Shades of Gray

Perhaps against my better judgment, I'm feeling the need to write about several things I've read about or witnessed this week that have to do with race.  I'm not yet sure what my point is going to be, but each of these things really got me thinking and I just wanted to share them.

The first item was this news story, which discussed a federal appeals court ruling that stated that the city of Chicago would be forced to hire 111 black firefighters because of a test that was taken in 1995 in which a large percentage of those who scored in the top 10% were white.  Apparently the plaintiffs were able to convince the court that this test in fact did not measure one's ability to be a good firefighter, and the random cutoff point from which the city would hire assured that the vast majority of the hiring pool would be white, and it was therefore discriminatory.  Now I'm the first to admit that I don't know all the details of this case, and the unanimous decision would seem to indicate that a strong case was made, but I cannot for the life of me understand how the court could make that ruling.  It really has me wondering how exactly was this test discriminating.  I am no fan of affirmative action either, and this case just sounds a whole lot like affirmative action to me.  Maybe it isn't "realistic" to look at things like this, but anytime I hear a story of something being given to someone or done as a result of someone being black, I can't help but test the situation in my head replacing "black" with "white".  For example, what if the story were "city must hire 111 white firefighters"?  That sounds awful to me, and I'm a white male.  Or the NFL rule that says teams have to interview a certain number of black coaching candidates before they hire a head coach.  Yes, I understand that the number of white head coaches in the NFL is very high, but seriously, if you're a black coaching prospect, isn't it degrading to know that you're being interviewed because you HAVE to be rather than because you might be the best fit for the job?  God help the city of Chicago, which will now have to find an additional $30,000,000 in its budget to pay for this mess.

Another item that caught my eye was the recent remarks by boxer Bernard Hopkins about Donovan McNabb and  Manny Pacquiao.  Hopkins is black, and it seems apparent to me that he has some pretty racist views, but I don't expect the racism police to come down on him just because he may be an idiot.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton seem to live for the opportunity to publicize stupid things a white person might say that could be construed as racist, and I think many of the things they do and say actually do more to divide us than they do to move toward the elimination of racism from society.  (South Park had a brilliant parody on this very subject a couple of seasons ago by the way).  It is the double standard that I and I think many others have a problem with.  There are stupid white people in this world who say stupid things just like there are stupid black people who say stupid things.  If you are really trying to end racism, you have to go after ANYONE who is racist, not just those in the majority.  But then again, I also believe that most people will realize when someone of any race has said something that shows their racist beliefs and react accordingly and appropriately on their own.  And oh so often, the best course of action is to not give the words any publicity.

The last thing I wanted to share was something I witnessed while visiting the rec center swimming pool this afternoon.  While sitting in a chair by the side of the pool talking to a friend of mine, I noticed that there were a ton of young kids in the hot tub (young meaning younger than 10), and it was very crowded.  A short time later, a family walked into the pool area, and three from that family got into the hot tub.  This family happened to be black, and most of them happened to be pretty large people.  I didn't notice them get into the hot tub, but I did notice that within a couple of minutes of them getting in, almost every other kid in the pool had gotten out.  Was this because these people were black and kids were racist?  Or was it because they were big?  Who knows, but that seemed like the perfect time to actually use the hot tub, since all the kids had finally gone away.  After sitting in the tub for maybe 10-15 minutes, the black family decided to get out, and sure enough, within another couple of minutes, the hot tub was again full of young children.

So what is my point?  Well, here are a few:
1.  I certainly am not so naive as to think racism doesn't exist.
2.  I think it is usually made worse by those who claim they are trying to eradicate it.
3.  I'm not racist, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some people who disagreed with my views that would claim I have racist viewpoints.

I wonder sometimes if, because I'm a white male, I truly won't ever be able to fully understand certain issues that minorities claim are big problems.  It probably has a lot to do with priorities and culture, so things that are important to me may mean nothing to someone else, and vice versa.  Just because of human nature, I can't imagine racism or prejudice will ever completely go away (lucky for Al Sharpton), but hopefully people in general will get better at responding to it in a more appropriate way.

AFPA Conference

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent a long weekend in Ocean City Maryland last weekend for an AFPA conference.  To say that the experience has renewed my passion for fitness would be an understatement (as anyone who asked how it went can readily attest).  The conference consisted of 10 roughly two hour sessions over a two day period.  At any given time frame, there were about 10 different "classes" being taught, and attendees could choose which classes they wanted to take.  There were specific "tracks" such as nutrition, group fitness, personal training, yoga, and many others, but we could attend any class we wanted in any track.  And so I did.  If you are interested in exhaustive details about what I was taught, keep reading.  If not...tune in again next time (I promise you won't hurt my feelings).

My first class was "10 mistakes personal trainers make".  Fantastic lecture, and it made me think a lot about my situation teaching at Alpha as well as Alpha as a business.  The number one mistake cited was not following through on promises, and hopefully I don't make that mistake very often.  Another one was "don't be "friends" with your clients".  Oops...I will be the first to admit that I fail MISERABLY at that.  I love my kickboxing students, and am good friends with many of them, but I think I do a pretty good job of separating the business side from the friendship side.  This situation may come back to haunt me some day, but for the foreseeable future, I love teaching kickboxing, and I have great friends who I teach, so both sides of the equation will just have to continue to coexist until someone says "I told you so". 

Another class I took taught about ways to avoid burnout.  This was geared more towards preventing burnout as a trainer, but I was also interested in what might be said about avoiding burnout as someone trying to stay in shape, because Lord knows we've all been there at some time in our lives, and I'm no exception.  The gist of what I learned was....make time for yourself to do things completely unrelated to your job, and you have to take the initiative to find ways to liven up what you're doing and keep it fresh.  Easier said than done sometimes, but certainly good advice.

I took a class on bodyweight training.  This was a fantastic workshop, and I learned many new exercises I hope to incorporate into classes in the future.  Most of the exercises weren't ones that you'll do a few reps and fail, but they contained movement in multiple plains and were very efficient at working multiple muscle groups simultaneously.  The same instructor also taught the bootcamp design class I took, which also gave me some great ideas for upcoming workouts.

Two other classes I took were a kickboxing class and an "Athletica" class, which was kind of a weight training class in an aerobic group setting.  These classes were really good at showing alternative group workout methods, and really hammered home to me what a difference a good instructor can make on the class.  Our instructor had only been doing these classes about 5 years, but he was very smooth and transitioned seamlessly between exercises.  Very little downtime.  And he pretty much did the entire workout with us as he talked and instructed.  To say he was shredded would be an understatement.  I do not teach my kickboxing classes as an aerobics class, but some of the concepts were very useful and I'm already using them in my own classes.

I also took some classes that went into detail about core training, and a class on "animal movements" (since I also teach 3-5 year olds, this sounded like a great class to get some ideas). 

All in all, I learned a ton this weekend and took a lot of notes.  I have a lot of sorting out to do and a lot of links to look up to get my thoughts in line, but I'm really excited about some of the things I'll be adding to classes.  One thing I took note of was just how the instructors worked their classes, such as how they motivated and instructed everyone, and how their music fit into their class.  When all the elements came together, the class dynamic really was stunning and made everyone seem to come together.  I loved that energy and am going to work on bringing it to my classes every time I teach.  I definitely have the right group of people in class to make that happen. 

The Trip Back East

I flew to Maryland yesterday to attend an AFPA conference in Ocean City.  I haven't posted in awhile, so I wanted to just jot down a bunch of random thoughts I've had about my trip so far.  (Not so much the conference...that may come later).

I love flying alone without having to worry about any kids (not that I get to do it very often).  Several years ago I flew to Toronto alone from Denver.  On the way, my connection out of O'Hare was canceled, and I had to spend the night sleeping on the airport chairs with all the rest of those people who had no place to go in Chicago.  While there, I noticed a woman who had several very large suitcases and I think 3 kids under the age of 7, including an infant.  I wish I could remember her story, but the gist of it was that she was essentially moving to Toronto and her husband was already there and she was bringing the kids and all of their stuff.  And then her flight was canceled.  She looked panicked (as I think anyone would have in that situation).  I didn't have any of the worries she was dealing with, so I at least helped her drag the suitcases around and keep the kids corralled while she made some calls and tried to figure out what to do.  In the midst of complete chaos and unbelievable stress all over the place, it had no bad effect on me.  I think she eventually found a friend in Chicago to drive her up to Toronto.

I have heard about the flooding in the Mississippi River basin.  It looks horrendously bad from 33,000 feet.  This is going to be a tough spring for much of the middle of our country.

The boardwalk area of Ocean City is a little disappointing.  Completely tourist trappy, which I guess makes perfect sense, and I'm not sure what else I was expecting.  What is sad, though, is that it isn't tourist season yet, and the workers here look, I dunno, bored.  One young girl was running the carnival game in which a bunch of people squirt a water gun into the nose of some clown or something, and this makes a balloon rise, and the winner gets the prize.  No one was coming.  You could actually hear her sighing in exasperation as no one volunteered their marksman services.  Oh, and she was texting as she was trying to lure people over.  It is "Springfest" here, which as far as I can tell means a handful of fraternity and sorority boys and girls are in town to do spring break type stuff.  The rest of the people seem to be the people in this country who want to come to a popular tourist area but are too cheap to do it during tourist season.  It is an interesting mix of people, let me tell you.

I ran a mile for time.  Figuring it was at sea level, and there was a strong wind at my back, I thought there wouldn't be a better time to see what I could do.  7:03, which is the fastest mile I've ever run.  And it really hurt bad.

I ate at two restaurants today, and at each one, my waitress had the unfortunate honor of waiting at a table where the customers had no clue what they wanted, and had a million questions about every little thing on the menu.  "What is the difference between Dungeness crab and king crab?  Is that like soft shell crab?  Which one tastes better?"  I didn't really care, but it was interesting to see two sets of such completely clueless individuals in two meals.  On the other side of the coin, though....waitresses tend to treat you really well when you eat alone.

My hotel is right on the beach, and the sound of the waves (coupled with no kid or pet duties) is remarkably soothing for me.  I could never live up here, but it is nice to get away every so often, and this weekend is doing my mental health just fine.