The question is not what you look at, but what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau
So it's been just over a year since I moved over to eQuillibrium and wow have I learned A LOT! I knew (from previous somewhat failed attempts) that growing a gym business was hard. And I am here to report that I was NOT wrong (ha)! But overall it has been such an incredible experience - and we are well on our way to bigger and better things! Well, maybe not better - but bigger anyway :)
Opening up our facility to more people - and people from various gyms, recommendations and even the internet - has brought a much greater mix of abilities, expectations and goals. Which is AMAZING. eQ has become a place where what WE want takes precedent over what I want, and has brought some really great results. At SiB, I ran the programming based on what I was trying to accomplish, personally - and I invited some friends along for the ride. But it was not super adaptive and that was my biggest concern in branching out.....could I create a more inclusive environment, while still making sure we didn't lose out on the intensity of what we had developed at SiB? And I think so far the answer is yes! YAY!
Don't reinvent the wheel, just realign it. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book
Why am I bringing all of this up now? Well, it has to do with the MIRRORS!!! In the fitness industry you either love them or hate them. Crossfit normalized NOT having mirrors, after years and years and years of general group exercise rooms in those big box gyms. And I for one was SO HAPPY to see the move away from them. For YEARS at SiB I resisted every time someone asked for them. "It's not what we do here" or "we don't need mirrors to be effective" was always my response. And it was easy to say no over there because we had a small group, we generally helped each other out AND I had no desire for the teams to be distracted by them. Pretty much all an excuse, because I just generally don't like the "vibe" of what the mirrors represented.....to me.
Fast forward to this year. As we expanded the schedule, the instructor roster grew and I got to hear, for the first time in a long time, lots of different perspectives from people in the industry. Which has changed a whole bunch since my Gold's Gym days. And our arguably most well attended class is Mixxed Fit. Which is as fun as it sounds, by the way. Definitely WAY outside of my wheelhouse, but because it is so big - and has some serious choreography - mirrors would be a huge help to both the instructors and the members. And so I caved and we installed 1 fairly big mirror. With all these dumb "rules" like this is not for "selfies". Why I was trying to control this is beyond me - but at least I am fairly self- aware about my level of crazy.
...for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. ~William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Fast forward, first mirror is a smash (pun intended). The girls loved it and the instructors were happy so YAY. Lesson learned - be okay with new and different ideas. This is going to be a big group effort in finding the "right" combination of classes, styles, people and motivation. This is where the perspective piece comes in. Because not only do I need to get varying perspectives, I also have some to share. Teamwork makes the dream work and all that. And when a member (who shall remain nameless - cough, cough) offered up another mirror for the back wall, I thought why not? So we hung up a smaller mirror, which ultimately faces where I stand when I am leading a class. Big mistake.....HUGE. Did I mention I hate mirrors?
This is where it gets funny. At least I think so. I am facing this stupid mirror class after class - and I admit I find them helpful to check form and see the back of the class better - but every time I look up, all I can think is "am I really this wide?" Here I am busting my ass day after day, doing WAY more cardio than I have in years and this freaking mirror makes me feel like I'm GIANT. So I try to mostly ignore it, but I'm human - and its nagging in the back of my brain. For all the times I say (and truly believe) that fitness is NOT about what you look like - you know it's about HEALTH and being able to DO the things you want to do in your real life - I still want to LOOK fit. It's definitely a quandary. But again, I'm totally aware of the hypocrisy and try to be honest about it.
See evidence 🠈🠈 Same day, exactly 30 seconds apart. It almost looks like a before and after photo - or maybe that is just me (and wishful thinking). But it really made me think about how I view myself and what that mirror was telling me.
PERSPECTIVE is everything, friends. I am no different in either of those photos. I am just standing in a different spot. Looking at the same thing, just from a different viewpoint. Life lessons abound!!
The next few days, every time I had class I would make everyone do the side step exercise. Not that it really made a huge difference, but the point was the same. We need to change it up sometimes. If you don't like where you are standing, move. See what a change in outlook can bring to you.
The gym business is a visual one. Which is one of the things I struggle with the most. I don't believe your size has ANY relation to your fitness. I am at my strongest when I am generally heavier. Maybe that is in my head, or maybe is just relativity. But I KNOW I can be fit at any weight or size - and so can anyone else. This is why I try not to encourage or get hung up on what fit "looks" like. But just like your physical weight, its another "metric" we use to judge our progress. And unfortunately, I think we all judge our appearance much more harshly than we do our performance.
I am saying all that to say this. We are all human. These are trying times. Fitness should be something that ADDS to your life, not detracts from it. And sometimes we all need a change in perspective to learn something new. Be open to changes - and different viewpoints. I think we would all be in a better place if we opened up to seeing things just a tiny bit differently.
Change our thought, and the world around us changes. ~Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
As always, thanks for coming on this journey with me. I am going to try to get back to blogging a bit more again. We have another wedding coming up, so the journey from where I am now to where I am going to be in April 2025 should be fun for us all (yes, its still shoulder season). xoxo
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