Spin vs. Step

One of my most favorite clips is George Carlin's comparison of baseball & football. I will never approach the excellence of this genius comarative piece - but, after years of teaching step and now having just learned to teach spin, I am taking a very remote stab:

Step students arrive early to set up their steps and glare at you if you are 2 minutes late.
Spin students don't care if the instructor is there when they arrive; they just hop on their bikes and start pedaling furiously, paying no mind to when the spin instructor saunters in 5 minutes late and takes his/her time setting up the bike while the students vigorously drive their own workouts.


Step instructors cue each and every motion in advance, breathlessly fitting in techniques on form and posture while simultaneously verbalizing each movement as well as thinking ahead to the next 8-count.
Spin instructors stroll around the room, shouting out a cue every 3-4 minutes if they need to while the students furiously sweat and go forth, heads' down.

Step students will tell you if you've missed a beat or miscued once out of literally hundreds of cues within the class. They will tell you this as you are trying to cue and keep the class going for the other 15 students who will grimace if you miss a beat for them.
Spin students will gratefully embrace the opportunity to have worked off 5% of their body fat in one class while you looked at your notes and fixed your bike and music in between the total of 5 sets of instructions you gave for the entire class.


Step students will demand modifications and alternatives.
Spin students will self-adjust.


Step instructors must monitor their class for heart rate and rates of perceived exertion, taking time out to assess the class and explain complex, customized heart rate calculations to students while they impatiently wait for the class to recommence.
Spin instructors simply demand that their students buy and wear their own heart rate monitors and adjust their idividual workouts accordingly.


Step students will demand new and increasingly demanding choreography.
Spin students will have no idea that you simply rearranged a series of hills & flats from your last class...because really, isn't that all you have to play with anyway?

1 year + 1 day post-op!

Whoda thunk? Amazing. Only fitting I should go for a run, and then do my 3rd inside climb....how fun! Today I'm solidly at level 5.8.

And is it me, or were climbing walls inspired by Mr. Potatohead??

Partying takes work

A few months ago, I pontificated on how things in Web 2.0-land were starting to feel a little, well, frothy. A different take on this came today in this Techcrunch post ; while not necessarily vindicating the degree of frothiness that I'd feared, it does vindicate my marathon-esque search for the "right" startup:

It’s so cheap to create Web startups these days that we are going to be seeing a whole lot more of them. Many will be inane, redundant, or half-baked. But a few will rise up from the froth and create something lasting. Bubble or not, it’s worth keeping an eye out for those game-changers. We just might have to wade through a lot of junk to find them.

Of course, that concept of "weeding through a lot of junk to find the right one" sort of plays into my other theory....

"Impressive"....

Last year, I posted a bit about euphemisms (love that word). In addition to that instance, the same aforementioned physician had earlier referred to my feet as "advanced"....a term which should normally evoke pride but, when coming from a surgeon, connotes something a bit different.

Monday night my should-be carefree visit to Burke Williams Day Spa (thanks to the infinite generosity of my dear friend Jessica) was slightly irked by the comment from my masseuse: my back is "quite impressive." Of course, initially my mind leapt to "yes, of course I'm buff" but alas, she was referring to the "impressive" degree of knots she barely had time to scratch the surface (so to speak) on....ok, on to the burning question: does a knot positively impact body-fat composition?

I knew I had a good eye

Did I not rave about the love of my life in an earlier post? The press is affirming my keen discernment - Halo is famous!

Something that could damper the party spirit

Alas....

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/17/opinion/edvarzi.php

Are we going to party like it's 1999?

A few weeks ago I posted a question on LinkedIn asking how the current Web 2.0 "bubble" is different than the first one. Many respondents feel the lessons learned 7ish years ago won't be repeated and took issue with me calling our current market activity a "bubble."

I won't argue....I'll simply instruct them to go* here and see if they still disagree!



* ok, maybe not "go" but you know what I mean