12/13/10

After a long day at work, I look forward to going to my gym. The reasons aren’t only because it’s my stress reliever, but because there is always a guarantee for entertainment there. The gym atmosphere is much different here than my experience in the states.  It’s true that the gym becomes a social outlet for many people, but it is almost completely a social outlet for the Japanese, at least at my gym. Working out seems pretty secondary here. My gym definitely isn’t the Gold’s Gym of Japan. This may not be true for ALL gyms here, so I will specifically focus on the characteristics of what makes my gym so appealing and entertaining.

In America, gyms are usually considered a ‘meet market.’ It seems to be similar here, but as I mentioned in an earlier entry, the Japanese are obsessed with fashion, and rightfully so, because they can pull it off better than anyone else! So not only is it a ‘meet market,’ but it feels more like a fashion event. I’ve started going to a variety of classes because it seems to be the only way for me to stay motivated. Also, each class has a personality of it’s own that attracts specific groups of people I’ve become attached to.

I see the same people every night I go because we workout during the same time slots. So I notice different people by their outfits. There’s the guy who pimps an orange Megaloss T-shirt (Megaloss is the name of the gym I go to) with matching orange sneakers. Whenever I take a class with him, he is the most enthusiastic participant. I can always count on him to keep my adrenaline up because he yells on beat with the music something that sounds like “hee-ya!” Sometimes I wonder if he takes Karate and has forgotten we are doing a step class.

Then there’s my favorite little guy. He wears a skin-tight spandex muscle shirt and spikes his hair in different directions. He and I always end up near each other in class. We take a few different classes together. In hip-hop dance class, he really gets into the ‘pop and lock’ portion of the choreography. He is incredibly uncoordinated but dances as if no one is watching and this is why I adore him. He tries so hard. And it never fails; the poor guy always ends up tripping and falling. At first, I thought he only did this in the dance class, but he’s recently started taking a kickboxing class I’m in. He falls in this class too. Monday night is a step class. He has started showing up to this class as well. Last Monday he tripped on the step and went flying, almost knocking another classmate over. Everyone pretends not to see it. That seems to be the way of the Japanese, just pretend you don’t see something out of the ordinary happening.

Thursday night is the kickboxing class night. This instructor is very popular among the ladies, so I enjoy watching girls swoon and pine for his attention. The best part is how each girl has a face full of makeup and hairstyles that I would consider wearing to prom. This class is a full body workout, so I find is very impressive the girls can come to class looking amazing and leave class with their hair still prestigiously arranged. It must take a lot of hair product to create such a masterpiece. There is one young girl who is smoking hot that has the trendiest outfits. She is the only girl I’ve ever seen that can make parachute pants, skin tight tank tops and sweat-bands look sexy. She punches and kicks with her long curls bouncy like you’d see in a perfume ad. The instructor has definitely taken notice of her, but so has all the other men in class. She gets two thumbs up as the hottest gym member.

I’ve made one friend at my gym. He is an older guy who speaks conversational English pretty well. I usually talk to him while we are both using the elliptical machines. There is an AC vent that blows cool air on two elliptical machines in the corner of the weight room, so always find him there and hop on the machine next to him to chat about gym gossip. He updates me on who is dating who, people’s ages, job statuses, etc. It’s become my guilty pleasure talking with him because knowing these details about people help me feel more included. I’ve become used to feeling like the foreigner who doesn’t fit in anywhere. But with my gym pal, I feel less like a foreigner and more like I belong to something. He asks me about America and talks about his dreams of moving to California.

The gym has become my retreat. My job burdens me, specifically because there is enormous pressure to be perfect. I can never attain perfection and I’m aware of that, but the job culture here opposite of my work philosophies. So, as soon as my last class of the workday ends, I grab my sneakers and run out the door to a community that gives me the opportunity embrace the quirky personality differences that become accented outside a suffocating workplace.