Agoge Fit

Whenever I start with a new client we always begin with this speech or something to that effect.  What I mean is, I’m not the Bridal Bootcamp guy.  I’m not going to help you lose 20 pounds for your vacation, or your reunion or some other short term goal.  What I’m after is to help you become healthy.  Health is naturally more attractive so there’s a plus there, but what I want you to get past is looks alone.

“Isn’t there just a pill I can take to make me (fill in the blank)?” I shudder inside every time I hear this.  This tells me you’re still not on board yet.  This says that the work you’re doing right now is a chore, a necessary burden you’re willing to put up with in order to reach that goal of “thin” or “buff” or “attractive.”  This changes when your training and exercise become a part of your lifestyle.  It becomes something you do because it makes you feel good, because overall life gets easier when you make this extra effort.

We live in a society run by image.  Even here at Lakeview, a gym largely inhabited by enlightened trainers and their clients, our cardio room literature is dominated by the latest yellow journalism all about which celebrity is screwing what other celebrity, complete with full color photos (not of the screwing, just the celebrities).  Plastic people with plastic lives that no rational one among us would trade lives with– except….damn, they’re pretty.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be that pretty?….Just for a little while?

Magazines, television, movies, video games, all of these visual media are absorbed by our fertile brains.  As social animals we are programmed to want to emulate what we see.  It’s how we gain acceptance.  Monkey see, monkey do.  So of course we want to be pretty.  Long term health?  That takes forever!  We want it now!  Lipo!  Plastic surgery!  Hell, even those giant people on The Biggest Loser shed half their body weight in a single season!

But what’s the cost?  What happens to our inner lives when our biggest goal is to have a butt like the girl on the Reebok commercial?  (Which I have to point out is so small it can’t really even be called a butt– poor, poor girl.)  Long term strategies by their very nature entail a small gain now, but one that builds steadily over time.  Healthy lifestyle changes often lead to a more gradual weight loss, but that change makes for a permanent loss and an overall upswing in quality of life.  The exchange you make is a steady effort, consistently applied.  Short term gains by their nature pay off big now, but their price is long term.  Anorexia and bulemia may make you skinny today, but there’s a lifetime of osteoporosis, kidney disease and other ailments to follow.

Rory Miller writes an excellent blog post on the social aspect of our minds, the monkey mind.  It is this desire to be part of the group, to be socially accepted, that drives many of us NOT to be special or exemplary.  Just as the drive to be pretty dominates our concept of why we train it also can drive how we train.  Group fit classes are successful for this very reason.  Get enough pretty people in a room doing something and soon enough all sorts of other people will be in there too, convinced that this is how those pretty people got to be pretty, regardless of how stupid or contrary to your particular needs what they’re doing is.  Dare to be different.  Unleash your own particular brilliance.  Don’t be enslaved by groupthink or your fears of rejection.  The brighter you shine, the brighter we all shine, as your incandescence shows us the light of our own potential.

For me, my light is strength, and all that goes with it.  To deny that gift, to train in a way contrary to this diminishes my light and you as my client suffer for it.  I can only teach what I know.

For this relationship to be successful we must both be clear on why we’re here and what we want.  I don’t mean to imply that I am dogmatic, or that my way is the only way.  As the old proverb goes, “There are many paths to the mountaintop…”  I am flexible and realize that each client needs his or her own personalized approach, but I’m also aware that as the proverb ends, “…there is only one moon to see when you get there.”  Or as Bruce Lee states in Enter the Dragon, “It’s like a finger, pointing to the moon.  Don’t focus on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”  The “finger” is whatever gets you into the gym, or outside, or just plain moving.  In this case I even see wanting to be pretty as an effective “finger,” but the moon, the whole point, the reason for the finger is health, physical health, which spills into emotional and spiritual health.  Want to fix your life?  Fix your body and you’ll see you’re well on your way to achieving just that.  And that, I think, is pretty.