After months of careful consideration, consulting with coaches, members, and other affiliates, and seeing REAL change, we are looking to become a CrossFit affiliate once again. Here’s why…
We want to give a very warm welcome to the newest member of our Cove coaching team, Dejah Ortega! The first time she walked in the doors she was family. She’s longtime member Nelda’s niece — and Dejah and her mom (Day) spent a week at the Cove over the holidays. From day one, it was like they’ve been here forever.
Dejah was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Growing up, she was always active and attempted sports like basketball, karate, and eventually found a groove in softball where she played for over 10 years. But it wasn’t always a smooth and easy path. In trying to overcome to some personal challenges, she found her coping mechanism became food. She recognized that her eating had changed her (both physically AND emotionally) into something she didn’t recognize in the mirror.
Seven years ago her mom (also a longtime coach) introduced her to CrossFit and she hasn’t looked back since. The sport has been an integral part of her maturation as an athlete, but most importantly as a human being.
She and her mom embarked on an incredible journey, not just reinventing themselves physically, but connected them in such deep and meaningful ways. She’s learned so much about herself along the way. Grit, perseverance, and humility are some of the major values that CrossFit has taught her. The overall experience has changed her in so many ways, from a significant loss in weight and a massive gain in strength, drive, and confidence!
Since moving to Maryland a month ago, Dejah already feels at home at the Cove and is excited to share this next step in her CrossFit journey with the community. We couldn’t feel more lucky to have her.
Today we hope you take a moment to reflect on the meaning of MLK Day today. The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who sowed the seeds of hope and healing in America.
The King Holiday honors the life and contributions of America’s greatest champion of racial justice and equality, the leader who not only dreamed of a color-blind society but who also lead a movement that achieved historic reforms to help make it a reality. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness, and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit. Always of service to his community, he reminds us that we are nothing without one another. Regardless of our backgrounds, race, religions, or creed, we are one. And we need to tend to each other as such. Consider this as inspiration to how we behave not just today, but every day. Let’s be of service to one another and to those in our community. No act of kindness is too big or too small as anything is better than nothing at all.
Good evening Covies! We are looking forward to seeing many of you tomorrow as we resume our normal class schedule Friday, January 8th. We’ll be reminding you all to stay vigilant, follow our distancing and mask policies and continue to clean your equipment. We are hopeful these were isolated cases and we can continue to provide you with a safe place to be fit, clear your minds and connect with some awesome people.
Speaking of awesome people, most of you have probably seen the Cove Club post that Katie F. is canceling the Kid’s classes and Sunday yoga for now. Due to some personal choices, the Covid climate and schedule shifts, she is doing what’s best for her. We only want what’s best for each of you and this is certainly true for Katie. She is core to this place and we respect her decision immensely. We do not have a clear plan right not to provide the outlets her sessions offered to you and our Cove kiddos, but we are working on it.
As always, stay tuned to this page and to the Cove Club for any and all updates. Thank you all for the community and support you offer us — and each other!
We cannot apologize enough for the disruption of the gym closing, but I hope you’ll understand why we felt compelled to do so. As you know, there have been isolated cases in the gym before that we did not feel warranted a large scale closure. But in this instance, not only did we have two Covid cases, but what makes this different is the breadth of their contact points.
While hate seeing anyone in this community have to take on Covid, the last thing we want is to create any opportunity for further spread. After discussing it as a team, we, and the coaching staff, felt that the best thing to do to avoid any potential outbreak would be to close for a period of time. For us, that means enough time so that those who were exposed could have time to monitor for symptoms and time be tested — and allowed us to do a deep clean and re-visit safety procedures.
To that end, Marina and I will likely be coaching all classes on Friday and Saturday (this could change too per above). In complete transparency, so that you can make a decision that is best for you, we traveled to Mexico to Marina’s mom’s house this past week. We stayed in her home, which has been unoccupied for months, with only our family of four (her mom was not there). We dined outside only and our only proximity to other people was in the airport and plane (where we adhered to social distancing required and masked 100% of the time). We arrived home yesterday, I tested while away and tested today and Marina will retest Wednesday. The test away was negative and if both tests come back negative in the States we will be at the gym. We tell you this because we want to serve those who want/need to get to the gym, but also provide as much information and context so you can make the most educated choice for you. We expect things back to normal (is there such a thing?) by Monday.
As some of you know we’ve recently had two members of the cove community test positive for Covid-19.
Out of an abundance of caution, we will be canceling classes tomorrow (1/5) and Wednesday (1/6).
There will likely be impacts to the schedule for the remainder of the week as well. We are closely monitoring the situation and working on safe solutions. More info to come soon.
Check back here for periodic updates and on the Cove Club Facebook page for the most up to date information. We know this is a blow, especially at the start of the new year, but your health and safety is our number one priority.
For the time being, we will be providing at-home programming options, and don’t forget about all of the Engine Express at-home workouts on our Youtube channel!
We wanted to take a brief moment to wish you all a happy New Year — and thank you for all of your support during this very trying 2020. It’s been a bear of a year for most, but for small businesses like ours, it came with some other challenges we could never imagine.
So many of you continued to support us during the shutdown and if not for this, we could not have survived. And once open, you continued to put your trust and belief in us with your health and safety. The gravity of this does not weigh lightly and we appreciate every bit of encouragement or thanks you gave as we tried our best. While we have lost a lot of members in the last nine months, we know we are about to turn a very exciting corner and this place will be stronger and better than ever (an epic belated Anniversary Bash is already in the works!)
We are doing all we can to responsibly add value to your time here with things like barbell club, kids classes, youth conditioning, and more. One piece of news we wanted to share is that we are partnering with a local massage therapist, James Barbosa (please introduce yourself and say hi when you see him!), and he’ll be utilizing space at the Cove for his practice. He was recently displaced when the gym he was working at closed, and we are thrilled he can find a home here (in the kids room for the time being). This does NOT mean we are shifting away from our family-focused mentality at all, but until we can ensure a safe and effective solution for the kids’ room, he will be utilizing this under-utilized space.
We and the coaches, care more for your well-being than you could ever imagine. And that goes far beyond the physical nature of what we do in being labeled as ‘a gym’. During these crazy times, providing you with your “cove”… that respite from the outside world for just that one hour a day… is our driving force.
This place has always been grounded in community, connection. caring and empathy — and 2020 brought this into focus in ways we couldn’t imagine. This has been one of the brightest spots for us in an otherwise dark year. We’ve always said there was #noplacelikecove, but now we hope you all FEEL it as much as we do.
Over this holiday week, we will taking on a guest coach for a couple of the evening classes. If you haven’t met Day yet, she is visiting us this month from LA. She is a coach at Nela Athletics for over 4 years and also is their nutrition coach. She brings a wealth of experience to the Cove and we are happy to have her for a couple of classes.
For those looking to work off some extra holiday calories, we have open gym from 11 AM to noon. We will however be taking a break from the Cove Barbell Club and Cove Kids this week.