Jedi Mind Trick? Or Just a Great CrossFit Coach?

Last summer, I conquered box-jump fear.

Or so I thought.

Some preamble: A decade ago, I could rep out rebounding 20-inch box jumps without a second thought. But years of mental-health struggles and my coping mechanism of choice — namely, pepperoni pizza — gave me 100 lb of excess body weight and took away my box jump.

I’ve been on a quest to get it back, and in July, I finally graduated from the 12-inch foam box to 18 inches. It felt like magic.

But magic, it seems, doesn’t always work when you want it to. Despite many successful leaps to the taller box — even in the context of a workout — I couldn’t predictably get them. I relied on an almost religious warm-up routine to wind up my hops: 12-inch box; 12-inch on top of four 45-lb plates spread out like a platform; 12-inch box plus 45-lb plates plus 10-lb plates; 18-inch box (just setting up my station was a workout itself). If I failed a rep, back down I’d go ‘til I felt the magic again.

On Friday, Oct. 7, the workout began with a front-squat session. But I was preoccupied with what came next — 5 rounds, each 2 minutes: 100-m sprint, 150-m row, and max-rep burpee box jumps in the remaining time. One minute’s rest between rounds.

While my classmates squatted, I slipped into the other room and set up my plate platform to practice.

Small box, small box, big. Fail.

Small box, small box, big. Fail.

“Turn it around,” a voice behind me said. Coach Terrence. He’d seen me through the garage doorway separating the two workout rooms. He always sees.

“Turn it the other way so you don’t see the 18,” he clarified, referring to the white number stamped on the side of the box. “The mind is powerful.”

I rotated the box, bent my knees, and — failed to jump. Again. Frustration seethed through me. The workout was moments away.

“Try moving it away,” Terrence said. As it was, I had the 18-inch box placed right beside the plate/box contraption. That way I could easily move to the shorter setup if I failed.

“Your brain is looking at the difference between them and freaking out,” he explained.

I was reluctant. Merely facing a different direction could throw me off my game, let alone dragging the box away from my safety net entirely.

Coach T gave me a shrug and a pointed look.

“The mind is powerful,” he repeated before he went to start the clock.

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“The CrossFit coach is not a cheerleader. The act of coaching is deliberate, focused attention: looking at one person at a time, considering their specific context, caring deeply about their goals and challenges, and helping them progress step by step so they can discover their true potential.”

 

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I sighed, and dragged the box to the middle of the room. No safety net — unless I wanted to waste half the 30 seconds I’d have left after the sprints to accumulate reps.

In the first round, I missed the first jump.

“Make it the same every time,” Terrence said over my shoulder. “As soon as you stand up from the burpee, step with the left foot, right foot, jump.”

I nodded and dropped to the mat for another burpee. Left, right — jump.

“Yes!” he shouted as the round ticked over.

When I got off the rower in Round 2, I quickly scanned the room. No one was looking; the pressure was off. Left, right, jump. Left, right, jump. I sat down during the rest to collect my breath.

“No misses that round,” Terrence said as he breezed by.

I got 32 box jumps that workout. It was like a Jedi mind-trick moment. And Coach Terrence had caught the whole thing, covertly watching me on the gym’s security monitor so I didn’t feel pressured.

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“Being a great coach is a rigorous undertaking. And yet this is the work our best coaches do every day. … Doing this well is an art. It’s not easy, but when you get it right, you have something akin to magic.”

 

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The victory felt great — until the next box-jump workout. I’d once again lost hold of the magic.

For another few months, I remained tethered to the safety-net setup. Although I continued to follow Coach Terrence’s recommendation to set up the tall box away from the short one, I had to start with the short one — and keep it nearby.

Until Dec. 23 — another Friday-night workout: 5 bar muscle-ups, 5 box jumps (as high as possible), 200-m row, 40 double-unders. A 15-minute AMRAP.

It was the first time I’d had Terrence as a coach in a box-jump workout since the Jedi mind-trick moment. I thought about all the workouts between then and now that had sent me back on the plate pile — and I decided I didn’t want him to see me stuck in the safety net again.

I left the plates on their ledge and pulled an 18-inch box from the stack. I didn’t even bother with a practice jump.

And with nothing to compare it to — without the feel of a shorter flight — I got every rep.

“The mind is a powerful thing,” Coach Terrence said again after I told him what I’d done.

And so is a great coach.