Chapter 7: Becoming a School (Sit down, have a drink, this one is LONG!)

After a week of anesthetizing myself in Mexico with the PUP, postponing the inevitable, I came back to Vancouver with the worst hangover of my life, with my legal bill ticking upwards in the background, and another relationship coming apart—the stuffing of my life busting out at every seam.

It was under this climate that we started our long, arduous battle with the City of Vancouver. I figured it would be a long drawn out ground war, but I had no idea we’d be in for 2 years of constant grinding stress.

I read and researched the City’s zoning laws like a man possessed and then reproached.

“No, you’re a fitness facility. You’re done,” they kept telling me. Apparently Gold’s gym and other huge organizations had invested heavily in trying to open in the area, but even with their massive resources, they weren’t able to get in. And here we were, little CrossFit Vancouver, sitting on prime real estate trying to figure out a way in where others more powerful than us had failed. Part of me thought we were totally fucked.

But something kept telling me to keep fighting. I knew we weren’t like Gold’s or other Globo gyms. And we simply couldn’t afford to move again. Period. But to stay where we were we needed to be registered as a recording studio, or maybe a dance studio. Or, I discovered, we could be a vocational school.

“Hmmm, Vocational School.” We had been teaching people from all over the world for years on what we had found already. Upon further inspection, I discovered more than 100 people who had informally studied with us at one point, who would give me a letter of recommendation. In the end, I received 128 written letters from the RCMP, the Department of National Defense, former apprentices, respected business owners, CrossFit HQ, the PCTIA, Labour Canada, and tons of coaches and business owners from all over the world.

Before all of that, we had to go through three levels of government approval. The first step to becoming a formal school was getting Industry Canada to recognize our version of a “Fitness Coach”. That took a while and used up some energy, but it was reasonable and understandable.

Next, we had to go through the PCTIA approval process (Private Career Training Institutions Agency of British Columbia —the governing body for vocational schools). This was a daunting task. We were already a learning facility, but our systems and procedures were informal and home-made. To get PCTIA approval, we’d have to take a giant empty binder of the PCTIA’s procedures and processes, and fill it with legitimate curricula, business systems, coach development procedures, performance reviews, written exams, on-floor evaluations, policies, student handbooks, the list went on and on.

To do this — to build our formal program — I looked back to all the people we had worked with over the course of the last few years, the people we had consulted to around North America, and the coaches we had mentored in-house. Each of our full-time coaches brought something different to our facility. Each of them became a piece of the puzzle in creating our official Apprentice Coach Diploma Program.

First, there was T-Bear —Salesman of the year.

Before T-Bear came into the fitness industry, he had had a ton of sales training during his days at Johnson Controls (Fortune 100 out of Milwaukee), as well as an engineering degree. Today, he is still the top grossing coach out of 500 coaches in the MadLab Group, and a minor cult celebrity (but still a mystery to most).

Editor’s note: Communicating with T-Bear is like communicating with a dolphin. You have to listen for his clicks and whistles to figure out what he’s trying to say. Half the time I wonder if his clients even know what they just purchased when they start personal training with him (I once heard him trying to sell five years up front). But he’s a master at sales. And he’s a master at getting people fit. He cares about his clients. He keeps them for years. And they love him for it.

T-Bear was the first coach to ever be put on the MadLab coach compensation program. At the time, he earned 70 percent of the revenue he generated. We later learned 70 percent was way too much, and now coaches work their way up to make 50 percent as associate coaches, and 60 percent when they buy into the business.

In fact, many of the critical steps in the way we raise clients today came from T-Bear’s evolution. From figuring out how to best intake a new client, to graduating clients to group classes, to generating referrals, to account management, T-Bear was always the guinea pig, always taking risks to figure out what worked best. When it came to the first day, T-Bear was our first coach to really master the art of earning a new client.

“If I do a great first day with a new prospect, I know I have a client for at least three years,” T-Bear often says.

Sales aside, T-Bear has always been an innovative, creative coach. He has a passion for human movement, and knows how to get his clients fitness results. And personally, T-Bear taught me the importance of mentorship —another backbone of our school today. In short, you have to choose apprentice coaches that you like.

T-Bear and I lived together as he was going through the system. Eventually, he moved from the dog bed to the ranch, and we would sit around at night figuring out how we could fuck people up — and where the line was between helping people and hurting people. We also started the first YouTube CrossFit channel together, where we’d release weekly videos that monopolized the CrossFit video community in those early CrossFit days. (Our Youtube channel got expropriated years later and we lost all those old videos, or so we thought at the time. Turns out, our Buddy BK kept a secret hard drive. We will be rereleasing all those old classic videos under the MadLab brand shortly. Thankfully, we own that trademark and no one can take them away from us again).

Then, there was Sheppy.

Sheppy is emotional, compassionate and brimming with “One Love.” (Personal development testing pegs Sheppy as a ‘high blue,’ meaning he’s all heart, all love and all emotion).

When he showed up, he was super good looking, fit, charming, well-spoken, and educated. He arrived every day, worked his bag off and brought just a ton of great energy. I have never been much of a weed guy, but turns out, back in those days, Sheppy liked to smoke a fatty before he worked out, and he killed it. I thought, “Wow that must be the key. I’m going to smoke some weed and smash workouts up in here.” One day, T and I hot-boxed T-Bear’s Mustang (‘69 convertible he rebuilt with his Grandfather – a classic) and decided to give it a shot. I immediately lost the plot. I had no idea what movement I should be on, lost the count every four seconds and felt like I was roller-skating on a skiff in an open ocean. Afterwards, I thought to myself “How in the fuck does Sheppy do it? This guy is a heavy dude.”

We were all getting along like gangbusters when Sheppy brought his super hot girlfriend in for me to train. The drama began.

My first major interaction with him outside the gym was in 2006. I had been training his girlfriend for some time and she was awesome. I usually got close with most of my clients. I have crossed a few lines; I am no angel and have paid the consequences, but I respected the hell out of Sheppy and shagging his girlfriend was a line I was never going to cross.

But, he didn’t know that.

So one Thursday night, we all got invited to the house of this dashingly handsome character we would later come to know as Rob ‘Erkel’ Dunn (still a great supporter of our community today. Congrats on the wife BTW. Miracles do happen, bro). It started getting boozy, smokey, and somewhat psychedelic — quickly. Eventually, we headed to the Red Room to watch some DJ unknown to me, and made a pit stop at a pub before the show.

Soon, Sheppy’s girlfriend (extremely intoxicated and lovey-dovey) and I got locked into an intense conversation, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed this girl sitting down talking to Sheppy. She was right in his face, but I could hear every word she said.

“He’s banging her for sure. For sure, he’s banging her.”

I then saw Sheppy turn to look at his girlfriend and I, and I saw something overcome his entire being. A feeling came over me, one I have never felt before or since, but in hindsight I’d describe it like this: You are a rat, you have been put in a cage, and staring you down just out of striking range is a massive python (Punjab Heffner is a wrestler).

I decided to tackle the snake head-on before this got out of hand. I approached Sheppy and told the girl he was chatting with to mind her own business. Sheppy said he wanted to believe me and hummed and hawed, semi-accepting my words. Time went on, Sheppy was still fuming and the shark-like girl still circled looking to create drama. I headed across the street; this situation was a fiery cauldron begging to boil over and I wanted out. Sheppy’s girlfriend, oblivious to everything that was going on, jumped up, ran across the street and grabbed my hand to skip across the street with me. I was defenceless and position-less—the python was out of the cage and bearing down on me.

WWIII breaks out:

The shark girl screams. Sheppy freaks out. And a full scrum starts.

I try to explain to Sheppy, but there is no chance. He smashes the window with his hand in lieu of my face and is bleeding everywhere. But the snake is not satiated with a glass rat; he still craves flesh and blood.

Luckily, Erkel grabs Sheppy and pushes him into the Red Room. Meanwhile I am outside with Sheppy’s girlfriend, still oblivious, and now sick. Her friends dusted her off and eventually she went back into the bar. Some time later, we see her making out with T-Bear’s girlfriend at the time. (At least this took the heat off me. I’m thinking “This has got to help my argument.”) Meanwhile, Sheppy is fuming in the far corner of the bar with a broken hand and doesn’t know it yet.

I decide there’s no win here. It’s time to write the night off. I go home.

After a couple of days of reflection, Sheppy’s girlfriend calls me up, beside herself. Sheppy doesn’t believe her that nothing’s going on.

“Listen Chris, it’s a figment of your imagination and that bitch girl put it there.”

Sheppy agreed to meet up and talk it out. We headed to Starbucks on 3rd and Burrard. Man to man. We sat down and started talking. Soon, we discovered we had both done the Landmark Training, which helped us find common ground and communicate properly.

It was amazing actually; after an hour, I loved this guy. His heart was open, raw and pouring out blood, but he could still talk rationally and share his love and pain openly. I had to have this guy. So I offered him an opportunity to become a coach right there and then.

Crazy shit, right? Life is a trip, Cabrone.
What I learned from that first dramatic encounter with Sheppy was that you can always communicate with him. It might take a while to get there, but you can always get there. Sheppy might be a dangerous Python, as well as whiny and bitchy, but that’s what it means to be Sheppy. He cares more than anyone. And he cares about his clients. Nobody socializes with their clients as much as Sheppy does. He’s a part of their lives and one of my best friends. Sheppy is the foundation of one of the most important features of our school: Coach for Life. We love ya Sheppy!! Go give him a hug when you see him. He likes that stuff.

At about the same time Sheppy was coming through the ranks, so was Andy ‘Nutts” Nuttall.

Andy Nutts was a workhorse. He’d be the first one to arrive in the morning, on his bike in the rain, and the last guy there at night. We’d talk about putting up chalkboards one day, and he’d have them built the next morning. Andy got shit done.

When Andy first came in as a client, he was working as a painter for $10 an hour. I charged him $65 for personal training, and he was the first client to agree to do 20 one-on-one sessions. He needed that many. He had a bad back —“crooked as a politician.” I knew I had to straighten his back out. I didn’t have many tools in my arsenal, so I made him deadlift everyday. He basically paid me $65 an hour to deadlift. But he got stronger and soon had a 400 lb. deadlift. By the time he led men in battle in Afghanistan three years later, he was known as the fittest man in the military.

When Andy first started coaching, his first client was slightly crazy, with an even more eccentric friend who was trying to get into the hot stone massage business. I told him, “Andy, she doesn’t have any money but you need to learn how to train people. Just take the hot stone massages for a trade.”

He comes back after the second massage, his face so puffed up he looks like the Michelin Man.

“Fuck this, Patterson. I can’t take any more of those stone massages. I’m 27 years old. I’m trying to get in the military. I don’t need luxury. I need hardship. No more massages, Patterson.”

So I paid Andy out of pocket and I took the massages. You couldn’t stop that woman. I remember coming off the table, and almost cutting my finger off with a jig saw (CFP and BK were cutting out a sign) for not being able to see through my eyes after a three hour and 15 minute massage.

A bit after Andy Nutts, Andy Sack came along. Nutts and Sack—good one, right? Nutts’ idea.

He was a great athlete and an incredible technician. His attention to detail was unmatched. Even today, the young apprentices coming through know this and look up to Andy.

Where Andy struggled was with being social and communicating with people. I constantly badgered him to be more social and approachable. I was always trying to throw girls at him, too. Many have tried, few have succeeded: Lars and Jesse picked up this torch years later to possible greater success? Either way, I pushed him so much he hated me at one point.

In 2009, during the height of his hatred, we had a bit of a rift in the community, so I went on a date night with The Urban Monk out to Hy’s Steakhouse to make sure we weren’t going to lose him.

He ordered the cheese toast and a bone-in rib eye steak and I put him on the baby scotch program. Three hours and $300 later, we had an agreement. I told him we’d make sure we’d be able to help him make enough money to live. I needed him, our community needed him. I ignored the hatred for the time being.

Today, Andy is the heart behind our continued education credits. He’s the most certified man around, but he also knows that practical application is important. He’s the most innovative coach when it comes to applying and turning his academic knowledge into creative cues that make sense for the client. He is ‘The Man’. Even the competition crazy youngins look to him for answers.

And finally, there was Charlie. When God was handing out the chits, Charlie lined up in the “cool line” twice. (And by the time he got to the math line, the shop was closed up). I grew up with CFP and started babysitting him when he was about 7. The shift finally ended last October. I loved every minute of it.

To us, Charlie brought the ability to be present with every single client. He was patient beyond belief and one of the best listeners you’ll ever meet. His clients loved him, and for a couple years there, his 8 pm class took on a life of its own — the “8 pm Love Class” was legendary, entirely built on loyalty to Charlie.

Charlie also helped us understand the importance of practical application and hands-on learning. He learned how to coach by osmosis. He was never going to sit down and study a textbook – that wasn’t Charlie. I’m not even sure he can read? But he allowed us to grow our practical side of the program. (Today, all apprentices start out by shadowing senior coaches for six months before they start working with their own clients).

Charlie also helped us understand the importance of having management and client tools that are simple and easy to use (thanks to the time six months went by and Charlie didn’t notice that a dozen of his clients hadn’t been billed).

So here I was in 2009 with an eviction notice casting a raincloud on my life, reliving all of the important moments that had turned us into a teaching facility, trying to figure out how to turn us into an official school.

I knew I needed to raise one more coach properly. I needed to put someone through a slightly more formal program that followed a systematic plan based on all the lessons learned from my previous coaches. I needed to document the process and create a program that could be replicated for future apprentice coaches to follow.

There needed to be mentorship, and I would need to spend a lot of time with this person, the way I did with TBear, so I had to find someone I could hang out with. I knew this person was going to have to learn how to be a great salesman. This person was going to have to be able to get involved in his clients lives and bring classes to life the way Sheppy does. This person was going to have to be committed to the cause — a work-horse — like Andy Nutts. This person was going to have to be a great athlete with a technical knowledge of the movements like Andy Sack. This person would have to possess Charlie Palmer-like patience when it came to building a client base, and above all possess the loyalty of a Kermit or CJ or Lumber of Afghan, and the scent of a Ginger Crotch (More on them and on other MLS legends in chapter 9). This would require a willingness to shadow and learn on the floor for months as a true student before getting paid a cent. And finally, this person would need a bit of Patterson: Cock, balls and recklessness.

I needed to find the Jackie Robinson of MadLab (although we weren’t breaking any colour barriers, there were massive challenges to converting gym rats into professors). This apprentice needed heart, grit, determination, innovation, intelligence, and athleticism.

Where the fuck was I going to find this person?

Then that October, I saw her. A picture of swaggering Cock and Balls. A tranny in LuLu’s.

She was on the rowing machine. A tall, athletic creature; she was amazing. I had never seen anything like her. Julius Pepper with better boobs.

There were some rough edges, however. She was rowing so hard, a cheese farm had built up around the corners of her mouth, and as we started talking I noticed a greyish smudging on her teeth giving the impression of rural hygiene.

“I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I have a couple useless degrees. I’m not sure if I want to cling onto the rowing dream to please my mother or move on with my life,” she told me. She was so blunt, so raw, so real, so hot…

I was in love. (The teeth and corner cheese were issues we might be able to work with).

Eunice became my last great project (nicknamed Eunice for the old-woman conservativeness she expressed when she first moved here. I now call her Rose, as she can be short-sighted and a little greedy, just like Rose from the Titanic, who clung onto the life raft and left her lover Jack to freeze to death: Short-sighted and a little greedy.).

Editor’s Note: I might as well step in and tell this part of the story since it’s about me.

I was lost and confused, and I was totally oblivious to the pending doom that was going on at CrossFit Vancouver, when I arrived in 2009 (although I sensed Patty was stressed).

One of the first times we went out for breakfast, I decided to see what I could drum up about Andy Sack. Like many women before and after me, I was drawn to Andy.

“Do you think Andy is happy? I asked Patty, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, excited about my new crush. Patty, who was looking off into the distance as he pushed his hash browns around his plate, was clearly distracted—borderline consumed—by some other stress. He looked my way, dazed, tired before mustering a response: “Is anyone really happy?” he asked in a hopeless rhetoric.

When Patty took me on, I had no idea he was planning on using me as a test case to prove his business worked. I had no idea his business was even threatened. There was just something about him that drew me in.

Sidenote: Just to answer the question many people wonder, we’ve never so much as kissed (with tongue, at least. We came close on opening ceremonies night at the Olympics), although I used to prance around in his living room in my bra and underwear and sleepover in the same bed on occasion. I found out later he had to go to counselling because of it. “No, don’t do it,” Mahara, Patty’s “rebirther” warned him, right before we sat down at Deacon’s Corner for breakfast one morning and spit shook on refraining from going down that path with each other. (When Patty finally met Audrey a couple years later, nobody breathed a bigger sigh of relief than my mother).

Patty and I did become incredibly close, though. It was a true mentorship. He passed on the wisdom about fitness, business and life he had learned from Glassman, and I believed every word he said.

“Eunice, don’t worry. You’ll be off the tit soon. Tell your mom you’ll be making $3,000 a month before Christmas.”

“Eunice, $5,000 before the summer.”

“You’ll be off your mother’s tit soon.”

Not realizing I was a guinea pig and he was just throwing numbers out there to motivate me—and so I could tell my mom I was getting closer to being financially independent—I chose to believe in him. To believe in the system. Ignorance is bliss: I took his words as fact, as opposed to motivation, and made it happen.

Although the system was still rag-tag back then, the path to becoming a coach was paving itself in front of me: I shadowed classes and learned how to coach technically. I took my Level 1 certification. I studied and wrote five written exams. I got to know my clients, and when I could afford it, I started taking clients for lunch or drinks to show my appreciation. I listened to Patty’s sales advice. I figured out how to bring people in on my own. I hosted community events (some worked out well like The Valentine’s Day Dating Game. Others, like the clothing swap, were epic failures) and ran specialty programs, such as rowing seminars.

While the system was still a little fuzzy back then —I got a raise from Patty one time for flexing my hamstrings for an Asian girl he was into during his ill-fated “Pilipino Fever” phase.

But the big graduation milestones were in place: I graduated from Junior to Senior B apprentice once I brought three clients in to the gym, from Senior B to Senior A once I had 10 clients, and from Senior A to Associate coach once I had 25 clients and 50 percent referrals.
The system, loose as it was back then, always made a ton of sense to me. You take care of your clients and the business (and free market) takes care of you. In January 2011, I Graduated to Associate Coach and finally got off of Angela’s tit.

Ok, back to Patty’s story.

I spent countless thousands of dollars getting our school registered, getting our processes in order and gathering those 120 testimonial letters.

Overall, it took us a while—8 gruelling months—to get our ducks in a row, but everyone stepped up and made it happen. My girlfriend at the time was a school teacher, and even though our relationship was in tatters, she did a tremendous amount of work helping us gain accreditation. She threw in work stoppages and work to rule actions, and a big screen TV and a trip to Vegas in the fall of 2009 later, the PCTIA accepted us as a member. This was about the time Eunice stumbled into the facility.

While the federal and provincial governments recognized us as a school, the fight wasn’t over. We still had to convince the City. We still didn’t have our business license to operate legally and were in all kinds of legal action from it. The legal and consulting bill was mounting.

In the following months, we came close—or I thought we came close—a couple times. I was so desperate for my business license drama to be over I kept calling pre-emptive celebrations. One night cost me $1,000 in booze at the Cascade room when I jumped the gun and celebrated winning the war with a group of my top coaches. (Editor’s note: The bartender said it was the biggest tip he’d ever received from one person. Two staff came in for a first day shortly after). During another night of early celebrations, we accidentally hard-boiled $150 in prime New York strips while holding booze laden handstand push-up competitions in the living room.

After each celebration, I woke up the next morning to a new cease and desist order on our door. (Andy would arrive at the school early and take them down before anyone could freak out).

One day, when it was obvious to all that I was struggling, T-Bear approached. Waiting for the inevitable clicks and whistles and dreading the effort to have to translate into human – out came English.

“Hey, if I have to go back and work for some fucking idiot in some office and wear a suit again. You’ve totally fucked me, Patterson.”

Once a week, Kermit would approach from an obtuse angle. ”Where’s it at now, Craig? You ok?”

Her voice quieted my anxiety.

Often I found myself in the deepest moments of despair—the guilt of not doing this by the book from the beginning ate me alive—working on the solution and living with an overwhelming sense of doom, was my consistent daily struggle. On weeknights, I’d have a triple scotch just to not think for a few moments. Two of those and I actually felt normal. This became my daily routine for two years.

While contemplating the risks of having a heart attack waiting for my business license, I hired a well-recommended 85-year-old consultant named Merwin Chercover. He refused to have me as a client until he believed our case was legit. Once he believed we were a school, he took me on as probably his last major client in what he said was one of his longest, most gruelling cases in a very long career.

When the day finally came (involved parties refused to hear our case, so we went over their heads) to meet with the City—I sat down with my 85-year-old consultant and three hefty binders at my side.

My man was a buzz saw when we met with a host of City managers in a three-hour meeting to determine our fate. Merwin was foaming at the mouth when he finally stood up and shouted.

“This is a school. I put my reputation on it. I’ve been here working with you guys for 40 years. My reputation is 100 percent. I wouldn’t have backed these guys if I didn’t think this was a school. This is a school,” he said, foam flying.

On the way out I looked at this little waddling old fart and I welled up. Eventually, through glistening eyes I offered, “Fuck me, Merwin, I didn’t know you were a pit bull?” He stopped, removed his bifocals and looked into my eyes. I immediately recognized my error. “Didn’t you know?” he asked with a dead straight expression. Thanks Merwin, you are a dude!

Finally, on D-Day, 2011, it arrived—the most important document I’ve ever achieved and for a moment I felt joy.

We blew up the business license, and it still hangs on our wall today.

In hindsight, I now acknowledge my part in the whole debacle and pledge to never cut corners again, but at the end of the day the trouble the City was a blessing. At first, I really resented them. I was full of fear and hatred. But it turned out to be a massive silver lining on a dense rain cloud. It nearly killed me, and it endangered the livelihood of close friends who entrusted me with their future, but it was necessary.

We became, and still are, the only registered vocational School of Fitness in the country—the only facility of its kind that can give diplomas in “functional fitness”—and became the backbone of the MadLab Group.

Somehow the world seems to take care of us.

Our community was now safe—our facility, our coaches, our clients were thriving again.

We were all good.

Until a new disaster arrived. It had its own LOGO.

Friday

Warm Up: Coach Choice

Include Side Plank Twists

Strength/Skill:

A) 12 Minutes to find Heavy Deadlift Double

B) 6 Minute OTM: 3 Hang Cleans @ 50-70% of part A

Conditioning:

OTM as far as possible

5 Thrusters 75/55
6 Pull Ups
7 Burpees

You may take one break; use it wisely.

Saturday

SEEYOU AT THE BEACH FOR A FUN BEACH WORKOUT! 10am Start