Thanksgiving 2023 - Thankful for the Alexander YMCA

My annual Thanksgiving post is usually about teachers and schooling.  If you look at the posts from previous years, you will find odes to my childhood teachers, current administrators, and colleagues.  During the pandemic year, I even expressed gratitude for the supply closet at school.

This year's post is also about teachers, but they are not teachers in the academic sphere.  They are my fitness instructors at my local YMCA.  Last week, I compared their teaching techniques to those used by academic teachers because it is amazing how incredibly sound their teaching practices are (and I suspect they don't even know it because they are likely not reading books on cognitive science research).  This week, I just want to express my gratitude for them and for the entire staff of the Alexander YMCA by telling my story.

When I decided to give up the yearbook, people kept asking me what I was going to do with my time since I wouldn't be photographing every activity and then editing, uploading, and tagging pictures or spending time proofreading pages.  I thought about what I would have liked to have done with my afternoons all these years if they had been more flexible, and I realized that I wish I could have exercised more - well, at all.  I had an answer - "I'm going to join a gym."  Doing some research, I knew that Planet Fitness was the least expensive option, but when I started looking into it, I decided it did not have what I needed, accountability.  

I used to be disciplined about working out on my own at home, at least during the summer.  Regular readers, do you remember eight years ago when I walked 500 miles in the summer and then 500 more during the school year?  For whatever reason, in the last six years or so, all of that discipline evaporated.  I'd get about ten minutes in (or whenever it started to become difficult), and I would say, "Well, ten minutes is better than nothing" and just stop.  I still walked a lot in the summer, but during the pandemic, it became transportation rather than exercise, and it never went back to being an aerobic activity.  Going to a place with a lot of machinery wasn't going to fix that problem.  I needed group classes because I knew that I would not leave a class early in front of other people.  My friend, Meagan, said that she thought the YMCA would have what I needed.  I dropped by and took a tour, and she was exactly right.  (I don't think I've ever properly thanked Meagan for this suggestion.  Thank you, Meagan.)

By February, the month before I joined the YMCA, I was uncomfortable all of the time.  Although I don't weigh myself, I knew my pants didn't fit, and I was insistent on NOT buying new clothes.  (My Tuesday pants did their job because I would have had to write myself up for dress code for about a month if I had worn them.)  I was tired at the end of every day, so I came home to collapse, but that just made me more tired.  At school, if I dropped a pencil on the floor, I went to my desk to get a different pencil rather than bend over to pick it up.  By the time the yearbook was finished, so was I.  I was just sick of myself.

In March, I started taking classes at the Alexander Family YMCA on Hillsborough Street, and it could not have been a better decision.  I knew I was going to be pretty bad at everything for a while as I've never had much physical agility, strength, or coordination and, thus, no confidence about anything physical. The first thing Matt ever said to me was, "Don't take yourself too seriously," and it was the perfect perspective to have as I grew in this kind of learning because I could get the steps wrong, laugh at myself, and just keep going.  My original plan was to take as many kinds of classes as possible.  I thought I would do something different every day in March and then decide what to repeat.  That plan changed when I started falling in love with some of the instructors.  (See last week's post for more specifics.)  So, while I did try quite a few different types of classes, I fell into a pattern a lot more quickly than I expected because of these lovely people.  

Before joining, I was a little concerned that I might become one of those people who just donates money to the gym (you know, pays their dues but doesn't go).  That might have happened if I had joined just any gym, but after falling in love with these instructors and their classes, I found myself disappointed if I had some other commitment that prevented me from attending one of my YMCA classes.  There is such a spirit of love, encouragement, and joy at the Y that I don't think I would have found at "a gym."

Initially, I had only one goal - stay through every minute of a class; I could worry about things like speed and intensity after I was in the habit of not giving up in the middle of classes.  I chose positions as far from the door as possible, so I couldn't just slip out without having to take a "walk of shame."  While the instructors were pushing my body in some pretty taxing ways, there was only one time that I truly wanted to leave a class.  It was a Barre class (no fault of the instructor, but those moves are crazy to me). If there hadn't been people in there that I knew, I absolutely would have left.  When I came home that night and called my mom, I said, "Well, I'm pretty sure I hated that."  The next night, when I called her, I said, "I LOVE kickboxing!  Who knew?!?"  Finding what I loved (and didn't) was motivating and joyful.  I don't mind that I don't like some things because I love other things so much.

After the first two months, I decided it was time to start setting some real goals.  After asking a couple of spin instructors for advice, I stood up on a bike for the first time in May and decided to set a goal that I would stand every time it was cued by the end of summer, and I have kept doing that consistently.  The next night, I took Group Power.  I had been avoiding classes with weights (and words like power, sculpt, or strength), and I was shocked and delighted to find that I enjoyed choreographed group weightlifting to music.  The next morning, I was sore from head to toe even though I had used the lightest weights possible.  But I was hooked on taking it again.  Now, I'm including the larger-sized weights during warmup and legs and choosing the higher intensity options where we leave the ground.  I started to grow, not just physically, but in my level of confidence to try new things and challenge myself.  At the age of 47, this was a need in my life, even though I had not known it before.  

In the fall, Julie, the group fitness director asked if I would help with their annual fund campaign, and I jumped at the opportunity to give back to this organization in any way.  While my efforts didn't raise a ton of money, I learned so much about what the Y does for the community and was very excited to share that with others.  My Y story is important to me, but it is small compared to the impact they are having more broadly.  I am thankful for what they do for me and for underserved communities and for lower-income families and for people who might otherwise slip through the cracks in the system.

This year, I am most thankful for the Alexander YMCA in Raleigh, and I am especially grateful for the people who teach me and support me there - From the ones whose classes I take most regularly (Matt, Stacey, Jay, and Liz) to those I can only fit in sometimes (Julie, Gwen, Dean, Greg) and some of the classmates I have (David, Ellen, Lisa, Diane, Christie, Alex, Nick, Karen, Steven), you are sources of joy, and I look forward to seeing you every week.  I couldn't be happier to have you in my life.