No one is watching you

Never Done: Spin Class
Never Done: Paul Weller Live

My friend Rimma has been selling me on the virtues of spin class for months now, and I have been resisting her -- and spinning's -- charms for as many months. First, I lived too far from the gym. Then, I didn't think I was in good enough shape to jump into a group class without flaring up one of my multitudes of chronic injuries. Also, most of the classes are at 7 AM, and my multitude of chronic injuries prevents me from going to spin class at 7 AM. One by one, the impediments were removed. I moved a couple blocks away from the gym, and started a slow, steady workout routine to start building my muscles and stamina back up. Just the other day, I noticed that I was able to increase all my weights by 5 pounds, and still feel no strain as I lift, and also that running a mile on the track without stopping has become pretty easy. So I texted Rimma and told her I was ready for the 9:30 AM weekend class. She texted back and told me she was bringing a posse.

When the time came, I didn't want to go. My neck was tight, I had a ton of work to do, it was beautiful out. But when Rimma texted me to say she had gotten there early and set up a bike for me, I hustled over to the gym, stretched, climbed on the bike, said a silent Shehekhianu, and started to pedal to warm up. (It feels like I'm going into a lot of detail before getting to the part about the actual spin class. Maybe this reflects the 8 months of not going before actually going. Let me jump to it.)

Spinning is full of contradiction. Did you know they put the bikes in front of mirrors and then turn the lights out? Play music so loud that the instructor has to shout into a head set mic and is still inaudible over the music? It's also incredibly repetitive. Once you start pedaling, you go around and around and around for an hour. In some ways, the most physically surprising thing that is also completely obvious (another contradiction) about spinning class is that you keep spinning. It's not that my legs got tired -- they didn't, because I made sure to use light enough resistance to last for the whole class -- it's that they got bored. Of spinning. And spinning. Tshuve. And spinning some more.

It sounds like I didn't like the class. I actually did. Rimma told me something incredibly useful at the beginning: no one is watching you. No one knows how much, or how little resistance is on your bike. Just keep pedaling. Do what she says, but if the instructor says to go faster, go as much faster as you want. If she says to put more resistance on, put as much more on as you want. I followed Rimma's advice (humility -- seek wisdom from everyone) and also did everything the instructor said to do. And except for the insanely uncomfortable crotch/butt situation, and my very tense neck, I liked it quite a lot.

This is turning into a long post, but I did do something else worth a mention. My friend Eric was in town, and he had an extra ticket to see Paul Weller (from the Jam) play at night. I'd never heard him play live in any of his configurations, so of course I said yes. As much as I hated the name (the Best Buy Theater) and corporatization (is that a word?) of the hall, the sound was amazing. We stood amidst a grove of extremely tall, white, men -- I had a sliver of a view, but could almost always see Paul's stunning silver bob, and listened to him play a full-out two hour show. I don't know his stuff well enough to identify it, but Eric does, and I learned afterwards that what I liked best came from his days with the Jam, and then his mid-career solo material. Sometimes I could hear the influence of my favorite band, the Who. But the thing I think I liked best about going to the show was going with Eric, and thinking about the few times we've gone out to music together over the 20 years we've been friends. Dan Bern, the out of town pre-Broadway run of Hairspray, and now Paul Weller. I wonder what will be next?