Bill

The first thing you notice about Bill the Fitness Instructor is his thinness. Bill is thin in the way men sometimes become thin in their later years (if I had to guess, I’d say he’s north of 60) - the muscle definition is not quite there and the skin sags, but objectively he is thin. He is also a tick over 6 feet tall with a mostly-still-there head of grey hair swept into a quasi-pompadour that gives away his Jersey roots. The product he uses, along with a head band and microphone that wrap around his head, ensure not a hair will move during the next hour of vigorous exercise. Bill is also a true believer. While members set up their spots with mats and weights, his pre-class banter often focuses on how few people take the time to take care of their bodies and how our society is in an epidemic of obesity and preventable disease like diabetes. 

I will admit, the first time I attended one of Bill’s total body conditioning classes, it was difficult to take the man seriously. The house music he pumps through the sound system gives the room a night club vibe and as he begins to gyrate his lanky frame along to the beat, the smart ass in me had to suppress a chuckle. Five minutes in, I was grabbing my shorts and sucking wind. 

It is easy to dismiss a man who looks like a Sopranos character from the neck up and a bean pole from the neck down, but when he is putting you through a routine with no breaks, when you are using all your major muscle groups in tandem and simultaneously, and doing so for 45 minutes, you grudgingly hand him your respect. Twenty minutes in, after we have used the sliders to do mountain climbers, the 10-pound weights to do shoulder presses (while bopping to the beat), the 8-pound weights to do hammer curls, and on and on and on, I find myself looking at the clock asking “how much longer.” 

Each exercise is done for 2 minutes nonstop. And Bill is no sideline cheerleader. He is in the mix right there with you, huffing and puffing even as barks encouragement - COME ON … COME ON he bellows, as if willing a child out of its mother’s womb - and gentle pushes to pick up the heavier weights, that failure is success (because if you push yourself to failure and then try again, you are succeeding), and that what we are doing is hard and that we should feel good about doing it. Little by little the whole experience permeates your body. You keep time with the beat. You squeeze a little more toothpaste out of the tube. You fail again and again. And then you go right back to it. 

By the time Bill tells those wearing heart monitors to shut them down, everyone is drenched in sweat and gasping for air. So is Bill. Taken in full, it is A LOT. At the end of the first class I took, Bill walked around handing out index cards. I had no idea what he was doing, so I bounced. It was only after a few more classes that I stuck around to see what was written on those cards. As it turns out, they are motivational sayings - “Dream big and dare to fail,” and “It never gets easier. You just get better at it,” are two that I received recently. I put them on my refrigerator eagerly awaiting the next class and the next message.

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