The Extraordinary Vijai Raj

At Sri Ram Ashram in India, a CrossFitting teen leads by example. Jesse O’Brien reports.

This January I was fortunate enough to travel to India for 10 days. The trip was sponsored by my gym, Westlake CrossFit in Austin, Texas, through fundraising, donations and the efforts of Leadership as Rx’D, an organization that promotes leadership through fitness.

It was the journey of a lifetime.

I joined three members of CrossFit Calgary, including 2007 CrossFit Games second-place finisher Brett Marshall; Yasmin Dean, associate professor of social work at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alta.; and Amy Lafleche, an entrepreneur.

We were on a CrossFit mission laden with Dynamax medicine balls, a supply of chalk, lacrosse balls for mobility, clips for barbells—and even a GHD machine that CrossFit Calgary disassembled into multiple pieces, crammed into three luggage bags weighing in at 72 lb. and checked on an international flight to New Delhi.

But the purpose of this article is not to focus on the camaraderie and support of my affiliate that sent me on this trip or the incredible, organically grown CrossFit affiliate that is CrossFit Sri Ram Ashram in Hardiwar, India. The focus is rather on an extraordinary individual named Vijai Raj.