When Spence Crosby was 19 years old, he lacked confidence and belief in himself. “Growing up, you are told to be something you don’t want to be, but you stay on that course to fit in,” he confided. “I always knew I was different and I wanted to be me. I always loved anime and fighting, but didn’t know how to express it in my life.”
The now 30-year-old Crosby, a successful fitness trainer and model, barely recognizes that teenage version of himself. “It wasn’t until my later 20s that I fully decided to be myself. I started to understand my gifts as I got older,” he communicated. “You really need confidence in order to blossom and I have that now. People may see it as cockiness, but I am not pushing that onto others. My family preaches humility, which can co-exist with confidence.”
The Insecurity of Being a Late Bloomer
“I was small and basically more scared of the world than anything when I was young,” admitted Crosby, who stands 5’11” and weighs 185 pounds of mostly muscle now. “I didn’t start working out until I was 16. I was 5’9” and 160 pounds in high school.”
He went out for his high school football team in his junior year, but did not make the team. “I figured I would come back the next year. I was doing well in the preseason, but I got scared as soon as we put the pads on,” Crosby explained. The reality was with long arms and speed, he was hurt more by his lack of confidence than his size. “We had a lot of fast track guys at my school and my friend Zack told me I could be one of the fastest runners on the team if I didn’t always tail off at the end. I just didn’t think I had the ability.”
Not believing in his own abilities was a common theme in his younger years and was not limited to athletics. “I had a teacher named Miss Harris in eighth or ninth grade who thought I was ready for the next level of math,” he recalled. “Instead, I got distracted and ended up going back into the math essentials class. I decided that maybe I’m not good at it. A professor in college told me directly that I was good at math, but that I wasted my talent.”
“My dad always told me that I was a late bloomer and I was a product of that,” Crosby recited. “What I started to see when I was at Western Michigan (University) is that it was a positive and not an excuse for me not believing in myself.”
Some critical decisions while at Western Michigan and shortly thereafter started him on a new path in life, but it all started with encouraging words from his friend Leo DeFoe. “He was always uplifting me and saw my abilities. That made a huge difference in my life,” recounted Crosby. “My stepdad would throw the football to me and I started to realize that I was more gifted than those I thought were more athletic than me. I eventually did play some semi-pro football.”
The other key event was when Crosby started reading and exploring. “I saw a documentary that changed my life and sparked my interest in the world around me. I was reading a lot. I read 11 books at age 22 in 2012,” he recalled. “I read about history, politics, capitalism, philosophy, religion, basically everything under the sun. I was taking notes on the books I was reading. I just knew there had to be more to life than what I was doing. I started to gain true knowledge of myself.”
Martial Arts
At age 20, Crosby began training at a dojo for mixed martial arts (MMA) and would also spend time training in the basement of a friend, who had equipment to help train fighters. “I took most to Taekwondo (a Korean martial art featuring fast kicking techniques) and boxing,” he stated. “I entered four boxing tournaments, winning three and finishing second in another.”
He moved on to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which focused more on ground fighting techniques, but it wasn’t until he started studying Capoeira that he found his true calling. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil at the turn of the 16th century. Its flowing movements and emphasis on acrobatic maneuvers played right into Crosby’s skillset. “I was never really a kickboxer, but I had those skills. Beyond that though, it really tied me into my ancestors and gave me a stronger sense of who I am,” he explained. “I wanted to be connected to people who fought for African independence and to their music. I knew this was something that I want to pass on to my future children someday.”
He is now an active Capoeirista (a practitioner of Capoeira). “I never thought that I could dance, but I do have rhythm. It became a matter of trusting myself and feeling it. At first, I didn’t try because I was afraid to try, but then I allowed myself to be free,” he said proudly. “I was always the first one in class and the last one to leave. I was so eager to learn and I worked hard to get what I wanted as fast as possible. I knew when I got in there the first time that was home.”
After beginning his training in October 2019, one of the things Crosby looked forward to the most was earning a nickname. “I learned that the nickname you are given is based off who you show yourself to be, that after war (the training process in this case), the Capoeirista’s established community and protected one another’s identities (since the martial art was deemed illegal) with nicknames,” he elucidated. “Early this year, we were in a roda (pronounced hoda, where two competitors meet in a circle surrounded by others singing and playing the traditional music, which originally served to hide the fact the martial art was taking place) and I heard ‘Faísca.’ At first, I thought it was fiesta like a party.”
He was even more excited when he realized what happened was he had been given the nickname Faísca, which essentially means spark in Portuguese. “I started dancing. I was so happy that I had a nickname and I thought spark was perfect for me,” he described. “I put it on my Instagram name and I also have a lightning bolt earring as lightning is also reflective of a spark.”
With his love of anime, he likened his journey in Capoeira to Goku, the main protagonist in the Dragon Ball manga. “He shows my heart. He was at a lower-class level but then worked hard and became the strongest warrior,” stated Crosby, whose personality mirrors Goku in that he is generally carefree most of the time, but fights enthusiastically and with serious strategy.
Seeking a Career
In December 2016, at age 26, Crosby applied to work for TSA (Transportation Security Administration). “I figured it was time to get a big boy job,” he laughed. “I figured I would work for the federal government and that would help me take care of my future children. I had also started working as a personal trainer that year, was teaching martial arts, and doing bodyweight fitness training.”
In 2017, TSA contacted Crosby to conduct a further interview and continue the employment process. “They flew me out to Georgia in January 2018 and met another guy, who is still a good friend to this day, and we just didn’t like it. I didn’t like idea of working for someone else,” he recounted. “We both knew we wouldn’t be there long. People were saying, ‘John and Spence are never going full-time’ and they were right. I dreaded waking up at 4 a.m. to work for TSA, then going to Anytime Fitness for my training job, and then teaching classes at the Y. Once again, I said there has to be more to life than this.”
By April 2018, Anytime Fitness was struggling and ended their personal training program. “I gave my two weeks at TSA, deciding to take a risk and try to do my own thing,” he remembered. “All I had was the YMCA (where he still teaches classes). I asked my mom if I could take over her garage and start my own business.”
By his 28th birthday on May 8, 2018, he had his first three clients. “I started making a little bit of money, enough to pay the bills and give my mom some. I didn’t have any left over for myself at first, but clients started picking up,” he announced.
Crosby had been dating a woman for 3½ years, but they broke up in July 2018. “Trying to grow my business was really rough on the relationship. It took all of my time,” he conceded. “Eventually three clients grew to five to 10 and then I had 18-20 clients. I worked another job (with Frontier Airlines), but that didn’t last. I decided to stick with my business and have been able to sustain that until today.”
He has continued to revise his training methods and reinvest profit in himself. “All of the equipment I have is mine. I take what I get paid and buy more equipment,” he explained. “I am not spending lavishly on myself. I started my LLC (limited liability company) six months after I started training people and it is my primary source of income.”
One of the things that motivates him is the thought that someone thinks he can’t accomplish his goals. “It can even be as a simple as playing a video game. Recently, I was playing with my friend and struggling,” Crosby relayed. “My friend said, ‘Never tell Spence he can’t get it done.’ That’s true. If you say it can’t be done, I will get it done.”
That includes things he didn’t think he could do. “I want to be known for my calisthenics in fitness. I had a right shoulder injury in my early 20s and at 28, I was thinking maybe I was too old for this,” he disclosed. “Being able to overcome that thinking and to be able to do some of the stuff I never thought I would be able to do has helped make me who I am today.”
The Importance of His Hair
One thing that remains the same between the 19-year-old and 30-year-old versions of Crosby is his very recognizable curly hair. “Other than one hippy stage I went through where I grew my hair out and had dreadlocks for a few years, I have always had curly hair,” he explained. “The dreadlocks symbolized power and my people and gave me an even great sense of who I was. Now I have grown it out because it is who I am. I am only going to be me and my curly hair reminds me of being a warrior and somewhat rebellious.”
Whatever way he wears his hair is culturally and personally significant. “Society says that you should be clean cut and that you and your hair should look a certain way, but that leads to discrimination. You are seen as not professional or not classy,” he commented. “I am not cutting my hair anytime soon. My hair symbolizes something that uniquely makes me. My hair is who I am. When I see another person with long hair, particularly another black person, I want to know how they think, how important it is to them to do that in this society.”
One of his friends is a software engineer and asked Crosby what he thought of his having dreadlocks. “I told him to just be him. Just because someone else may not like your hair does not detract from who you are,” he described. “It is a big stand for him to wear dreadlocks in his profession. There is a lot of fascination and discrimination with black hair. This is how our hair grows naturally. I love when black people wear their hair with pride. No one else on the planet has hair like us. Take pride in your hair.”
Crosby sees the dichotomy between fascination and discrimination extending far beyond how he or anyone else wears their hair. “The black culture is both loved and hated. Society loves the culture, but not the individual,” he lamented. “I became very vocal about racial injustices in 2012 and that caused me to lose a lot of friends and relationships. It was all I was speaking about. Now I that I am older, I am more strategic, finding ways to change society and give back. I coached football for a while and have tutored. We need to support one another for our communities to be strong, to value black people as individuals and as a collective, rather than just a fascination.”
Brotherly Love and Setting an Example
Through his own struggles, Crosby recognizes the need for positive reinforcement for younger people. “Most of the children I teach martial arts to at the YMCA are black and Latinx. I see those kids as mirror reflections of who I was,” he remarked. “They need that extra push and encouragement. We need to let them know it is okay to step outside of the box the world tries to put them in as a rapper or an athlete. You can be a doctor or an engineer. I have friends who are mechanical engineers, software engineers, and who work in cyber security, people who have chosen their own path.”
The most important younger person in his life is his brother Justin Lacey-Pierce, who recently turned 22. “He told me that it really paid off for him to have an older brother and that my suffering helped him blossom earlier,” Crosby stated. “I have been a combination of an older brother and father figure. I am harder on him than I am on others, but he is my best friend and I want him to be unapologetically him, something it took me a long time to do for myself.”
Lacey-Pierce’s dream is to become a boxer. “About four years ago, we were getting up at 5 a.m. and going running and one day, I decided I didn’t want to run,” he remembered. “He wasn’t going to go and I told him that when you want to do something, you have to make it happen for yourself. Even as close as we are, I can’t make it happen for him. He was motivated by that and understood that if you want to have things your way, you have to go get it.”
Being in a Good Place
Crosby has seen his business thrive, but continues to strive for improvement professionally and personally. Having been a vegan or vegetarian for a number of years throughout his life, he returned to being strictly a vegan in March and added intermittent fasting into his routine. “For me, moderation is the key. Less is more. I don’t eat a whole lot, but what I do is healthy,” he expressed. “My intake includes a lot of smoothies, rice, and beans. I don’t count calories. I am more concerned with what is in my food, checking the ingredients for things I don’t want to put in my body, and having a sustainable diet.”
He says that the past several months of the pandemic have made him stronger as well as increased his clientele. “I am really focused on calisthenics and handstands. I have access to a free gym at the YMCA (which he used heavily in the past when he did a bodybuilding show), but I am not using weights, while still working out 6-8 hours a day. I did 12 backflips last week. ‘Why not?’ Keep working to improve,” he stated.
Whenever he signs up a new client, his focus is on the needs of the client and he believes his varied skills give him an edge over many personal trainers. “One of my selling points is when people hear about my boxing background. I learned at a boxing gym with the intention of becoming a fighter and still spar to this day,” Crosby reported. “I think people are also drawn to the fact that I am not saying there is a perfect body that everyone has to strive for. The important thing is building a better you. You don’t have to fall in line with everyone else, you just have to believe and be confident that you will look like the best you. You rule over you by what you tell yourself.”
CROSBY’S BUILDING PHYSIQUES INSTAGRAM
Crosby has accomplished one important goal already. “I never wanted to end up working for someone self. I wanted freedom and I got that. The beauty of the journey we have is that we never stop learning if we are receptive to that,” he remarked. “My image helps me in my business, but that is not all I am. I would much rather be known for my skills and my hard work than my appearance. I have worked my butt of to get where I am.”
When all is said and done though, the anime lover in Crosby reveals his true dream. “For years, I was trying to be someone else for those who may not accept who I really am. Now I am free to be myself and to pursue my dreams,” he stated. “What I really want to do is turn Super Saiyan someday!”