Dave Driskell (00:02):
Hopefully this. I had some technical issues this morning.
Sevan Matossian (00:07):
Hey, good to meet you.
Dave Driskell (00:09):
Yeah, it’s nice to speak finely in sort of person.
Sevan Matossian (00:12):
Yeah, I’ve modeled my entire look about a few months ago. I was like, you know what? I’m just going to chase this dude’s look. I swear to God.
Dave Driskell (00:21):
Oh, that’s amazing. That’s amazing.
Sevan Matossian (00:23):
I’m going to shave my hair. I’m going to get a man bun. Oh, let me see the back. I wasn’t sure how to do the back. Let me see the back. Okay, so it’s a Mohawk, not all the way around. Okay, good.
Dave Driskell (00:33):
Okay. Yeah, it’s basically just the lazy man’s haircut. I think I’ve had it for, I don’t know, seven years. So
Sevan Matossian (00:40):
Yeah, I didn’t go all the way around either. I left the patch in the back too. Okay, great. And then you have to grow that in the back long enough to be able to eventually pull it up so you don’t got a bunch of stragglers.
Dave Driskell (00:51):
Of course. Yeah, exactly. Alright. If I was a real, I mean, if I had patience, I would’ve let this grown out the whole thing, but I just got lazy and started shaving the sides. Dude, can’t go back.
Sevan Matossian (01:03):
Dude, it felt so good to shave the sides. It felt so good.
Dave Driskell (01:08):
Yeah, it is nice. Yeah, it works well out here because it’s hot as balls and bies sometimes, so yeah, right now the air con just went up. We’re in our new upstairs recovery zone, massage physio room, and I had a race over here because like Bali is, we had construction this morning next door to my villa, but of course today is the day they have hammers and guns and banging and everything, but it’s been quite nice construction so far.
Sevan Matossian (01:37):
Okay. Bam. Okay, I put your Instagram under there. Are you cool with that?
Dave Driskell (01:41):
No, I’m very cool with that. Thank you.
Sevan Matossian (01:43):
Okay, good. I think
Dave Driskell (01:44):
I’m shadow banned as well, so I’ve been at a hundred K for a steady, full year now, so it goes up and down, but I’ve never seen it really tick anywhere, but I don’t really give a shit.
Sevan Matossian (01:56):
Dave, correct me. You’re the owner of Wanderlust? CrossFit. CrossFit Wanderlust.
Dave Driskell (02:04):
Yeah, so, well, we kind of rebranded a few years ago. Wanderlust Fitness Village and also CrossFit Wanderlust is inside of that. So yeah, I started CrossFit Wonderlust in 2015, affiliation 2016.
Sevan Matossian (02:19):
And where are you a native? Where are you born?
Dave Driskell (02:23):
Yeah, so I’m from sort of your neck of the woods. I’m from Orange County, California, so just below a Los Angeles, the old OC as that would,
Sevan Matossian (02:33):
Hey, I think I hear an accent
Dave Driskell (02:36):
Recognize, sorry,
Sevan Matossian (02:37):
But I feel like I hear an accent.
Dave Driskell (02:40):
Yeah, I think over 10 years I’ve kind of picked up some, maybe the colloquialisms that are happening in, there’s so many Australians here in English.
Sevan Matossian (02:49):
Wow. And you found CrossFit while in the United States?
Dave Driskell (02:54):
I did, yeah, very long time ago. I think it was more like I stumbled across it. Remember the movie 300? About the Spartans? Yeah, I saw that. I think it was Mark Twight and Jim Jones, all that stuff, and I was just more of a bench press kind of running, trying to be skinny guy, and I love that comic. And then I was like, oh, I’ve watched the pre-production and then I saw this stuff and they’re doing burpees and sprawls, and I was like, that’s pretty cool. Then I started trying to research and I found, oh, he was attached. I think, I don’t even know the whole story with CrossFit, and then I’m like, what’s CrossFit? Googled that started downloading the PDFs back in the day, remember it was crossfit.org and you had the little, you could click a wave file or something like that.
Sevan Matossian (03:41):
Yeah, that’s old school. That’s crazy.
Dave Driskell (03:43):
Yeah, so I was really interested in it. It was new. I didn’t actually start it until years later. I was in Orange County right after that recession and I went to a CrossFit gym. My friend showed me and he was like, oh, it’s a hundred dollars a month, and I’m like, what the fuck? I only pay $14 here at 24 Hour Fitness.
Sevan Matossian (04:05):
Whose gym was it? Do you remember? Do you remember whose gym it was?
Dave Driskell (04:09):
Yeah. Yeah, it was Orange Coast CrossFit, if you remember it. And years later I ended up working there a little bit, helping out with Kenny Ridge and Ryan Fisher, the old boys.
Sevan Matossian (04:19):
Yeah, crazy.
Dave Driskell (04:21):
Yeah, so I was like, it wasn’t until I moved to Texas in 2010 that I was dating a girl and she goes, oh, I’m doing this thing called CrossFit. I’m like, oh, I know it. I follow it. Don’t really know how to do it, but I’ve been following ’em for years. And then so I went and I was a bartender kind of manager at this new bar that we opened at that time, and the people that owned the CrossFit gym there, there’s only a few in Houston. They were bartenders as well, so they actually had a noon class, which was really rare. So I was able to go that because that’s the only time I could actually train, and it was my favorite part of the day. Obviously they were brand new coaches, I think maybe eight months into it, so we’re all new, figuring out the power clean and all that crazy stuff. I remember watching someone do a 2 25 clean and we were all like, that is fucked up, man. No, I’ll never do that. I was deadlifting it at the time going, this is crazy. What’s cool about this sport? I was talking to someone the other day, you look back at the original games and things like that and you’re like, oh, I could do that. That’s super easy. But the evolution, seeing it to where it’s gone now is just so impressive.
Sevan Matossian (05:31):
People forget that no one used to squat below parallel and that there were no ropes and no rings and no one deadlifting. And yeah, there’s a whole generation now that just accepts that as just normal, but it’s like, wow. Or low carb, dude, you go to jail for talking about that shit.
Dave Driskell (05:47):
Oh, I know. It’s just so silly. I actually did Paleo before I did CrossFit. One of my good friends in America, he was a CrossFit kind of guy. I didn’t really know about it. He was kind of in there and he goes, oh, I’ll do this kind of paleo diet. And I did this. I started it in 2009 and I went hardcore. That first 30 days was like, I didn’t even put salt on shit. I thought I was just drip being good. I did pepper and mustard, my only thing. And then the next month, next one, I got pretty shredded up, leaned out. I was just doing lots of running and stuff then too. But yeah, but I’ve still kind of adopted that same diet for the last, well, I guess it’s been 14 years, so I go back and forth. I go through different things when I was competing a bit more, I was trying all the heavy carbs and stuff, but I was just, sometimes it doesn’t do me as well. It loads me up and fills me full of inflammation sometimes. But I do see a need for it. I’ve changed my diet so many a thousand times.
Sevan Matossian (06:45):
It’s fun. It’s fun changing the diet. I like it.
Dave Driskell (06:47):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:49):
Yeah, it’s a good venture. Oh, lucky camera straps. I visited Wanderlust in June and got coached by Dave and his team. Thanks for taking the time to chat, Dave.
Dave Driskell (06:59):
Oh, of course. No worries. Yeah, I had a lot of nice people reach out this week saying, oh, I’m excited to listen to this podcast and it’s cool. I’m super happy to be on here finally as well. I know we chatted years and years ago during the crazy Covid, I dunno if you’re allowed to say that online, the crazy virus times.
Sevan Matossian (07:20):
Okay, so Bali is a smack dab between Vietnam and Australia,
Dave Driskell (07:26):
Correct? Yeah, it’s a state and Indonesia.
Sevan Matossian (07:30):
Okay. It’s a state. Okay, okay. Yeah, it’s funny. A lot of people
Dave Driskell (07:35):
Know about it. I didn’t know about it even when I was first backpacking that brought me out here. You always just hear Bali, but you don’t hear, what is that exactly?
Sevan Matossian (07:44):
Is there a nonstop
Dave Driskell (07:45):
80 million people?
Sevan Matossian (07:47):
How many? 280 million
Dave Driskell (07:49):
In Indonesia. Yeah, I think Bali’s around 6 million people.
Sevan Matossian (07:53):
There’s that many on Bali.
Dave Driskell (07:56):
It’s a lot of people. Yeah, a lot of people.
Sevan Matossian (07:59):
Can you fly nonstop from the United States of America to Bali?
Dave Driskell (08:04):
No. Right now, generally not. You’d fly either to Australia or maybe to Singapore, and then Singapore is only an hour and a half, two hours away from here. So
Sevan Matossian (08:15):
How about to Hawaii? How about straight to Hawaii? No,
Dave Driskell (08:18):
No. You’d still have to go hit Singapore or Australia or New Zealand or something. Yeah, I’ve tried to break it up a little bit. Generally the main shots are from LA area. I would go LA to Singapore. Singapore, Bali or China or Taipei, something like that.
Sevan Matossian (08:35):
Dude, this island right here has 6 million people on it. Are you kidding me?
Dave Driskell (08:39):
I think that’s what it is. Don’t hold me to it, but I’m pretty sure it’s pretty large island, so I mean, it’s not massive, but there’s a lot of people here. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (08:49):
Where are you on this island?
Dave Driskell (08:51):
So if you look at that little thing called desar at the lower end.
Sevan Matossian (08:56):
Yeah,
Dave Driskell (08:57):
We’re kind of down that way. A little to the left. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (09:00):
Over here.
Dave Driskell (09:01):
Yeah, actually see where it says Dalum next to it.
Sevan Matossian (09:04):
Yeah,
Dave Driskell (09:05):
I kind of just a little bit below that. You’ll probably, if you zoom in onto that where it says Dalum a little bit lower, you’ll see the gym. It’ll probably pop up. Keep scrolling in. Yep. Let’s see. Yeah, pretty close.
Sevan Matossian (09:20):
Is it on the beach?
Dave Driskell (09:22):
We’re about three kilometers from the beach, maybe a few miles.
Sevan Matossian (09:26):
Oh, that’s nice. Oh yeah,
Dave Driskell (09:27):
You have to go up a little bit to see up the corner left. It says Fin’s Recreation club, and then you got to scroll up a little bit. I’ll show you. And also you could just type in Wonderlust Fitness Village or CrossFit Wonderlust pop
Sevan Matossian (09:39):
Up. This is more fun.
Dave Driskell (09:41):
Yeah, this is true. Okay, go up towards up that street. You’re actually at my house right now. You’re hovering over my house and just go up a little bit more. Yeah, don’t give anyone my exact address. That could go funny, right? A little bit more. Keep going up towards the right. Yep. Up, up, up, up.
Sevan Matossian (10:00):
I see Peptos Market, Nirvana, fitness and Wellness. Oh, I see it. Holy shit, dude.
Dave Driskell (10:07):
Yeah, that’s it.
Sevan Matossian (10:08):
Wow.
Dave Driskell (10:09):
Funny little place there, huh? So yeah, it’s my most favorite thing I’ve ever done. I’m very proud of it. It’s just cool to connect. We get so many, it’s obviously very transient here. We get so many different people from around the world and just new faces every day, every class we ask if anyone’s first day and five to 10 hand shoot up saying, oh yeah, it’s my first time here. So it’s impressive in the sense that we get to meet and kind of touch these many people and hopefully kind of put them into their either first CrossFit class or put ’em into so something positive or healthy and leave them going.
Sevan Matossian (10:47):
Are you an active affiliate? Are you still an affiliate?
Dave Driskell (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I fly the CrossFit flag pretty hardcore. We only changed it once. I expanded and we started offering so much more than CrossFit here. We started with a small hall, and then I added on an open gym, and then I added on a second studio, and then we’ve added on now M M A, and we have boxing and fighting and all this stuff, and now we have a hotel and a pool. So it really took on this kind of village style. So I was like, that’s kind of cool. Call ourself a wanderlust fitness village. We’re also home of CrossFit, wanderlust, that kind of thing. So we have so many different caveats here, or facets I should say, of fitness. So if people get here and they go, oh, okay. It is kind of like a little village. You have everything at your food. You got cafe, your hotel. I have dreams to kind of open up a barbershop tattoo shop and then have kind of a whole food store or something. So you could kind of spend your whole day or whole week here if you want to.
Sevan Matossian (11:48):
This is it right here. This place?
Dave Driskell (11:50):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s our onsite hotel, which is pretty cool.
Sevan Matossian (11:54):
Yeah, this is nuts.
Dave Driskell (11:56):
Yeah. Thanks, man. I’m super proud of that. We just finished that about a year and a half ago. We built all that during Covid, the pool in the hotel,
Sevan Matossian (12:08):
Built the hotel’s new. You built the hotel?
Dave Driskell (12:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we found, I kind of got cheeky. I found an old home stay hotel that was right near the gym, and I had the land in between the gym and that home stay for the pool. And so I went over there during Covid and it was a bit run down. No one was there and I got a pretty good deal of a lifetime. Renovated all the rooms, put brand new furniture in there, new walls, new everything. And then we basically have a pool, a hotel, and a pool on site now.
Sevan Matossian (12:40):
Okay. You went there in 2000. Why did you go there originally? Why did you go to Bali originally?
Dave Driskell (12:46):
So I was backpacking in 2012. I left the States in 2012, like February
Sevan Matossian (12:53):
Left Texas. Left Texas.
Dave Driskell (12:55):
Yeah. Heartbroken.
Sevan Matossian (12:56):
Heartbroken girl. Kicked you to the curb and you went to Bali?
Dave Driskell (12:59):
No, no,
Sevan Matossian (13:00):
Probably
Dave Driskell (13:01):
The other way around maybe.
Sevan Matossian (13:02):
Okay, okay.
Dave Driskell (13:05):
No, I was single and mingling and living my life, I guess. Yeah. I just had this desire to travel. Long story short, I was planning on leaving in 2009. I got real sick in California. I had an e coli. Bacterial infection almost killed me. I was out in the old Hoag Hospital for 11 days, just kind of ravished my entire body, my intestines and everything like that. So I took a little departure from, I was supposed to go to Thailand later that month, and obviously the doctor’s like, do not travel. You’re still coming back. I lost 10 kilos of weight. I was like, it took me months and months to even get back to where I could run a mile. So I always had this desire to travel. And then I had already minimalized my life quite a bit. I got into this minimalistic thing. I sold my car, I sold this. I was just trying to, after that recession in 2008, nine, it was a bit, I didn’t know what I wanted. I was like, I’m almost 30. What am I going to do? I just want to figure out some stuff. And someone’s like, did
Sevan Matossian (14:08):
You lose anything in that? Did you lose a house in that?
Dave Driskell (14:10):
Yeah, I was younger, so, well, I was only, what, 29? And I bought a house with three of my friends in Costa Mesa, only a couple miles from the beach. It was awesome property. But after all that stuff went upside down and flipped around, and I had a job that was quite good. I lost it. My roommate had a good job. He lost it, and it was just that triple of that, what’s it called? Waterfall effect. So anyway, long story short, I got a job in Texas with one of my best friends. He wanted me to run a bar. I was kind of the front man and learned the bar business. So that was quite fun. But I said, I’ll give you two hours or two years of my life. And then pretty much the date I left and went to Thailand. If someone’s like, go to Thailand, it’s cool. It’s cheap. You can do some fitness stuff and just travel around. I’m like, okay. So I saved it up like 25 grand and then just started going. Then I did about six months before.
Sevan Matossian (15:08):
By yourself? By yourself.
Dave Driskell (15:10):
Yeah. Well, the first two months I brought my best friend Matt with me. I said, you got to go with me. He goes, I have no money. I’m like, I’ll pay for a ticket. Just I want a friend. I didn’t know what it was. There was no Instagram. No one was really talking about these places. So he went with me for two months. He left, and then I was on my own for the first time in my life, and I was just like, wow. I have no emails to check. I have no employees to talk to. I have nothing to do except do me just, oh, I might sleep in, or I’m going to go to the gym, or I’m going to go eat some food. And it was a very big part of my life. I think it shaped a lot of things at that point in my life. And as we are when we’re young, we really rely on, I think friendships and talking to people. And I used to remember, we’d call up, Hey, whatcha doing today? Okay, cool. Well, maybe we’ll meet up later. It’s like, you always want to see what’s on for the day. And this was the first time I had nothing, but it was quite freeing. It was weird at first, but it opened up my eyes a lot and it made me work on myself, which was I think exactly what I needed to do at that point.
(16:12):
So yeah, I think after Thailand and Vietnam and all these places, someone told me I was in a hostel down, not SSRI Lanka. I was in Malaysia, and I was going to go to SSRI Lanka. I still want to go, haven’t been this guy, Frazier. I met him, he’s from Canada. He goes, oh, are you going to go to,
Sevan Matossian (16:31):
Oh, I know him. Matt. Matt. His parents are icy professional ice skaters.
Dave Driskell (16:35):
That’s right. He’s pretty big. He’s big on the internet. Yeah, it was this guy just randomly I met and he goes, oh, are you going to go to Bali? And I was like, oh, I don’t know. I heard it’s really touristy. He goes, yeah, because it’s fucking cool. I’m like, oh, okay. I should go. So I booked the flight the next day and went down to Bali not knowing what it was about also, sorry, I’m sweating my tits off because the power went out apparently up here. So
Sevan Matossian (17:01):
All our cool guests are shirtless. Don’t worry. All the cool ones
Dave Driskell (17:03):
Are shirtless. Yeah, I know. I’ve been doing it longer than Hiller being topless. I think so. Okay.
Sevan Matossian (17:08):
Nice, nice.
Dave Driskell (17:10):
The amount of podcasts I probably did back in the day with no shirt on was just, I guess that’s Bali. I just don’t wear shirts anymore. Too much time.
Sevan Matossian (17:19):
And I want to ask you about that, so keep going with your story. So you go to Bali and you get there. Is that guy still with you, the guy you brought from the States or No, he’s done.
Dave Driskell (17:27):
No, he came out and stayed for a while, actually back the next day or the next year. He’s still one of my best friends. He’s out in Montana now. But yeah, so I got to Bali, stayed for, I was only here for two months. There was no CrossFit gyms. There’s one small gym down to the first part in kta, and I would do CrossFit there, and I was real new at it. I’d only been a coach for about maybe half a year, but I hadn’t really
Sevan Matossian (17:53):
Coached. You had taken your L one?
Dave Driskell (17:55):
Yeah, yeah. I flew out to LA to California, and I had KPO over there as my remember him and what’s her last name? Katie Hogan. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (18:05):
Yeah,
Dave Driskell (18:06):
Old school. They were my coaches. It was just super cool
(18:10):
And I just wanted to learn more about the sport because it was so new. There was no one put in stuff on Instagram, so I learned the sport, but I was like, I got to learn this. I don’t think I’ll ever coach. I don’t really want to be a coach. I don’t know if I could do that, but I just want to know about the sport. So I went out there and got my level one in January of 2012. And then, then of course when you’re traveling by yourself, I was just trying to come up with my own workouts and I’d actually write ’em down on my notepad on my Instagram, and I would paste ’em on my Instagram. Instagram was brand new. I was like, oh, it’s kind of like a diary. I’ll just put my shit on there. And then I would tag my coaches if they had Instagram and say, oh, I wanted to kind of get their approval. Did I do a good job writing this workout? This is kind of what I did. And that’s even back then is when I started hashtagging Wonder Less Wads, which is kind of where I
Sevan Matossian (19:00):
Got
Dave Driskell (19:00):
The name. So I guess you could say I was manifesting it a bit in that sense. And it was just kind of one of those things that was real organic. I met some people, showed them a few things. I was this kind of bearded dude that had tattoos and looked probably different. And back in the day, now everyone looks like me, but that’s okay. But yeah, I was just like, I loved it. I loved going to CrossFit. I’d ride a workout, so I’d post a picture of me in Thailand doing a workout with a rock or something and just shit like that. And I was like, oh, this is kind of my thing. And then some people picked up on it on the Instagram world and were like, oh, you should follow this guy. He is interesting. He travels and does fitness and yeah, it was the early days of social media.
(19:42):
So I think because I was an early adopter, maybe people gravitated and I was not sitting at home in an office. I was finally giving a fuck and leaving and trying to do something different with my life. So I think people were interested in that, and that kind of brought me to Bali for that two months. I went home for six months. It was funny, I had a conversation with my mom and she goes, oh, it doesn’t seem like you feel very settled or satisfied. I’m like, no, I’m not. I want to go see more. And she goes, oh, then you should go. I’m like, yeah, I, I still had some of my savings left that I’d saved up over the years. And then I came back here. They had opened one affiliate here in Bali. So I was
Sevan Matossian (20:21):
How long were you in the States? You were in Bali for two months? I went home for six months. And was that the first time you’d been home during that whole trip?
Dave Driskell (20:28):
Yeah, so I was gone for about six or seven months,
(20:32):
And then I came home. It was actually at that point, to give you the full story, I bought an old Ford Conno line van. I bought a bunch of equipment from Get Rx put Barbells and Kettlebells in there. And I started doing some of these bootcamps at the parks, like a CrossFit workout. So I’d bring everything out to the park and just put on my Instagram, Hey, I’m going to be at this park if you guys want to come out, it’s 15 bucks. I’ll teach a class. And I had a lot of good support in the beginning in Houston. I had 20 people show up at a park and I was like, oh, this is interesting. And they like what they’re doing. And then I started helping out at my friend’s gym. Then of course went back to Asia and stayed this next time was staying for 10 months.
(21:17):
I found a gym here. They asked me to work the first day I showed up, they’re like, oh, you’re a coach? I said, yeah. And they’re like, oh, you want to work here? I said, hell yeah, I’m in Bali. Why wouldn’t I? So I worked in Bali and I worked in Jakarta, which is the capital for a bit. It just kind of started rolling with it and I loved it. I kind of had this thought, I can do this better. I think I have a better vision of what I’d like to teach and how to approach it. And then, hey,
Sevan Matossian (21:44):
Quick question. Why did you go back to Bali? Or why did you go back to Jakarta? Why Indonesia again?
Dave Driskell (21:51):
I think Bali was the last place I left in Asia on my travel, and it just felt really good. I don’t know. And people, if you’ve ever come here, people say the same thing. There’s something about it, you feel good here or, so it doesn’t hit everybody. For me, it really works. And it went well, and I was like, I’d like to go back there. I think there’s something there. And the food is good. The people were nice. I liked the way of life. And then I did have that little brain child in my head saying, I think I could do this. I think I can do my own gym. No idea how to open a business in another country or how to do it. Where do I get the money? I have nothing. I was trying to figure it out. So I left in 2014. I was gone of 2014, lived in Dominican Republic for a few months, working as a coach down there. Someone found me on Instagram saying, we saw you helped open a gym. Can you come to help us open our gym up? I said, sure. And then in my head I was like, maybe I’m the guy that teaches other gyms how to open and how to
Sevan Matossian (22:50):
Be on small islands in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.
Dave Driskell (22:53):
Yeah, that’s the caveat. You must have a scooter and rum and an island vibe. So yeah, I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with my life. But I knew that traveling was very fun and interesting to me. And then fitness was like, I did it every day and I really loved teaching. And once I actually started teaching, I was like, I think I’m okay at this. I think I’m good at this, and I think I’m actually impacting someone’s life, as any coach would say. And then you’re just enamored by it, and all you want to do is fix people and it’s helping. And then you’re that annoying bloke at the gym, at a global gym and you’re like, Hey man, it’d probably be better if you widen your stance and your hips go a little lower. I was that guy probably for a little while at the 24 hour fitnesses. This is like, well, you should try this or maybe try this. And they’re probably like, who are you? Why are you telling me stuff? But I was just interested in finding how to fix people. I’m not the most, I wouldn’t be the most knowledgeable about the skeletal system or the muscles and all that stuff, but I know how to make people move at least in a functional way, I believe after this many years.
Sevan Matossian (23:57):
And so at that point you’re like, I’m going to open my own gym. After you do those 10 months in Jakarta, you’re like, I’m going to go to Bali and open my own gym.
Dave Driskell (24:04):
Yeah, I think,
Sevan Matossian (24:06):
Did you have any contacts in Bali? Any friends or girlfriends? Yeah,
Dave Driskell (24:11):
So I did three months in Jakarta, and then I did six months in Bali
Sevan Matossian (24:16):
Where
Dave Driskell (24:16):
I was coach, the head coach of it first gym.
Sevan Matossian (24:19):
And
Dave Driskell (24:19):
Then I kind of met some people. We’ve got some land that didn’t really work out, and then the guy I was going to do it with, he got another job and he goes, oh, I need to put my money into this. And I’m like, okay, no worries.
Sevan Matossian (24:29):
A local or a local or a new,
Dave Driskell (24:32):
No, he was an English guy.
Sevan Matossian (24:33):
Okay.
Dave Driskell (24:33):
Yeah. So then when I got back, I got back early January of 2015 and I was like, I had a conversation with a friend a month before, and he goes, Hey, you talked about opening a gym, just go do it. And I’m like, I will. I’ll go do it. I’ll figure it out again. I never thought about it then, but maybe I was kind of manifesting something or try to get it off. I had no idea, man, how to do this. I didn’t know how to open a business in another country, didn’t have much money. And then the word kind of got around. It was a smaller community out here, and everyone was like, oh, you’re the CrossFit guy. I’m like, yeah, yeah, I’m the CrossFit guy. And then another gym out here up where we are now, they messaged me and said, oh, we’d love to have you cover some classes.
(25:19):
They weren’t CrossFit or anything. And I said, okay, I can do that. And then it was extra cash. And then they said, oh, we might be moving along. Would you want to bring your CrossFit gym here? We heard you’re trying to open somewhere. And I said, ah, first, no, I’m not interested. I don’t want partners. I think I want to do everything myself. And then we had another sit down and it worked out quite well where we discussed, I asked for profit share. I asked for a little bit of a cash injection. I asked for a small salary to start and I said, look, I’ll do everything, but it’s got to also be my brand. It’s got to be my name, it’s got to be my ideologies and my vision. And they were like, no worries. Cool. It worked out very well for them in the end and very well for me. But it was a way for myself to do kind of a turnkey operation. We only had eight barbells, but I had eight barbells in Bali and I had 10 wall balls, a few ply boxes, no rubber floor, a horribly designed rig, which I took apart and and made it proper because they just didn’t know what they were doing.
Sevan Matossian (26:22):
Was it a ground floor location? Ground floor location?
Dave Driskell (26:26):
Yeah. Yeah, it was, yeah. So it’s the same place we are now.
Sevan Matossian (26:30):
Oh shit,
Dave Driskell (26:31):
I’ve just taken over the entire complex. So the first little bay we had, there was about four, if you can imagine them, indoor soccer fields. So it’s a big warehouse with four indoor soccer fields. And we took the first one, and then a year later, I took one next door that was an empty warehouse that I turned into the open gym only. So the open gym only was kind of, it looks like a normal cross affiliate now, but it’s just for people that want to do open gym during classes. And then since then and just this last few years, we’ve taken over the entire complex so there’s no more warehouses left. So I think we’d probably be on the largest side of any gym in the world, I would say, of an affiliate just on square footage of rubber. You’d be, your mind would be blown.
Sevan Matossian (27:22):
Dude, look at this picture right here. This is crazy. With Alistair ine.
Dave Driskell (27:30):
Yeah. Yeah, that was way back in the day.
Sevan Matossian (27:32):
Crazy.
Dave Driskell (27:33):
Have you just been scrolling?
Sevan Matossian (27:35):
Yeah, I was like, Hey, I got to find out. I got to see pictures of this early, early place. Sarah Cox. Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi Dave.
Dave Driskell (27:42):
Oh, hey Sarah. I thought of you this morning as I jabbed in my stomach.
Sevan Matossian (27:48):
What are you taking?
Dave Driskell (27:50):
She gave me some B P C and tb. That’s the only thing I’ve ever actually done. I did it a few years ago during a shoulder injury and it was incredible. I met her a few years back at Chalk CrossFit, and then I know Damien as well over there. And then I met with him last time. I was there a few months ago. So it was nice. Yeah, I want to give it a go again. Periodically I’ll do a two month or three month kind of cycle. Pretty low dosage, but I had a torn supraspinatus in my shoulder. Everyone told me this was a few years ago, I should get surgery. And then I ended up doing rehab, and then I did A B P C and TB 500. It was amazing.
Sevan Matossian (28:34):
Is it all better?
Dave Driskell (28:36):
Yeah, it’s funny. The right one’s great. And now I think the left one, I get some inflammation, but a lot of us guys we’re so internally rotated that opening it up, helping out. So every once in a I’ll do it is just kind of some maintenance stuff. But for me, it seemed like it was incredible. So I applauded. I’ve been researching that stuff for years and looking into it, it was that moral quandary thing back in the day too. I opened up to one of my coaches years ago going, am I bad if I do this? Am I a cheater if I do this? That whole, I’ve don’t think, don’t know if I’ll make the games ever, but I don’t want my accolades for 10 years to be tarnished by the last two years of me doing a therapeutic kind of be a peptide, if that makes sense. I don’t want people to be like, oh, that’s why here’s so fit. And I’m like, well, I think it’s also the diet and the CrossFit for 11 years probably helped quite a bit too.
Sevan Matossian (29:31):
Yeah, I don’t think the B P C and TB 500 is going to make you any more fit.
Dave Driskell (29:36):
No, that’s the thing.
Sevan Matossian (29:37):
Zero. I’m
Dave Driskell (29:40):
Was training more, eating way more. Yeah. But I do find it, I’m 45 in 21 days, or no, 19 days. So I’m, I’m trying to stay healthy. I trained a lot differently too. I don’t go, don’t do three hours in the gym. I used to do all that kind of stuff. Do you miss that.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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