Celestial Workout

I don’t know why I am complaining so much about this particular subject. If you like hot looking guys so much. You shouldn’t complain if you’re surrounded by thousands of them. Seducing and gazing like some lions on a meekly gazelle prancing on the African savannah (that would be me!), they were all ready for some action. Hmm, sweaty bodies everywhere. Showing off to get appreciations from passers-by. Wow, it should feel like you’re in heaven where seemingly the entire homo-binan-sis species seemed to flock around a single watering-hole day by day. It should if you’re in Babylon or One-oh-Seven!

Again, it might just be me or I felt like the world had gone mad. I was talking about nothing else but my gym. Smack bang boom in the exact center of the city, lately it had became a sort of pseudo-paradise for men watching, men gathering, men hook-ups, men pick-ups, and even yes, men to men actions. Anyone should fit any market there. There are the cutie pies from the next-door university, yuppies who have excellent taste in shoes, clothing and carry-ons, businesspersons who have to flaunt three or four cell-phones. Slim ones, fat ones, beefy ones, gargantuan muscled ones, pretty ones, ugly ones, manly ones, sissified ones, you name it. They were all there for your enjoyment.

In marketing terms I would be categorized as the first-trial-suckers. Any company who’d launch a new glitzy campaign would love me because I have a minimum loyalty in a brand and would try any new product instantly as long as it fit my needs (or wants) in any way imaginable. Back then, the trend in the earlier part of the millennium was to join a gym inside a mall. Not only that it was trendy and socially acceptable, it was also a kind of a status recognition for many yuppies who couldn’t afford the country clubs or the higher-end health clubs at five-star hotels yet. Not unpredictably, so many Batavians in the middle-up strata were attracted to this. The true reunion melting pot it was, I met so many of my old friends from highschool and college there. Even my entire extended family were seen there on and off with their friends and colleagues. I felt suffocated. Practically everyone I knew was there. And they choked me even further when I learned that it was so complicated and costly to discontinue the membership there. Biatch!

Moving to another gym (still yet in a another shopping-mall), I found this place to be more relaxing, less patronized by stuck-up aristocraties or socialites, and thankfully less family members! It was also pretty exclusive with the tag-price that they invented; yet it felt more cool, more airy and less pretentious. As a noted first-trial-sucker, I was a member even before the place was inaugurated. Results were good: I lost about 10 kgs in the first quarter, and better, some of my close friends even decided to join me there as well. It was a three-storey complex with hundreds of quality equipments that worked well. Life was sweet.

However, yet another year later the suffocation came along once more. The place was so packed with people even in odd hours such as lunch time and happy hours. More and more people joined this altar of (body) worship. The managements were more than happy to sign on hundreds of new customers each month and started to think less of the operation itself. Many repairs were done untimely on the equipments. You would see molds on the ceramic walls and the ceilings of the shower area. I didn’t even want to imagine what germs and std-s that would creep beneath the seats of the steam and sauna chambers.

Finding a new haven, the local gays started to be more and more bold. Totally naked bodies catwalking and going to and fro in the locker area. The days of “Hey; How are you?; May I get to know you better?” were long gone and replaced with the dropping-off towels in front of you. Lisping voices on the phones with a dash of high notes hit the ambiance. Locking their gazes, smirking in predatory instinct, phone numbers were being exchanged so copiously. It was and still is a cotton-candy land for some people, all were sweet and satisfying. The notorious sauna would bear as a silent witness of many public lewd acts and carnal behavior at certain times of the day. It was so notorious, its sauna paradiso recently was named as one of the most recommended making-out places in public in one of those homo-binan-sis mailing lists.

I thought that was all too much for me. Engga banget deh! So lazy to even enter the premises, I then frequented the gym less and less and culminated another extra 5 kgs around my waist recently. The final point of no return was when I heard a horrific story from the gym’s former marketer. He said, “Did you know, that every marketer has to produce no less then 40 new members each month going into the gym? Imagine if you have 15 marketers?”. I let out a gasp and replied, “Oh… My… God! That would be approximately around 600 new members per-month? No wonder the place got so packed!”. And he continued, “But that’s not all, the membership fee had became less and less lately, you could even get a corporate rate for around US $17/ month”.

That’s where I lost my temper. Resign I did from that horrible money-sucking mega complex. When you are selling the concept of exclusivity, what would be a major draw-back for a client who paid well (above the mentioned figure) for that? Of course the notion of easy access to accommodate just about anyone to hop on board will churn his/ her stomach upside down.

Now my training days reside in a more beautiful place, outside from the mall (though of course not too far away, I still need the comfort zone). It was smaller yet sparingly decorated in modern-minimalist style. Serenity and guaranteed limited membership are like beautiful chants to my delicate ears. It also doesn’t hurt when the trainer ratio per member is about 4:1. Especially when they were all hand-picked by queer-eyes for the err, straight holistic makeover. Yes dahlengs, they all look like models, beefy ones of course, not the skinny types for the fashion shoots. If the same class would host 40 people in the old gym, now imagine having a private one-on-one yoga class with a very cute, flexible (and bendable!) instructor. Hmm. Suddenly I felt thirsty.

All good things come in due time.
Losing weight again, gaining mass again, reshaping again.
This is what I call my celestial workout.