We Carry Each Other

New Years Eve and who else can pack 50 riders in at 715 in the morning?  No one I know of except our resident hypnotist, Tripp Doherty.  It has been a remarkable year not only from the perspective of how fit we have become under his tutelage, but just how much closer we have become to each other.  You know Tripp’s theme song could be  “One” by U2, and regardless of whether you like the song or not matters little. It is the message we can glean from it that carries more notes than the tune itself.  I do know that if we show more compassion to others the more passionate our lives become.  If we choose to isolate and remain anonymous our gifts will remain unopened. 

 This blog has been my gift to all of you and one that I have given myself as it allows me to live experientially, which is the life I love to live. I could never calculate the notion that riding on a stationary bicycle could ever bring me closer to strangers that I can now call friends. Thank you so much from the bottom of my proverbial heart.  

 I petition you to make your comments, and if you are shy, anonymous ones are most welcomed as well.  I think as my offering we could get more involved in projects like Constance Korol left us off with at the end of the year with Island Harvest, and some of the charity rides for disease like Stacy did for diabetes and young Dana wants us to do for cancer with Cycle for Survival 2011.  I would also love to see us get together socially if that’s not too tall an order.  

The Gym Is All In The CS

After a weeklong battle with influenza and a back spasm digging out my car to get to the 8:30 Svengali, I could never have anticipated the electrically charged atmosphere in our jam-packed studio. Before I could get on my bike I was bellowing out my own excitement that I could not contain.  

Just like the radio wave we cannot see but hear the one-man energy generator, Tripp Doherty turned on 56 cyclists into Titans of strength with a wavelength as blue and mysterious as the Sargasso Sea.    

As I peered out into a sparsely populated main floor I had the sense that the gym was all in the CS. The joint was jumping from beginning to end with a choreography designed to move and guide us throughout every pedal stroke from “flat road” to Number “9” on the red dial between our knees. Could you not sense the evolution of how we are all blending with each other which in turn has given us a level of fitness we might not have achieved on our own?  The chamber echoed a wave of serenity that reverberated from head to foot and it was all of you that brought a crescendo that seemed to go on ad infinitum. 

Crackberry

In the instantaneous world of the 21st century, I can see and speak to someone clear across the globe with the clarity that is only to be surpassed by their physical presence next to me. In a 1948 movie entitled: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Lon ChaneyJr., says to the operator that: I know how long it takes for a phone call to reach from London to the States, but please hurry! Would we even sit still for millisecond if someone told us that now.  In a movie from 1984: Starman, starring Charles Martin Smith he is heard to  say to his government superior, that we are the ancients when it comes to technology. I think of the progress technologically we have made in the sixties, seventies and eighties, only to see it double and triple over the last two decades.  

Point being? There are times that the wizardry cripples us. A great deal of the population is now codependent on their 4G phone. It is apparent everywhere you go. I see people walking and eyes glued to their 4 inch screens and letting the real world take the back seat as if it didn’t provide them excitement enough. Then as people have taken cell phone use to an even more dangerous level, texting, technology and it’s instant gratification has threatened the lives maybe as much as DWI has. I don’t know that for sure but the figures will become alarming when the studies are completed. 

I too have succumbed to the phone with every application, sans shoe horn and back scratcher and I want to admit openly that my will is as weak as most of America. I should not limit this phenomena to the U.S. either as a British friend of mine says that the English refer to their Blackberry’s as a “Crackberry.” 

Another drawback is just how rude we have become in the company of strangers when we are talking or texting to our inner circle. Just last night I was at a very boring seminar with an equally inept speaker when I spied about 1/4 of the audience thumb typing on their phones. I wonder if it was just because the speaker was boring, or how they were wishing they were someplace else. 

We Don't Pretend

What shall I pen today since it has been what seems like a fortnight since I made an entry into my long list of blogs. I have what every writer fears, that he will lose the readers he holds so precious. I suppose I was on a collision course of over extending myself with the lack of sleep and deciding that if one class was enough why not two. I think it’s possible but I need to make a schedule and just not awake at dawn to spin and then deem another is necessary without a plan in place. Just before this ‘bug’ hit me three days ago I had taken a day off from class and did a circuit workout a la Jack LaLanne. You know the ones where you hit 8-10 machines and do 3 reps on each. Now that the new studio is complete, Equinox has also added a section for stretching where there was only a blank space before. A truly marvelous engineering job performed by Jack Smith and company. It makes the club seem so much more spacious.  

But it’s hard to break the routine I have carved out for myself. I just can’t seem to get enough of kicking my ass whether it’s with Kristen or Tripp.  I keep telling people the difference between the two is of course night and day.  Class vs. Recess. I gotta have ‘em both.  

I will avoid the politically correct Happy Holidays and instead extend my best wishes to all my friends that I have been blessed with this past year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. My friend Debbie Jensen (the PQ) informed me that the New Year numbers are four 1’s.  1/1/11. I call that picket fence time when it shows on the digital clock.  I am just so happy it brings me to tears. 

A Spin Christmas

Just so you know I did not disappear just a dasher on prancer of the flu. I hope to be back tomorrow at the Trance Inducers class in Roslyn. However, I miss you all

Jack 

Tripp's Birthday Spin

Never been to Great Neck before and except for the Master of Incantation I probably won’t go there again.  The room had the worst acoustics I have ever heard because I couldn’t hear Sven and so I had to settle for his patented dance steps and spirited exhortations that we all have come to love.  

He was booked and I took #1 and it was in the oddest position because I was right alongside Tripp but facing in the opposite direction and I found myself  staring at my image in the mirror. I don’t think I’m a narcissistic man but it was hard not coming face to face with myself pedaling madly to the trance inducers rhythmic choreography. I had done Kristen in the morning but had to be here for Svengali on his birthday.

The top of the sound system tower was adorned with pastries, as we all seemed to have the same idea in satisfying someone’s sweet tooth. He also loves caramel apples just in case you didn’t know.  There really wasn’t time for celebration as Tripp had three morning shows in Woodbury starting at the pre-dawn hour of 6.  All had a great time and I was glad I made the trip.  

Locker room scuttlebutt had a rather rotund, baldpated middle-aged man complaining about Tripp’s life story as being too personal. That’s why we come because it is personal.   Yours truly slammed him appropriately but elegantly. It was clear to this reader loving this guy was only for the brave of heart and very little of that

The Birthday Boy

We want to wish Tripp a Happy Birthday and as he hits another milestone on this December 20, we all know that there’s much more to come.  For us in the CS, the past year has been especially rewarding and 2011 with Tripp will bring us new adventures as he takes us beyond what we thought we were capable of.  He’s on the right road and the white line he paints for us each morning keeps us in the lane and ready for each turn life throws at us.  

Road Tripp

The trip north was a speedy one. I noticed that although the house was full, the usual vocal outbursts that mark Tripp’s classes were decidedly absent. A nice enough club, Scarsdale Equinox, but this Saturday’s session included a distinctly quiet group of spinners, nonetheless they were intense but they need coaching from the real deal, us.  Some might take umbrage with me, but this club can’t hold a candle on its downstate counterpart.  

Easy to get to and it’s a mere 40 minutes from Woodbury. No traffic at that time of course which made it effortless.  I could see Svengali was full of the holiday spirit and yet he was reflective about the New Year. He was talking about having a workload that only Superman might take on and that’s 25 classes. That’s a lot of pedal strokes no matter how you figure it.  

Scarsdale was where it all started for Tripp and he was recalling how he started with just one member in class who was his inspiration to stick with it and as he persevered his following grew. I loved hearing about the genesis of how it all started for him.  He played a 1967 tune by the Monkees called: Daydream Believer. Coincidentally the year of his birth and I won’t say what else he said.

The Pookah

The pookah has the most notoriety when it takes the form of a 6-foot rabbit.  He also likes to play games with us and play with our idea of what reality is.  To me the pookah are the 8 talking heads when I watch the business channel. Imagine 8 talking heads trying to convince us that they know what they are talking about. They never saw the break down of the stock market and any idea that they can tell us where to invest now is believing that the pookah does exist and he will be in your candy basket along with the chocolate bunny come next April 24th.  

It is time for us to use our collective intelligence and not rely on "show people" who are only interested in striking fear into your heart while they busily sell advertising time.  This period in American history is not a repeat of what went before; we are in a new financial age. What was isn't and what will be is just waiting for you to write it.  This is not a time to rely on trends but it is a time for the entrepreneur in all of you to recognize that prosperity is just around the corner, the way there is up to you.

Dark December

Today I avoided the scrutiny of Interpol at Roslyn and decided to make an unscheduled trip with Tripp.  Well I unscrewed my head and brain at the glass doors and left it on the back window shelf of the CS.  Every once in awhile I would check back and take a look seeing the eyes rolled back in my head and my mouth was moving but the words were indiscernible. I had decided that I would let the “Terminator” in me conduct the spin with Tripp today and by the end of the session I was so glad I did.

The music he chose today had me out of my mind in a good way because if he was a DJ he didn’t go to any Ivy League school I knew about. The musical mix seemed like crashing cars but it all seemed to work in a rhythmic fashion as only Mr. Mayhem could deliver. When he jumps off and on the bike and he raises his arms seemingly praising the Almighty he makes me crazy as I see the whites of his eyes signaling another ferocious attack on the pedal stroke.   When he played “Stomp” near the end of the session I needed both hands to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest.  The adrenaline rush was something I had not experienced since my last experience with Mr. Mayhem and before that leaping off the top step at Metro when Disco was King.  Anyway Tripp put me back on my heels when he followed “Stomp” with Doris Day and “Que Sera, Sera” in the cool down. Who does that? NO ONE!  He blew my mind.  The energy again was palpable in this class and I found myself shouting and doing the Svengali salute right hand in a fist, slammed to chest and then flexed forward. 

On that note I thought I would add something to our blog if it were all right with all of you. I will add a You Tube link to some of the tunes we hear each day as it might get us revved up for our next session. As if we needed more incentive.

Debbie in #12 with the Nadia Comaneci physiology provided me with enough incentive when the shoes I was wearing were giving me a bit of discomfort.  Debbie dontcha know is in phenomenal shape and because she had her well-defined left calf exposed to my line of sight it provided me with the focus to get over “My Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. 

My spin shoes turned up missing today and I knew they had to be here because I don’t go fetch bagels or cream cheese with them on, and so I was sentenced to my running shoes and those awkward toe box cages. I made do lamenting about my lost shoes but as I headed for the showers I started a confab with a member named Mike and because of that conversation I spied my shoes under the bench where I had left them after Carolyn’s (TBS) class on Sunday.  I thanked Mike.  I will never again take my shoes for granted because the freedom of movement they provide is unmistakable. My sneakers kept hitting the pedal flange putting me off Svengali’s rhythm. 

P.S.

I had some feedback from Tripp that I will mention only once and then I intend to move on and not mention it again. Some readers took umbrage to my entry: My Wood Was Wet.  I have to admit that I was crushed at first to hear that people were upset, and that they took this title to have a sexual undertone to it.  First off I am a writer and not everyone will like what I write and I can accept that. Secondly, I did not make a sexual reference even though some of my readers inferred that I did. If you read the full article you would hopefully be able to discern that. Be that as it may if you have comments direct them to me not anyone else because I am the writer and Tripp is in no way responsible for what I write. I want to face the music always so play it for me not anyone else. 

Tripping the Light Fantastic

Yesterday I tried a Napoleon Solo* but was later joined by Jesse a neophyte to spin and two construction professionals named Steve and Frank. Of course I was trying to enroll them into the Svengali experience and I will continue in my role of St. John the Baptist in announcing the Trance Inducers comings and goings. 

There is one major concern that has come to light and I am hoping that Tripp’s fandango will not be adversely affected. It’s quite frankly the fact that his dance floor is small as a shoebox and it leaves little for his animated gesticulations and distinctively patterned footwork.  What to do is the next query I pose but I feel the laws of Physics might leave this conundrum unanswered.  

This mornings entry has brought me to the realization that I don’t necessarily have to have my spin shoes on to write and that might seem like an extraneous detail but it will also bring me the ability to make an entry each and every day for those that look each day.  

*Napoleon Solo was a character in the hit TV series: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It ran in the 1960s, but in my reference it means that I am spinning alone in the CS. 

My Wood Was Wet

Sometimes your curve ball just doesn’t break. It was that kind of start this morning wherein I just didn’t have it.  The adjustment interval going across the hall hit a snag with me for about 45 minutes in the new CS. My wood was wet and until I found some dry kindling the pilot light was spewing gas into the pre dawn light. 

Leave it to Sven to ignite the explosive side of me and recharge my inner fire.  A new choreography finally brought me to life and I remembered why I awoke in the dark without an alarm, because my own inner clock is automatically set to Svengali time. 

We have a lot to reflect on this past year, I am grateful for having found Tripp all those months ago and deciding to chronicle his exploits on a regular basis week to week. I cannot stress enough how Tripp, JC and I want to make this blog turn into a website and become totally interactive with all of you. We want to become part and parcel and adjunct if you will, to your experience with the Master of Incantation. Leave a comment, anonymous if you wish about what you love, what you don’t and how you see the New Year unfolding for you and for all of us. 

From Ideas to Results

Are we ready for what 2011 may have in store for us? I got a feeling that as we enter this New Year we will find that our camaraderie in the House of Svengali will not only bring us closer together but give us a sense of mission that will bring our hearts beating in every life we touch outside of the room.  

Is anyone up for the challenge of Mount Washington this January? We invite your comments and thoughts. 

The Chain Reaction

The rippling affects could be felt today in Svengali’s inaugural venture into the Lavender Palace. I suspect that we will have a different marquee for the trance inducer, let’s see how about Hypnotic House. I would be eager to get your suggestions. I felt compelled to make the 6 AM blast off simply because…. Well just because.  The novelty won’t wear off for quite sometime I suspect and it makes a huge difference to me to get an energy read on the new studio as it unfolds and starts to take on it’s own identity based on the residue of emotion we all leave here.  

The back of the studio seems to be the near distant past in terms of how one can see what’s transpiring on stage. We might need a higher one just to elevate the visibility of Tripp because it is not necessarily what we hear from him but what we see in his countenance and those trademark gesticulations. Like that inkless finger script in mid-air that ends a sentence as if to say “That’s the name of that tune”.  

There are some kinks and glitches that have to sort themselves out beside the size of the room, how the bikes are laid out and a early complaint that was quite vociferous being the temperature of the studio. Sven has some ideas there and I think he wants to call a town meeting as to what needs to be addressed. There are certain limitations that physics cannot accommodate but what can be done will be done or at least given consideration. 

Today more than ever before I could sense that Tripp’s class is way beyond the scope of even the best spin classes purport to be. I see this as a life altering culture that brings camaraderie to a level of intimacy  that even 12 step programs can’t lay claim to. Look at young Dana for example, she told me she was so excited to get to the class today as if she was a kid again running downstairs to see what Santa left under the tree. Her determination is fierce and the look on her face told me that this is not your mother’s spin class   You don’t find this kind of devotion in group exercise. Others may approach the cerebral but none take it to heart as Tripp Doherty does.  

All Sold Out!

If you think that KSC (Kristen’s Spin Class) which sold out for this mornings performance in 8 seconds is news, check out what Svengali has done in his first tour of duty in the new CS across the hall starting tomorrow December 7. 

All 3 classes, the 6 AM, the 8:30 and 9:45 are booked solid. Imagine all three shows of Svengali are filled. Fortunately in lieu or 10 bikes we have 14 we can line up for. 

 Today the energy was pulsating in KSC, and who knows what’s in store once the Master Motivator takes center stage, he might have us levitating right off the saddle. 

All Sold Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8ULVlaiw6k

26 Hours

Equinox ushered in the opening of the new CS this morning instead of Monday as was originally anticipated. It promises to be a welcome relief to all of us that wake up 26 hours before, usually interrupting our somnolent state only to be shut out because of the huge demand.  Now, that might be a non-event and at least to this writer, welcomed because when we crank up the resistance on that red wheel it’s about effort not anxiety.  Some say that it won’t make a difference but I beg to differ but of course time will tell. See you on Tuesday. 

Tripple Play

Trying to defy physics I went for it. Cathy Munzer Stone yesterday at 945, Carolyn Mellace at 6 PM and the Friday morning session with Svengali; Tripp Doherty.  Sprinkled in between was an 80-minute massage from the very talented Katie in the spa. That might have been the difference maker because after young Katie removed the ‘aliens’ inhabiting my calf muscles I was good to go for my version of a Tripple Play. 

I discovered a gap in the Matrix of sold out Svengali in the morning. Along about the mid point in the 6 AM class several members need to start their day and do not have the luxury of staying for the full version of the Master Motivator. And so if you’re willing to take your prescription in two parts, you can arrive late ride for 15 minutes and then gallop in the shortened 45-minute episode at 715.  Just a thought for those of you  that have a little difficulty  rising at 4 AM the previous morning to book online. This may all change once the new CS opens, which if my sources are correct could be as early as this Monday December 6th.  

I love the pre dawn Svengali, because we get to see the sun and when it breaks it’s just the perfect metaphor for sipping our Zen in a bottle. Today the vitamin C was sweet because next to me sat young Dana looking very svelte, Randi in her usual position #6 and the good friends MM (sans her black baseball hat) and the PQ to her left. Hidden in the back row was JC our resident erudite barrister pounding the pedals in the first session. 

We want to hear from you more about your inspirational stories or if you have a particular cause you champion. So write me here or at JackBriant@mac.com see you in the new CS.