Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Great.
Helen Taylor (00:00):
Good. Good morning.
Sevan Matossian (00:03):
Good morning. Good morning to you, Helen. I’m going to copy and paste this, the Instagram account just below your name. Are you cool with that?
Helen Taylor (00:14):
Of course. Yeah, for sure.
Sevan Matossian (00:16):
That way anyone who wants to jump on board can. Sweet. We’re off to the races. We’re live. Good to see you. Thanks for doing it this morning.
Helen Taylor (00:28):
Are you kidding? Thank you for having me. I am grateful. It’s not every day someone wants to hear about a kids program, so I am grateful. Thank you.
Sevan Matossian (00:41):
Are you three hours ahead? Is it 10? Am there?
Helen Taylor (00:43):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (00:44):
Okay, cool. Fantastic. That makes me feel better. You’re in Detroit, Michigan?
Helen Taylor (00:50):
Yes.
Sevan Matossian (00:51):
Are you local there? Are you born and raised there? Are you native there?
Helen Taylor (00:53):
I am, yep.
Sevan Matossian (00:57):
How’d you end up there? Are your parents immigrants? The reason why I ask my grandparents were immigrants and my mom ended up in Detroit.
Helen Taylor (01:03):
Yes. My parents are immigrants from Greece,
Sevan Matossian (01:06):
So
Helen Taylor (01:07):
They ended up in this area of this outskirt area outside of Detroit called River Rouge. And I was born and raised here, but my parents did move back to Greece with me. So we lived back in Greece for a few years, then we came back to the exact same area,
Sevan Matossian (01:26):
A big Greek community in Detroit.
Helen Taylor (01:28):
It is a big Greek community. Where we were at is very multicultural, very diverse, big Polish community, Hispanic black community. So it was great. Good upbringing there.
Sevan Matossian (01:42):
Yep. I am Armenian. Both my parents are Armenian.
Helen Taylor (01:46):
Yes. I recognized your, my husband’s half Armenian.
Sevan Matossian (01:49):
Ah, okay. Very Armenian name. Alright. And Cleveland, Detroit, Dearborn, all places where tons, loads and loads of Armenians landed.
Helen Taylor (02:00):
Yeah, for sure.
Sevan Matossian (02:01):
Yeah. It’s crazy. It’s crazy that I have my roots there. And so you’ve been in Detroit how many years?
Helen Taylor (02:08):
I’ve been here for probably what, the last 35, 40 years. Yeah. Since we got back from Greece. I’ve been here.
Sevan Matossian (02:19):
Detroit was booming at one time. Right? When you were a kid, was it booming?
Helen Taylor (02:23):
It was, and then it was a huge downturn. Everybody left the city. It was a lot of crime, a lot of businesses closed, left, so it was pretty bad there for a while. And now we’re on a comeback. So now things are definitely changing. Detroit is a great city. I love it. And you got to come visit us. There’s a lot to do here. There’s a lot of good stuff.
Sevan Matossian (02:50):
Cities that get revitalized have so much potential. Portland had, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Portland. It’s sad what ended up happening, but it had so much potential because it went through sort of awakening, kind of a rebirth. And in Cincinnati kind of is going through that
Helen Taylor (03:06):
In
Sevan Matossian (03:06):
Columbus. There’s these towns that were big towns. They got small, and now they’re growing again. And there’s a lot of, I was just looking yesterday on Trulia at homes in Detroit. Wow. There’s crazy opportunities.
Helen Taylor (03:19):
I know, right? I know.
Sevan Matossian (03:21):
Crazy beautiful homes there that are relative to California standards are so affordable.
Helen Taylor (03:27):
Yep, it is. It’s a great city and it’s exciting to be a part of it. It’s exciting to see how everything’s changing. People are coming back, businesses are coming back. Downtown is filling up with, we’ve got a Gucci store now, which is huge for us, and Lululemon and all kinds of other nice businesses that are coming in that are going to be huge and very helpful. So
Sevan Matossian (03:54):
What happened? Is it just as simple as we hear from the outside, the automotive industry just left?
Helen Taylor (04:01):
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that, I mean, there’s just a lot going on. There’s a lot of new businesses coming in. Things are just getting money’s coming in, which is what we need. We need.
Sevan Matossian (04:18):
But I mean, when it took the downturn, what happened? Oh,
Helen Taylor (04:20):
Yeah, yeah. The automotive for sure.
Sevan Matossian (04:22):
That was
Helen Taylor (04:23):
A big part. Yeah, it was a big part of it. Huge.
Sevan Matossian (04:26):
And why did they move? Is it just the basic cliche story? They packed up and went to Mexico and China and places where labor was cheaper and then just left the United States?
Helen Taylor (04:35):
Yeah, that’s a lot of it. There’s a lot of stuff like that that happened, unfortunately. But a lot of businesses do that, right? I mean, they look
Sevan Matossian (04:47):
After
Helen Taylor (04:48):
Interest and they don’t really see the effect that it has on everyone else in the community in general.
Sevan Matossian (04:55):
But
Helen Taylor (04:56):
The important thing is things are getting better. So that’s the good thing.
Sevan Matossian (05:02):
And I don’t mean it to be pointing fingers or blaming anyone. Everyone wants to run a financially successful business. Everyone’s looking for opportunity,
Helen Taylor (05:09):
Ways to save money. I mean everybody.
Sevan Matossian (05:14):
So you’re there as you’re born or you’re raised there, and then you go back to Greece and then you come back there and you’ve been there. Did you meet your husband in Detroit?
Helen Taylor (05:25):
No, actually, we met in high school. So yeah, my husband and I went to high school together. I did not go to high school in Detroit. My parents didn’t want me to go to the school there. So we were saying that at the time we didn’t have school of choice. So my parents, well, there’s a lot there, but my parents wanted me to go to a different school, so they said that I lived with one of my uncles in a suburb outside of Detroit, outside of River Rouge. And that’s how we met. We went in high school. We didn’t date in high school, but that’s where we met.
Sevan Matossian (06:04):
And you’re still together?
Helen Taylor (06:05):
Yeah, 33 years of marriage and I still like him.
Sevan Matossian (06:09):
Wow. Congratulations. That’s me.
Helen Taylor (06:11):
Yeah, thanks. A
Sevan Matossian (06:12):
Long-term. Long-term relationships are, I think are crowning achievements. I always think of my relationship with my wife as kind of my crowning achievement in life
Helen Taylor (06:21):
For sure. Nowadays, it is rare to hear this, especially because like I said, still I like him. We’re not together just for financial sake or kids’ sake. We’re together. We love each other, and we get along and we have a lot of common interests. And he’s a great guy. He’s easygoing, which helps a lot. High strung, and so it’s good. It’s a good thing.
Sevan Matossian (06:48):
Does he train?
Helen Taylor (06:50):
He doesn’t. He’s a cyclist.
Sevan Matossian (06:51):
Oh, so he does train. That’s what I meant. Comfortable.
Helen Taylor (06:53):
Yeah. So we cycle together. We used to compete together in cycling. I mean, not professionally or anything, just local competitions. So we did that together for a long time. And then I took a break to focus on CrossFit, and now I’m back to training, working out with him, cycling again and doing CrossFit, but trying to be a little bit more balanced nowadays.
Sevan Matossian (07:22):
Helen, in another podcast I was listening to, I’m trying to remember the name of it. It was on the Clydesdale channel.
Helen Taylor (07:32):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (07:33):
What was that gentleman’s name?
Helen Taylor (07:35):
Oh geez. I’m so sorry. I don’t remember.
Sevan Matossian (07:38):
That’s okay.
Helen Taylor (07:38):
Oh, I’m so sorry. He’s going to listen to this. I
Sevan Matossian (07:40):
Forget his
Helen Taylor (07:41):
Name.
Sevan Matossian (07:42):
No, no. That guy’s tough. I see him in the comments. He can handle it. Anyway, great podcast. I listened to it last night. And in there you guys were talking about, I always just call him Craig Howard, because he wears this flat rimmed hat that, do you know Craig Howard
Helen Taylor (07:55):
Owned
Sevan Matossian (07:56):
Pleasant Cross? Well, Craig Howard owns Diablo CrossFit, and they always kind of,
Helen Taylor (08:00):
I’ve heard of Diablo CrossFit, but
Sevan Matossian (08:03):
Anyway, you talked about being a martial artist for 23 years. Wow. How did you get into the martial arts?
Helen Taylor (08:10):
Was
Sevan Matossian (08:10):
It TaeKwonDo specifically?
Helen Taylor (08:11):
Yeah, TaeKwonDo. I’m a fourth degree black belt in TaeKwonDo. I’ve done some Kav MAGA also, but the majority of my training has been in TaeKwonDo. I got into TaeKwonDo because I was cycling with my husband, and he went ahead of me. I stayed back. We were mountain biking actually, and I got off my bike. It was in May, and got off my bike. There was no one in the woods that I sought and got off my bike to stretch, get some water, and I had a man come out of the woods and tried to sexually assault me, and I just freaked out. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I started screaming and yelling, and he’s just staring at me. He came up from behind me and grabbed me sexually, and then I froze. I didn’t know what to do. And then I kind of went crazy, started screaming, and then another cyclist said, Hey, I’m coming.
(09:08):
I hear you. I’m coming. And as he was coming, another cyclist was coming. He ran into the woods, and that scared me so much, and I didn’t know what would’ve happened if someone didn’t come. So I decided at that point, I was going to start looking somewhere to train for self-defense, to be able to defend myself if anything like that happened again. So I started martial arts for that reason, and then just fell in love with it, fell in love with the discipline of it, the structure, the self-control, the empowerment that I felt and just kept with it. Got my fourth degree black belt coached, took over running a studio, a martial arts studio for many years. So yeah, that was how I got into martial arts.
Sevan Matossian (10:04):
I hear, I don’t know if this is true, but I hear there’s like seven or 8 billion people on the planet.
Helen Taylor (10:10):
Well, it sounds about right,
Sevan Matossian (10:12):
And I don’t know how many there’s been in totality. I’m going to say, I’m just going to make this shit up 15 billion since evolution starter, since God put Adam and E or whatever the
Helen Taylor (10:27):
Origin
Sevan Matossian (10:27):
Story you want to go with. I bet you a woman’s never come out of the woods and grabbed a man sexually.
Helen Taylor (10:34):
No,
Sevan Matossian (10:34):
In the entire
Helen Taylor (10:35):
Fucking
Sevan Matossian (10:36):
History of time. I bet you it’s never happened the other way
Helen Taylor (10:42):
Around. I completely agree with you there.
Sevan Matossian (10:44):
And I don’t want to dog on men, but I want to point out to you that we are different creatures, and that right there is kind of the foundation of our difference, unfortunately. Well, or fortunately, I’m not sure how to, in this particular circumstance, it’s unfortunate. Oh, 117 billion. Really?
Helen Taylor (11:05):
Oh.
Sevan Matossian (11:06):
Oh. I thought we were just really top heavy on that end. That’s amazing.
Helen Taylor (11:09):
Yeah. You
Sevan Matossian (11:09):
Really think that there’s been that. Wow. Okay, fine. Good. I know this is not the point of the podcast. Can you tell me, did you get So you got away?
Helen Taylor (11:19):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, thankfully, like the other cyclists came and he ran into the woods and I thought about it, what would’ve happened? Would he have pursued more? Would we have fought what next? What would I have done? And first I just froze, and that was the scariest thing ever, just not doing anything. And then I just started screaming. I mean, I’m Greek, so I just started screaming and yelling, and I was like, someone help me. And that’s how my martial arts career started.
Sevan Matossian (11:56):
How soon after that?
Helen Taylor (11:58):
Oh, I went home. Immediately. We went with the park ranger. You made a sketch, all that stuff. They weren’t going to find anyone. There’s homes all around the trail. How would you find anybody back then? So nothing came out of it, but when I came home, I started looking for martial arts schools and what was I looking for in a school? Then I went and talked to some places and checked them out.
Sevan Matossian (12:28):
Yeah. It’s cool that you say you looked at schools, because I’ve heard these stories that are kind of tragic stories where someone takes martial arts for five years and they really didn’t learn anything. They went there thinking they were going to learn, and after five years their note, they learned some movements, but they’re not martial artists. How did you know which one? I mean, because you went there for a reason, you wanted to be able to apply a skill in a situation,
Helen Taylor (12:53):
Right. Well, for me, when I talked to the guy that I ended up going with, he was a neuropsychologist from Rutgers,
(13:05):
And he had extensive training in martial arts. And when I researched him, he had a good background with an original Grand Master who had been training with General Choi from back in North Korea, South Korea. And then also his wife was a big teacher in the community. So I felt like they were people that he had a good background in talking to him. He was very, very knowledgeable, very into martial arts, but very much into the psychology of humans, and incorporated that a lot into his training. I’ll never forget him. He taught me so much in fact, that I use the methodology that I learned from him. His name was Dr. Matthew Gonzalez. He actually now works for the government in Washington, dc. When people came back from Afghanistan, he did brain studies on them and stuff. So he’s in Washington now working for them. But he had such a great methodology of training, and I use that in my CrossFit kids program now. I mean, I pretty much run this program very similar to how we ran our martial arts program and how I was taught to interact with people and empower people and help people much deeper than just a physical level,
Sevan Matossian (14:45):
How to interact and empower. I’m going to come back to that. I just want to ask you one more question about the Marshall Arts. How did that change your personality, do you think? 23 years of TaeKwonDo?
Helen Taylor (14:58):
I feel it definitely has so much. I’m very disciplined vonne. If you knew me, if knew me personally, of the people that know me around here will tell you I’m very disciplined. You know how to take pain. You understand how to welcome pain and bring it along with you on a journey if you have to.
(15:24):
And it becomes part of you versus us wanting to get rid of the pain so quickly. When something becomes difficult, our first response is, we got to get rid of it. Got to get rid of it. Martial arts teaches you to learn from that, to bring it along with you as a partner on this journey that you’re on and you experience, what can you learn from it? How can you use it to benefit you versus rejecting it right away and wanting to get free from the pain or free from suffering. So it’s a lot. It’s a lot. But I’m very disciplined. I think that’s one thing that I’ve learned.
Sevan Matossian (16:03):
I think I was raised, what’s interesting is not only was I not taught to, I liked what you said, take pain on the journey, but I was raised to avoid pain, discomfort.
Helen Taylor (16:13):
The
Sevan Matossian (16:13):
Discomfort was actually something like, Hey, you should avoid that.
Helen Taylor (16:17):
And that’s what we’re taught.
Sevan Matossian (16:18):
That doesn’t feel good. Avoid that. Yeah, avoid discomfort.
Helen Taylor (16:21):
We’re taught that all the time. If it’s uncomfortable, get rid of it. But pain, discomfort, fear, all of those negative emotions that we experience can be used in a positive way, in a good way. And sometimes we do need to bring ’em with us and allow them to be part of our journey for at least some part of the time. Not all the time, but part of it.
Sevan Matossian (16:46):
If that would’ve happened to you and you would’ve had 15 years of martial arts training, would it gone down different?
Helen Taylor (16:53):
I think so. Would like to think it would’ve. I think I, I would believe that. I would like to have taught him a different lesson of what he did and what he thought he could do. Something that would give him thought to never do it again. So I would like to think that.
Sevan Matossian (17:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Helen Taylor (17:19):
You never know. I mean, I had friends in the martial arts who were wonderful competitors that I would compete with and spar with that had a real life attack happen to them, and they completely froze. So you never know how one will respond.
Sevan Matossian (17:43):
My kids have been doing martial arts for, yeah,
Helen Taylor (17:45):
I see that
Sevan Matossian (17:46):
Just almost every day. They do. First of all, there’s three brothers, so they wrestle and fight every day, but they have formal training almost every day for an hour, many days, two hours. And even just this weekend, a kid started hitting, we had a big birthday party at the house, and one of the boys started hitting one of the girls, and one of my sons jumped in to protect the girl. But soon as the boys started hitting my kid, my kid ran away screaming. I’m like, dude, you could beat that kid up. You never, and he goes, I just didn’t want to. I’m like, all right, I hear you.
Helen Taylor (18:17):
And those are lessons we
Sevan Matossian (18:18):
Learned. Yeah, totally.
Helen Taylor (18:21):
And we learned. We have to think about, why did I react that way? What was, it wasn’t. It’s something to reflect upon and go over.
Sevan Matossian (18:30):
Yeah. You know what? That’s good. I’m glad you’re saying that. When the show’s over, I’m going to sit down with them later today or go for a walk and then make space for ’em and just ask them.
Helen Taylor (18:39):
Yeah. No
Sevan Matossian (18:40):
Judgment. Hey, how did you make,
Helen Taylor (18:42):
Yeah, why did you want to avoid this?
Sevan Matossian (18:44):
What
Helen Taylor (18:44):
Was it inside of you? Was it a fear that you might lose control, fear that you didn’t want to cause a scene? I mean, there could be so many various reasons, but what kind of martial arts do they take?
Sevan Matossian (19:00):
And then in striking and kicking, so kind of a mixed martial art. They do formal juujitsu,
Helen Taylor (19:06):
Machado, or
Sevan Matossian (19:10):
I don’t know if it has some sort of name like that,
Helen Taylor (19:15):
Or Gracie. It’s usually like two forms. Gracie Jiujitsu,
Sevan Matossian (19:20):
YouTube Jujitsu.
Helen Taylor (19:23):
Well, yeah, there’s a lot that comes out. You know what? I think both. You have to, well see what form. It’s kind of like TaeKwonDo. There’s world TaeKwonDo, international, TaeKwonDo. There’s like sex that they break off. So Gracie and Machado are typically the two in jujitsu that go off. Both are very good. In fact, I think Juujitsu is probably one of the most practical martial arts out there, because most fights will end up on the ground. And you need to know what to do when you’re down there. You need to know what to do when someone’s on top of you or someone’s trying to jump on you. That is probably one of the most practical things. Kv maga, do you know much about
Sevan Matossian (20:17):
Crowd? A little bit, yeah, a little bit. A little bit.
Helen Taylor (20:19):
You got to look into that crazy stuff. Israeli military fighting. I mean, this stuff you can train to kill people. It’s pretty intense. Good stuff. I mean, good stuff in a positive way. I’m not sitting trying to tell you go out there and learn how to people, but just good, practical, empowering forms of martial arts.
Sevan Matossian (20:41):
Right. They do a lot of, gee, they do a lot of nogi. They do a bunch of tournaments, and then of course they do a lot of striking and kicking, just
Helen Taylor (20:50):
Yeah, I watch their videos.
Sevan Matossian (20:51):
Private classes. Yeah,
Helen Taylor (20:52):
They’re fun. Yeah, that’s great. That’s great.
Sevan Matossian (20:54):
Yeah. They’re,
Helen Taylor (20:55):
Sorry, I don’t want to take, I’m getting off on a tangent here. Sorry.
Sevan Matossian (21:00):
No, it’s important.
Helen Taylor (21:00):
Get me talking about martial arts. Brings up all the old days.
Sevan Matossian (21:04):
I love it. Did you used to compete in tournaments?
Helen Taylor (21:06):
I did, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (21:07):
How’d you do?
Helen Taylor (21:08):
I did alright. You did alright. I broke. Well, I fractured my shin, so yeah,
Sevan Matossian (21:17):
Kicking someone.
Helen Taylor (21:18):
Almost broke my nose. Just all kinds of fun stuff through the years.
Sevan Matossian (21:23):
Blocking a kick or applying a kick.
Helen Taylor (21:26):
Sorry. Blocking. Blocking. Well, obviously I got punched in the nose because I didn’t block. I missed the block. It came out of nowhere, man. I was seeing stars when they tell you, you see stars. I was seeing stars. I thought I was going to go down, but that was probably the worst one. And then the shin was colliding with someone blocking me. So that was brutal too.
Sevan Matossian (21:56):
Did you have success? Did you win tournaments?
Helen Taylor (21:58):
Yeah, I’ve won some tournaments.
Sevan Matossian (22:00):
Yeah. Nothing.
Helen Taylor (22:00):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (22:01):
Good on you. That feels good.
Helen Taylor (22:02):
Yeah, it does feel good. Yeah. I feel like I was a good, pretty decent martial artist. Nothing. No world champion out there. But I think I was just decent. And local competitions and stuff like that.
Sevan Matossian (22:18):
Your husband support you?
Helen Taylor (22:19):
Yeah, he’s great. He supports me out of all my crazy ventures.
Sevan Matossian (22:25):
And why stop? Why not keep doing? Is it a time thing? Why? I heard you say you retired and I twitched. Yeah.
Helen Taylor (22:33):
Yeah. I retired back in 2018 because I was helping run a martial arts studio. My instructor that owned the studio that I was telling you about, Dr. Gonzalez, when he went to Washington, he still owned the studio here. And I was helping run it, me and another instructor while he was in Washington dc And then eventually he sold it. I continued on with the new owners and for several years they were great. Very supportive. They’re super supportive of me and all the stuff I’m doing with the kids right now. But I just can’t do it. I wanted to try my everyone else in CrossFit. You want to see how well you do competing in CrossFit. So I wanted to focus all my time on competing, doing CrossFit and seeing how things would go for me. So I couldn’t do both. I just couldn’t. I tried for a little while, but it was just impossible.
Sevan Matossian (23:37):
You were biking though, and doing martial arts. That was the same time biking.
Helen Taylor (23:41):
And I did marathon running. I’ve done it all. I’ve competed cycling, and I’ve done six marathons. I go through these little cycles where I just think I want to run a marathon. Alright, I’ve never done this before. Let me do it. I want to run six. I have this obsessive personality that I love a challenge. I love to try to do something that I’ve never done before, something that’s very difficult for me to do. The good thing about it is that I just learn so many different things. The bad thing about it is sometimes once I do something, I just want to go to the next thing. I’m like, okay, I have check. Let’s see what else. I want to try to see if I could climb my Everest next. That kind of stuff. So I’m always looking for stuff. I don’t know. I’m probably sick in the head or something, but
Sevan Matossian (24:35):
It sounds healthy. It sounds like you’re making the most of life.
Helen Taylor (24:38):
Well, I like to think that.
Sevan Matossian (24:43):
And then, so tell me about how your path intersects with CrossFit. How does that pop on your radar?
Helen Taylor (24:50):
So how that happened was I was cycling and then I decided my mom was going through some health issues. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and my mom and I were very close. I was having a hard time dealing with her diagnosis. My dad was gone. He had passed away. So a friend of mine said, okay, you need to have something new to focus on, so let’s run a marathon. And that’s how that came about. So he said, Hey, I know this guy who’s a CrossFit coach, and let’s hire him to help train us during the off season of the beginning, start starting of this marathon training. So I’m like, cool, let’s do it. Did
Sevan Matossian (25:37):
You know what CrossFit was at that time? Had you heard of it?
Helen Taylor (25:39):
I had heard of it. I had heard of it, but didn’t have much of an interest in it. And I thought, yeah, let’s get this guy. What
Sevan Matossian (25:47):
Year was this? This is oh, 17.
Helen Taylor (25:49):
Yeah, this was, no, I think it was before that. I think it was 15.
(25:56):
So we hire this coach and we go to the CrossFit gym where he works, and it was a pretty big box. So there’s classes going on on one side, and we’re doing private training with him on the other side. And while we, he’s training us into doing all this stuff, I keep watching the classes and I’m watching people doing handstand pushups and climbing ropes and walking on their hands. And I was so intrigued by that. I thought, oh, I wonder if I could do that. So to make a long story short, I continued training with him for a while, ran the marathon. When it was over, I thought, I think I’m going to keep training with this guy. So we just continued for a while. And then he kept encouraging me to try a class, try a class. I eventually did, and then it was like game over. Then I found something new I fell in love with and wanted to pursue. And the thing about CrossFit that I love is that there’s so much of it that I’m bad at that it just keeps me wanting to come back for more. I keep wanting to chase that carrot. There’s just so much you’re not good at. There’s so much to try to pursue and get better at that you just never lose interest. It’s just a great methodology of training. I loved it.
Sevan Matossian (27:24):
Was this at Core City?
Helen Taylor (27:26):
No. No. This was at CrossFit down river. This was a gym near my home, which is about 15 minutes south of Detroit.
Sevan Matossian (27:36):
And then did your friends stay with CrossFit too?
Helen Taylor (27:39):
Yes, he did.
Sevan Matossian (27:41):
Oh wow. Okay.
Helen Taylor (27:42):
Yeah, he did too. We both did. And we all both started the classes together and we would train together. And he was much older than me. He was about, Kevin was what, probably about eight years older than me, and he was an avid marathon runner. And I lost him. I lost him about a year and a half ago. He died
Sevan Matossian (28:08):
From what?
Helen Taylor (28:09):
From cancer.
Sevan Matossian (28:10):
Oh, what kind?
Helen Taylor (28:12):
He had a bone cancer.
Sevan Matossian (28:14):
Oh my
Helen Taylor (28:14):
Goodness. Yeah, it was pretty rough. We’ve had a long journey together. But I mean, he was the one that I credit to kind of bringing me into CrossFit.
Sevan Matossian (28:26):
You’re not supposed to die if you do CrossFit.
Helen Taylor (28:28):
I know, I know. Unfortunately,
Sevan Matossian (28:31):
It
Helen Taylor (28:31):
Doesn’t always work, right?
Sevan Matossian (28:33):
So someone’s going to be like, dude, that’s stupid. Everyone does. Yeah, I know.
Helen Taylor (28:37):
No, I know.
Sevan Matossian (28:38):
That wasn’t serious. Take your fingers off the keyboard. Step back, relax. Take a deep breath. So these cultures, this biking culture with dudes in the woods, the martial arts culture and the running culture and the CrossFit culture, as you got into CrossFit, did that pop on your radar? Right. Okay. Are you in tune to that? Okay, this has a different culture or this is very
Helen Taylor (29:06):
Similar
Sevan Matossian (29:06):
To, what’d you think about that as you take that first class and you started sense, the culture clicky friendly?
Helen Taylor (29:12):
No, the culture was something that I found very intriguing. I found the culture to be very friendly. At least my experience was very, very friendly. Not at all cliquey, very supportive. And what I found so intriguing about it that you would have just a mix. Like in martial arts, we were all segregated black belts. We were in our own class. Beginners had their own class. Intermediates had their own class. Same with cycling. You’re going to cycle with people that are your speed. Hey, we’re 20 miles an hour group. You’re the 25 mile an hour group. What CrossFit? What I found so intriguing is that we were all together. We were had people in class that could do.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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