh, that's weird. I could have sworn I saw you do that. It must have been a professional podcaster. I don't read texts while I'm on the show. Oh, that's weird.
I could have sworn I saw you do that.
It must have been a dream or something.
Hey, is Nico coming over at 9.30?
No.
He texted back and said not today.
Oh, are the house cleaners there?
They're on their way.
Okay, I'm going to get off the show and I'm going to take the boys out then.
I don't want to be here when they're here.
Okay. Don't forget to turn your computer off. Unless you want me to the boys out then. I don't want to be here when they're here. Okay.
Don't forget to turn your computer off unless you want me to do it right now.
Oh, yeah.
Will you turn it off now?
Thank you.
And will you unplug that whole thing from the wall after it turns off?
Yes.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
All right.
Love you.
Bye.
Love you.
Bye.
All right, guys.
Got to go.
All right.
Oh. Alright guys gotta go Oh Kenneth DeLapp speaking of Shut Up and Scribble
HGRCBD is having
20% off discount for the 4th of July
That's cool they sponsored Kill Taylor
Good dude Carl's a good dude
Enjoy working with him all you guys are fucking good dudes
Enjoy coming here every morning man
You guys are great
Friday kill Taylor. No Saturday kill Taylor Friday across the games update show. It'll be a fun one. I'm gonna spend
Tomorrow
What's today Thursday? No today actually today tomorrow. I'm gonna go through and watch all of Dave's videos
I'll take a little clips from them. I'll bring them up on the CrossFit Games Update show.
John Young will be here.
JR will be here.
I'm trying to get Billy Grundler.
Maybe Tyler Watkins will be here.
It's going to be a good crew.
All right, guys.
Love you guys.
Talk to you later.
Lena, thank you for letting me use you as an example.
I think you're fucking wonderful.
I'll call you whatever the fuck you want.
You can be a professional athlete or not.'t don't look to the outside for uh fulfillment um yeah
as cancer would say you're world-class beaver just accept it okay love you guys bye