I got a gym membership last week. Not for long, don't see myself renewing it past the month, but there it is. It's not the gym that appeals, it's the pool, which is 5 minutes from where I live, and open till late, and clean and what not. When I'm swimming, I'm in my element. I don't actually know if I'm a water person, though falling into Aquarius, feels like that's right, doesn't it? I don't know.
Anyway, I've been going swimming, and there is such a place of tremendous inner connection when I'm underwater. A wonderful freedom like none I've ever known. Part of the reason why, if and when I move, it'll have to be somewhere near a (decent temperature) water. I want to swim daily. I went to this same gym for about four months straight, during the pandemic (before the medical tyranny dictated declared the unvaxxed personae non gratae), and swam nearly every single day for four months. I loved it. I felt clear-headed, and healthy, and strong.
It also forced me into a distraction-free space of quiet inside my head, where I could think and order my thoughts.
See, I have a very testy relationship with exercise in that I'm not a fan of working out to build muscle or just work out. I like the movement I engage in to be conscious, and connecting. And that's not what you get at the gym, in my experience.
I popped into the gym itself a couple of nights ago, as I felt obligated. Since I'm paying, I should be taking advantage of that, right? I don't know how to work most of the machines in the gym, so I just stuck to the bicycle thing and the treadmill. All in all, I was there maybe 20 minutes, and spent that time observing the people around me.
They were all so... disengaged. There was zero internal focus. They weren't feeling the increased heartrate or enjoying that daily sweat (I do think there can be tremendous value in daily exercise and a routine practice). There was this one guy, corporate-looking type, sat on the bike next to mine. Spent the entire time I was there staring into his phone, scrolling some social media or another while his legs did the work. Totally out of where his body was at that moment, or what was being done.
I'm not a fan of that.
I think, when you move, it should be a conscious thing. Fine, you can't be conscious all the time of every single step you take. But to be fair, you probably walk a lot more than you actively work out. So in that time, it seems to me like you should be present.
I took up running (also as a result of pandemic regulations that were more lenient towards joggers), and remember enjoying the fairly rare moments when I actually did run enough for my heart rate to go up, and feel that cool expansion in my lungs. I loved that feeling, and felt myself fully present. I had to be. I was paying attention to how I breathed, how I moved, if I could go a little further.
Felt weird snapping people working out, so here's me on my way out xD
I don't like gym culture because it's
(a) disconnected -- a lot of people I see are just listening to podcasts, or scrolling their phone. They are not in their bodies. And it seems strange to me because we don't know how long we'll be in these bodies, so maybe taking 30 minutes, maybe an hour a day to observe them and truly feel them isn't that outrageous, you know?
(b) vain -- I get it. People work out to look good nowadays. But maybe we could turn that into a byproduct, rather than the main goal. There were these two guys that almost made me fall off the treadmill, as I was watching them. They were working some chest press thing, taking turns, and each guy, when it was his turn, would stare intently into the wall mirror. Like "yeah you look good tiger".
Maybe you know the scene in Friends where Ross is hiding under the bed and hears Bruce Willis' character encouraging and pumping himself up in the mirror before making a move on Rachel? It was cringe. The scene at the gym was exactly that.
Yes, you want to work out to have a tight, well-muscled body and look fine. That's alright, it'd be a stretch to ask people to quit that entirely. But maybe you can get there by practicing something that makes you honor your body and respect it, rather than treat it like a machine.
We're not robots. Our bodies aren't automated. We act like we need to work our bodies out regularly to keep them working right. Like a car tune-up. Like it's a chore.
I wonder, how can moving your body, feeling your strength and grace and equilibrium pass for a bothersome, tedious chore in this world?
So if I want to look good, I'd go for a type of exercise I enjoy, like some type of power yoga, pilates, swimming,or dancing. Obviously, what you connect with may differ. But at least make sure you connect with something, that you're not just moving on auto-pilot. Doesn't it seem a shame?
There'll come a time when these people miss the days when they were young and could lift or press or run the way they do now. They'll miss that looseness and freedom in their body. Yet now that they do have it, they put it on auto-pilot. Sad.
Do you work out? Or practice some sport? What's your relationship with it? And what motivates you?
