The Sevan Podcast - Rafa Sancen | Committed - HWPO

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

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I got so big time. I'm rescheduling with people. I know. Yeah. I dread rescheduling with people. I dread it. Was I traveling? Is that what happened?

Yeah, I think the first one you were traveling. I mean, I felt like for all of them, you were doing something with either out of state, traveling, family. Well, I appreciate your radar. Any friend of Pool Boy's a friend of mine. How do you know Pool Boy, by the way? I met him after the norcal classic i think it was two years ago um he just he reached out to me and from there i felt

like you know we just we've worked out together he he would come over to monterey here where i work out and oh you're in monterey yeah yeah if i knew that i forgot that that's crazy so you're just right you're next town down from me you're santa cruz right yeah i'm in socal crazy okay yeah yeah yeah so he would just come down and he would train with me sundays and yeah that's how we started to like to slowly build a relationship uh rafael how is he how is he as a training partner i um i did a uh i went down to crossfit livermore and i worked out with him and i thoroughly enjoyed it but it was a different experience for me you know i mean like he hung i was the old man he was working out with

yeah i did a team workout and he hung out with me and i really appreciated that you know like when you probably don't know but when when someone hangs out with you who's so much better than you and he did stuck with me the whole workout and talked to me, it was cool. I really enjoyed the experience of working out with him. How was it for you just at the other end? He's a good training partner? He's definitely an interesting person. He's always bringing some type of energy.

I don't know if he – I mean, you worked out with him. Yeah, I felt accepted and loved by him. I was digging him. Yeah, I mean, you, you worked out with him, but yeah, I felt accepted and loved by him. I was just, I was digging him. I was digging. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's Mike. Anytime you work out with him, he's just going to, he's a little more than for me, it's more whenever, whenever I work out, I'm, I'm super focused, but whenever Mike's around, yeah, it's, it's more of like, okay, like, you know, time to enjoy some training with a friend. And that's something I don't, I don't really get to do very often. I just, it's just me and my wife that train together. Yeah. But like that video right there, it's, it's is we were doing a emom a 40 minute emom and I think it was ring muscle ups it might have been it's burpee box jumps it's it's always you know for

sure it's always two pieces of gymnastics and then either um some some type of either bike, row, ski, run. You mean when he comes over, that's what you guys do? For the most part, yeah. Why is that? You have training partners for different aspects. You're like, okay, he's good at gymnastics so I want to pick some stuff he's good at so he can hang with me.

No, not necessarily. We just literally follow whatever the programming is. Yeah, but no, we don't pick. No, not necessarily. We just literally follow whatever the programming is. Yeah. But no, we don't like pick – I don't say like, oh Mike, come over just – you're better at gymnastics. Let's see if I can hang with you. It's more of just getting to hang out with friends and working out together. I was watching a video on YouTube of you yesterday and you were in a room working out and you said – and I couldn't tell what was going on in the room. It looked like it just

had it had gym equipment in it. It was super sparse and it looked like it just had freshly sheetrock walls. Is that you said you don't you don't drop weights in there. Where is that? Is that on a second floor? That's my garage. Oh, your garage. Yeah. So that's right here at the house. Why don't you drop weights in there uh just we work normally i work out in the mornings so 5 a.m whenever everyone whenever um my daughter's

sleeping everyone's sleeping so i don't want to wake anybody up yeah so and you're a 430 riser uh usually 430 if i know i need to do that sorry about the camera right there at my camera whenever I zoom out it's uh it's broken so it has that that line coming across but uh yeah normally normally I wake up in the mornings like I said it's usually 430 sometimes five if I want to sleep an extra 30 minutes but yeah that right there is the garage gym. What a wild routine you have. How old are you, Rafael? 28. And you've been to the semifinals twice? Twice, yes. And you have a goal to go to the CrossFit Games? Yeah, that's the goal. It's been the goal for, I'd say, maybe around the last four years, three to four years.

How did you get that goal? Do you remember where you were when it popped into your brain and how it solidified? Because from those videos, your commitment's insane. You're so regimented. Yeah, I think it started from just watching the little small documentaries that they would come out on YouTube with. Just watching the little small documentaries that they would come out on YouTube with. I mean, I started CrossFit when I was, it was 2000, I think, 17. 2016, probably.

One of those, 16 or 17. And then just, you know, watching people work out. You know, that's kind of something that motivated me. Like a goal to have. Not that I ever, at least during that time, I never thought like oh yeah that's i'm gonna be there but you know just joining a gym and you know like being like you know what maybe i could do this but you know the first the first two years it's learning the basics learning everything gymnastics how to pass and walk how to do certain movements with the barbell so i'll say the first two to three years were definitely something that you know just trying to catch up to to every one of the top athletes and after that i felt like doing competitions i was you know what i am pretty good at this

and that's when i told myself probably you know it'd be a good goal to have to you know to eventually try to make it to the crossfit games is it a scary goal to make it to the CrossFit Games. Is it a scary goal to have? It is a scary goal. Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you. It is pretty scary. Yeah. Because only 40 people get to go from around the world. And more specifically, you know, roughly speaking, only 11 people on the western side of the North American continent get to go. Yeah.

You know, roughly speaking. Yeah. on the western side of the north american continent get to go yeah you know you know roughly uh speaking yeah it's it's a um there's kind of a winning the lotto component to it there is yeah i mean especially yeah like you said there's this year last year there was 60 right six league athletes that they took from uh from our side um but this year they're gonna bring it back down to 40. and then from there even even like, so few get to go. Yep. Yeah. But like I said, it's always just good to have that goal, you know, working, working towards that goal. And if hopefully it does happen, you know, I'll try to do everything in my part to, to make that happen.

And if it doesn't, then I know exactly what I need to go back and work on. Yeah. Um, when, when this going, going back to what you said about the first two years, is there a list somewhere that's like, I have to be proficient in handstand walking, double unders, rebounding box jumps, et cetera, et cetera. And then I have to be able to do 100 unbroken wall balls with 20 pounds. And then there's another list somewhere else that like i have to have a minimum deadlifts of 425 and a in a you know 295 clean and jerk is there a list somewhere that you have that's like is it that

methodical you can say it's like yes no um i'd say i definitely did have a list of uh not not necessarily like what i need to hit but as far as like my prs every i have so everything i do i write on a notebook right like even even though i follow programming i still write everything on a notebook in the uh either the back or the front wherever the wherever i want to write it i'll write my goals right like so say this is my current pr say you know like a 315 clean and jerk right i'll write my current pr and then i'll write what i want to hopefully hit by the end of the year whether it's like you know a 20 pound difference um like that it pretty much goes for anything same thing for ring muscle ups i have a max set of 20 my goal for this year is hopefully to get close to that if not even get past that to like maybe

21 22 but just stuff like that yeah i definitely feel like you know every year you want an inch closer to to getting better and by seeing the improvements that kind of like motivates you a little bit more and um and that includes with the the the machines too i'm guessing and oh yeah and things like running so okay i have a six minute mile time i need to get it to 550 i can do this on the skier i can do this you have prs for all of those or yeah i'd say the only the only the only one i wouldn't really like consider like you know having a PR for would be a ski the skier but as far as the biker you know we we often do 20 minute watt test we um echo bike it's usually more um for e-moms like hitting a certain amount of calories in a minute um rowing it's you know it's always a 2k the 5k the 10k stuff like that but yeah it's it works

both ways I guess for weightlifting gymnastics and at any machine that we use what's the highest you finished in the semifinals I believe it was two years ago it was 12th place at the that was my first year making it that was at the Syndicate Crown in Tennessee. And do you remember who won that event? The whole thing? Yeah. I want to say it was either Justin Medeiros. If not, it might have been Jason Hopper.

Okay, it was one of those. Yeah, it was one of them. I could be wrong. And do you remember how many they took to go to the CrossFit Games? I think it might have only been five or four. That year, okay. Yeah, it might have been five. Heidi Kroon, pay attention to us, Seve.

I can't. I can't pay attention to you. I can't pay attention to you. Just chill. I'm only going to pay attention to Pool Boy. Pool Boy. pay attention to you just chill i'm only gonna pay attention to pool boy uh pool boy i judy i quit that whack-ass job i'll pay you guys pay attention to me uh okay number let me see let me see let me see let me go back down a second let me see uh oh yeah 12th place oh you beat ben smith and you're right in between the uh the great ben

smith and the great uh sclow. Man, two savage competitors. Yeah, man, look at those names that you're in there with. Yeah, it was crazy. That honestly was, like I said, it was my first year doing the semifinals. The year before that, I missed it. I'll say maybe by like 10, 15 spots making it to semis. And, I mean, going into this, I really didn't have any expectations. Just, you know, just try to perform to my best ability.

And it definitely shocked me being, this was the final workout, like being with the top dogs, you know, in that final day. I slowly climbed myself up to, you know, being in that last heat. And you had a third place finish. What I what workout was that that that must have felt great. Oh, yeah, um, that was the I think five rounds or might have been more Uh the shuttle runs with the legless rope climbs And when that how tall are you six six feet? Yeah, you look really tall. And you're not a bulky dude. You're –

No, I'm pretty skinny, yeah. I wish I could get bigger. How much do you weigh? Running around like 195 to 200. Okay. Yeah. And you're still not light, though. That's still not light.

Yeah. Gymnastics are still a challenge. That's a lot of dude to move around. Yeah. And what happened happened what did you place last year last year i think i might have got 26 you could double check that but yeah i want to say 26 and and how did that affect you how does that affect you to go 12th one year and then 26 the next year as because you're would you do you take that as you

got further from your goal no no because i know um you know i worked my ass off to together again and this year i did it um i guess going from quarters to semis right right? I placed better. I got a better placement, but it was more of, I knew a lot of those workouts were a lot of my weaknesses. If you think about it, there was a workout with overhead squats. That's one of my weaknesses. And then there was another workout with two of the workouts pretty much were snatches it was the 800 meter run building up to one or max snatch and then it was power snatches at a certain weight with the run i mean the run for me is not yeah those were those that was the year was back-to-back workouts with the run right okay yep yep so just for me if you eliminate those three workouts

i know that um i could have done a lot better placement-wise. But as far as my fitness, as far as my strength, that's all I had in me at that time. Daniel Garrity, is this the Hispanic James Sprague? No, it's the Hispanic Humpty Hump. Do you remember Humpty Hump from Digital Underground? Do you know who that is? Do you know Digital Underground? No.

Is that a movie? No. Digital Underground is a rap group from back in the day. Tupac came out of there. They were awesome. God, they were so awesome. And if you heard his song, you would recognize it. There's a line.

My name is Humpty. I'm really funny looking. I swear. I stare. I constantly. This guy. Oh, my God. You got to work out and listen to this guy today. He's so good. All right. He's so good. That's his name. Shock G. Yeah, I didn't know that that was shock. I didn't know shock G and Humpty Hump were the same guy. I'm embarrassed to say that someone's going to tear me up in the comments. Yeah, he's so good. Yeah, man, they were they were awesome I wonder what happened to him Rose you Rafael you're born in Mexico yes. And what year was that? 1995. And where in Mexico?

The town is, it was Guanajuato. That's pretty much like the state there. And where is that? Like, I know Tijuana and I know Mexico City and I know like Puerto Vallarta. I know Cabo San Lucas. Like, where is that place? I'd say from the border, it's probably around maybe i haven't been in so long right but from the border it's it's around maybe closer so it's closer to the

edge let me see when he zooms out oh it's pretty far down there yeah so it's pretty far i'll say like closer maybe like four to five hours from like the actual like the u.s border down okay so it's like real mexico it's like it's it's um it's everyone there's mexican it's not it's not a border town yeah oh yeah yeah it's a i mean everyone there is mexican and everywhere and and it's it's like heavily influenced it feels like mexico crazy do you have any and do you have any memories about living there? No. I mean, I have very few, but not, it's, I haven't, like I said, we, when my parents brought me to the U.S., I was four years, four, going on five years. Yeah. When I, when I was brought to the U.S.

So I could say I do have memories, but they're very, very like short memories. And who did you come with? With my parents. say i do have memories but they're very very like short memories and who did you come with with he my parents both your mom and your dad yeah yeah so it was all of us it was me my me my mom my dad and my two brothers i have two older brothers oh that's cool how much older uh one of them is one year older so he's 29 and the other one is 33. okay your mom had them all close together do they live in monterey too no they live in fresno yeah okay they live with the armenians yeah yeah crazy yeah and uh are is your family still close yeah we're close yeah we uh we talk here and there we visit each other whenever you know because they do my my

brother does have a family his his mother-in-law they live in salinas so it's only like 15 minutes away and yeah they come and visit here and there we also go up there have you been are you friends with dave i've met him yes i would say we're we're you know we we know each other we're friends yeah i mean because you live close you're close to the ranch and you're close to his house. That's why I asked. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We actually did an open workout.

It might have been, I don't know which open workout, but it was one with thrusters. It was like 27, 24, all the way down descending of thrusters and pull-ups. And right there, I believe that picture there is when we uh we after the workout after we finish the workout yeah those are the pull-up bars from the 2008 games crazy yeah hey does he ever ask you to test workouts he actually did ask me to test the workout you know the year that they had the um the covid uh the covid crossfit games right yeah yeah yeah yeah so uh that year he he reached out and he asked me and some other uh another guy um if we could go test a workout and we actually tested out the the hill sprint with the with the sandbag over our backs yeah so that was pretty cool to do and

same thing with that I recorded my time because you know they said three two one go we started right where everyone started for the games and i think that year whoever i think i think i would have got like third or fourth place oh that's cool yeah so that was pretty cool you know seeing that like my time compared to the actual time when they when they did the workout but yeah that was the only workout i was able to test out who did you go with when you tested who else was there who was the other athlete uh me and uh sal flores he was uh he was going into another gym in salinas it was called uh crossfit hyperactive okay yeah and um when when he tell me what that's like do you get a text message or an email or a call what's that like when dave reaches out to you and do you have to sign an nda or how does that how does that all work when you test out a workout um so it was more of a friend of of uh

of dave he reached out to him knowing that he had a few athletes that you know that were competitive and then that gym owner asked me and my other buddy sal he asked us like hey like are you guys willing to go test it out like sure and i mean we drove up to the ranch we got there he him and i can't remember the other guy's name big tall guy i forgot his name okay maybe todd woodman oh eubanks eubanks honestly i can't remember his name but yeah he was pretty much just told us that like what you said just make sure you don't talk about this don't say this to anybody but we never signed anything yeah it was more of just like you know we trust you guys this is a workout and it might and it might be in the games it might not so just make sure you keep your mouth shut yeah and does he say to you hey are you mexican

does dave say that to you no i think he knows well yeah yeah i'm sure he knows too but i i know he'll he'll do stuff like that yeah no he didn't say anything like that yeah yeah uh it's cool this um this community we have down here between santa cruz monterey it's it's a cool group of crossfitters and i always like to hear that people those are the people that kind of get plucked um obviously for ease but but it's also what a great opportunity to participate in that was there any party that didn't want to participate in it were you like oh this is gonna fuck up my training or no no i was i was if it was like that it was more of a of a fear of like holy shit what if they put us through a workout where i can't even like finish it because you know we're testing across the game's

workout right right? They probably might change the weight on us. But even then I know that I was going in there knowing that this might hurt like more than, more than I wanted to, but no, I was excited for that opportunity. Yeah. Um, one of my buddies, uh, Taylor self was like, he lives on the East coast. He's like, Hey dude, uh, I want to test events at the games for the games and i said okay or for

semi-finalists or something i can't remember so i called dave i'm like hey dude do you think and usually dave would tell me to fuck off like but hey dude can you can my friend come out and test and he goes sure and taylor went out there and on the first day he was flipping the pig and the ground was a little loose under his feet and the pig fell on him. Oh no. And Dave's like, dude, your fucking boys already injured and out. But,

but I know, I know it's a lot of local cats. Uh, you know, there's, there's the staples that test the workouts up, up there, like, uh,

you know, scuds, uh, you'll see her. And I think, and I think, you know what? I think her boyfriend's name might be Raphael also.

And I've seen him, I've seen him there a bunch of times. So Greg, Dave has his stable of athletes. Yeah. And I'm sure, I think right now too, he also has a Sean Sweeney. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Due to a just game, Jason Carroll, Sean Sweeney, Jews would just come up there and just smash themselves. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. Did it hurt? Did the workout hurt? Did you, because you were there, did you push like it was?

Oh, yeah. I pushed like, you know, like, yeah. I pushed pretty hard, but. Did you beat the dude you were going against? Oh, yeah. I beat him by a lot. Oh, good. Yeah.

Yeah. Flores. Yeah. South Flores. Yeah. Why did your parents, what was the agenda? Why did your parents want to leave Mexico and come to the States? And what was the, did they have a goal, like a place to land?

They did have a goal, a place like to come, which was down maybe 30 minutes from Monterey here. 30, 40 minutes. That's where my grandparents were at. So they came across. Yeah. So they were already here. So it was my grandparents were at. So they came across. Yeah, so they were already here. So it was my mom's parents. They were in that small town. It's Soledad.

That's where I grew up. Okay. Yeah. So that was a town where we pretty much knew where we were going. As far as why we were coming, I mean, just like any immigrant, right? You're coming to get a better life, to try to do better, provide for you and your family. And I'm assuming that's what my parents were wanting for us. Were there expectations? That was – so you're 28.

That was, let's say, 25 years ago for ease of math. So that was in 1999. Yep. Do you think that they got what they wanted by coming? Yeah, I think they definitely did. They did. That's good to hear. Yeah. They never told us, like, oh, this is, you know, like you guys are living proof of what we wanted to get out of you guys being here. But I think you could say that they're proud of us

yeah i wonder if they would have come if they didn't have you uh kids that's you know what i mean yeah they're like okay um we're good here this is fun for us we have a good life but now we have kids we have to worry about them so we kind of have to set them up for a different trajectory than what that we want a different trajectory for them yeah i think it would have been the same way though because we already had my mom has like 10 siblings so a lot of them were already over here so i think eventually it would have kind of crept creeped in their mind of just you know like maybe we should try going out there your grandmother had 11 kids on your mom's side yeah yeah i believe my mom has like five or six sisters and then like four brothers all with the same guy all with your

grandpa yep wow dude that's a that's a lot of kids yeah i mean i have a big family do you guys get together yeah we do we do we uh i mean we we did it more when we were younger now it's a lot hard you know everyone has their own families everyone has their their things so when we get together it is pretty good you know it's it's fun to get together and just see my cousins my aunts uncles but yeah yeah that must be wild and does and i'm guessing everyone also knows what you do oh that's rafael he's from the sanson side of the family he's crazy into working out they know that they i think they know more of like he's super into fitness yeah but i

don't really i don't think they understand like what crossfit is sure yeah yeah um do you what was the journey like how do you how do you come from mexico the United States? What was that like? I don't really talk too much about it, but I can go ahead and share this with you, with everyone listening too. So the one thing I do remember super, super clear is when we were crossing the border, right? We crossed the border. It was late at night. I want to say maybe like could have been like nine or ten. But, you know, there was no more light outside. My uncle was helping us cross.

Right. So we were digging up a hole at the bottom of the fence. I'm assuming that the wall that separates the U.S. from, you know, from from Mexico. And I do remember they're like, OK, you and your brothers are going to go down through the hole that they were digging right and then my parents there was a tree right next to the wall i do remember they're like okay we're going to climb up to the top because the hole wasn't big enough for them so you know we did that um we got you know we all were on the other side already but you know of course it was super muddy probably just rained. So it was almost just like a field, right? It was just pure dirt, rain on top of it. So it was super muddy.

Then they were just- Robby, let me interrupt you here for a second. Were your uncles already on the American side and they met you at the fence and dug the hole or they were literally- No, they were on the Mexican side. Okay. And had they ever done this before? No, I don't think so.

I think just my uncle that was helping us was, I think he had legal status, right? the mexican side okay and have they ever done this before no i don't i don't think so i think just my uncle that was helping us was i think he had legal status right he could come in and out okay so he was just on this side helping us you know this is where i'm sure this is where he knew a lot of people crossed through and this is your mom's brother yes yes doing helping his sister i bring you know my dad my dad uh came to country, and that's the first thing he did. As soon as he got here, he immediately, and he had nine brothers and sisters or ten, and he immediately started trying to bring them here immediately. So this is like your typical immigrant story, right? Someone makes it here, and then they start working to figure out.

They're trying to get the whole family. Yeah, to get the whole family. Yeah. So like I was saying, we were just pretty much you know it was all of us already all five of us my three brothers my mom and my dad we were crawling right just make sure you stay low stay quiet and yeah we were doing it for maybe a few minutes um and then i do remember just a big you know oh actually one thing one detail i do remember my brother he lost his shoe right because it was super muddy so the shoe got caught he told my mom hey mom like my shoes back there she's like don't worry just

leave it okay we keep crawling um and then boom a big flash just you know they they pretty much caught us the immigration yeah so that's one thing i remember they they told us you know get up we got up um you must have been terrified as a kid yeah that's one thing i always ask myself like i remember that but i i mean who who knows what was going through my head you know i i'm sure my parents were like make sure we don't get caught make sure we don't get caught but for me you could have probably just been like oh like look they found us like let's walk to the truck so that's what we did right we we walked over to the truck they got us in.

I do remember asking the immigration officer, like, hey, can I have a gum? He never gave me that gum. And, yeah, they took us into the, I'm assuming, where they get everyone that's trying to cross over. And, yeah, they just gave us some, I think it might have been like just the basic sandwich, a Capri Sun, some chips. And we were on our way back to, to the Mexican border. So they took you, so they took you back. Oh yeah. Yeah. They took us back.

Yeah. And how does, how does, so they basically, you get caught and then you, you're driven back to Mexico and then they're like, Hey, don't come back here. Yeah, pretty much. I'm sure they got like my parents' information down, right? Like for them, they were older. They, you know, that's a, that's a crime. So they probably got their information down. But for me and my brothers, it was just more of like, just wait until your parents are out of here. Yeah.

What do you mean just to wait till your parents are out of here? As far as, you know, they probably took my parents probably, you know, to a different place, got their fingerprints. Yeah. From there. So you were separated from your parents even for a little bit? No, I don't remember that, but I'm just assuming. Right.

Okay. Okay. Unless they had us all in the same room and they were doing everything there. I'm just trying to think of what it was like to be three or four and doing that. Like part of it's just ignorant. So you're not scared. But if I got separated from my parents, I would freak the fuck out Oh, yeah, I'm sure yeah, like I said, they could have just done it on the same room But yeah, that's that's pretty much the only memory I really have from uh from brain being over there

And what did you guys do after that? So you get taken back and your home is so far away. What do you guys do then? I want to say we tried probably within a week. We tried again. But this time it was a whole different process. This time it was through the actual border, driving through the border. Oh, yeah. So we pretty much, you could say we used fake documents. Okay. Yeah. We used fake documents, and this time it was with my grandpa. So my grandpa, he had us in a truck, right?

These are my three grandsons. Here are their documents. Okay. You're good. And that their documents. Okay, you're good. And that's how we passed. Through a car. Wow, how cool is your grandpa? I know. That I do remember.

What a stud. He must have been. What a stud. I'm sure he was like, you know, super nervous because that could have sent the same thing I could have probably even he actually had um same thing documents to be coming in and out of uh out of the country right um but for him I'm sure that was a super like hard thing to do and then how did your parents how did your parents get in then um I want to say they did the same thing too, but they were separate from us. Yeah.

That's what my mom told me, right? Yeah, that's wild. And so how does that – so now you're 20. You come to the country, and then immediately you just get put into the school system. Your parents – you settle in. You live with some relatives for a while. Your parents eventually get a job. You guys get a place to live.

And then you just start integrating into the system. Do you speak English at this time? Do I speak what? English? Did you speak English at that time? Oh, no, not at all. So everything was brand new to me. Yeah, everything was new.

Like you pretty much just said everything that happened, right? We got here during Christmas time. That's one thing I do remember. We were driving and you could just see all the lights, all the Christmas lights. I mean, everything was just like, wow, like this is, this is the U.S. And yeah, I mean, we were, I'm sure with beginning of the school year, they, you know, it was December. So as soon as school started, they, you know, they signed us up for school, but everything was pretty much brand new to all three of us. I mean, my parents as well, right?

They had to find a job, just, you know, just try to do what they can do. I take it your parents are crazy, hardworking, just grinders, just workaholics, your typical immigrants. Yeah, yeah. Always working, you know. Yeah, they're going to figure it out. Yeah, that's how my mom and dad were too. Just work,olics, your typical immigrants. Yeah. Yeah. Always working, you know? Yeah. They're going to figure it out. Yeah. That's how my mom and dad were too. Just work, work, work. Yep. That's all they know. Work, save money, work and get a good job that provides benefits.

Yeah. Yeah. You do. And you said save money. You do remember your parents saving money? That was, you remember that? Yeah, I do remember that. Like it's something that they told us, you know, like make sure you, as we got bigger, as we grew up, make sure you save your money. Make sure you get a good job. Make sure you get a job with benefits for retirement. Just the basic standard. No matter how much money you have, if you're not saving money, you won't be rich.

And by rich, I mean you'll never get free. It's something I don't know why it took me so long to figure that out. Thank God. You know, my mom would talk to me about it too, but even the poorest person in the world, if you're saving $5 a week, you're working towards getting rich.

And if you're rich as fuck, like you win the lotto, right. And you don't save any money. You're going to be poor. You have, you have to be saving whether, or,

you know, or be paying a mortgage or be working towards something that's yours. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's something I can agree with. Yeah. It's wild. My buddy Taylor told me the same thing with weight loss too. He said, hey, if you go to bed always full, like crazy full, you're going to gain weight. If you go to bed a little bit hungry, you're going to lose weight. It's just the way it is. And I was like, yeah, like, yeah, like I, I, I totally get that. Right. If you don't have that meal at 10 o'clock at night, everyone feels better when they wake up in the morning. Right. You're like, oh yeah,

I feel lean and fast. Yeah. Oh yeah. It does make a difference. And good. Um, so, so you're here. And then tell me about Soledad. That's a trippy town. That's a, that's a prison town, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's right there. That's a trippy town. That's a prison town, right? Yeah, yeah. It's right there, right next to the prison town. Yeah, I mean, that whole town, the whole economy revolves around that prison, I'm guessing. I don't know. I mean, I'm not too involved into all that, but it's a small town, right? Like, when you go to school, everyone knows each other, right? When you grow up, everyone's pretty much, you know, you know everybody in that town,

at least the people you hang out with. But, yeah, I mean the people you hang out with. It's a small town. Everything that you want to do outside of that town is in Salinas. Are you familiar with Salinas? Yep. Everyone from those small towns, whether it's Gonzales, Greenfield, you have to drive up to Salinas. You're not an oddball either, Rafael,'s there's a thousand families with your story there

right oh yeah yeah like right in these little small towns i mean everything you see there on the on the map there everything around there it's like you know it's ag there's fields and fields and fields of you know just vegetables fruits whatever you know just there's more than one person you know there's a thousand people more than that in in that in those small towns that have almost the same story right they've immigrated into into into those those towns to get a better life to provide for their family yeah yeah for people who don't know uh caleb's taking us over what is you know the agricultural empire of of the united states i mean that is uh and it's they grow everything there and anything will go that grow there especially berries man that is a berry

growing man they grow a lot of berries there. Billions and billions of dollars of berries there. Yep. Yeah. So when you're sitting in class at school, you're not the only kid who doesn't speak English. There's other kids, like half your class maybe doesn't speak English. So for that, I want to say they did have a different program, right? Like they, I'm sure when we first got enrolled in school they they had a separate from you know the kids that already know English to the kids that are learning

English um and then I can't really tell you like how long it took me but it definitely out of my two brothers right and me I was the the last it was the hardest for me to learn I do remember yeah I do remember just you know being frustrated crying to my mom just like hey like this isn't coming easy to me as it is to my brothers like they're getting it super quick and i wasn't um but yeah i feel like after a few years they slowly start enrolling you into the regular classes right to the just english speaking classes yeah hey i wonder why that is so um we have these family friends they're from mexico and they have three they have three boys and i never their youngest son um he's even born here he's born here yeah but at five years old he

still didn't speak english and the the parents said he just didn't want to like in for the youngest i wonder do you have any thoughts on why I would have thought if you just asked me, I would have thought it would have been easier for the youngest one. Do you have any thoughts on why? Why he doesn't speak English or why it was you? It was hardest for you. I would think it would be easiest for you to learn a new language because you were the youngest. Because you're younger. Yeah.

I think for at least maybe for your friend, right? The kid. Yeah. They probably just want to make sure that he's going to be able to speak spanish a lot of parents feel at least hispanic parents they feel like you know what this is your tradition this is what you're supposed to know yeah make sure that they learn spanish first right that's their language and then everything else will come after that once they're enrolled school, they're slowly going to start picking up English.

That's what a lot of Hispanic parents think, right? And I mean, which is everyone has their own way of thinking. But for me... It is a gift to give a kid two languages. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you're a good parent, I mean, that's why you want your kid to learn like a musical instrument. You want to speak multiple languages.

You want them to have some like good stuff for their brain, right? brain right yep yeah so that's why a lot of parents do that you know they they they rather talk to them pure spanish and then let the school system take care of their english or even just being around friends that speak english they'll pick that up a lot faster your spanish is still good oh yeah yeah yeah do you use it every day uh i do i mean i'll say like six days out of the week because i work with a with a just spanish spanish speaker at work so me and him just like talk pure spanish and what is your job what is your job i uh i tent windows oh really yeah like so car Talk about some stereotypical shit. Holy shit.

Mexican dude in Monterey tenting windows. Holy shit. Wow. Yeah. And is that dude you work with, is he born in the States? No. He actually just got to the U.S. about a year ago. Same thing.

Crossed the border. His story is a lot crazier than mine. Like, he actually saw dead people when he was crossing the u.s about a year ago same thing crossed the border his story is a lot crazier than mine like he actually saw dead people when he was crossing the border oh damn yeah like when he's i mean for me you know i was young but for him he's he was 26 when he crossed right and he yeah he just tells me he crossed more than three times the third time he was like dude if they catch me after this i'm done but a few of those stories that he tells me he crossed more than three times. The third time he was like, dude, if they catch me after this, I'm done. But a few of those stories that he tells me are pretty insane. He had to run from the board, from the border patrol.

He saw dead bodies just laying on the floor. Just, yeah. It's interesting too. my relatives in Armenia who are also immigrants, they're in the stereo business, which is, as you know, kind of the sister business to tinting windows, right? They've been in the state, they came here and they got into the, you know, the putting in the four fifteens in the back of the car. It's funny that you say that because my coworker does, he does,

he does everything. He's like the,'s like the he he knows how to wrap cars he knows how to put cereals he knows how to tint he knows a lot of everything and he's good at it yeah he's good does he know how to lower cars i i mean i'm sure he knows if you tell him like he'll be like yeah i can do that for you and he does it good he's not one of those that's just gonna say he's gonna do it but he's going to do it pretty legit. I don't see lowered cars anymore. When I was a kid, all my Mexican friends had lowered mini trucks. That may have been before your day.

But when I went to high school in the late 80s, that was it. You just get a Nissan truck or a Toyota pickup truck and you slam it. I don't see that. Do you see that very much? I mean, I see classic cars, right? Like the ones that they keep nice and pretty, but not really. Yeah.

It started turning into like drifting and like, yeah. Now it's big trucks, lifted trucks with big tires, big rims. You know, loud exhaust. Yeah. Yeah, like that. Yeah, yeah. My parking lot at school was full of those.

Yep. Yeah, three of us would sit in the front. Yep. Yeah, on the bench seat. Damn, that was nice. Damn. Rafa, so when you got to the States, were you a physically active kid? Did you like moving as a kid? What are your memories of sports? Did you play sports? Did they have a sports program at your school? When did you start getting like Did you like moving as a kid? What are your memories of sports? Did you play sports? Did they have a sports program at your school?

When did you start getting like, okay, I'm a mover? I mean, I think I get it from my mom and my dad, right? They're always moving. But it started with the – we wanted to play football for the little league program. You could say the youth program that they had. Why not soccer? Wouldn't it have been more stereotypical like to play soccer i mean like if you go to the fields anywhere in the bay area it's thousands of 20 and 40 year old men trying to live out their dream of

being on yeah on argent some argentinian yeah yeah i don't know i just i never really got into soccer and that's something my parents never got us involved right like they even football we we had to ask our parents like hey can we can you go sign us up please like we want to do football we want to do football and yeah all three of us you know we played for the for the football team um and i think from there that's where it started you know just having that passion of playing football and that right there was hartnell college, the community college there in Salinas. Let me show you my football knowledge. Number 80 is a wide receiver's number.

You were a wide receiver. Yeah, you're right. Damn, I'm good. Or genius. Yeah. Yeah, so like I said, we played football for pretty much my entire life up until high school, right? And then my goal my goal then

was to you know get a get a scholarship nothing happened right i got no no offers so i went to the community college there in salinas um still was the same goal right make sure you know do two years here hopefully get a d1 or d2 offer get my school paid for, you know, enjoy my football. It's pretty much run it down until I can't anymore. I finished my two years. Nothing really happened. I got, you know, small, small offers from schools like NAIA schools or Division III schools. But for that, I had to go outside of the state.

That's something I didn't really want to do. So that's where I completely, I was like, you know what, I think it's time to just stop playing football and just focus on something else. And that's something else. So just working out, I mean, all the entire time leading up until that point, I stayed fit. I always liked working out. I always liked waking up early in the mornings before school, even during high school,

we would have the 5 a.m. workouts or 6 a.m. workouts. I would work out with the football team. Yeah, so I felt like I always was involved in working out, but just not the way we do it as CrossFit athletes, you know? Rafael, when did you know that you had a good work ethic? How old were you? Like looking back, when would you be like, oh, yeah, like I was really into football. Like I studied plays or I was always the last one to leave or I always wanted to ride up with the coach and hear about the game plan.

When did you realize that? about the game plan. When did you realize that? And I'm making the presupposition that you're obsessive compulsive, like a lot of these people who excel, because I saw that video where you're so regimented and you're so disciplined. It's wake up, work out, then go straight to your daughter's room. I mean, you have a plan, feed her, get her started on her day, pass her off, get back to working out i mean you have your you're doing this when did you realize signs of like oh i'm i'm like i'm a dude who has gonna have good habits good discipline and and push really hard when was when did you start seeing um signs of that as a kid um i think it started when i was i don't think i ever realized it i

for me it was more like normal that's my routine right but i think it started when I was, I don't think I ever realized it. For me, it was more like normal. That's my routine, right? But I think it started when I was like 12 or 13 years old. My brothers were already in high school. I was still in middle school. So I was still, I wasn't part of the program. I wasn't part of the high school, but it was leading up until me being a freshman. I just told them, hey, can I go work out with you guys in the morning? They're like, yeah, sure.

I mean, if you want to. I was like, yeah, I want to go work out with you guys in the morning? They were like, yeah, sure. I mean, if you want to. I was like, yeah, I want to go work out with you guys. And, yeah, they took me. I definitely felt like super out of place. You know, they just felt like monsters. They were all, you know, working out, pushing heavy weights. To me, it seemed like they were pushing, you know, like 315 on the bench. And you're like using the bar and it's like wobbling around and shit, right?

Yeah, I'm back there, you know, just trying to do my thing, trying to keep up with these guys. To me, I was just like, holy crap, these guys are monsters. Just kind of holding at this pedestal, right? And I was down here trying to get myself up there. But I just felt like it started since then. And every year, I was dialed into either you know working on feet work for you know certain drills for football getting better with my hands catching you know i was just doing something it was all for the goal of you know trying to go to the next

level go to a division one or division two school but did you did you ever think about um did you ever do any track did you ever think about doing i did you any track? I did in high school I did football mainly I did three years of track and then one year of soccer my freshman year the only reason I did that soccer season was because I was like maybe this could help me for football

they're always running but I could not keep up with those guys for that miss the same thing right they grew up playing soccer to them that's like a they don't even think about when they move the ball right they just do it when I was in practice I was struggling I was like trying to you know look at the ball they were moving without even looking at the ball right with their feet just my for me it was more of like yeah this this isn't for me I can't they're in level 10 I'm in level 1 right yeah um and what did you do in track what were your what were your I was a 200 400 and a 4x4 I

always wanted to do 100 meters but I wasn't't the fastest. Here and there, they'll throw me in there. But yeah, it was just 400, 4x4, 200, and I think one time I did it 800, but yeah, those were my events. Is 4x4, is that relay? Yeah, okay. That's four dudes and they all... Yeah, four dudes. You do pretty much one lap each.

Yep. Just try to sprint out as fast as you can. Yeah, crazy. And what sucks about that is it's the last event. It's all day, and then, all right, last race here, 4x4. Are you the tallest dude in your family? No, me and my brother are about the same height, my oldest brother. Is that tall for being Mexican, 6 foot? I guess you can say, yeah, it is pretty tall.

I don't consider myself tall, but yeah. I guess on average height, Mexicans maybe might be like 5'8", 5'9". Maybe going for 5'10", but yeah. So when you're doing this football stuff, are things like power clean, snatch, these Olympic lifts, are they being introduced to you? So snatch was never introduced to me. It was more power cleans, and I feel like it was mainly just power cleans, maybe squat cleans, and like push press, maybe a strict press, but never like the split jerk, never a squat snatch, never an overhead squat, like stuff like that. Actual like bigger Olympic lifts that require more technique. That was never really taught to me until I did CrossFit.

Look at Ernie Garza, 5'3", here, family from Monterrey, Mexico. There we go. You know what's cool about Mexicans when they're short? They're still proportional, most of them. It's hard to be 5'3", and be proportional. I've seen pictures of this dude. Like, if he's not standing next to anyone, you don't know. He's proportional.

Yeah, yeah, totally proportional. Mexicans in general will be proportional. But you get someone who's, I mean, you've seen it. You can even get someone who's 5'6", and they're not proportional. someone who's five six and they're not proportional they look like they're four five oh yeah yeah that's that's fucked you just want to be proportional um oh uh mike uh pool boy i'm mexican and i'm a midget but my penis is huge fair enough he's always talking about that thing um oh uh okay oh steve flores steven flores uh i'm five six heavy size uh you probably i i'm not five six but thank you uh jonathan ortega from acapulco mexico five six there we go yeah

all right he has a nice mustache every everyone's when all the mexicans are weighing in all right yeah uh oh oh here we go uh bern. Oh, here we go. Bernie Gannon. Here we go. 2023 data shows us that the average Mexican male height is 5'7". Oh. There we go. Yeah. I guess I'm above average. All right.

So you do all this. How do you become a venture? So if you come here with your grandpa grandpa how do you finally make it so like you can talk about this now and uh la immigration isn't at your door in like 20 minutes um did you do who knows they are listening and they could right but no i have a i have a it's called daca i don't know if you're familiar with that. No, I'm not. I've heard of it. It's pretty much, it's pretty much for, um, for kids that grew up here. Okay. It's like a program, right? You, you pretty much get access to having a social security

that allows you to work in the country. Right. And I believe with that, they can't really, you know, they can't, immigration can't just come into my door and say, we're going to take you because we know you're an immigrant. but yeah it's the like i said the system is called daca um it gives me yeah it's deferred action for a child yep there we go right there so let me ask you this can you leave the do you do you have any concerns like if if i'm like hey rafael let's go to paris for the day can you just fly out of the country we go to paris hang out and you come back or are you like uh we can fly out but i probably won't be able to come back with you oh interesting okay yeah yeah yeah yep so i can't i could leave

the country but once i leave the country i can't come back in and what about fixing that how do you fix that uh we are actually in the process of doing that right now. Me and my wife, we got married, right? And we've been trying for the longest time. And I think it was finally time. We were trying to do it without spending money. And I think now is, I mean, I have a daughter, she's five years, she's about to be five. So it's something that's crossed my mind, right? Like if she ever wants to go anywhere, just in general right just being able to have access to leaving the country yeah um we finally decided it was time to get a lawyer so we was yeah we're pretty much going through that process and everything is looking like it's going in the right direction so all the it's just chaos it's just a shitload of paperwork and yeah it's paperwork a lot paperwork, a lot of money, a lot of waiting, a lot of questions. It's a lot. You know what I picture? This is going to be horrible.

I apologize. Not really. But I picture this room full of people, men and women, who are all like 200 pounds overweight, eating donuts, drinking coffee. Like fucking just their hormones are destroyed. Their insulin is all out of whack. Just in a mountain of papers trying to figure shit out. Like it's like that's how I picture the DMV too. Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean? Just a train wreck of human beings. Yeah. You're probably not wrong. Anytime I send my passport away, I'm just like, holy shit. Hopefully it comes back to me. Yeah. How does this ever make it back?

What a fucking mess this must be. All right. So it's such a mess. It's so complicated. It's so tedious that you just get a lawyer and you just keep your fingers crossed and keep shoveling money to him. Yep, pretty much. And he's like, sign here. You're like, all right.

Yep, sign here. Send these documents. Hey, we need this picture. Hey, you need this. It's just, you know, every detail that they need. And then I guess you have other resources, too, to talk to about because you know a lot of other people who've gone through the same thing. So you can be like, what did you do here? What did you do here?

And your lawyer probably makes – that's probably all he does, I'm guessing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for, for, for us, it was, that lawyer was recommended to, to us by my aunt, my mom's sister. Yeah. She went through the same lawyer. So that's how we, we got in contact with her. But yeah, we, we, we had the meeting with her about maybe a year and a half ago. And we're like, you know what? It's just time to do it. Spend the money and do it. Jonathan Ortega, the line in LA for immigration office is long as fuck.

We used to get there at 4 a.m. God, yeah, I imagine it to be just. Yeah. The burpee dude. I just went through getting my papers and it's expensive as fuck. Wow. Yeah, there we go. it's it's not it's not cheap and just a few days ago we got another email saying like hey we're still working on your case I used to owe this amount of money we're like okay yeah look it look at look at your

people Omar Cornejo each signature form file was 5k oh yeah yeah yeah it's like i said it's expensive it's not something cheap but at the end of the you know at the end of the day this is gonna you know whether it costs more money it's just this is something that needs to be done right yeah i can say say the crossfit say i make it to the crossfit games right they're moved to who knows freaking the uk right i can't go right so just better prepare now for anything right and yeah not have that excuse that i can't go out there oh this is interesting i got my citizenship in baghdad through the army wow okay there we go um how about how about your wife where did you meet her at um it's funny because we went to the same high school um but i didn't meet her up until we went to community college to the one right

there in um in salinas we uh we had a lot of classes together um and then she she's the one that reached out to me i always tell this story she reached out to me. I always tell this story. She reached out to me and she asked me, right, what time our final was for one of our classes. And I didn't really get the hint. I mean, I kind of knew, right, that she probably wanted to talk. But at the time, she had a boyfriend, or at least I thought she was with the boyfriend right she was always going to class with him and we had the class together all three of us you can say and uh yeah she messaged me on facebook hey what time is our final i just put our final is at this time 3 30 that's it um nothing happened from there she she didn't she didn't want to like you know like hey like i'm trying to talk to you.

I didn't get that hint really. I mean, I got it. But like I said, I didn't really want to be an asshole and try to, you know, interfere with her relationship that I thought was still going on. About three months passed. And this time she messaged me through Instagram. I was running at the track, the one right there in Hartnell, and she messaged me like, hey, you should join the track team. The track team, at that time, she

was doing track. Oh, shit. Wow. I want to say she was doing the... I don't know what the name of... I don't really... The one where they do 10 events. Yeah. She was doing that, and she saw me do 10 events. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So she was doing that and she saw me running. Dude, that's hardcore. That's a good girl. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She's legit. Yeah, that's not it. Yeah, yeah.

But, yes, so she messaged me. She's saying, hey, you should join the track team. That's when I got the hint. I was like, all right, you guys are already like a month into track season. There's no way I can join. And that's how pretty much we started started talking we met up at the library and then from there just our relationship kept growing does she speak spanish no she speaks very little but she understands a lot of it she can understand a full conversation she might not get like one or two words right yeah but she understands like pretty much anything we're talking about if she's ever around people that are just speaking Spanish. What did her parents think about you?

What did they think about you? I think they think I'm a great guy, right? Yeah. My mom's parents were immigrants, right? Yeah. And they came through Ellis Island. And my dad came. My dad was an immigrant.

And even though they were both Armenian, my mom's parents looked down on my dad, I think. They just thought he was just a dirty Armenian. He wasn't one of the clean ones that was here already. Yeah. So I was wondering if your wife was already here. And she's like, oh, those are one of the dirty Mexicans. No. No. No. if her your wife was already here and she's like oh that those are one of the dirty mexicans no like no no no because yeah her her my wife's dad my father-in-law he's also an immigrant too so i feel like we come back you know they kind of even more reason why maybe he didn't want

no but i think they i think they think i'm a really good guy and i mean i believe i am right to her dude you're a great guy you're a great catch yeah your wife scored dude just from your just from that 10 minutes I can see man what a good dude you are yeah thank you thank you and um and and so um and it was then it was happily ever after what year was that that you guys started dating trying to go back so 2015 okay so you've been congratulations nine years that's good yeah yeah and then we uh we went i'll say within within like five six months we moved in together we went to fresno we went to we moved to fresno we went to fresno state we uh studied there for two years we got our degree um she got pregnant so you did that you did two years at city college and then two years at state and got your degree that's fucking

impressive i mean that's the way you're supposed to do it but i don't know anyone who ever makes that wow yeah yeah yeah yeah so the cool thing the cool thing about that is that we pretty much we we uh we had the same classes we were side by side like 24 7 we even worked together too so that was pretty cool for me you know just being being around her 24 7 i know a lot of people can't stand you know being with their significant other for that long but for me it's i that's that's what i want you know and yeah so would you guys train together too would you go to the track together and all in the gym and all that yeah we did everything yep we started crossfit the same time our instructor our first year there in Fresno State was uh she owned her own gym it

was called CrossFit Fresno uh-huh um she would offer extra credit she was like hey if you anyone ever wants to um go try Crossfit you guys can come on you know come to my gym saturday free for you guys there we go right there yep unfortunately they're not open anymore they had to close their doors i think this past year but yeah that's where we started um for her birthday actually i signed us up i was like hey i have a surprise for you we're going somewhere this early she didn't like it she was she wasn't a fan of it for like the first two years um but it slowly started to build on her right did it stress her out did it stress her out is that why i think so i think it's just not a lot of people in the beginning like

yeah i think a lot of it is i felt like for me a lot of it was coming super natural to me and for her she had to just work double as hard as as i did that was my like that was me trying to get ring muscle ups i mean you can see my second week it's not the best how much do you Maybe like 180, 175. Yeah. So you've put on about 15 pounds to 20 pounds since you started CrossFit. And how many years ago did you start it, did you say? Let me see. So 15, probably like 2016. Okay. This open right here coming up is going to be my eighth open. How did the muscle come on?

Did it come on like four or five pounds the first year, and then after that it slowed down? What happened? Tell me about your body composition shift. To me, I feel the same, right? Of course, it doesn't. I mean, you're huge now compared to then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're thin for a CrossFitter, but for like a normal human being, you're yoked as fuck. Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like I don't really see the difference very much, but I feel like at least every year I add maybe another two, three pounds. And that's something hard for me to add weight. How does it feel to be this big now, to be a 200-pound guy?

Did you miss the 185-pound oh no no if i honestly if i could be 210 i'll i'll i'll freaking love that 210 would be that's something i want to get to you right 210 205 a little bit bigger okay so you're in there in the gym and you're working out and i'm assuming you you just got addicted right away because you said the first two years so you you just started going and what you just automatically three days a week or five days a week. Oh, automatically. I mean, we did maybe write like the first month. It was just class, 5 a.m. class. And then after that, I was just more like, I want more of this. I need to get better at this. And it was it was just for me. Right.

It was just for me to get better, to feel like, oh, I'm getting better at this and it was it was just for me right it was just for me to get better to feel like oh right i'm getting better at sms it wasn't for like oh i'm getting i'm trying to get better to compete or it was just more for my own sake yeah and where were you consuming information at where would you were you doing also like you'd come home and you'd start like looking around videos yeah i think it might have been your videos right the ones you came out with the behind the scenes or if not even the uh the ones where they had a ben smith or uh matt or just like all those rich froning all the movies i just started to consume like everything and i was just like man i want to do that i want to do that i want to compete yeah but like i said the first two years was more of just getting the basics, you know, stringing a certain amount of ring muscle-ups, getting hats and walks. Yeah.

Did you have a good coach? Did you have someone who was helping you with the technique, the movements? I've never had a coach, so I've never – I mean, I would love to have a coach, right? But I feel like everything I learned from help of other people, but more on myself. I would record myself a lot. Just, okay, like this is what I'm doing wrong for the snatch. I'll go to an actual person snatching, like good weight. And I'm like, okay, I need to try to look like that.

And this is how I look right now. So I need to try to fix this. That's how I would correct all my errors and try to get better at that so give me an example of something you would see like you would you would watch it like you would watch like an olympic lifter give me an example of something you'd see and then be like okay i'm doing this and i need to change that does anything stand out to you yeah so like say my snatches right back then i was shooting my hips straight up and my chest was let's say this is right it is how i start i was shooting my hips straight up and my chest was let's say this is right this is how i start i was shooting my hips way up before i brought the bar up and just or throwing

even the bar up in front of me just stuff like that i'm like okay this is not this doesn't look the way those people look so i need to try to fix it and yeah like that's little stuff like that is what i did to try to improve my technique even for this snatch i mean even for the clean even for the jerk yeah it's interesting because that's like when that's really the old school way because when when a bunch of us started crossfit and you know 06 07 we would be we didn't even know like you would see a word like thruster and you didn't know what it was or you would see a word like snatch and you wouldn't know what it was so first you had to fit in there and it was so hard to find videos or anything so you had to like read stuff or look at

pictures and then slowly there would there started videos started populating the internet and it was like that you had to learn everything from watching other people or reading or reading articles there was no it wasn't just everywhere yeah how it is now yeah you type in snatch and it's like millions of videos right literally millions yeah yeah and so that's how you learned it because you move great don't you feel like you're a good mover yeah i feel like i move like well like i moved to you know like to standard. A lot of people have their faults as far as how low they move or if they squat deep enough. But for me, I feel like I've always been efficient on making sure I get full depth,

whether it's the lockout overhead or whether it's the lockout at the hips. In that HWPO workout, is ity who is coaching you uh which workout you were at hwpo oh the headquarters headquarters who's their olympic lifting specialist what's her name amy amy yeah and and so the cues she's giving you or the adjustments she's giving you are so nuanced right it's like you're already so proficient in the move and so good at it that she's just like giving you the tiniest little tiny detail. Yeah. Yeah. So that was pretty awesome. You know, just to have that have her there and just tell me that stuff, even from other the other professionals in their field that were there. Little stuff like that makes a big difference in the long run. And you don't get that. You haven't had that's like very minimal. You've had very little coaching like that. All of it in the long run and you don't get that you haven't had that's like

very minimal you've had very little coaching like that all of it's just been from yourself watch oh yeah and yeah watching recordings yeah um like i said sometimes when we when we first started i do remember i don't know his name anymore but he was a coach at cross of fresno he was uh he was the one helping me how to string butterfly pull-ups. He's like, all right, think about how you cycle in a bike, but do it the opposite way. Like, you're going to go in reverse. Like, think about that.

Like, I do remember that specifically. He was telling us. He spent, like, an extra five minutes. As soon as he told me that, like, I picked it up super quick. That's one thing I do remember like getting help on on like stringing my butterfly pull this but everything else it was just more of like looking at videos trying to compare myself to how i look to help people that are doing it right look and that's how i got better uh rafael what was your first competition you entered

and why'd you enter it was the central i want to say it's called the central valley throne it might be there on my instagram if you go down far enough um same thing it was promoted through our crossword um gym it's local so they were like hey you should probably sign up that was my first ever competition and i did pretty well i think i was sitting in third or fourth place and this was my first first competition it killed me though the last workout was a lot of barbell stuff and it wasn't very heavy now but then it was it was pretty heavy I think it might have been like clean and jerks at 155 and it I I was a struggle bus on that one and is that the first time you competed since college since since like football

yeah yeah or since high school so since high school yeah well you could say community college right because i played i played football for the community college that i went to but yeah this was this was my first i don't know if it was this one probably one year before this right but this is my second competition right there i got buried by who knows what weight that was but i got and how was that were you addicted right away did you love it oh yeah yeah to me it was more of like a like a replacement of of uh football it was like okay like i'm done with football like this is the next adventure i can like sorry to interrupt look like look at your double unders they're perfect i mean you are a great mover look at that i mean yeah thank you just crazy efficient yeah

and so you taught yourself that you'd be like hey i'm not doing this right or i'm jumping too high or i'm leaning over too much and you just kept tweaking i do remember i tweaked uh i mean my wife also helps me right but right there i think by then i was already working on that but i used to bend my knees a lot when i would do my double unders to try to like curl my feet so the jumper can get past yeah you know and that's something she would tell me like hey like i think you're doing this wrong try to keep your feet together try not to bend your knees too much when you're doing double unders but yeah little details like that like i said it's it helps whenever when i used to record i mean even now i still record myself because i want to make sure i'm doing everything right um and efficient but yeah

you like that you like do you like getting cues? Do you like having the extra set of eyes on you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it helps. Yeah, even look at that. Even your bar muscle-up is clean. Yeah. Yeah, like I said, this might have been, like, my second big competition. And I was beating – I mean, I was beating a lot of athletes that were already doing CrossFit for – that hadFit that had maybe three or four years on me.

It felt good just to be like, you know what? Whatever I'm doing, it's working. I don't even think I was wearing grips. No, I wasn't. I don't know if you can tell from here, but yeah. Now I'll probably be wearing knee sleeves and grips. Yeah, so this was one of the final workouts here. Same thing, this one buried me a little bit because of that lot,

the big log. It was like clean and jerks. Or shoulder to overhead. Or ground to shoulder to overhead. Steven Flores, my buddy Beto trained with you, said you're a good dude. Plus, Dar trains at my gym here in Fresno, Small World. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know all those people.

They're good friends. Hey, when you had your daughter, did you think that that was the end of your desire to compete in CrossFit? No. No. No, because I knew it was going to be a little bit harder just to manage, you know, time, at least time outside of the gym, time in the gym. But no, it wasn't really too much of a difference as far as like, you know, me thinking like, you know what, this is going to be the end of my CrossFit career or my CrossFit goal to make it to the Games. But, yeah, I don't think it ever changed my mindset.

And your wife is fully behind you. She just supported you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's more than just my wife. She's my best friend. She does a lot for me. And, like, outside of CrossFit, in CrossFit, I mean, She's more than just my wife. She's my best friend. She does a lot for me. Outside of CrossFit,

in CrossFit, she pretty much does everything. She trains with me. She cooks for me. She supports me. It's cool. She believes in you. Oh, yeah.

She believes in me more than I believe in myself. Yeah, that's awesome always there you know we're like you're good for they're like you know you're good believe me i'm like yeah you know you guys are here for that but i'm just here to do the work and yeah that's good you're stoked yeah every dude needs a woman who believes in them every every dude every dude i mean every woman every woman probably needs a man who believes in her but uh since i'm a dude i know like if my if my wife didn't believe in me it'd be a mess i'd be oh yeah yep um so what what what's the plan now so or let's go back a little bit how did your paths cross with hwpo um who was doing your training before and why did you pivot over to the great Matt Fraser's program? So I was doing, I think I was doing a mixture of Proven and Mayhem.

I was doing that for a few years and then they finally came out with their own program. Matt came out with his program, HWPO. And as soon as they came out, I was like, you know, I'm just going to give it a try. I signed up right from the beginning. This was, I want to say, about three years ago already. And right from the beginning, I just liked the different formats that they had as far as, you know, their workout structure,

the way they focus on certain things more than the other programs. And then, yeah, so just right from the the beginning I kind of fell in love with it um and I mean I feel like the results speak for themselves I know that maybe it doesn't show it's it's like you can say this past year maybe but I feel like every year since since then I've improved um strength wise endurance wise you know everything so yeah I really I really like that and I mean ever since then I've improved um strength wise endurance wise you know everything so yeah i really i really like that i mean ever since then i haven't really looked back and how did you end up in vermont how does that happen how does someone get to go train there that was pretty that was crazy how it happened so they they reached out right um they reached out to me they emailed me they were like hey we're

inviting you to the to the grand opening of the headquarters we would love to have you here and i thought they were inviting more athletes right um come we come to find out that when we get there it was only me and another one of our friends her name is taylor patterson she she was also invited right but we both thought like oh yeah there's probably going to be like maybe a handful of athletes that do it that are going to be invited to you know to be part of this part of this um this party you can say the grand opening um and no it was only me and her out of the normal athletes right every other athlete that was there you know their games

athletes there yeah I saw Jason in the background and Amanda Barnhart. I saw some of the pipe hitters. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So yeah, like I said, for us, it was like, what the heck, how come no one else got in front of the regular athletes that follow the program? And they ended up just telling us just cause you know, they, they really liked us as people and they just thought we were, you know, we were, they felt like we were, I don't know, just good people to be there. You know, they felt thought we were you know we were they felt like we were i don't know just good people to be there you know they felt like we were friends so yeah that's taylor right there

um she so the way the way we met was actually the year before at the my first semi-finals the syndicate in tennessee uh matt sat down with me and her he was just kind of helping us program you know just like preparing us for the the day before the day before we met and he was just preparing us like if you had any questions just so you didn't you didn't know matt you show up at the syndicate crown and he's like hey what's up you do hwpo hey i've been watching you you're doing great um can i help you out with some things? Can I give you some pointers? Sorry, Savani. I don't know if it's your end or my end.

The microphone. I heard that. That's crazy. Can you hear it? I hear it. It's all fucked up. What's going on? Let me see. Hold on. What the fuck is going on? Let me see what's going on here. Hold on. What the fuck is going on?

Let me see. How's that? I might have to use my wife's phone because my phone is at 1%. Can I switch phones real quick? Yeah, yeah, switch. Go ahead. Come off for a second. That's good.

I'm going to kick you out of the studio for a second, and you just come back in. Is that better? Oh, so that was him. Yeah, that was him. Oh, thank you. It's never the guest. Jeez Louise.

This is adorable. I was going to pull this up. Good. This is his wife and kid oh dude you know what's crazy his daughter looks just like his wife did in some of those younger pictures oh my god it's a spitting image oh my goodness kiss mama cheer for dad i love it i know that's dope oh my god she's beautiful dude great job dude you scored what two beautiful women you have in your life that is awesome there and trust me i mean if you put my mother-in-law they're like triplets yeah that's wild my mother-in-law my wife and then my daughter they're they look like you know they're twins i guess that black

hair is just amazing it's oh it's so long it's wild god it's so black it's so beautiful i saw in one of the pictures caleb pulled up earlier i saw a picture of your wife that looked just like your daughter it's nuts yeah yeah i feel like my wife says that she looks like me but the only the only thing that she has of me that's future is probably my smile oh that's good you got a great smile that's good thank you that's good she got your what in her hair is amazing yeah it's long's long. I mean A lot of hair Did you um, so did you know that when you went to the syndicate crown that matt would be uh, talk to you? So he we were we were messaged pretty much saying like hey

You guys are going to meet up with matt to go over any questions you guys have anything just like pretty much just Briefing before the actual like shit. He could help you out with like strategy or yeah or let him know he's there and got your back for a little morale just shit like that right hype shit yeah just anything i mean it was me matt o'keefe sammy my wife like you know and then taylor and her husband we were all sitting down and that was pretty small so it's a small group it's not yeah yeah so it was hwpo athletes it's no yeah so we thought it was going to be the same thing it was going to be more than five athletes right because we thought people were doing the programming and then it comes to we kind of find out that it was only

me and another athlete and then it was matt sitting across from us yeah that was more of like holy shit like he's right in front of me. Like I looked up to this guy. Um, yeah. So that definitely helped out, you know, just calming the nerves a little bit, getting advice of like what to eat,

how to approach this workout. Yeah. I wonder if Matt gets nervous too, because you think, um, although it's in the same family, um, it's in the same family, he's a rookie again now because he's a coach, right?

So he's a rookie coach. So even though he was an insanely seasoned athlete, oh, that's a great picture. Matt looks so endearing there. That's cool. Yeah. Who's that guy on the right? Is that?

That's Josh. That's like his right-hand man, and jake marconi okay yeah those two guys were they're they're super good dudes too that's not luis oscar mora no no no no he's a he's a competitor hey does luis speak english he speaks i want to say yeah he speaks english yeah okay you talk spanish you talk spanish to him when you talk to him. I do. I've it's, it's our conversations have been very short,

but yeah, we, whenever I talk to him, I'm just going to talk to him in Spanish. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Um,

so, so I wonder, um, if it was nerve wracking for Matt too, because, you know, he went from being like the most senior elder in his kind of lane. And now he's switching to this coaching and

he's and to some extent you got to fake it till you make it right yeah i mean i've never talked to him about that but i'm sure it's as nerve-wracking as as it is for us right when we go out to the competition floor right but every every single time i, this last year he was my coach for the semifinals. And then just everything, before every workout, he would just tell me, you know what, like, dude, just go out there and just perform to your best ability. And I'm going to be proud of that. Like, I don't want you to think that because I'm here as your coach that you need to get top five. He's like, if you get last i'm still going

to be proud of all your effort and he's like as long as you do what you can out there that's all that matters so that i mean that kind of helped but yeah like i said it probably it's probably he probably gets just as nervous as we do as athletes when he's out there coaching and is the plan this year to do the open quarterfinal semifinals and make the journey make the shot again? Is this like a – are you pretty fired up right now? Do you already feel some nerves building? Yeah.

I mean, I felt nerves coming into this podcast. Yeah. But, yeah, I do. I do feel like that, you know, that's the plan still this year, you know, open quarterfinals, and then hopefully from quarterfinals to semifinals. Yeah. And then hopefully the games, right? Yeah.

Are you the fittest Raphael Sanson that's ever been? Yeah, I think so. I definitely feel that. I feel confident in my weightlifting, gymnastics, same thing. I feel well-rounded, more than I did last year. Sorry, I'm going to switch this. Tell me, what does the Open mean to you? How is that going to be?

Is the goal to, will you be like, okay, I want to, what's the highest you've ever finished in the Open? I was just looking at that yesterday. I want to say like the 300s. Okay. 400. We sit around here, the pundits and those of us who watch the games as games fans, and we think that, hey, for some people the Open doesn't matter

because everyone's going to the quarterfinals, all the guys at your ability. What's your take on the Open? For me, I just... The priority isn't very much there as far as... I don't really focus mainly on the Open workout. So my training schedule is Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday is active recovery. Friday, which now this next week coming up, is going to be the community open.

And I'm going to try to do that. Hopefully I can with my schedule work-wise. But I'll probably still train in the morning and then do that open workout probably in the afternoon with everybody from the from the from the community from the the gym where i go um so like i said it's it's mainly it's it's more of you know an extra workout that's thrown to me and it's going to be thrown into my program okay so you won't you take you i'm putting words in your mouth now but it work with me You take it seriously, but, um, but not so serious that you wouldn't do a workout in the morning before. Like you're not, it's, it's not the end all end all. You're not like, Hey, I have to fucking win the open at all costs. I'm going to. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To me, it's more of like, you know, as long as I can do good in the workout, like I have enough

rest between my, my first session to that to that second workout hopefully um it's not very like uh oh if i don't do well i'm gonna redo this workout no yeah it's it's just part of your training you're good enough to where it's just part of your training yeah then and then and then the quarterfinals is that nerve-wracking as shit with all the cameras and like making sure you're recording and uploading it and all that? Tell me about that. Yeah. So the process, like I told you before, the process of doing that, I mean, it's me and my wife and sometimes the gym owner, Josh.

He's the one that's judging me. Or if not, it's my wife, right? But, yeah, that's super hard on us because we don't have a big group right we don't have a big team to help you know like we are the ones in charge of that measuring it out and the tape and double checking and making sure that you film the weights and like yep so for me it's not like okay i'm just gonna walk into the gym i'm gonna warm up and everything is being taken care of like no it's like i'm a part of the process as much as my wife is i mean she's the one in charge of recording i'm sure she she she does feel the stress the stress more than me but yeah it's it's that's a little bit more you know like i have to be super super careful on hitting every

standard hitting every measurement recording making sure i upload the videos right. Like, all that is a lot more stress on me, the quarters. Yeah, that's it. Shit, I'm so stressful. I never believed in anyone more. This man has a work ethic and drive. He will make the games one day. Thank you, Mike. Yeah, there you go.

A.K.A. Poor boy. Last year, he had to do the crossover workout twice the same day because he fucked up like a ding dong. Oh, so this every look at he, he made you a shit sandwich. Yeah.

Some love. And then just some shit on it. Yep. Yeah. So these last two years I've, I've screwed up the first workout. What happened? What happened?

Like what's the screw up? So this last year, you know how we had those crossovers. Yeah. They were in, there were crossovers in the open last year yeah the singles oh i didn't know not open sorry no no quarterfinals oh quarterfinals okay yeah yeah yeah so um when they released it right they released it the following morning i did the workout and the way i counted the crossovers was you count them when you cross it's one when you uncross it that's two the way I counted the crossovers was you count them when you cross, it's one. When you uncross it,

that's two. The way I was counting it was, was one, two. And I think it was a total of 40 or 50, whatever it was. So I pretty much did double the work. Okay.

And then, yeah, they, I think later on that day after I had done the workout, they released how to count the crossover. So you, right. You count it one when you cross and then two when you

uncross it okay okay so i had done double the work and my score wasn't the best with me doing double right and right from the beginning i was i mean i was pretty sore already it was a lot of dumbbell snatches um i was like well there goes another opportunity i had to redo that workout the next morning um so that that you know that that mentally already put me, like, in a hole. I was like, man, this is going to really hurt me for my repeat, and this is also going to hurt me for the rest of the workouts. And then the year before that, same thing. I didn't do certain standards with the tape lines.

I had to redo one of the workouts. So hopefully this year is a lot cleaner, right? But you still made it to the semifinals both years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both years I made it. Joseph Standridge, I've had the pleasure of competing alongside Rafa, class act and beast of an athlete. This guy will for sure be in the games one day.

Thank you, Joseph. Thank you. Jamie Latimer, games athlete. I did the same thing doubled them yeah i mean it makes sense what you said makes uh yeah like i said they when they released a workout they never released how to count them so i feel like for a lot of people that have never done them at least counting them you just thought that right when you cross it and uncross it that's going to be one rep but it wasn't the case um i appreciate you coming on here what a cool

story what a uh good you're i mean you probably don't see it this way but you're an amazing role model you're you are truly uh an amazing role model you're focused you're a gentleman you've you're handling your business i respect the fuck out of you dude thanks for coming on rafael of course dude thank you thanks for having me yeah yeah and um anytime and don't fuck up because i'm be prone to talk shit about you so don't don't screw up don't fall off the don't fall off the pedestal i'm putting you on all right then dude yeah i'll try not to all right tell your wife uh and daughter thank you for letting us have a Papa this morning. Appreciate it. Of course. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. Cheers. And I hope to run into you.

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So hopefully we, uh, we can meet, I felt like I've seen you around, but yeah, hopefully this time we can meet in person. Right on dude. All right. So thank you. Yep. Have a good morning. You too. Raphael Sanson.

What a nice guy. Caleb, will you open up the DEI checklist and check off Brown person for the show for February. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Brown person, February. Thank you. All right.

God, that's a good dude. When I interview people like that, I I'm like that's the son my mom wanted all polite and shit and kind and God David's getting so soft I mean, sorry. I mean, thank you, David. I appreciate the objective and ever-critical observation. an ever critical, uh, observation. Hey David, how come, um, when I post something or I say something about a girl, I'm creepy as fuck. But when you say page powers is cute or whoever you said was cute, you're it's, it's cool. I want to know that. What do I have to do so that it's just

okay. And I'm not creepy as fuck. What do I have to do? What do I have to do what do I have to do or am I just doomed am I just doomed to be creepy did I miss this is this um what a morning someone made a um someone made a comment uh, you're creepy too. Oh, all right. That sucks. I was hoping that you could lead me. Oh, men are creepy. Bernie Gannon, I hope that Rafa becomes a big shot games athlete.

He will still talk to Seve even if Seve doesn't like his shoes. Don't hate on me because I don't like your shoes. Hey, listen, I totally understand. Daniel Brandon's doing the right thing standing up for her sponsor. Let me tell you, I would fucking, if one of you talk shit about Paper Street Coffee, I'd block you into fucking, put you in that little glass cube that they shot the bad guys in in the Superman movie off into in like the 1980s Superman. Did you ever see that Superman, Caleb?

It's from the 80s. No. I know what you're talking about. The graphics are so bad. Superman catches the three bad guys and shoots them off into space in this like flat glass. Talk shit about.

Yeah. There is no rad hate. I don't have any rad. I don There is no rad hate. I don't have any rad. I don't get the rad hate. That's the. There's nothing to. You shouldn't get it. There isn't any.

I don't. Like. There is none. There's no rad hate. The guy. There's no. I don't hate people. Because they play victim.

And because they make shoes. That I don't like. Not. Not even at all. Dude. Imagine how much. I put myself on the line. There's whole Reddit threads out there that fucking call me a pedophile and misogynist. Like, I can't dislike his shoes or think it's weird that he plays the victim. You don't understand.

It's a savvy. You don't understand. It's a marketing strategy. I don't have to understand. Like, it doesn't understand. It's a marketing strategy. I don't have to understand. It doesn't matter if it's a marketing strategy. You don't understand. It's a marketing strategy for me to not like the victims. Like where does that end?

I'm just saying I don't like the shoe. I don't think it has a lasting style. I don't – oh, yeah, that thing. Yeah, that's – wow, I can't believe you found that. I think that's from when they're coming back. Oh, no, that thing. Yeah, that's... Wow, I can't believe you found that. I think that's from when they're coming back. Oh, no, yeah. Banished to the Phantom Zone. Yeah, that thing was weird.

God, look, did you see those graphics? God, movies used to be crazy. That was like a huge blockbuster. Incredible. There's no hate for Rad. I'm'm sure i've heard nothing but great i've nothing listen i've heard the caleb loves caleb's wearing the shoes right now suza loves the shoes i like them a lot they're good yeah i wasn't there was one the one thing i have a problem with is that they one of the soul part of the soul just like peels away too easy like a banana they they peel like a banana but other than that they're ugly and play victims

yeah that's it but whatever like all he has to do is be like yeah i played the victim motherfucker i'm a cry baby i'm trying to sell and listen and not only did he play the crybaby, but he made it sound like it was like Tears Fault or something. Listen, anyway, sensitivos, sensitivos. I mean, what do you want me to say? Ten nice things about Rad? Yeah, that's on the list for this month, too, for February. Ten nice things about rad. Someone wrote in the comments on YouTube, they said... Yeah, I can't do anything with narrow feet.

For narrow feet people. I can't do narrow feet. Someone in the comments said... comment said seven are you just being promoting the open so that they'll let you do the behind the scenes it's just like, do you really care why I'm promoting the open or are you just being an asshole? Like,

it's just such a, like, why would you type that out? Are you like, do you just wipe your ass so that you don't get shit on your underwear, or do you do it because just everyone else is doing it? I mean, there's just such a shitty question. How about this? I could give you a thousand reasons why I'm promoting the Open.

But who cares? I just know that there's something else under there that you're doing or saying or trying to get to that just fucking makes me just want to fucking kick you in the vag. How about the fact that one of my dearest friends ever works at CrossFit and I want to help him support his thing how about that how about just that how about that yeah my boy Dave is in charge of the CrossFit games and he's he yeah you don't know what CrossFit is it's it's this lifestyle methodology and they have a yearly checkup that's called the open and it's cool and and I used to work there and i've dedicated fucking the last 15 years of my life to it too which is kind of honestly i mean shut the fuck up I just hate that kind of like

that dipshit plans was in here in the beginning of the show just just moron shit you know what that no one should interact with that guy by the way that guy is a that guy is

I've told you about that guy before the way that guy is a that guy is i've told you about that guy before that's the guy who's like sends me a dm and says why are you erasing our dms and i'm like what are you talking about why am i erasing your dms he's like i know you're erasing our dms and i have screenshots of all our dms and i'm gonna post them dude you're some fucking grown-ass man on the fucking internet that's i don't even know how to erase dms and now you're telling me you're taking screenshots of my shit you go out of your way to post something negative every single day somewhere in my world like go what you're fucking disgusting i seriously feel like it's like I have like a like I

like how I imagine what it's like to have a dingleberry like I like have a psycho in my you know what a dingleberry is like poop stuck in your butt hair yeah it just Itches. It's just so weird. What a cool guy I woke up this morning I took a shit Drank a cup of coffee

Now I'm going over to the Sevan podcast To be a douche nozzle And make up a bunch of weird shit. Sounds like a fun routine, you know? Dude, as a kid, I had so much shit in my underwear. I gotta ask my mom about that. How would she... How would she, um...

How would she, how would she, how did she let that happen? I would not let that happen to my kids. I feel like calling her right now on the show and asking her. I don't want to harass her. I think she's feeling sick. She's got a cold or something. You used to get like crazy dirty underwear. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. My mom put, I lived in tighty whities And every single one of my tighty whities Had a brown stain on them no matter how much you bleached them And like sometimes I'd pull my underwear off And it'd be like stuck to my ass And there'd be a strip of shit on it And I didn't even have hair on my butt then Oh

So good Oh my god, you guys I'm so fucking excited Oh my god I ordered one I ordered one this morning I can't believe this exists Oh my goodness

I took screenshots of all of our DMs and I'm going to publish them. Please do. Why are you erasing our DMs? Hey, what is that? What is that thing that happens? You know, so here's some here's some Instagram talk. You guys want to hear about some Instagram talk? Sorry, Matuthian, you got to be you got to wait. So here's some Instagram talk. You guys want to hear about some Instagram talk?

Sorry, Matuthian. You got to wait. So when I go through my DMs now, when I look at them and I leave them, it still says they're unread. I actually have to swipe up a little bit. Right? Have you noticed that you probably have so many dms that by the time you get through all the unread ones it'll refresh and give you the other unread ones that you haven't read yet no what i mean is is like look i'm gonna let me see if i can show pool boys okay so look so here's

here's pool boys right i just opened it right now if i go back oh it says on red hold on let me try another one let me try jonathan ortega's so i'm going to click jonathan ortega's and it says uh so i clicked it right and then i go back oh shit it says on red fuck so like it says red it continues to say on red after you yes and so then i would have to go back to it and kind of just swipe up gently even though there's nothing below it and then and then i go back and so um um hold on a second look at look at this look at this now you threaten to post our interactions on your show. That's a – oh, my God. You guys, listen. I know you guys know this, but even if people are complete assholes to me, I always ask, hey, do you care if I post this?

And when this fucking – this is how psycho this dude is. He's like, I'm taking screenshots and I'm going to post it. And I said, please do. I'd love to see. That would be fun for the community to see that you're a psycho. Please post them. Let's see how it works out for my brand and your brand, whose reputation gets enhanced and who gets tarnished. He goes, well, I'm. And then he starts like backpedaling. I threatened. I threatened you.

I never fucking have threatened anybody in my fucking life. Like the most I'll say to my kids is like hey you better behave or we're going to bed early threatened you fucking ding dong i don't have a fucking bone in my body like that um so so these um so these so but then if you swipe up too hard so look here's jonathan sorry jonathan but there's nothing here if you swipe up too hard – so look, here's Jonathan. Sorry, Jonathan, but there's nothing here. If you swipe up too hard, it goes to this mode, this – what's called? Vanish mode. Vanish mode, and then I always panic. You just swipe up one more time.

Because I think that someone's trying – then I think that they think that they see that I did that and that I'm somehow trying to erase our conversation. So then I start panicking and start swiping up really fast. trying to erase our conversation. So then I start panicking and start swiping up really fast. Yeah, I think it's like telling you that there's still messages you haven't seen yet. And that's why it continues to say unread. Oh, like, oh, I know, but I have seen them. That's what's weird.

Yeah, you just have to scroll. Oh, look, I just did one. Of course. OK, so look at this guy alan i click on it and then i come back and it's still blue i click on it i come back it's still blue i click on it and i just go up a little bit like that now it's unread it's like what the fuck that's i don't i don't i don't have time for that much swiping. Oh, yeah. And what is vanish mode?

What is vanish mode? Basically, shit disappears after a while? Yeah, it's like Snapchat, but for Instagram, I think. Oh. So if I send you a dick pic, it vanishes my shit to you too i think so instagram hates you don't you remember yeah yeah vanish mode is for sending nudes there you go all right rafael sanson even even keeled right yeah he's cool so chill so chill uh did you guys see ariel lowen's uh oh maybe I should save this for the news oh what's what's going on with this

thing I saw um this thing in our thread the other day what is that what's that what's going on here what is this the heat one open 2024 bracket challenge download and fill out your bracket share on Instagram, and tag. Oh, I see. I see.

Hmm. I see. I see. I see. I see. So you just pick who's going to win 24.1, Jeffrey Adler or Jay Crouch, and then you move them forward. Roman Krennikoff or Brent Fikowski moving forward. Ricky Garrard down. Oh, this is cool. Tune in on YouTube every Wednesday night at the barbell spin 7.30pm Eastern Standard Time

To catch up on all the action I think get with the programming Is having a Wednesday night show too That'll be cool. You boys like me, Cheeto! Yes! Jonathan Ortega,

you pick the winners across in the app or the website. If the app – in the app, you can win stuff. Oh, there's an automated version of this? So you can just write it in the app? Let's find out. Okay. Oh, I have to update the app. And we'll see.

Yeah, it looks like there's one on the app. That's cool. I'm going to send you some Matuthion. What you do is, Caleb, what you do is you get your toothbrush wet, and then you bang it on the side of the sink and knock off the extra water. Okay. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. You're good at that.

Yep. Ding, ding, ding, banging. I'm good at banging. And then you dip it a little bit in the powder and then you just start and you gently brush your teeth. In the instructions, it says two minutes. I wouldn't do – I don't do two minutes. What do you do? Two minutes seems a little excessive. I just do all the teeth like, you know, I don't know.

Oh, okay. Forty seconds or a minute seems like – Do you feel – does it give you like a refreshed feeling at the end of your tooth brushing? Or is it just like – It's more than that. It feels like your teeth are like – it's a different kind of feeling because your teeth actually feel clean. It's more like – you know like when you brush your teeth or you do mouthwash or you do like Listerine spray? It's like you have this freshness, but this stuff actually makes your mouth feel clean.

Like it's the difference between cleaning a pan with like the soft side of the brush versus the other side. Like you're just your teeth feel clean okay interesting never used powdered toothpaste so this will be yeah they have minty and non-minty most people prefer minty i'm i'm i'm i'm impartial and there's a tiny bit of salt in there does the non-minty taste like anything no um The first time you do it, you're kind of like, am I brushing my teeth with just a handful of dirt? Monica, I just ordered the peppermint. And it takes so little.

It's crazy. What makes me realize also that it's so awesome, too, is my kids had all like the fancy two toothpastes, you know you don't got to worry about too much of that shit and that's i mean you see those people in africa and india in india see if you could find this image in india um every morning i would wake up and i would walk to get a cup of coffee and by the way they would the coffees were in ceramic cups but you just drink out of it and throw it into a pile and it breaks like the guy the guy who make makes cups and coffee it was it's a trip but they're hard ceramic cups but then they're just still one

one users i don't know how they do it they're just made of like i guess local clay but there's also this spot where everyone walks by and you just pick up a stick and you brush your teeth with a stick so there's like this pot every morning there's this pile of toothbrushes that's as big as like like a bedroom at your house and it's just these wooden sticks they brush their teeth with it's fucking crazy and there's just shit loads of dudes passing by grabbing a stick brush your teeth with it and then throw it in the pile it's weird I never figured out what that was miss walk and all their teeth are so white and crazy crazy big white teeth let me see

yeah like that like that yeah and there's just a huge pile of those sticks huge like bite the end off and then you can start brushing your teeth and then and then and so that you just walk by there and grab one of those sticks and brush your teeth with it what the fuck?

Oh, that's fucking weird. All right. Anything else? all right anything else let me see if there's anything fun in here where's my my life calling shows do i even do live calling shows anymore my notes are just a fucking disaster. How about in San Francisco they got a non-citizen lady elected to the commission? Have you seen this story? How does that work? San Francisco appoints first non-citizen to election commission. I'm deeply committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of immigration status, has a seat at the table in shaping the future of our city.

The San Francisco Election Commission has, for what is believed to be the first time in history, appointed someone who isn't a U.S. citizen, who isn't legally allowed to vote to serve as an official. The officer, Kelly Wong, she's born in Hong Kong. She's Chinese. Wow. Was born in February 14th Put her in the election committee Fuck it Her Her primary focus

In life has been Immigration fairness Or something She hopes to improve immigration. And non-English voter engagement. I'm not so interested in that. I'm not interested in that. The former resident of Hong Kong.

Which now belongs to China. And recently saw mass pro-democracy protests protests over people's lack of true electoral representation. Holy shit. Holy shit. You gonna move to San Francisco, Caleb? Fuck no. Caleb? No.

No, no. Absolutely not. I'm good right here in the old Midwest. What the? I got to ask Sam. Hold on. I'll be right back. Sam, can you max this thing out? Yeah, let's go.

What the fuck is this thing? I got it. I got it. Oh, fuck. we're in business. Oh, fudge. That's heavy. That is freaky. It's like this thing is about to eat me.

He said it's heavy, but he means it's hard, right? It's not heavy. Yeah, yeah. No, it could be heavy. It's just loading itself our piece of work that's fun oh wow that's heavy there's no way that's for for it's gonna be heavier that's hard I gotta go again I gotta ask Sam He's gotta ask Sam Why is he gonna ask Sam

Oh ask ask I don't even understand that thing I think Sam Dancer did it He might have maxed it out On a 1 to 10 How bad do you want to buy that Like a 2 Yeah

I don't care for that Sabir and Kelly like a two yeah uh Sabir and Kelly I'm buying Matuthi and it'll probably arrive in four weeks time oh yeah yeah four I don't can you send it to a foreign country I don't know if you can do that I get stopped in the mail probably look like coke All right.

Guess what I have to do? P. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. i think another behind the scenes comes out today i think so remembers all right guys listen uh let's um let's turn down the DMs about pedophilia and Hunter Biden.

And let's turn it up about news. Because I'm going through my DMs because I'm trying to do a news show every day. So any CrossFit news bras that are too tight. New OnlyFans pages for CrossFitters. Rogue that you think are cool. Whatever. for CrossFitters Rogue that you think are cool whatever updates on the guy who was taking pictures of penises at the games any of that stuff where's your gains box

what do you mean by that oh oh do I have a gains box oh oh i oh do i have a gains box oh do you know what i do have look at this what the fuck is that these are my um these are my socks i got from uh toe spacers and they have ones that i got the grippy ones and the non-grippy ones. Little toe holes in there?

Yeah. I'm wearing them for the first time today. Oh, weird. Oh, your toes actually fit in there. I think me and Danielleon wear the same socks whoa all right i have to pee gloves for your feet yes thank you that's probably a good way to say it instead of socks yeah all right love you guys i mean still some you can send some you know whack shit still comedians are good but hook a brother up with some CrossFit news

okay mmm boo boy