"It's the way to becoming a better person."
Vanguard Gym is an MMA training-facility, as well as home to CrossFit Manassas. Owner, Douglas Esposito has been practicing martial arts for almost 35 years and using CrossFit since the early days.
"One of the principles of CrossFit is to go out and apply your level of fitness, go out and try other sports,” Esposito says. “We give an athlete an outlet to do that here," Esposito says.
Esposito uses a Japanese word, “do,” meaning “the way,” to describe the commonalities between CrossFit and MMA. He says practicing martial arts and CrossFit is the way to self-improvement.
"It's the way to becoming a better person. To push yourself, to find your limits and push past them,” he explains.
“Something I have heard Coach Glassman talking about a lot lately … ‘What do we do? Well, we make better people!’ On either side of the wall here, we are all working on being better people.”
The lessons go beyond the walls of the gym, Esposito says.
“The same lessons people learn in martial arts — when they set goals, put the time in and have that discipline and then see a reward from it — it’s very much the same in CrossFit,” he says. “The real value of that, whether it’s CrossFit or martial arts, is that they take it outside of here and apply it to the rest of their life and they grow as people.”
Esposito developed his values through his training, but finds that his clients are impacted much more by a conscious development of principles beyond the physical training itself.
At Vanguard, members explore a new value each month. These have included leadership, goal setting, planning, challenges, confidence and being the eternal student.
“I can't even tell you what a difference it makes in the culture and performance — it’s just awesome,” Esposito says.
