#ExAnimoInTheOpen

“The Open is the great annual celebration of CrossFit. It’s accessible to everyone on Earth, and it showcases the scalability of a program that cures chronic disease even more readily than it produces amazing athletes. In the Open, we care about feelings and smiles and modifications. We revere the injured person who did just one rep to be part of the event, and we glorify the average Joes and Janes who want to prove they’re fitter than last year. We wear stupid hats to earn points in intramural competitions, we cheer each other on, and we become healthier even if we sometimes go out for beers and complain about the burpees Dave Castro threw at us. The Open really is a glorious thing. You can almost feel the momentum as 14,000 gyms and hundreds of thousands of people unite for five weeks of fitness, team spirit, PBs, smiles and fun. As gym owners and trainers, we care a great deal about the size of that wave because each person who registers for the Open is one more person who understands that CrossFit is an infinitely scalable program that’s appropriate for everyone.”

Is that not enough incentive to join in on the fun? Go on and enter and ride the Ex Animo wave! For more information and the link to sign up you can follow this link https://games.crossfit.com/article/open-what-when-where-and-why/open . Don’t forget to write your name on the whiteboard for everyone to see! We also want you to post as many pics of this on your social media pages. We want you to also hashtag the #InTheOpen as well as #IamExAnimo. Read on for a cool little competition that we’re having as well.

First… Lets talk Logistics – WODs are released in the early hours of Friday morning (Thursday evening USA time). You have three slots to choose from to do your WOD at Ex Animo (or at any other box in the world if you happen to be out of town) – Friday 8:30-9:30, Friday 16:00-18:00 and Saturday 08:00-10:00. You need to submit your score by Monday 17:00 for it to be validated. The easiest way to do this is to download the Open app and log your score right after your workout so you don’t forget. You need to book for class on the calendar, and then when you arrive at the box, put your name and your judges’ name down on the heat list which will be on the white board. First come, first serve. When you enter please also do the judges course so that we have enough hands on deck.

Each week we will tell you what your scoring opportunities are and we’ll have a running leaderboard up at the box. Start encouraging all your friends to enter so that you have a chance of being in a team with them, or competing against them. If you’re going to be training anyway, you may as well be #intheopen

We are going to do the team draw on Saturday 17 February at 8am at the box. If you plan to compete in the Open please try and be there for the draw so that you can pull your number out the hat, meet your team and come up with your team name and strategy. If you can’t make it, a coach will pick your number on your behalf.  That also means you need to have entered by Friday 16 February so that we know how many teams we are going to have and how many numbers go into the hat!

If you want to be part of the Open banter on the box whatsapp group, please reply directly to this mail and request that we add you to the group. We will use the group to communicate your scoring opportunities each week so please make sure at least one of your team members is on the group if possible.

Looking forward to an amazing 5 weeks with all of the ExAnimals!