All-
As you know, there's change afoot at the Box. You've been able to see some of it over the past few months; some of it, you haven't.
So, to bring you up to speed, wanted to run down a list of new developments. All of them should help make the Box a better place, make your life easier, and/or make you a better athlete.
Away we go:
1. The Box is Moving
We (finally) have a new home!
CFNYC will be moving shortly to 30 W 37th St., between 5th and 6th Ave., about a block and a half from our current location.
The space takes up the entire second floor, and is about 5000 square feet - roughly five times our current usable square footage.
Currently, the space is built out as a "massage parlor". So, our first order of business is basic wrecking - knocking down the walls that sub-divide the space into a whole lot of little rooms, removing the hot tubs in each (trust us, you wouldn't want to sit in them without a lot of prophylactic antibiotics), and basically bringing things back to a large, empty rectangle.
That process should take between one and three weeks, after which we'll be moving in. (We'll be posting a more exact date shortly.)
Or, rather, you'll be moving in, as the basic plan for transporting equipment is a 'carry shit for time' WOD. Oh, come on, you'll love it.
As a thank you for doing that work, we'll also be comping members the month of May. If you're a monthly member, we won't run your card this month, and if you're yearly, we're adding an extra month to the end of your year.
While we can get things running - and running much better than they are now, as we'll be able to do two (or even three) classes at the same time in the larger space - with a bare-bones box, over the next couple of months we'll also be building out showers and expanding our equipment collection. (And with more concrete uses for additional funding, we'll be reviving our previously shelved small investment round; more info on that shortly.)
As you all doubtless know, finding a space has been a looooooong and painful process, so we hope you're as excited as we are to have something in place.
2. Temp Space
While we're now trying to buy ourselves a few more days of time in our current space, and trying to expedite completion of the new one, there's a reasonable chance that things won't line up quite perfectly, and that for a short period of time we may be working out in a temporary location. We have several such backup possibilities in place, and all are within about ten blocks of the Box.
Obviously, we'd prefer to move straight to our new home. But, if we can't, we hope you'll forgive that inconvenience as inevitable growing pains. Either way, more info on that soon, too.
But, also either way, at least we should be able to move only once - placing equipment in a section of our new space even while the rest is being completed. Which is good news, as bumper plates and kettlebells are apparently heavy to carry up and down flights of stairs.
3. WOD Classes as Actual Classes
As a result of the space crunch, our WOD classes (especially those in the evening) have gradually gone from real classes - with warm-ups, skill practice, the WOD, and a cool-down - to multi-heat scrambles to squeeze people in.
We'll be doing our best to remedy that in the new space.
One part of the solution will be moving Elements classes to 6:30-7:30pm (for both the M/F and T/Th classes), which will allow us to shift WOD classes to full hour blocks, from 6:00-7:00pm and 7:00-8:00pm, and to make sure we have a skill-focused element of each WOD class.
4. Rest Day Topics
At the same time, your cleans still suck too much for us to fix by spending more time on them only when they come up in the WOD.
So, to make sure people keep improving their technique, we're changing rest day programming. Instead of randomly making up alternate WODs, we'll be going through a pre-scheduled rotation of topics, one rest day at a time:
Snatch
KB Swing
Squats
Handstands
Running
Clean
KB Presses
Deadlift
Levers / Planches
Rowing
Jerk
KB Clean & Snatch
Presses
Rings / Muscle-Ups
Mobility / Stretching
During WOD classes on rest days, we'll start with 45 minutes of time spent focusing on that day's skill, and end with a final 15 minutes of met-con workout built around the skill. That way, you can get a workout as part of those classes, or come to them as rest day active recovery and skip the class-ending workout.
5. Elements Advanced
Beyond even those rest day topics, a number of recent Elements graduates have also requested more structured, intensive fundamentals-focused programming. To that end, we'll be adding in new Elements Advanced classes. These will be month-long, twice-weekly series, that focus for the entire month in depth on one of four areas: power lifting, olympic lifting, kettlebells or gymnastics.
Like Elements Classes, these will be by registration, and for an additional fee. We'll likely run two each month, each covering a different one of the four topics, with registration open to any Elements graduate or current member.
6. Open Gym
At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of our more advanced members have asked for a time when they can simply come in, hit the WOD hard, and go home.
We'll therefore be adding an 'Open Gym' time slot from 8:00-10:00pm. Open gym will be open by permission only, to members who've attended a cert or who've belonged to CFNYC for more than six months.
7. Park Workouts
With the weather warming, we're also kicking back off our summer tradition of workouts in the park.
Per usual, we'll be scheduling those for Saturday mornings at 10:30am, and we'll initially start with two a month (though we're happy to add more if there's demand).
Saturday morning workouts at the Box will continue, too, so you can decide if you'd rather stick with the prescribed WOD, or head outdoors for something usually a bit more running-intensive (and more likely to terrify poor bystanders).
8. Park Workouts In Brooklyn
On our path to world domination (or, at least, to multiple CFNYC locations - UES, UWS, downtown, etc.), we're hoping to open a CFNYC location in Brooklyn later this year.
To avoid stepping on the toes of the very fine CF South Brooklyn crew, we'll be staying north, right around McCarren Park. So, as a lead-up to that, we'll also be adding weekly AM classes, and bi-weekly Sunday morning classes, in McCarren starting next month, too.
9. Seminars, Leagues, etc.
Finally, we have a bunch of other odds and ends brewing, to take advantage of all our new space. High on that list is booking seminars (Rip! Burgener!) and certs (Annie! Nicole!) right here in NYC. Also high up on that list is our first Summer League, where teams of three (at least one guy and one girl on each) will compete against other teams - from within CFNYC, and from other regional affiliates - on group workouts.
That's that. Apologies for having written a bit of a book here, but we think all of this is more than worth sharing.
We'll be posting further details as they emerges. But, in the meantime, if you have questions, suggestions, etc. certainly feel free to chime in.
