Friday Rant....and Thanks: Gym Edition

So for the past year, I've been teaching Tuesday night spinning at a small independent gym in my neighborhood. Now, I'm all for supporting the local indie business (the Evil Empires of Walmart, Costco and the chain bookstores are a rant for another day), my mother has a small independent store and I worked at an independent bookstore for a while. But there are some instances where the small indie just doesn't have it together.

The Beginning
I was hired with no audition, no references called, and while they did asked whether I was certified, they never actually asked to look at the certification. That's warning bells right there, but since they were paying me considerably more than the other gyms where I teach, I figured I'd just roll with it. I stopped by one morning to fill out some paperwork and take a tour of the gym and that was that, "show up on Tuesday to teach class." Excellent.

Where the Going Gets Murky
So, then I show up for the first class and there's nobody there to take class. Mind you, this is a small club which is mostly cardio and weight equipment, no frills. The small cycle room doubles as a yoga studio and triples as a stretching/personal training room. That's fine, whatever. I set up the bikes (all seven of them), crank up the music, get on the bike, and start pumping. A couple people came in to find out what was going on, I chatted with them about class, and hopefully started to spread the word.

The next week, one person came to class. Great, ok, I can work with this. It all builds slowly (they had just bought the bikes, so it was an entirely new program). Plus, the bikes have these very cool computers on them to tell you how fast and how fast you've gone. Which is great when you want them to match a particular cadence.

The following week, I show up and go to get my paycheck. And I'm paid $20 less than was (verbally) agreed. And my name isn't on the schedule. My class isn't even on the schedule. And, the only two evening cycling classes of the week are both on Tuesday night. ????

So I email the manager. Tell him there seems to have been a problem, I wasn't paid what I was told I would be. And here's what I was told - "since you only had one person in class, it's considered personal training, so you're being paid that rate." And as to the fact that I'm not on the schedule? "We're going to see how it goes."

Um, hell no.

Agreement was for a certain amount, not based upon attendence. It's not my fault he's not advertising the class (and even crazier, after a whole year of teaching....I'm still not on the schedule! Not online, not on the paper copies they give out. The only place I'm on the schedule is on the ones they post on the walls where I've handwritten my class in), and it's not my fault if the weather's nasty or people are busy or what have you. I can go along with not getting paid for nobody showing up (though the other gyms do pay me for that, since I showed up, I blocked out the time, and it was the member's decision not to come). If there's low attendence, you don't pay the instructor less, you just cancel the class permanently. Screwing with the instructor's pay just pisses them off and makes them not feel loyal to you. That issue was "resolved" by saying that if only one person showed up, I could cancel class.

I've asked him several times over the last year to change the website and schedule fliers, because if people know about class, then more people are likely to come (this seem emminently logical to me...a basic for marketing - people can't go to a class they don't know about). He usually ignores emails.

Regardless of all these marketing shenanigans, I did start to get a core group of people coming to class. Usually about 3-5 on any given Tuesday (max is 7). But again, because the two evening classes of the week are back to back, we end up splitting attendence between us.

When the Burnout Begins
Last week, the train was delayed, so I got to the gym at exactly the time class was supposed to start. Whatever. The management has never seemed to care, and the members are usually late, since it's hard to get there on time right from work. I poke my head in the spin room, but there's nobody there. I go change, set up all the bikes, and there's still nobody. I go out to the front and see one of the regulars from my class on a stationery bike. He was willing to take class, but since it was just him, that fell under the cancel-class rule. So I'm kind of psyched, now I can just lift some weights and go home. Then someone else approaches me to ask about class. At this point, it's a good 15-20 minutes after class is supposed to start. And I just wasn't prepared to start class at that point. So I told her I had to have at least two people, and unfortunately I was cancelling class that night. At any of my other gyms, where they actually have oversight (and treat their instructors well), there's no way I would do that.

This week, I had three people in class. One wanted a 45 minute class (it's technically a 60 minute class, but I give the option), the others were kind of on the fence, but would've done 60. And I was really tired. I didn't feel like dealing with it. We did 45 minutes.

The World Works in Mysterious Ways
So I've just started meditating, and a local meditation center was recommended to me. And their beginning meditation group meets on Tuesday nights. My immediate reaction to this is "damn! I have to teach." Then I think about it, and I say "hmmm, I wonder if I should try to change the night I teach, or just cancel, because dude is a hassle to deal with" (all the people and employees and business partners at the gym are wonderful, it's just the one guy who's hard to deal with, for everyone not just me). Because going to that beginner's guided meditation would be helpful...it's hard to do on my own!

Then I get a call yesterday from the gym. They need to change the schedule. They want to put both spinning classes on Monday nights (uh, hello, why move both to the same night?). I teach two classes at another gym on Monday nights, definitely not going to be able to do that. So I talk to Manager Dude this morning. They have a yoga instructor who's really popular who has to change her schedule and can only teach Tuesdays, so they need to switch the spinning. All well and good. But I can't teach Mondays. I suggest he break up the spinning classes, since members have been asking to have them on separate nights. His response? "Yoga does better for us, I'm kind of regretting getting the spinning." Well, he should be regretting not actually advertising that there ARE spinning classes, but I didn't go there. I just told him that if he ever wanted to put a spinning class back on Tuesday or Wednesday, to let me know.

And Then Comes the Thanks
So yes, I'll miss the money, because it wasn't inconsequential. But man, I feel kinda free! I no longer have to deal with the Manager Dude, I have an extra day of the week when I could teach somewhere else, or get my own workout, or go to the guided meditation at the center. I find it funny that this all happened within a week of even finding out about the meditation center. But I think it's a good development, going from stress to calm or social (or both).

In search of my yoga high

So I'm on a quest, a yoga quest. So far, I've tried three kinds: Astanga, Vinyasa, and Kundalini.

Lately, I find that I need to get back to my center, find my calmness and focus back on my breathing and inner self. And man was that weird to say, because I've never thought of myself as all that new age-y. But there you have it. So I'm trying to find the right yoga for me, and I'm learning how to meditate (and damn is that meditating hard!). The past four years has been aerobics pounding and weight pumping fun, and now it's time to balance it out.

Thus far, these are the styles I've tried:

Astanga - In one word? Lost. The movements were very fast - through the first three reps of each sun salutation, the movements flowed so quickly from one to another that I didn't have time to take a proper breath. When we were given the reins to go at our own speed, I could slow it down. Since breathing's what I'm after, this one didn't cut it. Plus, I had the feeling it was just a bit too advanced - in between every sitting pose, we were supposed to do a vinyasa (plank, hover, downdog). I just sat there and tried to look serene. It was definitely a good work out, and used muscles I hadn't used in a while (ouch!), but not a good way to get back into yoga.

Vinyasa - This is interesting...I didn't realize until just now when I went to research it that vinyasa yoga is just a derivative form of astanga yoga. The main difference I could see was that vinyasa was a bit slower and easier for me to follow (though that could've been the instructor). I was able to breathe through the moves, though the forms were definitely athletic more than meditative. And that's what many superhuman yoga guru people are looking for. But not me. I may continue doing this style every now and then, just to increase my flexibility and get more comfortable with the flow. The instructor has a tendency to be very chatty, in that annoyingly chipper more like aerobics kind of way that is, in fact, rather like how I sound in step class.

Kundalini - I got to this class right after class started, and at first it sounded like there was music on. Then I realized they were chanting. I almost walked out right then, because while I'm all for people following their spiritual bliss, the whole mystical connection has never been that interesting to me. But I sat down, figured I'd give it a chance. And man did I feel strange humming along with them. Then we got into the yoga part, which was so totally different than astanga and hatha that I almost didn't recognize it. It was basically all small movements (front-back, side-side, rotating hips, lift leg off downdog) with fast breathing. I felt myself start to hyperventilate pretty quickly with trying to match their breathing until my fingers started to tingle. So rather than find myself splayed out embarrassingly on the floor with the teacher hovering over me, I decided I'd slow it down. So I did one movement for every one of their two or three, and instead of breathing out with the out movement and in with the in, I'd breathe a full breath and just move separately. I know, not the purpose of the breathing with the yoga, but I figured the modification was better than fainting. One of the things that I really did like about class is that they had a long section at the end of meditative yoga - basically sitting with arms up (or, in my case, hands on knees) and some chanting. By that point I wasn't as self-conscious.

There's a really nice yoga studio right across the street from work that I want to try, but it's about $20 per class, which is a lot steeper than the free astanga (since I work there) or cheap kundalini (work there, but don't have a membership). I'm going to check out Kripalu at some point soon, maybe a three day stint or something of the kind. I understand they have lots of different styles there, so I can go yoga shopping!

I have this wacky idea rattling around in my head. There are some people who meditate sitting. Some people meditate while walking. I wonder if there would be a way to combine spinning and meditation? And it seems that I'm not the first to have this idea. Now, I'm not talking spinning in the same way I'd normally teach a class, which involves standing up, sitting down, speeding up, slowing down, raising and lowering resistance. But just the act of spinning is a rather meditative act, it seems to me, at a steady cadence, steady resistance, it would be easy to just "slip into the zone" as cycling instructors would put it. I think that it would be hard to do meditative cycling on the road (or bike path) because you'd have to pay attention to not wrapping yourself around a tree, or a person (though the link above says that it's not that different than walking meditation, just keep your eyes open). First step, though, get comfortable with meditation, then add cycle...Don't start thinking about it class or timing cues will be missed as I start thinking about how meditative it is (oops, too late, turn your gear! Stand up! Pedal faster!). Too bad the weather's getting so much cooler...I could start cycling outside now!