The Community of Fitness
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| photo credit: wordswithlisbeth.com |
Non-exercisers have one huge thing going for them: they can fully separate their self-worth from their body type. They’ve had a lot of practice at it. They’re probably just the person to share this perspective with people too far in, but the likelihood that the two will meet is slim to none. (Except of course if they’re willing to exchanging cash for services). The two communities need each other, and would thrive from exchange, but very few are willing to cross ‘enemy’ lines. There’s too much threat to rip apart, and the defending group has far too many numbers on their side.
Imagine if fitness could be a utopian version of a college club fair.
It could be housed in the parking lots of surgical centers and hospitals. Various versions of fitness could go to the need. Nobody would knock down the other guys, and instead of pointing out flaws they would readily recite each other’s benefits. The goal would be connecting people with what suits them best, not coming out with the most signatures and phone numbers.
In reality, as long as fitness remains business based, the welcome wagon will remain promotional. Just bells and whistles and slick marketing, set to lure in credit cards and annual commitments.
Having traditional options discredited left and right, it’s no wonder fitness themed events are all the rage.
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| photo credit: wilkie productions via tvnz.co.nz |
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| photo credit: joeforamerica.com |
Color and Mud Runs don’t advertise as a race. It’s a fun party asking if you want to participate. The goal is to do, not win. It brings people together to do something outlandish. It’s once big celebration of you saying yes. It never asks you to say it again. It’s something you look forward to and minimally have to prepare for. It’s not something you can be.
People don’t call themselves mud-runners or color-runners. They don’t talk about what place they got or how they performed. They talk about what it was like.
A fitness community should be excited to share what it was like. It should be an experience. The choice to return should be to get more of that adventure. The unknowing of what you’ll encounter requires you to question and explore and react. It tests your brain as much as your will. It calls upon you to figure things out.
Wonderful Post! As a fellow fitness (spiritual, intellectual, emotional, & physical) worker and enthusiast, the points in this resonate a lot with me. It is often a challenge, albeit a welcomed one, to maintain the integrity of my approach and uniqueness in working with clients without making it seem like my methods are uniquely different than that which has worked for millenia. Human body mechanics, chemistry, and motivation has not changed for thousands of years. Despite our modern technology and vast accumulation of research data, the principles and strategies that work are nothing new. The “newness” is simply coming from clever marketers looking to attract more attention from consumers.
I hope you are well!
We are kindred spirits 🙂 If more people integrated instead of consumed, we’d have a mass of people who understood themselves instead of products and systems.