Saturday, May 06, 2006
Know Your Audience...Or Spin Out of Control
She walked into my life wearing too tight pink spandex. I walked away remembering an important lesson.
It all began with a declaration in a spinning class.
"Emily won't be in today so I'm your instructor," a highly tanned, highly spandexed, overbleached blonde said.
For those of you who don't know, spinning is a great form of exercise that takes place on a stationary bicycle. If done correctly you can burn around a thousand calories from just an hour workout. A key component is the instructor. Emily, our regular teacher, was known for crafting together heart pounding music, complex biking routines, as well as good humor. The more than 30 people who attended her bi-weekly classes came to them expecting to have a good time as well as have a great workout. This is a hard core group, who didn't mind waiting in line for more than ten minutes just to make sure that they would be signed up for a class that wouldn't start for more than a half hour away from starting.
So you might guess, there were some nervous looks when we found out that we'd have a new instructor. I'd tell you her name but I don't think she ever told us. She did mention that she was a last minute substitute.
"Should we leave?" I heard someone whisper.
I thought about it myself. But I decided that I should stay, which was made easier by the fact that my cycling shoes were already clipped into my bike. It's not easy to make a subtle run for the door in that kind of footwear.
I also thought that perhaps I was judging the instructor strictly by her appearance. Sure she looked as if she had just emerged fom some sort of time travel from the early 1990s but that didn't mean that she wouldn't know how teach a good class.
Be patient, I told myself.
Alas, a quick run to the exit probably would have been a better workout.
"Slow down," the instructor kept telling the room of people who looked forward to being drenched in sweat. Very quickly it became obvious that for this woman, fitness was about barely raising your pluse. I would have been better off spending 20 minutes on a treadmill.
"Don't work too hard," she yelled at people who were trying to pick up the pace on their own.
During the perspiration free hour, the only trickle was people flowing out of the class early. I stayed the whole time but later I cursed my need to not be impolite.
In the end, I realized that time is something precious. Are you keeping in mind how you spend yours and what you can do to get yourself out of situations that waste it?
It all began with a declaration in a spinning class.
"Emily won't be in today so I'm your instructor," a highly tanned, highly spandexed, overbleached blonde said.
For those of you who don't know, spinning is a great form of exercise that takes place on a stationary bicycle. If done correctly you can burn around a thousand calories from just an hour workout. A key component is the instructor. Emily, our regular teacher, was known for crafting together heart pounding music, complex biking routines, as well as good humor. The more than 30 people who attended her bi-weekly classes came to them expecting to have a good time as well as have a great workout. This is a hard core group, who didn't mind waiting in line for more than ten minutes just to make sure that they would be signed up for a class that wouldn't start for more than a half hour away from starting.
So you might guess, there were some nervous looks when we found out that we'd have a new instructor. I'd tell you her name but I don't think she ever told us. She did mention that she was a last minute substitute.
"Should we leave?" I heard someone whisper.
I thought about it myself. But I decided that I should stay, which was made easier by the fact that my cycling shoes were already clipped into my bike. It's not easy to make a subtle run for the door in that kind of footwear.
I also thought that perhaps I was judging the instructor strictly by her appearance. Sure she looked as if she had just emerged fom some sort of time travel from the early 1990s but that didn't mean that she wouldn't know how teach a good class.
Be patient, I told myself.
Alas, a quick run to the exit probably would have been a better workout.
"Slow down," the instructor kept telling the room of people who looked forward to being drenched in sweat. Very quickly it became obvious that for this woman, fitness was about barely raising your pluse. I would have been better off spending 20 minutes on a treadmill.
"Don't work too hard," she yelled at people who were trying to pick up the pace on their own.
During the perspiration free hour, the only trickle was people flowing out of the class early. I stayed the whole time but later I cursed my need to not be impolite.
In the end, I realized that time is something precious. Are you keeping in mind how you spend yours and what you can do to get yourself out of situations that waste it?
# posted by tvguy @ 3:15 PM 
