A Hen's Tooth

It’s been two weeks save one ride that I have been off my spin bike.  And so Friday night I took to a solo effort with my iPod and my own choice of music. I gotta tell you that it was most inspiring listening to selections that viscerally excite me.  However there’s nothing that compares to the energy that all of you give me when the Lavender Palace is filled to capacity.  Those classes are of course Kristen’s spin class where to get a number is like finding a hen’s tooth. 

To wit precisely at 6 am on Friday morning as I hit for Bike 3 (so as to save time and not dare to touch Stacy's bike 4) I got spun back to bike 28. I said WTF!  I am not used to being in the outfield. But just to be back after a hiatus was a gift IMHO.  There are very few instructors that can elicit the full power and strength our bodies are capable of than the ones at Woodbury can. I have waxed on ad nauseum about this but my passion has been reignited. Sometimes our desire wanes like it had for me but I am glad to report I am back on fire.  

So the new bikes arrive on Friday? I know it’s been a long time coming but good things are worth waiting for but to tell you the truth these dinosaurs still serve us. We might be wowed when the new ones come like finding out What’s our Watts are but until that time I am perfectly fine with the Schwinns we have.  

I have missed you all and I wish all my friends and acquaintances the very best holiday and for a fortuitous New Year.  Thank you.  

Jack 

It's Gonna Be All Right

Putting fingers to the keyboard has eluded my psyche of late. I can’t for the life of me figure out why but just opening up the computer is a start.  KSC on a Saturday seemed to be the catalyst for me this morning.  Befittingly Kristen was in the most playful of moods for the 8 am.  When she shines like this its like whipped cream on the best dessert you can think of. 

My friend Stacy made me think about something and with a bit of thought it dawned on me that she was right. The KJ cycle experience is quite singular. There is always a plan it’s never ad hoc. Kristen is just too well prepared to ever let that happen. A plan yes formulaic never! There are a host of reasons why I keep coming back and one just one is that she never plays the same record. Let me clarify she may play songs over from class to class but I can never say I know what the course of the ride will look like. As I can never predict her many faces of Eve nor do I know how she will put us through the workout of our lives.  Simply it’s fresh every time. 

And it never fails that she comes out with some phrase that sticks with me for the day. Today it was: “It’s gonna be all right” Truer words could not have been spoken. Every time things turn out just the way they are supposed to and it’s up to us to make the adjustment, which we are always capable of in the end. If we put the footwork in the results will come…eventually. Situations in life are just scripts we haven’t rehearsed yet and at the end of the day what we think was a cloud filled sky has silver linings we could never have anticipated. KJ is one of the people in my life who inspire me. Maybe she doesn’t know that but it matters not. She does.  

Stacy asked me what bike I had today even though she was spinning in the 915. I said # 3 and she later revealed that if I had her beloved #4 she would have asked me to switch because she didn’t fancy Lake Jack beneath her. Anything to keep her happy I always say. 

It’s going to be all right I know that intuitively.  

P.S. 

My mom would have been 84 years old today. Often her birthday fell on Thanksgiving. Although she's been gone almost 14 years she used to say the same thing to me: Jackie it's gonna be all right. 

I Go Both Ways

I admit I jumped on this as soon as the words escaped into the Lavender Palace but I do things like that to soften the mood or if I can crack a few smiles. No ill intent intended. I suspect that you all know that by now. But the phrase got me thinking anyway. We do go both ways in spin class don’t we? Explain Jack please. Well here goes. Easy enough actually.  

We climb with resistance and we sprint with a few turns to the left. Both ways bring us to the breathless and anaerobic zones. I until recently could never get above 100 RPM’s mainly because I was cranked too high and I never understood why or how speeding could get me anywhere in my quest to get to a higher fitness level. Now I know better because if I maintain a modicum amount to the right speed becomes part of the whole equation. It’s the back and forth between climb and interval that shocks my body and that my friends is how I go both ways. 

There has been considerable comic mileage that Ms. Sable and Ms. Gould have gotten over my over active sweat glands. Stacy didn’t want me on “her bike” #4 before her (I being on the 8 am and she being on the 915 this past Saturday) because of the expansive “puddles” I leave behind after each session. It was okay however to have Ferne sweat to her hearts content because her liquid display was paltry by comparison. I tried to act annoyed but it was of no use I joined in on the joke as well. My friends Ferne and Howard took it to a higher level when they invited me for dinner and as I got to the table there was a towel on the floor and one in my seat. Ha-Ha. I am not about to let go of this little comedy.  We both got a considerable laugh out of that one as well. There might be more “sweat” stories I will keep you posted. 

Dana who was the target of today’s title and such a good sport was just fantabulous in the Wednesday 730. She always has a good call even if she doesn’t play Mumford and Sons and does play Billy Joel. I can’t stand Billy Joel.  

500

I thought that writing in this the 500th episode of KSC that I would take various paragraphs or sentences from some of the stories and reprint them and comment about what it was like almost 4 years ago and what it feels like now. 

Remember when Hunter was just 6 years old? I do. 

From 2010:

For the Love of God.  

When I heard Kristen talk about her 6-year-old son as he said to her “For the love of God, you’re teaching again?” That was all I needed to dismiss this qualm and I settled back into my gel seat and gone was any notion that I was in any way quitting. I took on the face of the 17 races I had completed and the 1 I didn’t vanished with my next breath.

4 years ago I actually used to think about quitting before the class was over now it never enters my mind. I never give up in class or the other 23 hours of the day. 

And this post from July of 2010:

The Numerator and the Denominator.  

Ordinarily these two words mean the top of the fraction and the bottom of the fraction. I however have a different allegory for these two words. The common denominator for all of us in KSC is we are all looking to either stay in shape, get in shape or get in even better shape. It's an even number because oddly enough we are all different.

The numerator signifies what spinning means to each and every one of us personally. I have these past 6 months told you that KSC is formulaic in it's Zen like philosophy and very much a parallel of a well known 12 step program. Because of this, my numerator is; that the athlete in me has been reborn. I thought that I was retiring into middle age, even though I have been an active member of Equinox since its' inception here, but nonetheless I felt that any idea that I was still an athlete was just a file in my memory banks, something stored in my documents file.

KSC has given me so much and I cannot thank Kristen enough. Its been a an immersion of body, mind, spirit and soul.  

I think I will stay with this for a while. Writing about KSC then and now.  

Dearest

Freddy Bartholomew in 1936’s Little Lord Fauntleroy called his mother’s character Dearest. Now not for a moment would I think that we might refer to KJ as Dearest in that sense (if you’ve seen the movie) but she does say often: Trust Mommy. And every time we clip in we are all the more fit for placing our trust in her adroit care.  So since she’s been away for what seems like a long time her flock missed her including yours truly. She is the Queen of Spin after all (as you’ve often heard me refer to her as) and Saturday KSC was something we needed dearly. How was that? Did I tie it in? Or am I off my rocker? The latter might be true but lame as the start of this episode might be I love Saturday’s and Saturday’s spinning with KJ is the best way to start the weekend. 

It’s somebody’s birthday tomorrow and I think it’s the most popular girl in school as well. Stacy Tucker Sable will celebrate her birthday tomorrow and we get to join her in Carolyn’s class. Now no one is singing: How old are you now? Because it’s still not polite to ask a woman her age and needless to say whatever the number might be we think she’s just hitting her prime. Happy Birthday Stacy!

I was hoping to stumble over to Dana’s strength class in the Main Studio after the 8 am but the mind and the body were unwilling. I sent my regrets to Dana but the pro she is let me off the hook.  I know I need to diversify my regimen but after a class with Dearest I am spent. I guess I am addicted to loving just one group fitness activity. Try as I might but at 62.5 years old it’s hard to teach a sexagenarian new tricks. 

Hey the next post will be 500. Is it really possible to continue past 500 episodes?

I'll let you know. 

We'll Always Have Paris

Growing up in the 60’s the French were looked upon with disdain mainly because of a man named Charles DeGaulle. He was a man who disliked America intensely. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that this country had saved his bacon ousting the Nazis in WWII.  This head of state captured his essence quite well I think. 

"I cannot think of anything more unpleasant and impossible, than having this menacing and hostile man in our midst, always trying to make himself a reputation in France by claiming a position far above what France occupies, and making faces at the Allies who are doing the work."

Winston Churchill

Things have calmed down a bit along the Champs-Elysees and it seems Americans are able to come and go without much incident. In fact Kristen and her mom Claudia are on their way to the city of love and light Paris. We wish them a safe and memorable journey. Speaking of things memorable even if it is purely fictitious Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in a scene from Casablanca savored one of the most romantic moments in cinematic history. When they were about to part on the tarmac in the final scene Rick told Ilsa: We’ll always have Paris. Now Mrs., Bean and Kristen will create their memory together  as mother and daughter. 

Saturday in the Lavender Palace it’s not Paris but we still call it home.  

Dawn Moore

What do you think I am the paparazzi? Nancy Kaplan says I am. She told her friend what happens here at EQ when it comes to spin class. As she described the ritual we all go through and just take for granted one Saturday, it struck me that we have our own cottage industry surrounding the ceremony of booking reservations, switching bikes, getting up at 530 am, the bald headed guy that writes about it all and just who is zooming whom. It is truly singular in nature.  There’s that woman again Nancy Kaplan. Her husband is a famous doctor and when I ask her about esoteric subjects like amoebic dysentery she gives me the skinny. Nancy Kaplan it’s just like talking to a doctor without the 750.00 fee.  Any who I am supposed to be writing about spin class after all this is KSC ain’t it? Yeah I guess so. 

So where was I? Oh. I took Dawn Moore’s class this week. What night was that? I think she was subbing for Johnny Kocaj. Yes she was. Dawn Moore I ask the Queen via our electronic communication medium tell me about Dawn Moore and she informs me how good she is and I’m gonna love her and that’s she’s a seasoned spin instructor. I think to myself after 500 stories on KSC KJ doesn’t have to give me the company line on how good someone is but that’s her nature to only say great things about any member of her staff.  Okay I say let’s climb aboard and see if there’s some hubbub I can scribe about.  And with the exception of David Cooper I will not write about anyone unless there is something good to say. So Jack is there something good to say about Dawn Moore? I wondered if she might be just a little nervous her first time out. Not her first time as a spin instructor but her virgin tour in the big leagues (at least in our own minds) at Woodbury EQ. Of course she’s good more than good. This woman looking more like Serena Williams than some of our other lithesome instructors but nonetheless she moves through the air like a June Taylor dancer. Wait. Sometimes I hate being 62.5 years old because my references are so obscure. Most of you probably don’t know who the June Taylor dancers are. Just google it. Needless to say that when Dawn Moore gets off the bike (I love when instructors get off the bike it tells me how confident they are. It tells me they got game. Oh Dawn Moore she’s got game.) She got the movement cherry baby and as she rocks side to side in perfect rhythm to the percussion my pedal stroke moves in tandem with her hips. 

Dawn Moore she be cool. What about her discography?  Stacy next to me that night who knows every song imaginable (and lip-synchs to them all) said she hadn’t heard these selections before. Either had I and my guess was that it was a club mix all her own. It’s fine just because it’s not Maroon 5 or David Guetta we can still get by. Dawn Moore I will be back girl.