Violence at the gym

 

I understand the awkwardness at gyms with instructors and the opposite gender, this experience at Reedaniels gym leaves me wondering... (Photo credit: 19kickers)

The gym was two streets away from me, I’d gone to register a day before on a one-month subscription. The idea was to strengthen my left limbs and have some presence at the upper body region, I won’t go into further details, feel free to draw conclusions.

The gym instructor wasn’t exactly friendly and that was the first red flag, I figured we’d had an altercation before; it was at the three-star hotel, right opposite the gym, the same management runs both businesses and at the time, it was a buzzing hub.

The altercation came weeks before the official meet up. It was over a football match, he was there to support his club against mine and under such circumstance, we’ll always have opposite views. His attitude when I went to register suggested that he had a few ideas up his head but kin lo kan iru awa yii?

Saturday morning came and I tucked into my gym gears, it wasn’t exactly my first time in a gym, I knew where to go but I was also wary of the instructor being funny so I tried going the easy route, hailing folks I don’t particularly know and trying to settle myself in as best as I could…

The instructor obviously avoided eye contact twice, I went to meet him, he gave me the knuckle and pointed to someone that I figured was his assistant. Daniel was his name, he was quite helpful, walked me through their rules again before asking for few minutes to finish a drill on someone.

Daniel came back to me, took me through a stretch that wasn’t convenient but seemingly important. Majority of the drills I saw people engage in weren’t for me, no way I’d be able to do half of them but I minded my business since no one was asking me to turn 360 degrees like I was aiming for the Olympics.

About fifteen minutes afterwards, I heard a loud thud, I didn’t need anyone to tell me it was a dirty slap, I was quite slow in my turns, and by the time I was able to face the direction of the action, it had turned into a melee and folks were trying to separate the actors.

Like it happens in all situations like that, people were offering different takes, it took a while before I figured what happened, it was the instructor against the husband of one of the ladies undergoing a session, it was a case of alleged sexual harassment.

The instructor had held the lady in a way the husband didn’t like, his own way of protesting was via his fists, the instructor was bleeding to his chin, held back by three muscular guys as he was itching to equalize, the other man was also in the mood to prove a point, I stood at distance watching…

Truth be told, I wasn’t sorry for the instructor when I found out he was the one that took that swing, when I got a hang of the reason for the attack, I looked at the lady in the middle to run an unsolicited forensic examination on her face, the result of my scan from distance told me all I needed to know.

Just to be clear, I will never be found in the thick of it. If you know me a bit, you’d know I don’t go about watching fights, I stay my distance and I’m sure the reason is obvious enough, thank you very much…

 

…To be continued