Do Something You're Afraid Of

That phrase struck a symphonic chord and wound it’s way around my heartstrings.  There are moments in each day when our inner voice hops up on the podium and speaks to us and invites us to take action.  The built in excuse maker takes his stage hook and pulls the legs right out from under our feet of clay.  Mr. Didactic had me motivated from that moment on in this an 8:30 AM version of the Svengali Woodbury Monday. I was determined to make a fearless and moral inventory and do just that.  

Zen in a bottle is delivered right to my magnetic flywheel each time I clip in. We pay  a significant premium for the price of an Equinox membership, but for me it’s chump change for the diamonds and pearls in this jewelry box house of fitness.  I make this my third space. There’s home and work to occupy the first and second space of my life but the experiential part of my life lies right here in my third space, Equinox Woodbury.  Do I sound like I work here? No it’s much better than that I get to come here and not only workout but write and talk to some of my friends that I have grown to love and respect. I have been working out in gyms for half a lifetime but none compares to this place. Virtually everyone knows my name and if I just want to come in for a protein drink or take a look at the new spin room I always find a waiting ear or someone that needs mine.  

A few days away from the Master Motivator and his face was a welcome sight even though most of the weekend was filled spinning with the other two stars I love Kristen, The Evil Woman and Carolyn Mellace, The Blue Sapphire.  But I luxuriate getting amped up with the trance inducer and his brand of keeping us spellbound.  And just take a look that Samson like hairdo is returning little by slowly.   He talked about unconditional love today and that’s what I want in my life, from my friends here in the CS no explanations just unconditional love. (ULO)

Eccentric and Charismatic

I opened an email from a peripherally close friend of mine last night and I was struck by his salutation and comment: Good night my eccentric and charismatic friend. I thought for a moment and realized this was not throw away dialogue. He has known me for over 15 years and has observed and interacted with me on a deeply consistent basis and he knows all too well my strengths and frailties.

Eccentric and charismatic, these two words more than most, if one was restricted to two words to describe me, probably embody my personality better than any other two words chosen with exacting care. Charisma, I have always thought I was blessed with that gift, but just like the word deserve, I am hesitant to use that semantic when I am describing myself. I would prefer to leave that assessment to come from the mouths of significant others that know me more intimately.

Growing up I always thought of myself as shy and withdrawn, but by the 5th grade whenever I danced the twist, I had a huge circle around me, taking in my translation of the dance craze that had swept the nation. The ability to ‘dance’ must have been inherited from my maternal grandfather, because his nickname was ‘crazy legs’. This secret charisma did not appear in my consciousness again until I was 30 years old and could be found dancing the night away at my favorite disco haunts, where I put on my one man show on a parquet dance floor. Dance was the lead in that gave me the present day ability to speak to virtually any stranger in proximity. Instinctively I can enter a person’s world and can engage them in short and lasting confabs as if they were scripted from a handcrafted teleplay. That in essence displays my charisma, except maybe for the energy I bring to the proceedings in any group exercise or at least if I am to believe what I am told by many.

The word eccentric however, is a much more esoteric but nonetheless deeply embedded character trait that runs like an estuary in my circulation. Not something I was readily admitting to myself let alone anyone else. However, as I examine the statement my friend made, I have to admit that it is true. For example, I rarely keep my head where my feet are. That was a phrase I often heard in AA but ignored and continue to ignore no matter how much overt attention I pay to it. The word eccentric by definition says that when it comes to a character trait, it means that a person engages in odd and unconventional behavior. Was there ever a definition that suited me better than that description? I don’t think so! I tend to over think most situations and lend my idiosyncratic thought process to others that never have an inkling to what my mind can conjure up. Eccentric means that I never know where I put things. Some might say that is merely forgetful. Oh no. Why it is eccentric is because no matter how many times I misplace things, and admonish myself about it, I continue to do the same thing expecting different results. This is also a definition of insanity, but I don’t think I have crossed that threshold not yet anyway. I make plans on my social calendar and forget the ones I have made on my business calendar. I cannot seem reconcile that time is time, whether I am engaged in fun or trying to make a living. Eccentric is also what gives me the ability to be charismatic because if I didn’t stand out I wouldn’t be eccentric and vice versa.

My friend said a mouthful, my eccentric charismatic friend. 

The New Kid All Over Town

I took a big bite of pre Holiday turkey today and decided that I would take a double dose of spin with KSC and Svengali.  If KSC weren’t enough with the Evil Woman’s new regimen of 80+ of perceived exertion, Sven would be.  As some of you know I write about both of these superstar instructors and they couldn’t be any more different than clockwise is to counter clockwise.  

Tripp and Kristen accomplish the same thing for me only different. What is the same is that I love both of their curriculums and I have often said that one is class and the other recess.  If you’re familiar with just one you know which one is which. And I think class without recess would be just like cake without ice cream, it just wouldn’t do.  

Some of you spin with both of them and most of you know that Kristen is virtually impossible to get into unless you’re willing to wait an hour plus on line for the last 10 bikes. Up until now that was only true for her. That’s all changed and the groundswell is now all about the Trance Inducer, Svengali: Tripp Doherty. I for one am glad to have watched the transition from the best class in the world to the best recess ever devised.  

Happy Thanksgiving.  And thanks for reading this blog.  Tripp, JC and I are determined to make your stops here even more entertaining in 2011 and beyond. 

Robin Arnold: Paths of Grace and Glory

Here she is atop Mount Kilimanjaro 

Tanzania 

The Mountain Top Kids 

Heart Beats 

NYC Marathon

Cycle Beats

Forgive me but it was another road trip with Tripp.  This one, a short trip via the time warp and we found ourselves in the Westchester edition of Equinox spin class.  An unusual set up, 3 rows of 6 bikes on each side facing other with a small aisle for Tripp to do his fandango. It looked like the March of the Wooden Soldiers facing off against each other.

At first I had to contain myself energetically and I couldn’t explain why.  I was for all intents, riding with strangers and they probably would not be accustomed to a boisterous Long Islander like yours truly.  I gathered my emotions and pushed the effort, as is my wont when the trance inducer, Svengali rolls in his inimitable style. What I have been noticing of late is that the hour is just not long enough, because I am enjoying this addiction way too much. I ride to write and I write to ride.   

What is nascent to me at this moment is that Frank Doherty, yes that’s his Christian name is starting to become like Almond Joy, indescribably delicious without the calories and sugar spike.  The word master in me is starting to realize that describing Tripp is getting more difficult because it is what he doesn’t say that carries the most meaning for me. Today I noticed that little trademark he does with his right index finger, as if he is writing his signature in air, putting an exclamation point on the end of a sentence. A truly eccentric and charismatic man this Tripp Doherty our Svengali. Or the artist formerly known as Mr. Mayhem.    

Living The Unlived Life

In my first attempt to bring individual stories to this blog, I found the opportunity to talk and be with a one Robin Arnold, from Scarsdale.  Tripp had been showcasing to me how so many people had touched his life in a way that was profound, provocative or everlasting. My first subject might have been all three.  

A strikingly handsome woman at first blush, her physiology fit and trim, her countenance lit by the broadest of smiles as she introduced herself.  My sense of her was she was comfortable in her own skin.  Never have I interviewed someone about life experiences except when it came to financial ones, this time I could explore both triumph and defeat garnished with distinctive personalities that brought them to where they are now. 

Robin is, and let me coin a phrase to say she is a philanthropic humanist.  She has seen death in her arms and taken that vision of life slipping away to give her the impetus to do all of the things she’s longed for. Like running the New York Marathon or standing atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania or spinning in the highly motivational setting of Equinox Scarsdale in the presence of her friend Tripp Doherty our own Svengali.  

She is my friends, living the unlived life. The one we wished we could have done had we not chosen the one we inhabit right now.  We could have been musicians, dancers or doctors but we chose family or other obligations that seemed at the time, well either more pressing or in life’s best case scenario being in love.

Robin is rich in love, because she shares her compassion openly and authentically with others that have incurable diseases or congenital challenges that enrich their lives, but I suspect and this is only a suspicion because I don’t know her well enough, allows her to live the unlived life.  

Body Surfing

About 9 months ago I took my first spin class with Tripp Doherty this is the first story I wrote about this young man, and this reprint is especially for the Equinox members in Scarsdale.  

I took my spin class today; with someone else at the helm, his name was Tripp. Absent were the well choreographed scientific dance incantations that Kristen animates for me each week, but it was clear from the first few moments Tripp was and dare I say it going to be a trip.

Right out of the time tunnel of my past this angular man with a disheveled hairdo soon had me pounding my chest bringing me quickly to the anaerobic world KG had re-introduced me to. His chant “infinity on all sides” was one I had not heard before, but it resonated with me like a bell chime perfectly pitched and I was off yet again. As Tripp bounded on and off his bike dancing rhythmically nothing like Gene Kelly but nonetheless just as energetically, I knew I had found an alternative drumbeat I could cling to.

Body surfing was what came to my mind as I listened to Tripp barely audible above the music from my own adolescence. You might be familiar with this gearless beach sport in which you wade out waist deep and try to launch yourself on one of natures own thrill rides. What usually happens is you catch the wave, swallow a mouthful of salt water or get flipped over from the sheer force of the wave and end up on your back scraping the sand dazed and confused.

At the end of this ride I experienced all three. And by the time this ride was done, I was drenched in my own salt water, gasping for air and not wanting any more, at least not until next time.