I Haven’t Done Leather, but I’m Into It

As a coach at Dane’s Body Shop, I often receive the honor of coaching an exceptional human during a workout.  Sometimes I get the honor of not only coaching an exceptional human, but also interviewing them for a Shop Athlete Spotlight immediately after class.  Such was my great good fortune on a pleasantly warm Thursday at our Hyde Park Shop.  The exceptional human in question?  Robert Carroll, one of our Manor Road Spotlight Athletes for this past Summer.  A mischievous embrace of the darkness that colors our present pandemic days pervaded the conversation which served as an indelible juxtaposition to the positively sumptuous homemade crackers Robert presented me with at the beginning of the interview!

One of the things that I do when I set up these interviews is to ask the other coaches if they have thoughts on what they’d like to hear or how I should approach this.  

That is terrifying!

The cutest one was Dane mentioned that when he and Ryan had baby Rex back in the Spring, you brought some food over to them.  What did you bring?

I made all new recipes, because you never bring a tried and true recipe, you bring something you’ve never tried before!  I brought them eggplant parmesan and the ugliest thing I have ever seen- sweet potato and black bean enchiladas.  It… looked terrible, but it was delicious, I promise.

That is actually a favorite recipe in our house- we make it a couple times a month.

It just looks awful.  I also brought them a bottle of wine and I dropped it coming out of HEB.  Right in front- just all over myself.  I was too embarrassed to go back in- I just ran away.  I did end up getting them another bottle.

What sort of wine do you pair with enchilada casserole?

You want a full-bodied red.  One that isn’t too spicy and won’t overpower the spices in the dish.

Dane was super appreciative of that.  Have you been a long time cook or is this a pandemic thing?

Long time.

What got you into cooking?

I’m a former fat kid-

Yo tambien!

So in college, you’re always hungry but you’re too poor to go out to eat.  Mom would buy the groceries though, so I could just put that on the credit card.  You could get whatever you want.  So I learned to cook because none of my fraternity brothers knew how to cook.

What did you study in college?

I went to The University of Missouri and I studied communication and business.

Are you from Missouri?

Mmmhmm… outside of St. Louis about an hour and a half west.  Small little German town called Herman- it is winery central.  I grew up around wine- wineries are just everywhere.  

I know that you are, to this day in academia, so what sort of trajectory did you find yourself on from there?

I stuck around and did my Masters in higher ed because I wanted to be an academic advisor for some reason.  Then I moved to Philadelphia where I worked at Temple university for 364 days.  It was the worst job I’ve ever had.  Then I was at The University of Kansas for two and a half years doing the same thing- academic advising.  Lawrence was cool if you’ve never been.

One of our favorite members who moved away, Jake Jordan was from Lawrence and he was the biggest Jayhawks fan.

Mizzou and Kansas are huge rivals so when I was at KU, I always said that I was there doing god’s work- to help the children.

Like a Jesuit?

Yes, just show them how the world should be.

That is great- so Kansas and then where?

UT.

For your doctoral work?  What is your doctorate in?  What are you?

I did a PhD in interpersonal connection because I like to know what makes people tick and why we do what we do and UT had one of the best programs and faculty.  Now I’m faculty teaching in the school of business and the college of communication- I’m very lucky.

This is a cool opportunity to marry two of these interviews.  When I interviewed Erika Bsumek, the Hyde Park Athlete of the Season, I framed the interview through the lens of history because she is a history professor.  Now, I’m not going to let the interview get too dark, but we do need to acknowledge, as you said before we started taping, 2020 is kind of fucked!  I asked a similar question to Erika, but can you look at your area of expertise and find anything that gives you hope through dark times?

Oh hope?  I was ready to go straight into the bad! *laughing*

Let’s do that then!  Maybe hope is more of a 2022 proposition at this point.

I fully believe that midnight January 1st, 2021 everything will just be alright.

And you are an expert, so we can believe everything you say.

That’s right, Dr. Carroll says it is all going to be okay.  There is a theory called, “inconsistent nurturing as control- INC” that says when you are in a bad relationship, when someone is always mean and beating you down, every once in a while there is something good and because it is the smallest thing that is good, you latch on to it.  So it restores hope, but in reality it is just them giving you something good to pull you back when they see you are about to leave.  Then you go back to that cycle of terrible; for me, that is 2020.  *laughing*

Can you point to one of those small good moments that 2020 has deployed to pull you back in?

Um…. I got a kitten.  I got a second cat- how about that?

Tell me about your cats.

I have one cat, her name is Boo; she is my little princess- I rescued from a car engine-

A car engine?

Yeah, it was Halloween and I was walking to the bus and I heard this meowing and then there she was, this itty bitty thing afraid of the world.  I tried to help her and she ran into this parked car, so I called my friends and they helped pull her out- that is how I got her.  She’s an asshole- very opinionated.  She doesn’t know you, but she already doesn’t like you.

You know what Robert, fuck your cat! *laughs*

That’s alright, most people share that sentiment. 

And who is the new kitty?  

Her name is Rosé.  She loves love bites, so you’ll be sleeping and doing your own thing at 4am… she got flung the other night- I felt so bad.

So circling back to your field of expertise and positive lessons, can you point to anything that makes you feel optimistic?

I actually think we are getting better at connecting.  I think we’re finding ways to cut through the bullshit and find people that we actually connect with- who you actually like and get along with.

What do you think accounts for that? Is it isolation?

I think it is isolation and I think it is polarization.  Everything is so polarized that when you do find someone you connect with, you feel like “you are my tribe, you are my people”.

So like separating the wheat from the chaff? 

Yes.  Absolutely.

Do you think that is a problem because we still have to live with the chaff?

*flatly*  No.  They’re fine.

*laughing*  Okay, we can leave it there!  So you are a professor, you cook, and you come to The Shop.  If you were on a date with the readers of this interview, what are three other things they should know about you?

Um… three things they should know is that I’m single, I’m looking, and I’m handsome.

That’s great!

On top of that, I like to travel, I like video games, and naps.

Naps?  Are you someone who naps in bed?

Absolutely.  It has to be intentional.  People who sleep on couches, I just don’t understand.  How do I get your superpower?

I’m a couch napper.

That is not fair.

You and your cat are both going to have issues with me.

That is just not fair.  You have to be intentional about it.

Can I sell you on being intentional on the couch?  Maybe this is strictly a dog person thing, but I curl up on the couch with Moose; I’ve got my little woogie, curled up with his little cold nose in my armpit, the sun is coming in just a little bit and I’m propped up slightly so I am not too comfortable and I only sleep for like twenty minutes or so-

But (Moose) is warm and comfy.  My cats put themselves in the most uncomfortable position, so I can’t get comfortable because they are comfortable.  You don’t want to move because they are going to leave.

Maybe that is just the difference in napping between cat people and dog people.  But those are good things to know about you- you might just get some matches from the Dane’s Body Shop dating app we are about to launch!

Look, you can swipe right- I’m in.

Is swiping right a good thing or bad thing?

Swipe right is “yes”.  I think…

Alright, so let’s circle back to the obvious question- how did Dane’s Body Shop get so lucky to have you in our midst as a member?

My friend Maddie and I- our old gym shifted focus and went to something that we were not in to- so we were gym homeless for a couple of months and then found Dane’s.  

What was it about The Shop that made you decide to join as a full member?

Well, I was scared of John at first; he would yell at me about ankle mobility- he still does.  Beth Reyburn is just so nice in the morning.

Would you consider your relation John to be in that category you named earlier?  What was it?

Inconsistent nurturing as control?  *belly laugh* Absolutely not.  I love you John!

Darn!  One of my unofficial goals in these interviews is recording shots at John.

Give it time- I’m only one beer in.  No, I was scared of John at first, but thanks to quarantine I’ve got to know him much better- his classes are fantastic and I look forward to them.

*sigh* I agree, John is an excellent coach- it is why I like to take shots at him.  It is the crappy coaches that I never come after!  Jokes… of course we only have excellent coaches at The Shop.  So what has the journey been like in the time that you’ve been at The Shop?  As a well trained academic and someone who is good at observing things, what have you observed about the community and your life at The Shop?

I am better for it.

Well I would have to imagine you were pretty damn good to begin with.  But in what ways are you better Robert Carroll?

*laughing*  Look, you didn’t yell at me about deadlifts today- I didn’t get yelled at.

Yeah, your form looked really great.

I guess I have hamstrings now- I picked up two of them.  I have two calves that sometimes stretch the way they are supposed to.  I did pull-ups today!  Like three really consistently good pull-ups.  I didn’t even need a band, I was very proud.

That is great!  As it turns out, pull-ups are hard.  So you still take the virtual classes right?  What would be your review of those classes?

Hmmm… Maybe too much jumping.  Not enough dogs- I like to see people’s dogs on the screen.  The DJ could be better, but that is my fault.  And I don’t know- they are just great.

Who are your regular virtual coaches?

It switches- John, Beth Felker, I always try to take Bean’s virtual yoga on Saturday because it is so soothing-

You don’t get enough dogs in Bean’s class?

She does!  That is the problem- she has raised the bar for everyone else because it is like her and Squid teaching yoga. 

I like that you love the virtual classes- I think they’ve been a great addition to the community.

Absolutely!  I was able to travel and still take Shop classes, which makes me the happiest.  That is the worst- you travel and then you feel disconnected from everyone.  That sucks!

A couple more linear questions before we get into the rando questions, you’ve got Maddie who is your friend that you workout with here.  Do you have anyone else you have developed a relationship with in the community- members, coaches dogs?

Beth Felker has been amazing.  Again, one of the good parts of 2020 is that we are finding people that are of our tribe.  I saw her for her birthday back in March and she was just like- “you seem cool, come on over!”.

That was like the last normal social thing that I did-

That was the last normal social thing that any of us did!  And I was so excited- I’ve broken into the inner circle and get to go to a Dane’s party with cool people.

Well now you’re like a mosquito trapped in the inner circle forever.  You’re just locked in.

So she and I will just go on hikes and walk and talk about our feels.  She actually helped me buy a dresser.  She taught me the joys of Facebook Marketplace- 

Me too!

She went with me to pick up a dresser and the girl’s house smelled so much like weed.  Beth was great, she is just like let’s do this.  I called her a few hours later and was just like, “this is the worst piece of furniture I have smelled in my life”.  But I dragged it outside, filled it with baking soda and vinegar- this is your pro tip- Sprinkle baking powder and put cups of vinegar in it and it will pull out the smell.

When I moved a couple weeks ago, Beth watched Moose while we moved our stuff.

Do Quigley (Beth Felker’s stately and regal dog) and Moose get along?

Apparently they do- or it is more like they are both old men so they are just largely indifferent to one another.  Beth’s verdict was that Moose is a lot more of an aggressive snuggler than Quigley.  Quigley is much more independent than Moose is.

Beth has been fantastic, Bean has been awesome- seeing her face for yoga.

I don’t know if it is a hidden gem, because plenty of people know about it, but Bean’s virtual yoga class is-

No, nobody come to Bean’s yoga class, it is terrible!  It is mine- I mean don’t come!

Robert, it is in the virtual space so it won’t fill up.

I know but at some point it will be on site again and I was always afraid that it would fill up- it was like the best kept secret.

Well this will be stricken from the record.  We can take that bit again.  What I hear about Bean’s yoga class is that it is really awful and she does things like throwing pieces of lukewarm bologna at people when she coaches in person.  I hear that she smells like weed and vinegar in person.

*laughing*  and there are no cute dogs and she never affirms you and makes you feel good…

Any members that you have connected with?

That is what sucks!  Just as my schedule was clearing up and I was able to come, COVID happened.

I think that is the one drawback of the Virtual classes- you can connect with people you know already, but it is hard to create bonds with other members.

Yes.  Well I will say that Victoria Harvey… she is always there and she is always fantastic.

I agree.  I saw her and Daisy this morning.

Her and Daisy bring me such joy.

Are you ready for some random questions?  Just rapid fire.

Yes.

Okay, if you were a professional wrestler what would your gimmick be and what would your entrance music be?

Man, that is a good question.

Maybe there is something we could mine with your cooking or with cats.  You could do like a Michelle Pfeiffer leather thing?

I haven’t done leather, but I’m into it.

That is now the title of the interview-

*roaring laughter*  I’m picturing something like the Chris Hemsworth Thor costume with like carved out abs and instead of a hammer it is a cast iron skillet.

That is good!  Do you have a song?

It would have to be something like Robyn- dancy but emo and I’d like lull people in by making them feel comforted then bam I would crush them.

That sounds a little bit like what you were describing earlier.  Maybe your wrestler name is The Inconsistent Nurturer?

*laughter*  I bring you in and then I beat you with a skillet.

That is great.  Okay, this is my election year question- if you could nominate one person in the DBS community to be president of the United States, who would it be?

You, Chad Ramsey.

Me Chad Ramsey?

You, Chad Ramsey.

Well that is a hot take right there Robert.

Thanks to your instagram, I know you are knowledgeable in the area of presidents.  You are a fabulous person who loves all people.  I like a leader who is knowledgeable, loves all humans, and just loves to get down once in a while.

I think the idea of a president who loves to get down once in a while is an oddly important one.  Well thanks, I’ll take it.  I accept that nomination from you.  If you had one super power, what would it be?

I watched a video today about court stenographers.  The ability to type like 500 words per minute would be amazing.

That seems like you are picking something mundane, but I could see this choice having potential.  In this world where so much is online and with a keyboard, I could see many ways this would set you apart from everyone else.

You just get up in the morning and deal with all the bullshit in like five minutes and-

And you have the rest of the day.  You have the rest of the day to nap in your bed ya freaking weirdo-

Look, you’ve got to be intentional about these things.

Have you ever done a coffee nap?  Caffeine has a half life of like thirty minutes so if you drink a cup of coffee real fast then lay down and take a nap, you wake up in like fifteen or twenty minutes completely refreshed.  It is like a cheat code.

Anyone who has a PhD knows that trick.  If they don’t, what are they even doing?

Right because days are short and life is short.  Wow, it is getting back to that dark place.

I still can’t think of anything hopeful about 2020.

That is okay- I got plenty of hope and positivity from my interview with Erika last night.  We can just be dark in this interview.

*laughing* Good, because I have nothing.

Speaking of Erika, I have a question that she suggested a twist for.  I will often ask people if they could have dinner with any historical figure who would it be and she suggested that I change the question to if you could work out with any historical figure who would it be.  Spotting one another, sharing a barbell.  Who would you choose?

Am I flirting with them?

That is a possibility- I like that angle.

Again, I’m single and I’m looking…Hmm… I am going through my rolodex of cute historical figures.  I’ve been playing a video game- and this is super nerdy- I’ve been playing a video game about the Greek gods and so that is all I’m thinking about.  So strong, buffed out Hercules…  He could probably give you some good tips.  The Disney movie about him was under-rated.  The songs were fantastic.

*begins singing Michael Bolton’s “Go The Distance”*…  Would you still make this your choice if Michael Bolton had to tag along?

Yes.  One hundred percent.  What a thrupple- me, Michael Bolton, and Hercules.  Is there leather?

Michael Bolton hasn’t done leather, but he is into it.  The best place to leave off on is asking you based on your reflections as athlete of the season- because you are now in the Pantheon, circling back to our Greek themes-  what is the thing that you want to be remembered for?

I haven’t farted during deadlifts.

Any other words of wisdom to share with your admirers, supplicants, and peons?

To borrow words from our imminent sage Sia, “You are loved, keep going”.  She just tweets that randomly sometimes and it fills me with joy.

That is great.  Thanks Robert!

Radical Hope

No one knows how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop and no one knows why it took so long for Erika Bsumek to receive a Shop Athlete Spotlight.  This is to the great loss of previous interviewers and to the vast benefit of yours truly.  Slowly sipping a high gravity beer at The Hyde Park Shop, this was one of the most educational athlete interviews I have ever conducted.  In truly professorial form, this wound up becoming the first ever interview with citations by way of links embedded within.  If you’re feeling down about the pandemic and the other stressors in our world, take a few minutes to read on for some deeply intelligent positivity!

I was thinking that because I’ve got three separate interviews this season, I’d like to frame each of these in a specific way.  For you the jumping off point I wanted to hit was simply history.

Okay!

We are obviously living through difficult times and the way that I process bad situations is often finding context and comfort through the lens of history.  You being a history professor, I thought that was an appropriate way to frame this.  So starting off, could you give us a very brief history of Erika Bsumek?

Ah, well I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah.  We moved to Pennsylvania when I was in first grade and then back to Salt Lake City when I was in 5th grade.  So I grew up in Salt Lake City and then went to the University of Utah; after graduation I really wanted to leave the city. I decided to go to graduate school at Rutgers in New Jersey- I had a few options but Rutgers was the furthest away.  New Jersey seemed very exotic — which people from New Jersey are probably not used to hearing.  I do think New Jersey is the antithesis of Salt Lake City. I traveled around the Southwest doing dissertation research, had a post doc in Newark, lived in NYC, and then I got a job at The University of Texas El Paso, then got a job at here at UT a year later.

How was El Paso?

I loved it.  The people were really nice- it was very interesting.  It was a strange year to live there because it was 2001 and 9/11 happened.  So, when I first moved there in July you could walk to Mexico and back — and then by September you couldn’t.

Can you tell me exactly what your field of expertise is?

I teach environmental history, Native American history, and the history of the US west.  I also work in the field of digital history.

I was reviewing your bio before this and that last one was the one that really surprised me. Can you tell me more about digital history?

Digital history and digital humanities are emerging fields and they revolve around the idea that digital tools can help us look at history and the humanities in different ways or extract more information.  In my case, I created some software for use in my own classes and then more people were interested in using it.  It is this program called ClioVis– Clio is the muse of history and vis signals visualization – so, true to its name, its software that helps you visualize history.  Students plot things on a digital timeline and then connect them through whichever analytical lens they want to use – and then they have to explain the connections.  The whole thing is based on the premise that sometimes things are connected in unexpected ways. It’s really a pedagogical (teaching) and thinking tool.

That is very cool- I did not know that you were a software mogul!  I don’t want to sully your interview with constant reminders that we are living in dark times, but when catastrophic things happen, do you have a touchstone of looking at history to comfort yourself?  Do you have any ways that you use history as a foothold?

Funny you would mention that!  Before COVID, the thing that seemed to me the biggest looming crisis was climate change.  There is this concept in philosophy and history called “Radical Hope”, which is sort of self-explanatory.  When is hope a radical act?  When it’s easier to turn to despair, how can you create hope?  I have a collaborator – John Barry – at the Queens University in Belfast and we ran a conference with scholars from all over the world to talk about how we can retain hope in the face of the changing climate – and how hope can help us inspire real change to stop climate change.

When was this?

The conference was 2017.  In 2018 we took all the work that the scholars presented and created a website called “Radical Hope” where  the scholars and activists who had participated actually created lesson plans based on their talks- it was a super cool project to be involved in.  It is now being used by scholars in 72 countries and it is a group-sourced resource, and anybody can use it to piece together teaching units.  So I’ve used that idea to sustain me through other dark times as well – politically dark times, environmentally dark times, pandemically dark times. To help me think about how humans are resilient. Or when I ask, how is society resilient?

So you’re a fan of hope?

I’m hopeful about hope.  I’m hopeful about the potential of it.  I don’t want to say I’m an optimist, but without hope I think we’re doomed.

So it is more productive to be hopeful than to despair?

I think so, but there is a debate around this. Some think that maybe we need to embrace the darkness and rally around it in order to spark change.  I fully understand that view and why people feel that way, but I also think about what’s going to motivate me (and others) to do something positive. For me, I have to believe that positive change is possible. If significant social change regarding the environment isn’t possible, I have hope that we can be resilient and create something positive in response. But, these things are pretty bleak to consider. Better to work for change.

I really like that.  As a historically informed person, can you name a couple times in history that would have been darker to live through than this current time?

Yes, sure.  There have been some pretty dark times throughout history. I’m thinking about the small pox epidemics that wiped out Indigenous populations in North and South America. I’m thinking about genocide. One of the things I do in my classes when teaching Native American history is to ask students to imagine what it would be like to lose 70-90% of your population. That did happen to some Indigenous populations upon European contact when epidemics and wars ravaged tribes.  So, I ask students to look around the classroom and then imagine 70-90% of the people around them are just suddenly gone.  Then I ask them: How do you carry on?  What traditions do you carry forward?  How do you reconstitute your society and culture?  How do you survive? How do you retain hope?  There was long-lasting trauma associated with such events, but people didn’t give up, they didn’t abandon their cultures, languages, beliefs, etc.  I think it can be easy for some non-Native Americans to think about Indigenous people just “disappearing”, but that is not what happened.  The idea that they disappeared is a kind of myth that has been layered into American history so we don’t have to acknowledge the darkness of these events, but Indigenous people are still here and their cultures and languages are still here.  So what sort of lessons can we learn from that history? We need to acknowledge the horrors of the past, then we need to think about how we can acknowledge it in useful ways – and how we, as a society, have a responsibility not to let something like that happen again.

That’s my next question!  It being dark times, what sort of lessons can we bring forth from history?

That’s a good question.  I think history has a lot to teach us about contemporary society.  One of the things it teaches us is that there is evil in the world and, overall, I think we want to pretend that isn’t true. We want to pretend evil doesn’t exist.

You can trust me to sand off rough edges.

Okay, so here is a fun fact about Erika’s family history- my dad grew up in Nazi Germany and his father of course lived through the time and made the accommodations and compromises that go along with this.  The man I knew was a good guy. I loved him. So how does someone who is a fundamentally good person, yet who didn’t believe in the cause of the National Socialists get swept up in it.  He was drafted and sent to the Baltic sea, become a prisoner of war, etc.  In short, it was safer and easier for him and of course easier on his family— for him to go along than it would have been to resist.  I think that is one of the lessons that history teaches us- just because it is easier to go along doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t resist. He imparted that to my brother and I. He had regrets. Still, very few people had the strength to resist.

Yep.  I like that.  What do you think is the most important thing we should be resisting right now?

I think we need to resist the idea that everything is going to be okay regardless, that America is always going to come out on top.  I think that there is this idea that democracy will be okay regardless of what happens, and I’m not sure that that is true.  I think we need to resist the idea that democracy is strong, I think it we should embrace the idea that it is very fragile, and that we have been lucky for a long time.  I think we need to work to protect it. I think that is a lesson that people have forgotten.  We have had lots of groups who had to fight long and hard access to democracy, for democracy to be more expansive, and I think those are good fights and they aren’t over yet.

Yeah, I’m sure you’re familiar with this anecdote, but they say that after The Constitution was drawn up someone asked Ben Franklin, who was the elder statesman in the room, what they had.  His response was supposedly, “You have a republic, if you can keep it”.  That is the phrase I keep coming back to.

Right- if you can keep it.  That is a really important idea and I think people get complacent.  You don’t want to let somebody take your decisions away from you.

That is a great point and I think it is a nice segue in to talking about some more Shop related stuff.  I think what you’re giving voice to is the fact that democracy and liberty are something that we have to fight for and it isn’t just something that is given.  That is something that I try to impart to people with respect to fitness- that it is something that we all need, but something we have to work for.  So, being crass, we have a lot of eggheads at The Shop.  No offense intended, in fact in admiration, you are one of our longest standing eggheads so I am curious why do you keep coming to class?  What does this place do for you?

I’m going to put it this way, working out is a break from thinking about all the other stuff.  I like that the workouts here are so challenging that all I’m thinking about when I’m here is “can I do eight more deadlifts or twelve more burpees?”.  I like that it is hard and that it focuses my brain on my body and what I’m able to do because I think I spend too much in my head sometimes.  It is also the community; I really like the people at Dane’s.  I had only been a member for like two months and I sent Dane this email saying, “Thank you so much for opening up this gym in my neighborhood because this is like no other gym I’ve been to.  I feel welcome and pushed but I don’t feel judged”.  I grew up in Utah where women weren’t encouraged to be athletic or to be involved in sports so I had to find my own way to fitness.  You come to fitness on your own terms when you realize how important it is.  So for me it is a place I can go where I really like the people and I don’t feel judged.

A place where you can “radically hope” that you can get through the workout?

That’s right!  Sometimes it is a radical act just to get myself here and the rest is good.  My day is always better after I come here.  Every single time.

That is great!  I’m glad we steered briefly into normal interview fare because I’m going to swing us right back into history.  I’ve realized recently that the reason I am so interested in presidential history is that I’m interested in leadership.  And presidential history is, at this point, dominated by white men.  Your area of expertise is very different than that, so I was curious if you had any historical leaders that you gravitate to?

Wow, that is a really good question- are the historical leaders I admire?  Well there are some badass women in history who are truly inspirational.  Shirley Chisholm is amazing so is Winona Laduke.

Who is that second one?

Winona Laduke is an environmental activist and helped found the Indigenous Women’s Network. There are some amazing women who are “unsung” heroines.  They aren’t the people that we read about all the time in books, but they are truly people who made a difference. I’d put my grandmother in here too. I know… It’s so funny that you ask me this because now I’m drinking this beer and I’m just (reaching)-

That’s how I work my magic!

You are working your magic!  And then there is someone like Susan B. Anthony who is pretty key as far as the people that I look to in history as leaders.  And all of these people are both strong and flawed individuals.  I think we have this tendency to want to idolize our historical figures without acknowledging their flaws.  One of the things you learn is that we are all flawed humans and just trying to do your best.

We should have some grace when we look back in history-

No one is above criticism.

Exactly.  And heaven knows when people look back on us in 200 years, supposing of course that the world has not turned into a molten fire ball, we will be judged on the standards of people more advanced than we are.

We will all be judged.

When you are Athlete of the Season, you are a leader.  I’ve made the mistake in interviews of asking members during this interview why they think they are a leader.  I think it is a bad question because people are bad at praising themselves generally- so I’ll answer that for you later on.  But what I’d like to ask you, because you’ve been at The Shop for how long?

When did the Shop open?

2010.

I’ve been a member since 2011 then.  I think I’m one of the old-timers!

You’re definitely a gap person who should have been Athlete of the month/season a long time ago.

I was picked once but then the coach who wrote my name on the board erased me and gave it to someone else.

They erased you!  That is fu**cked up!  This is why we need the living document of these interviews.  This is history right here!  So you’ve seen tons of leaders in our community over the year- not just Athletes of the Season- can you point to qualities you admire or individuals?

Okay, I like humor. I like it when people aren’t super serious.  I don’t think I come across as a super serious person but then I see pictures of myself and think people must be afraid of me!  *laughing*  I really appreciate it when people crack jokes to help others feel encouraged.  We can’t do it right now, but I like it when people are encouraging, the high-fiving stuff-

Some point in the future!

Yeah!  I have found lots of friendships since coming to The Shop.  I love Virginia and Janani- they are enthusiastic and work out really hard, but then it is fun to talk about food and politics with them. I love Lizette. Talking with Kirsten, etc. Just being lively and engaged.  But then sometimes people come just because they need to get through their day, they don’t want to interact — and I respect that too!  Really the ability to show up consistently is the thing I’ve learned that matters.

I agree- that’s right!  I think this a good time to transition to some random questions which are always different levels of zany.  The first one I had for you was, and this is a stock question, but I think you’re uniquely qualified for this, pick one figure in history to have dinner and spend an evening with- who would it be and why?

One figure in history… Okay.  Wow.  I’m going to go P.T. Barnum.  He is super interesting because he had political ambitions, which is something people don’t know about him.

I had no idea!

I have an op. ed. I’ll send to you.  He was a showman and he is someone who left a big imprint on American culture and society and I feel like I would want to know what he was thinking-truly thinking. I wonder if there’s a different side to him than the one we see in his autobiography.

I think that is a great answer- finding those people who are associated with one thing in history and are almost cartoonized and then finding the actual humanity in them.  I’ve been taking in a lot of Roman history, so right now mine would probably be Diocletian.  Okay so my workout play list, which is up to something like 370 songs that I play on shuffle, is informed by various things and one of those is member recommendations.  You’ve given me a few over the years, so I’m guessing you’ve seen some live music in your day.  What is your most memorable live music experience as we sit here in the “live music capital of the world”, with no live music because of the fucking pandemic- give us a memorable experience.

Oakland Coliseum, Grateful Dead,1988.

So Garcia is still alive?

Garcia is still alive.  I did not have tickets for the New Year’s Eve show, but I had all the tickets up to the New Year’s Eve show.  I was with some friends camping in the parking lot and feeling bad that we couldn’t get in and then all of the sudden we saw someone prop the doors open to the coliseum and signal to us to run. So we did, we ran we down the hill across the parking lot, up the hill and then popped into the coliseum to see the Grateful Dead for the New Year’s Eve show.  To get Grateful Dead tickets there used to be a lottery and they were beautiful tickets- iridescent, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tickets –  it is goofy that it was The Grateful Dead, but it was magical.

Were you a Dead Head?

Not a Dead Head exactly.  I had a lot of friends who were Dead Heads.

So now the title of the interview is “Not a Dead Head Exactly”!

*laughing*  So I went to a decent number of Grateful Dead Shows, but I wasn’t a true Dead Head.  So Dan is a musician and my son is a musician.  I love live music, but that was truly memorable.

That does sound like a beautiful moment.  Real quickly, what does Liam play?

Liam plays the piano and the guitar and he sings.

That is awesome.  Do you have a go to pig out food?

Pasta.

Do you have a recommended spot for pasta?

My mom is Italian, so homemade.

Wait, your mom is Italian and your dad is German?  You’re all Axis!

All Axis baby!  You might be the one few people who gets that joke –  I actually joke about that with my students sometimes!

Wow.  All Axis… but also all American now right?  

Yes!  Erika Amerika!

So it is an election year, so I’m asking all the athletes this- if you could nominate anyone in the Dane’s Body Shop community to be president of The United States, who would it be?

*laughing*  Wow!  This is super interesting- I need to think about this for a moment because we have some amazing members here.  We have people who are crazy smart and creative… I’m going to pick from the coaches though.  Hmm…

And since this is a thought experiment, for anyone in the community who wasn’t born in this country, you can pretend they are eligible.  So if you wanted to nominate any nutty Canadians or anything…

Beth would definitely be on the ticket-

People have definitely picked her before, so feel free to go another direction if you want to go with something different.

Beth Reyburn would be on the ticket… And I’m going to say Shelley Adair.  I think Shelley Adair as president and Beth as vice president.  I think Shelley is incredibly savvy and super compassionate, which I think we need in a president.  She’s good at thinking outside of the box.  She’s a problem solver. She gets things done. She is someone who created an entire business for herself based on need, she’s helping stroke victims recover their language skills.  I mean, I admire her.  

That is another classic tentpole of leadership- being able to correctly identify problems.  Okay Erika, the note I always end on is- now that you’ve been vaulted to the pantheon- do you have any wisdom, pleas, or stern edicts?  Final words as Athlete of the Season?

My only advice is what I give my students- just show up.  It doesn’t matter if it is working out or voting- just show up.

I love that.  And I’m actually not going to end it here.  Earlier I let you off the hook for accounting why you are a leader, so I am going to account for that.  A part of that really is showing up.  Part of the reason you were such a no-brainer choice for us when we were selecting Athlete of the Season is because you showed up for virtual workouts and you showed up when we reopened.  There was a moment for me that clinched it.  We had just reopened and everything was new and scary- people are nervous to be around one another.  We have this strict rule about masks inside and one of the members came back from a run and they just forgot to put their mask on-

Which is just completely normal.

Right!  And you didn’t say anything to the member or make any big deal, you just made eye contact with me and gave me this subtle little nod in their direction.  The I was able to discreetly remind the member and no one was embarrassed.  That was the moment I keep going back to.  We are thriving as a community under these difficult circumstances and that was an incredible moment of leadership- judicious and subtle, not self aggrandizing, but essential.

One of the things I always think about is I feel like Dane’s is my community.  I feel really attached, I’d be really sad if it didn’t exist.

“A Farmer and A Banjo-Picker Walk Into a Body Shop”

I sat down with Katie and Johnny for a relaxed and breezy socially distanced conversation on the turf at Manor Road after classes had all ended for the day on a Friday evening; it was the very last day of Spring.  We were accompanied by some refreshing brews and Katie’s chill pup.  Though the two had never met one another, they had an immediate rapport.  Facilitating a fun and engaging conversation was particularly light work for your humble interviewer.

So Katie, since becoming Athlete of the Season, you’ve stopped coming to class?  What do you think is the cause of that?

Katie Liesmann:  Well, I don’t have to try so hard anymore!

You’ve reached the summit, so you’re good now.

KL: Uh-huh.  No… it’s because of quarantine. It has been weird to come back.  I’ve been doing the park workouts mostly.

Johnny Sullivan:  I haven’t done an IRL class yet, but I feel like I have to just once- to see my name on the board!  That’s the dream right?

Johnny, when you were named Athlete of the Season, what changed for you?

JS:  Well, I mean it demarcated a new phase in my life for sure.  Everything before that and everything after- it is how I mark time. Nah, nothing much changed- I’ve been doing the virtual workouts, I like them a lot.

And you’re good at the virtual workouts!  Not everyone is great at framing themselves with their device so the coach can see them.  It is a little bit of cinematography.  What was your reaction to being named Athlete of the Season?

JS:  Surprised.  It was really cool.  I’ve been coming for a couple years but that first year, I came maybe ten times.  I started coming more consistently last July and never imagined that I would stick with much less be Athlete of the Season.  It is very cool to be part of the community.

And both of you guys weren’t just in conversation for this cycle, we were talking about you for the last cycle as well.

KL: What???

JS:  Woah!  Cool.

I won’t tell you what it was that we dug up which caused us to vote against you last time, but we found some shit!

KL:  Whatever- my record is clean!

I’ll get to that later- did you have a reaction Katie?

KL:  I wanted to say “finally!” because I had always wondered what I had to do to get on there.  Afterwards, I asked John what I did to get it because I was genuinely curious.  He gave me three criteria like consistency, then attitude, then I don’t remember the third one.

The third is bribery.  That is really where most of the criteria is weighted.

JS:  Glad to hear that.  Capitalism baby.

We ain’t no commies here.  That is a great place to get things rolling-

JS: Capitalism?

Yeah, let’s have a real hard hitting conversation where we critique various systems of governance.

JS:  That is pretty much what I was expecting for this interview.

Naturally.  No, when I conduct these interviews, I usually ask other coaches if they have questions for the athletes and John was the one who came back this time.  He came back with one for each of you, so we will start with Johnny.  So you’re a prolific hiker, what are your favorite hikes?  Do you have a most memorable hike?

JS:  New Mexico is on my mind right now, because I was just there.  We went up near Taos and hiked Mt. Wheeler which is the highest point in the state- a little over thirteen thousand feet.  There is an alpine lake which is really cool because I grew up in the northeast and we don’t have those; it is basically glaciers melting into a lake.  I went for a swim- it was extremely cold but awesome.  We were hiking to the top and it kept getting windier; it was the fastest winds I have ever been in throughout my entire life.  We were worried we were going to get blown off- truly almost getting blown over.

KL:  So do you just come to Dane’s to get ready for hiking?

JS:  No… but that is one of the things that prompted me to start.  I went on a hiking trip 4 or 5 years ago and I hurt my knee just because I wasn’t in shape for it.  I decided that I wanted to keep doing that sort of thing well into the future and I needed to get some regular exercise going.

Very cool.  Katie, John’s question for you was about your journey from the company you were with when you started at The Shop to starting your own business to being a farmer.  I think what he was trying to get at was having you talk about how awesome it is to be a farmer.

KL:  What is he talking about?

Katie, no one knows what he is talking about at any given time.

KL:  I think that John thinks that I’ve had the best year ever because I’ve gone through a lot of changes, but I don’t know- it has been hard.  So I was in the tech industry- I got my degree in marketing.  It was probably a good thing that I went into that industry because it is how I found Dane’s; the company I worked for paid for us to have a membership here.  We had small private classes mostly with John and Autumn so we received really good form feedback which was awesome.  I didn’t really love (the job) and the company got bought out and then they ended the membership so I became a regular member.  I quit the company and started my own business, Jake and Juby’s- we made granola butter.  It was really fun, but I closed it in February to go help my dad out.  I just got a new job this week on a flower farm- that is what John is talking about, but it isn’t permanent.

But even though it isn’t permanent, is it epic?  We’ve got to give John something to savor here.

KL:  It is epic.  All I did for three hours was take a pic axe and swing at chunks of clay dirt to break them up.  Very exhausting and repetitive.  I’m better at it than the farmer- no joke.  And Dane’s has been with me for all of that.  I thought his question would be about my hair.

Oh, I’ve got questions about both of your hair later.  Now I don’t think you two know this, but when I created the first outdoor self-paced adventure workout during quarantine- Shop 2 Shipe- I received texts from two members who were doing it and it was the two of you!  That is why I am so thrilled the two of you were named Athlete of the Season.  I was curious what attracted you to doing that?

JS:  It was really fun.  Getting out of the house mostly.  The video demoing the event was very intriguing.  The wall walks on the trees definitely got me some looks.  I did record a little video of myself doing the Rocky thing on the steps (of the Baker Center)- I think I forgot to post it.  It was just way better than being in my house by myself.  Kind of a depressing reason really-

I think we need to take the concept of depressing reasons off the table for our current COVID world.

KL:  It was your marketing.  The name was just so good.

JS:  Yep!  I think you and I share an affinity for puns- an apunity?

That is fantastic.  Katie, we kind of got your origin story- Johnny how did you come to be at the Shop?

JS:  I heard about it a long time ago- I had a friend who was a member and has since moved to Colorado.  I actually did a tour with John and I don’t know why I didn’t sign up.

John just shit the bed on the interview didn’t he?

JS:  Oh yeah- he was just like “so this is a place and we do stuff here…”

KL:  How long did it take him to say that?

JS:  Roughly 48 hours…  But I finally signed up.  I had gone to two classes and for the third one it was memorial day and The Shop does The Murph.  I clearly remember sitting in my apartment with my girlfriend at the time and the workout was posted so I looked at it and just started laughing.  I showed it to her and was like, “I don’t think of Memorial Day as a joke holiday, but they put a joke workout up!” that is so funny!  No part of my brain thought it would be an actual thing someone would do.  So I showed up and it was every jacked dude at The Shop.  I was like, “this isn’t good”.  So I ran a mile for the first time in years.  I definitely couldn’t do a pull-up so I did a few pushups and squats and went home… and was wrecked just from that.  But last July I started coming more and it just became more gratifying over time to feel like I was actually getting better at working out.  Before coming here I had never even looked at a barbell.  I definitely didn’t think of myself as someone who would or even could go to the gym sustainably.  But I started slowly and eventually worked up to coming five days a week.

KL:  You come five days a week!?!?!

JS:  I’ve started coming Saturdays now, so it is usually six.

KL:  Dang!  I don’t deserve this!

I will say that, Athletes of the Season included, the average is 3-4 times a week.  Johnny Sullivan is flexing on us!

JS: *laughing* That is not what I was trying to do.  It is just a testament to the coaching and advice on form.  The emphasis on just doing what you can.

That is our devious business plan- keep you from getting hurt so we can keep you paying us!  Katie, did you have any similar adaptation issues when you started?

KL:  I remember thinking it was hard, but I still feel that way.  But I recently did a rope swing which I hadn’t done in a long time and it felt so much easier because I’m stronger- like I didn’t used to be able to hold on to a rope and swing out into the water.  But I think John really eased us into the programming, so we had a lot of time to adjust.

That is very cool.  Another thing I wanted to hit on was hair.  Johnny, can you talk about your beard evolution?

JS:  I cut my beard off four years ago and then I had it again for another four years and then last year I decided it was too consistent- I didn’t like feeling like I had to have the beard to look like me.  So I shaved the beard for a friend’s murder mystery party.  I took it as an opportunity to have a ridiculous beard- I left the mustache trimmed to points and then I left the goatee trimmed to a point and that went up into ever thinning strips on my cheeks.  It was basically my attempt at a super villain beard.  Then I let it linger for a few days and then went mustache for a while.  It is time to mix it up again- I’ve had the beard since Movember ended I guess.

KL:  Has your hair always been the same?

JS:  I have a friend who asks people their hair history as a personality test- if the hair has always been the same he is just done with them.  *laughing*  He thinks it is important to have an interesting hair history.  I grew my hair down to my shoulders in grad school, but it has been at various lengths since then.  

The hair history thing is an interesting segue to Katie because you have recently made a very fetching but cataclysmic decision as far as your hair goes.

KL:  I had long hair my whole life.  I had a similar experience (to Johnny’s beard) where I felt like my hair defined me too much and I felt like I needed to rebel or something.  So I shaved it all off- I started with a mullet and then made it a bowl and then I left just the bangs.  And they all looked really good!  So I kind of decided that hair just doesn’t matter.  But I definitely have days where I feel self-conscious about it, but overall it has been a positive thing.

That is great.  So I’m not on facebook, but I try to at least stalk people before interviews on instagram.  Johnny, you mentioned you are learning the banjo.  When did you start?  I pulled up a video on your account and played it for my wife- you’re pretty good.

JS:  Oh no.  The banjo is a fun instrument in that respect because it is very easy to make it sound like something.  So I’ve been playing off and on for a year or so.

Why the banjo?

JS:  I just like the sound of it.  It struck me as a fun goofy instrument.  I wanted to learn a string instrument because I like folk and bluegrass music.  Everybody learns the guitar and the mandolin is cool, but it isn’t as fun to play by yourself.  I was just in a music shop and I was playing with a banjo and I just loved it.  It is very rhythmic.  The style I do, the strum used to be called the “bum titty” strum, but they’ve now changed it to the “boom chicka” strum because I guess that is apparently not as- yeah…

And you Katie- when I tried to social media stalk you for photos and you are off the grid girl!  

KL:  I got off of facebook a few years ago and I deleted instagram which I am sad about because I lost all those photos.  Now I have a very secret instagram.  I have three followers- I post whatever I want and it is amazing.  It is just my roommate and my two best friends.  There is nothing that I can feel judged for posting with them.  It is great.  Everyone should do it!  There are so many stupid rules about how to post on instagram.  I’m technically on Facebook though.

Yeah, but your last photo was from like 2016!  So I like to hit some random questions with my Athletes of the Season.  The first isn’t totally random- who has the best and worst music as far as all the coaches at The Shop?

JS:  I really like Beth (Reyburn)’s playlist simply for the inclusion of the Arnold Schwarzeneger “More Energy Song”. *The song, if you’re wondering dear reader, is “Arnold” by Luke Million*

I would like to claim credit because I introduced that to The Shop, but it was actually a member- James Collins who called it to my attention.

JS:  Okay then- James Collins has the best music.  Some coaches have very distinct taste and so I’m not going to call anyone out for having the worst, because I like the variety.  Mitch is always doing more of the current hip-hop.  Eric brings early 2000’s pop/punk stuff.

KL:  I’m just glad that I don’t have to pick the music.  I don’t have any complaints.  I will comment that when I’m doing yoga (in the Strength room at Manor), all I hear is Mitch’s rap music (from the Fusion room).

Is that good or bad?

KL:  I don’t love it.

That is so funny because I interviewed the Hyde Park athletes last week and Meredith commented that she thought the hip-hop spilling over into the yoga class was oddly perfect.

JS:  I’m going to brown-nose a bit here.  I appreciate that you have calm music for the warm-up and then build up.  You clearly pay attention to matching the music to the phase of the workout.

Thank you!  Well moving on from music, this is a question I like to ask in an election year.  The answer can be members, coaches, or anyone in the community- who would you nominate to be president of the United States?

KL: (with zero hesitation)  Oh my god, I know my answer.  I don’t know her last name, but Daphne.

Daphne Kao!  She was just in my 5:30pm virtual class.

KL:  She is very sweet, very polite, talks to everybody.

Absolutely.  I can see that.  Honestly, she might be in that category of people who are too good to be president.  She might be too sincere to take on the facade that politicians seem to require-

KL:  What do you want me to say Dane?!?!?

Good god no!  I think Daphne is great.

JS:  Dane has just been waiting for years for someone to say his name hasn’t he?

Ha!  Yes he has.  Do you have a name Johnny?

JS:  (also zero hesitation)  Kelly Foster.

KL:  Ugh!  That is another great choice.

JS:  He would be a reluctant president, which I think is a good characteristic.  He is data-driven, when we workout in Strength class, he has a spreadsheet that generates the weight you should be using based on your max.

If I were to put your two answers together, I would put Daphne at the top of the ticket, because she has that charismatic and affable personality and Kelly would be VP.  He’s got that unflappable focus, kind of like Dick Cheney if Cheney weren’t an actual super villain.  Those are great answers and in tandem.  Bringing it back to you, if there were to be a biopic made of your life, who would play you?

JS:  For doppleganger, people have suggested James McAvoy.

Oh yeah, I can absolutely see that!

KL:  I would say Ellen (DeGeneres), because she is hilarious.  Imagine Dory from Finding Nemo playing me in a movie?

That would be fun.  If you go back to a younger Ellen from the eighties.  Do either of you have a spirit animal?  Mine is a goat.

KL:  No!  Have you ever spent time around a goat?  

Maybe not enough.

KL:  I grew up on a goat farm.

JS:  See that  is information John would want to know.

What were the goats like?

KL:  Stinky.

I can be pretty stinky.

KL:  Unintelligent- they get their heads stuck in a lot of places where you would never put your head.

I’ve got a big Irish head, it has gotten stuck in a few places.

KL:  Okay fine, maybe that is perfect for you.  Um… mine has to be something with a lot of energy.  I’ve got a lot of nervous energy.

Like a fish?  Like Dory?

That is kind of perfect.

Johnny?

JS:  That is tough.  I was going to say my dog Ellis, but I’m pretty outgoing… but I guess he is outgoing too, he just sleeps a lot.  Yeah, you know he is down for whatever- chilling at home or a hiking trip.  He loves food and people- generally pretty positive about the world.  He has a great beard and I like to think I have a decent beard.  My girlfriend just told me that she admires both mine and Ellis’s eyebrows.  It was the highest complement someone could have paid me.

One final question before we wrap things up- what would be your song if you were a wrestler entering the ring.  What is your pump up jam?

JS:  “Boom” by POD.  If you need a reminder, the lyric is “Boom, here comes the boom”.  Yep.

Wow.

KL:  I have one that I play a lot in the morning- I don’t know if it is a pump up song though.  It is called “Get on Your Feet” by Gloria Estefan.

Gloria Estefan!  I love her so much.  That is a fantastic answer.  The last question to leave things on is, we’ve had a lot of jokes and levity, but with your platform and podium as Athlete of the Season, what words of wisdom do you have to disseminate to your humble thronging masses?

KL:  I do not consider myself to be an athlete, but here I am as Athlete of the Season, so if I can do it, you can do it.

JS:  That is spot on.  I played JV tennis in high school but definitely didn’t consider myself to be an athlete- I think it is just consistency.  It doesn’t have to be your best workout, just showing up on a regular basis is huge.  You start seeing the same people and getting comfortable with what is going on and you start believing you can do it.

Mitch is a Coach- Mitch is a Cat

In a wide ranging conversation with Meredith and Michael, I wasn’t even able to gracefully weave all the interesting subjects we covered into the transcript! Some highlights from the cutting room floor include a suggestion right off the bat for free t-shirts for Athletes of the Season (a damn fine idea I must say) and Michael’s adorable fascination with mysterious nocturnal desert creatures which Meredith was able to identify as kangaroo rats!

 I think to start off, and particularly because the two of you don’t really know one another, could I get a brief summary of who you are, where you come from, and how you got here?  Michael, let’s start with you.

Crider:  I’m a 7th generation Texan.  I graduated high school from Victoria Texas- a shithole little town near Corpus.  UT Grad-

What was your major?

Crider:  Economics.  How did I get to be here?  I was living in DC working for congress as a banking economist and I met my wife who is a native Austinite so we’ve moved back and forth a couple times.

So love and tech brought you to Austin?  Pretty logical transition-

Crider:  You’ve met my son right?

Daniel?

Crider:  Yeah.  We were in DC and he is an only child, but at the time he had nine cousins in Texas.  My parents were getting older and my wife’s dad was getting older so we moved to Hyde Park.  You’ve probably been by my house a dozen times without knowing it.

And you Meredith? Where did Meredith come from?

Lovelace:  I lived in Oklahoma until I was 15 and then my parents separated  and my grandparents lived in Missouri, so we moved up there.  I went to the University of Missouri as an anthropology major, so that meant that I worked at Whole Foods for a while after I graduated from college.  I didn’t know that I was supposed to get a “marketable skill” in college.  My parents were a little too sweet and supportive.

I had the same problem- theatre major.

Lovelace:  So the (2008) recession hit and I lost my job but I had some savings and I had been down here as a kid and my best friend moved her so I was like “if you guys are in Austin, why am I in Chicago which is freezing and I hate it?”.  I actually really like Chicago now that I’m a little older, but when I was like 22 through 24 I just wasn’t mature enough to take on a city of that caliber.

With both of you being local to Hyde Park, what was your first encounter with The Shop?  How did you end up at this weird gym?

Crider:  Driving by it a thousand times a month.

Did it take you a thousand passes before you decided to check it out?

Crider:  I didn’t grow up with a strong exercise culture.  My wife is an athlete- played on the basketball team, lettered in volleyball in college, taught kids soccer.  She is very athletic, but that wasn’t my culture.  As I got older, I decided I had to do something right?  I’d drive by Dane’s all the time- I don’t know if you remember, but you were in my (fundamentals) class.

Yes!  You and I and Dane’s dad were all in that class together.  

Lovelace:  They made you take fundamentals?  I took like one or two of the fundamentals classes and almost wish that I’d taken more.

Crider:  And with you (pointing to your humble interviewer), I was like who is this guy who seems like he knows what he is doing and is in better shape than me.  I mean, I guess it helps that you’re like half my age.

Oldest trick in the book!

Crider:  That’s what I tell the people I’m working out with; my advice to all of them- don’t grow old.

Sage words.  What were those early days like?

Crider:  It wasn’t that different from fundamentals, other than being tired and sore all the time.  It took three months for me to get to a decent baseline and not to not be brutally exhausted every time I left.

Oh I had been working in fitness for a couple years before I started taking classes at The Shop and it still took me months to get adjusted.  Meredith, what was your entree to classes at The Shop?

Lovelace:  No fitness background either.  I dabbled in various things- did some yoga.  When I moved to Chicago, I at least got really into biking, which I still do, and that at least kept the Dunkin Donuts weight down.  Other than that nothing.  A couple years ago I got the job that I have now for Txdot- I’m a GIS analyst which is map making but other stuff as well-

You’re a CARTOGRAPHER!

Lovelace:  I hate saying that (laughing)- it is so artistic sounding.  Anyway, I had a bump in pay and saw a photo of myself from a pool party and was like “No!  Your metabolism is slowing down, you can’t do nothing- so just go to that place you are always biking by”.  I also had some friends who worked out (at The Shop) Meg and Rob-

Meg Neely?  Rob was an Athlete of the Month!

Lovelace:  Yeah!  They’re great.  They seemed like they were the kind of people who would go to a fitness place that isn’t a cult-

Crider:  *Mocking laughter*

Lovelace:  Well, it is a friendly and sane cult.

I call us a cult where the Kool-Aid is optional.

Lovelace:  Yeah, that sounds right.  I remember Dane corrected me on a push-up like my first minute being here.  I was like okay, I’m starting from nothing- you just have to put your pride aside for a long time.  It was about a year where I just didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing.

Crider:  So do you mainly go to Manor?

Lovelace:  I live right in between so I split my time pretty evenly.

The funny thing about all four athletes this time around is that all four go to both- they are all bi-shoptual.  They go both ways.

Lovelace:  I was going to make that terrible joke, but I decided against it.

That is why I’m here.  It is why Dane is always on the knife’s edge of firing me.  So, I think a really interesting question and one that is unique to this moment in time is what is life like for you right now?  What does a day in the life of this grand disruption look like for you?

Crider:  I’m spoiled!  I mentioned that we moved back to Austin because we had aging parents; my mother passed away and my wife’s father passed away and he was living in this house on Lake Travis.  On the lake.  He was living in this opposite-of-fancy lakehouse, but it has air conditioning, a little kitchen, furniture, and wifi.  There is the pool and the lake and I’m not interfering with my wife and son who have their own routines.  I’m totally spoiled.

Lovelace: Oh I’ve got nothing on that!  I’m just in my hot 600 square foot apartment all the time- no patio and no pool.  Is it kind of stifling day in and day out?  Yeah.  So just working from home.  The Zoom classes were a real lifesaver because I’m single so no one lives with me except my two cats.

What are your cats’ names?

Lovelace:  Duff and Mitch.

Named after Coach Mitch?

Lovelace:  No!!!  I’ve had the cat much longer.  But Mitch knows about the cat.

Were you scratching Mitch behind the ears when you told him about the cat?

Lovelace:  No, but sometimes I yell at him across the room in the exact same tone I use for the cat.

Crider:  Duff named after Duff beer?

Lovelace: *laughing* no, Duff McKagan from Guns n’ Roses- Duff McKitten.  He’s currently learning not to be afraid of a mirror.

On the subject of Mitch, both of you mentioned him in the primer email I sent you and how you appreciate his vibe in class.  Can you talk about that?

Crider:  I love his music.  Um… I’m going to be offensive here-

Please do!

Crider:  One day there were three particular songs in a row and I asked, “Mitch, do you have a cat?”.  He said “No, why?” and I told him that “all of these songs talk about how much they’d love some more p*ssy!”

Lovelace: *roaring with laughter* Oh man…  The music is easy to zone out to.  I like how we will be taking Bean’s (Saturday morning) restorative Yoga class and he will be blasting hip hop in the next room.  It shouldn’t work, but it just does.  He’s just such a calm person.

Crider:  Uh-huh.  I was in a class at Manor within the last six months and the sun was going down and he just had this chill vibe on and there were lots of Vinyasa and flow stuff and it was just a perfect workout.

Lovelace:  This might be off the record because it is too embarrassing for Mitch, but one class he ended with Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do (is have some fun)”, and I’m from Missouri so I just whispered “nice Mitch!”.  He said, “Spotify told me I’m in her top 5% of fans”!

The next time you’re on MindBody, look up his profile- you’ll see that he’s a fan of another female musician who rose to prominence in the mid-nineties.  So if Mitch is the chill vibe guy, who is the anti-Mitch?

Lovelace:  (no hesitation) John.  With John, I feel like I have to go.  I think people go to his classes because that is what they want.  There is something about him that makes you feel like you need to work until you throw up.

Crider:  Someone described Dane’s to me as “like Crossfit but run by yoga instructors”.  Everyone kind of has that vibe.

That is actually a great description.

Lovelace:  Yeah, intensity isn’t a bad thing.  I’ve been to places where they push you to a point where you might injure yourself or make you feel bad.  Everyone has always been encouraging here.  

Crider:  This might be off the record, but even Beth (Reyburn)- in real life she is real straightforward and tough love.  When my mom died, I was just a zombie and she was like “Yep, you’re a member of the dead mom’s club; it is a sucky club, but you are in it for life, so get used to it!”.  I was like, wow thanks Beth.  But as a coach she is just totally different- she’s always like “Good job Michael!”.

That actually probably won’t be off the record because it sort of epitomizes what I love about Beth- she’s no nonsense, but she is also extremely caring.

Lovelace:  Yeah, the moment where I got the vibe here was a couple months in.  I was wearing some Outdoor Voices leggings and she asked if I liked them.  I told her that the sizes don’t go up very much and they are kind of tight, but Hey, that’s why I’m here.  She was just like, “I don’t want you here to lose weight, I want you here to feel good.”  I was mind blown- the fact that (at The Shop) it isn’t about the body, it is about how you feel and getting stronger.

Speaking of things you enjoy, are there particular workouts here you are fond of?  I’m going to start with Michael because I know you’ve been caught flipping tires while we were shut down.  It is kind of your sneaky little secret and I love it.

Crider: Well, you don’t leave battle ropes lying around.  Yeah, I’d rather lift weights than run.

Lovelace:  Deadlifts are the truth teller of your strength and form.  I actually really enjoyed the last Community Gains.  It was push press day and I had Beth Felker as my coach.  That is probably my best lift and I PRed it by quite a bit and she was just super excited for me and encouraging but then she said, “You’re done, that is enough.  You can stop there.”  If it was me by myself I might have kept going and maybe got hurt.  I really liked that she said that.

I think that is where the yoga teachers running Crossfit analogy fits nicely- I really like that Michael.

Lovelace:  And taking two yoga classes a week really helps.  I take the Saturday classes and then Christina’s independently run Sunday night class.

Great plug for our Yoga folks Meredith!  So we’ve got Bean coaching on Saturdays at 11:30am at the Shop and then doing her independent thing virtually on Sunday nights.  We’ve also got Jess Chester doing Shop yoga at 6pm on Thursdays and then she and Jenn Williams both have youtube channels.  So I asked you both a couple primer questions via email and in one of your answers Meredith, you mentioned liking to go to the afternoon/evening classes to blow off steam at the end of the day.  Where does the steam come from?

Lovelace:  Oh, well I bike so there is probably some anger directed at cars by the end of the day.  And this is probably TMI, but it is an interview-

No I is TMI!

Lovelace:  Okay, so last year I went through a breakup and I had all of this anger and a gym membership.  I had been going two or three times and now I’m going like six times a week.  It was just a positive (release)- the more I went the better I felt.

Michael, do you have any thoughts on blowing off steam?

Crider:  I just always leave in a better mood than when I showed up.

That is a very Athlete of the Season thing to say.  And something I tracked in your response to my primer email was you wanting to know when we were going to invest in barbell warmers for the winter months. *brief pause for all of us to laugh*  I was wondering if either of you had thoughts on posh amenities we could invest in?

Lovelace:  Well it is like we have a sauna here naturally- my skin has never been so dewy.

Crider:  I wonder if we could get together a member pool to place bets on when the AC gets turned on.

Lovelace:  You can always get that AC in the Strength Room at Manor.

That is a veteran move.  Come summer, takin’ those Strength classes at Manor!  I think this is a good moment to move into random questions.  I want you both to imagine yourself as either a professional wrestler entering the ring or it is a film and you walk into the room- what is your entrance music?

Lovelace:  “Here You Come Again” by Dolly Parton- just fist pumpin!

Crider:  Um, I don’t have a personal theme song- If I’m working out to the recorded on-demand workout videos I have go to selections, but I honestly wish I could get Mitch’s playlist.  I listen to 80’s punk- London Calling by the Clash, stuff like that.

I could see Michael storming into the ring to The Clash.  That makes sense.  If you were a superhero, what would be a superpower that represents who you are?

Lovelace:  It’d be teleportation.  

The ultimate Irish goodbye?

Lovelace: Exactly!

Crider:  So I started in economics and now I do marketing.  Both are about influencing people- one is fiscal tools and the other is psychological tools, so it would really be like Professor X mind reading tools.

That is a fantastic answer!

Crider:  It is just the smart choice- if you want to make money.

Lovelace:  Well, I was an anthropology major, so I clearly didn’t want to make money. 

*Laughing*  Okay here is another one.  I was here doing these interviews in 2016- an election year- and here we are in another election year.  If you were to nominate someone from the Dane’s Body Shop world- a coach, member, or someone else from the larger DBS diaspora- to run for president of the United States, who would it be and why?

Crider:  Other than you right?

Ha!  I’m not running for the nomination.

Lovelace:  I’d have a Beth/Beth ticket.

That’s good- who would be at the top of the ticket?

Lovelace:  I’d put Reyburn there.  She’s got the mom skills and the ability to just casually have seven foster dogs at her house- serious organizational skills.

Any slick thoughts Michael?

Crider:  I don’t know.  Dane does a great job of building community here, but I’m not like deeply integrated- I have a wife and kids.  I just don’t know anyone well enough to be comfortable making that call.  I think we’re seeing the repercussions of having someone totally unvetted and untested in the office right now.

Lovelace:  Fair!

That may actually be the smartest answer I’ve yet heard to that question.  I’ve finally been called out on my solicitation of demagogues!  Okay, puppies or kitties?

Lovelace:  I say both- I have cats now, but I love them both

Crider:  Yeah, I’ve owned both.  We had a hamster that sadly died just as the coronavirus lockdown was happening.  We’re working on getting a dog right now, so I will say puppies.

As we wrap things up, here’s a little two in one question: why do you think you are here as Athlete of the Season and do you have any words of wisdom?

Lovelace:  Oh I have no idea why I was chosen.

Crider:  I can’t speak for Meredith, but for me I thought you guys just ran out of people to give it to.

No!  We’ve lost a little bit of business because of the virus but we remain vital!  There were a number of strong choices but you two did make it to the top.  You were chosen very much for a reason.  As a prompt I would say that you are both very regular in attendance-

Lovelace:  Well, I have nothing else going on in my life right now- during the past few months.  (taking classes) Is one thing where I have to get dressed for and actually see people.

I think that neither of you are “Ra-Ra” cheerleader types, but consistency and being present can be of more value than being the peppy person-

Crider:  Like water on a rock- we just wore you down.

Exactly- eons and eons of Michael Crider coming to class and eroding our Athlete of the Month selection process.  No, it is a real thing- when you come regularly and put that effort in!

Lovelace:  I came from a pretty big place of insecurity when I started here.  But the longer I was here the more comfortable I became- particularly when I started kicking up the number of times I came per week.  I started to be more of myself and to make friends.  The first year though, I just hung back and was like “what’s a toes to bar?  I can’t do that!”.  But now I feel like I’m more comfortable.

But you are still yourself.  I think the value in that is that someone comes in and they see you just being you- not trying to be Carly Crossfit.  I don’t have to be a “gym person”.  Meredith is being Meredith and Michael is being Michael- I think that is very valuable, since you’re forcing me to answer the question for you.  I think that is one of the things that makes us unique as a community, just being ourselves.  You two exemplify that and we really appreciate it.  If a brand new person were to walk into Dane’s today, how would you advise them?

Lovelace:  Accept that you are going to feel dumb for a while and just let it go because no one is looking at you- the coaches are, but lovingly.  No one is judging you, so just keep it up and you’ll get there.

Crider:  Yeah, it is a very judgement free zone.  I’ve had coaches encourage me, but never had someone yell at me to do more.  What I tell my son is that the race is long and it is only against yourself.  It is the same thing here- do it for yourself.  As I get older I give less fucks about what everyone else thinks.  Maybe that is the lesson- give less fucks.

“Hey Dad, Guess What I Got You for Your Birthday…”

Chris Cordeiro has an extraordinary laugh.  Were he the most boring interview imaginable, the couple beers I shared with him at Haymaker just before the world went sideways would have been a delightful way to pass the evening based solely on the brightening effect of that laughter.  As it happens, Chris is not the most boring interview imaginable- he is a true renaissance man.  There was a whole captivating segment of this interview about his sailing hobby that didn’t quite fit into the transcript.  Fasten your seatbelts, try to keep up, and allow that laughter to infiltrate your soul!

So, your dad and your stepmom were both gym teachers or coaches- were you pushed into athletics at an early age?

*laughing* I wouldn’t say pushed because I loved it so much.  I loved sports- I grew up around it, I loved doing it, and I always wanted to be the best at it.  My dad was the opposite of what you’d call a helicopter parent so he gave me all the tips and trained me, but he expected me to just do it- I rode my bike to every game and just did everything myself.  

What was your favorite sport?

See I don’t like what is happening with specialization these days.  Up there (In New England where he grew up), in the fall we played football, in the winter we played hockey, in the spring baseball came around, and then soccer was the summer.  You’d change it up every once in a while- like wrestling in high school- but you played all the sports.  It wasn’t this idea of pick what you are going to play and focus on that or you’ll fall behind.  You just played.  I loved it.

There is actually a fairly new book out right now (“Range” by David Epstein) that talks about generalization being important for developing athletes.

My “daycare” was hanging out after school with whatever sport my dad was coaching that season.  Some of my favorite memories were being a little nine or ten year old kid and hitting the sleds with the linemen on the football team.  No mercy- I was one of those kids, the assistant coaches would whip me the ball as hard as they could.  They’d knock me down and would be like “Get up and wipe that blood off- you’re fine!” *big laughter*

They just threw you in the deep end.

*still laughing (brace yourself dear reader, you will be reading this particular action annotation a lot in this interview)*  Oh, I had no choice.  Growing up, everyone was like “oh, you’re going to be a professional football player” and I knew that I wasn’t, but people kept pushing me toward that.  So one of the biggest rifts with my parents growing up was I rebelled; I grew my hair long and I had always played the guitar growing up.  It pissed off my high school coach because I’d be running around during gym class with my hair all long making his players look bad- he would just be like, “*angry grumbling noise* cut your hair and get back on my team!”. *laughter again*

What kind of music were you into?

Mainly hard rock and metal- my band did a lot of Guns n’ Roses and Metallica stuff.  Led Zeppelin- I’ve always been a Zep Head.

Do you still play?

When I can.  It is what I relax with sometimes; I keep my guitar right there in the living room so I can just pick it up and play.  It is tough around here to do more than that because everybody thinks that they are a professional and they are going to be a star some day, so you can’t just go find a fun jam band.

Do you ever play any open mic nights or anything like that?

Eh- The closest I get to that around here is karaoke.  I love karaoke *another big laugh*

Sweet- do you have a go to karaoke song?

I usually warm up with Mustang Sally– the pitch and the vocals warms me up- then I go in all kinds of directions; I’ll do anything from Madonna to Metallica.  The bad part about doing karaoke with me is you have to fight me for the mic! *you guessed it, more laughter!*

How have we not done karaoke together yet?  There is a new member named Alli Vaughn who has quickly hopped in on some of the social events at The Shop.  At one of the recent gatherings *sigh… I miss gatherings* she and I were both talking about getting a group of people at The Shop together for karaoke.  That is really cool Chris.  So later in the interview, we will get a little more into some of your other interests, but we were talking about you during the manager meeting today and Dane was very curious about what you do for a living and how that relates to leadership in general.  Can you briefly summarize what you do?  I have a vague idea.

I am a general superintendent, so I manage teams; I manage people and (construction) projects.  My whole role is to help people grow and fulfill their role and manage each little piece in construction as we go along on a project.  Basically I’m a coach.  It is funny, I spent my whole life being a doer and over the past four years or so, that role has shifted for me; now I don’t manage the construction process or buildings themselves, I manage the teams and help them to be the best they can be at what they do.

How did you transition from “the doing” to “the coaching”?

A lot of it is trial and error- thinking about the things that bother you and trying to do things in a different way.  Trying to listen.  The one thing I love about my business is it is perfect for someone who has ADD or something because every two years you essentially start a new project.

When you start on a project, how do you know where to start?  I imagine it is something of a blank canvas- is there a first question you ask yourself or a first problem you attempt to address?

With construction it is all about documents and plans.  I don’t know what I’m going to do unless I understand what is being built.  You hone in for a week or two just on the details- what the project is– before you can start formulating a plan.  That is what I love about what I do; sometimes I am dealing with designs and helping engineers get to where they need to be, sometimes I am dealing with logistics, sometimes it is H/R, sometimes it is just dealing with clients at happy hours and helping client relationships.  I have to wear so many different hats-

And if I may, you’re wearing a lovely Dane’s Body Shop hat right now.

The best baby!  I don’t go anywhere without it- branding! *laughing (of course)*  Gotta represent.  But yeah, that is why I love it- because every day is different.  Some days it is just leading by example- if you can’t lead by example, nobody is going to follow you.  There are times where, if people aren’t getting things done, instead of jumping up and down and yelling at them, I just get up and show them how to do it.  If it means me just carrying heavy loads around or if I have to get dirty, that is what it takes to get the job done.

Do you have a particularly problematic type of person that you deal with?

Yep- whiners.  I can’t stand people who try to find excuses.  I keep a poster on my wall- it isn’t really a poster, it is just like 8×11, I’ve carried it for years– it is called “Winners and Losers”.  It is all about the people who figure out a reason why they can do something and the people who figure out reasons why they can’t.  It is the people who come up with reasons why they can’t that drive me nuts.

Do you have a strategy for dealing with that kind of person- do you just point to the poster or do you have words of wisdom?

*l-a-u-g-h-i-n-g* it is funny that you say that- when I start a project, one of the first things I do is print out copies of that poster, hand it out to everybody, and say “Hey, put this in front of your computer.”  *l_a_u_g_h_i_n_g*  It is a clear expectation.  The way these projects cycle through and start fresh, I get to learn from my mistakes.  It isn’t just a new challenge, it is a new team- new people.  So I get to think about what I could have done better with the last team and project and then apply what I think I did well at and then try other things when it comes to stuff that I didn’t do as well.  Nobody is perfect, it is all about growth.  If you cannot self analyze, you won’t go anywhere- you’ll just be that grumpy old superintendent that nobody wants to work around

As I get into my mid thirties and have had some more leadership experience, I think that my number one skill is looking at myself and saying “this is where you messed up Chad”.  It isn’t pretty, it sucks, and it keeps me up at night sometimes, but at the end of the day, that is the biggest tool someone can have.

If you can’t self evaluate, what are you gonna do?

Exactly.  Well, this is probably a good place to start talking about The Shop a little bit.  There is a lot of leadership at The Shop and it happens at multiple levels; obviously it starts with Dane because his name is on the joint, but then there is the management team, every coach is a leader, and then members themselves are leaders.  You are a leader- part of the reason someone gets selected to be the Athlete of the Season is that they’ve shown themselves to be a leader in some way.  Do you have any ideas about how leaders in The Shop environment can be better or things that they do well?

I always go in (to The Shop) with a good mood- I say hi to everybody and try to have a wonderful day because if you have a bad day in front of people, they take that in.  Leaders can’t have bad days- or you can have a bad day, but you can’t project that onto other people.  You need to learn how to deal with it without passing it on.  So if a coach is having a bad day and not focusing, it reflects on the class. 

That was something that came up about you while I was preparing for this interview- that we know you have a huge workload, but you can be counted on to come in at 5am and say hi to everyone. and how lovely that is.  To me, I think that is an expression of your own leadership at The Shop.

There are plenty of times I go in and I’m tired and worn out, but by starting off that way I have set my tone.  I might be battling something internally, but by maintaining (that positive tone) it helps me have a better workout, it helps me interact with people better, and hopefully it helps other people to have a better day.

That is one of the areas where I have analyzed myself and tried to improve recently.  I think I’m mostly pretty good at keeping control of myself in classes, but there have been classes where something bad has happened outside of class and I know I let it seep in.  It makes a difference.  There have been instances where I have fucked up as a coach because I wasn’t 100% positive and the coach that I wanted to be.

It isn’t about being fake, it is about a mindset.  I project a good mood because I want to be in a good mood and I want a good workout.  When I put myself in that mindset, even if I’m in a bad mood, by the end of the workout I am feeling alright.

Exactly!  It isn’t just for the members that I hold myself to being positive, it is because when I force myself to be positive, I almost always end up coming out of class feeling like I just had a therapy session.  Like I have used the members to help me feel better by feeding off of the shared positivity.

The gym for me is a therapy.  I grew up in the gym- it is where I want to be.  I feel miserable if I go through a stretch of not making it in.

That is something I wanted to get back to- you came to The Shop through your son, Chris Cordeiro Jr.  How did that connection come about?

I’ve always had gym memberships just to do my own stuff, but doing the same thing had gotten stale.  I had been building some projects downtown and I remembered seeing (The DBS) sign on Guadalupe and started wondering if I should stop in some time.  I knew what CrossFit was and knew I didn’t want to do that.  Well, believe it or not, I can be a shy person sometimes *big sheepish laughter*.  So my son ended up moving into The Triangle just down the street and I told him I had really been thinking about going.  He suggested that we go and try it together.  One day he called me and said, “Hey Dad, I went down there and I think you’re really gonna love it.”  A month or two later he was still prodding me to go and then one day he was like “Hey Dad, guess what I got you for your birthday present- I just bought you three months of membership at Dane’s!”. 

He just pinned you right up against the wall on that one-

Yes he did!  And I loved it from the moment I got there.

So we had three months of borrowed time with you to sell you on it?  It wasn’t just working out with your son that sold you was it?

We actually never really worked out together.  See he is a techie and a millennial- the worst combination!  He wakes up at 11 o’clock in the morning and goes to bed at 10 o’clock at night- I have to be at work at 6 in the morning.

Those damn millennials!

Don’t get me going *huge laughter*.  But yeah, I just loved the place and the people right away.  Of course there was Beth and she is the most amazing and wonderful coach you could have.  I love the accountability with her- she always pushes you to do your best.  

What else got you hooked that made you keep going past the three month mark?

The people- it is about the comradeship.  You have each other’s backs and you also push each other.  If you don’t show up, everyone is happy when you’re back and that makes you feel good.  I have a lot of tight spots in my body from bad workout habits growing up- I tear things easily.  One time I was injured for about two months.  My wife asked me what was wrong with me and I was like, “Honey… I think I am depressed because I miss my 5am people.  I really need to get back there!”

Poor little puppy dog!

You know it’s funny- I’ve always gone to the gym to workout, but when you are just doing it by yourself, it’s not as fun.  You don’t push yourself as much- you’re just there doing the motions, whereas when you’re with a group of people, it is like family.  It feels wonderful.

You feel safe and encouraged.  That is really well put.  Do you have anyone in particular that you feel that bond with?

Tom (Sennett) and Michele (Grieshaber).  They are the best.  I always tell them that they are my heroes.  When I found out I was Athlete of the Season, my reaction was that they are the Athlete of the Season.  Me, I’m just there- they are making me better.  They set a very high bar in those (5am) classes.  I sometimes go to other classes, and I never have a bad experience- there are always great people to workout with, but it just isn’t the same.  You don’t get the same kind of chippiness and talking going on.

Were you in class last week when Oliver from Manor came to the 5:30am class?  Oliver is the nicest guy and he has only been a member for a couple months.  He came to his first Hyde Park Class during my 7:30pm on Wednesday night and asked if I thought he should venture into the 5am Hyde Park class the next morning.  I told him he absolutely should- that he would love it and everyone is great.  Well, apparently he parked his car in front of the bay doors and Rachel just absolutely roasted him- he had no idea that people don’t park in those spots for when the door is open- it was cold and the bay doors were closed!

*Booming laughter*  Yeah, that sounds like Rachel!

But to his credit, he seemed to be totally down with whatever they did to him.  I think he liked it.

Yeah, Rachel and Melissa are fantastic- what inspirations they are.  But all of them- Mike, Robert… it is just a really good group.

My body doesn’t like to function at that hour, but I try to nab subbing opportunities when I can just because I like being around that group.

My problem is, for the last 25 years or so, I’ve basically worked from 6am to 6pm every day, so if I don’t go early I don’t make it.

That is bananas by the way.  Aside from getting to the gym, what other strategies do you have for dealing with the stress and demand on your mind, soul, and body from working that much?

I love to read-

Anything in particular?

I bounce around.  I just finished rereading Hamilton.  I like to switch between historical books and junk books.  I’m a Lord of the Rings nut, so I love good fantasy books.  So I’m reading a series about elves, dwarves, and giants called The Echoes of Fate.  

What else do you like to do to unwind?

I spend time with my grandson- take him rock climbing.  He is my pride and joy- I love him to death.  I play guitar, I read, my wife and I bought mountain bikes- you know, my best friend is my wife so she and I do everything together.

What is her name?

Kelly.

Has she come by The Shop?

She’s come to parties, but she is afraid to come work out. *laughing*  I’ll keep working on her!  

Guitars, books, mountain bikes- I also hear rumors of beekeeping?

Ha!  I’m a beekeeper by osmosis.  My wife is the one who got into it- she is big in sustainable agriculture.  She came back from a seminar and was like, “honey, the bees are being devastated, we need to do something about this.  We should get some bees.”  So we got a couple hives and four or five years later we have like ten hives and we just keep them going.  After going to all those seminars and having to do some of the heavy work for the hives, I just looked up and was like, “Hmm… I guess I’m a beekeeper now!”.  It is fun to do though.

The other rumor I heard about you is Salsa dancing?

I love to dance- all kinds.  I dance wherever I can- even if it is our house in the middle of the night, we dance together.  We actually met at a dance studio.  It was one of those things where I always loved to dance and my ex wife hated dancing.  After the divorce I just really wanted to learn real dancing.  My dad, as a gym teacher, had to teach a unit on dancing, so I sort of grew up with it, but I wanted to get really good at it.  My favorites are like the Lindy Hop and the Charleston and swing stuff.  But I’ve done Salsa and Tango.  I learned Western, but I’m not a Western music guy, so I did that out of necessity living in Texas.

Yeah, you have to be able to two-step.  As a person with a theatre background, I’ve learned a number of dances in my day- I used to be decent at tap- but the two-step evades me.  I know it is simple, but I can’t get it down.  My Dad was a legendary two-stepper, I just can’t get it.  

I just love dancing.  Growing up, my sister and I would sing show tunes and dance and just have fun!

I love that.  We’re going to hit a few more random questions before we wrap up.  I normally save those for the end, but we have actually hit a lot of them organically already.  I don’t know if you’ve read the other interviews I’ve done-

Oh, I have!  Believe me, I’m intimidated by you right now!

Well then, I’m going to make you cry Christopher!!!  Okay this is one of my favorites- you walk into a random room and what song plays?  What is your entrance music?

Good Times Bad Times- Led Zeppelin.

Very nice selection!  Who plays Chris Cordeiro in the biopic?

Shrek.  *you guys… such big laughter*

It is a little alarming how quickly you came up with that answer.  That is really good.  Do you have any pet peeves?

Yes.  People not putting things away- neatness.

Does that ever get you at The Shop- seeing people put stuff back in the wrong spot?

That and my wife.  *roars with laughter*  I follow her around putting stuff away.

Me too.  With us, it is La Croix cans- I’m constantly gathering La Croix cans she has left around the house- the bedroom, the bathroom… There will be like three cans in the bathtub, like she is getting La Croix drunk in there.  I applaud her for living her best life, but my goodness!  So as someone who reads biographies, if you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be?

That’s not fair!  I mean I would love to have a chat with Einstein… Julius Caesar- there are so many people that I would love to meet and pick their brains.

What if we narrowed the question a bit.  We talked a lot about leadership- is there someone you would particularly like to talk with about leadership?

I mean Caesar was fascinating, but he was a tyrant in his own right.  Actually- John F. Kennedy.

That is incredible you say that *pointing to my ankles* because I am wearing Kennedy socks.

Oh wow!  That’s pretty impressive.

*terrible Kennedy impersonation*  Ask not what yoah socks can do for you, but what you can do for yoah socks!

Great job!  JFK- he just had this vision and ability to inspire people.  I wish I had been around when he was alive to see him work.

And then there are the war stories and overcoming illness- and let’s be real, all that game he was spinning!  Rawr!

I mean when you’ve got that kind of power and you are that good looking. *laughing mischeviously*  See with Shrek, you don’t have to worry about that part.  

We will put a little Kennedy flair in Shrek when he plays you.  I guess this is a good place to put a bow on things.  I think we’ve covered some meaty issues, but are there any other thoughts you’ve had about Athlete of the Season or just general proclamations you would like to make?

Just that I’m humbled and that there are so many people that I feel like deserve it more than me.  I feel truly honored that I was ever thought of in this way- it makes me feel really good.

Aside from the positivity in class, any words of advice for our coaches?

Yeah.  No more burpees! *one more booming round of laughter for the road*

“Who is Better at Finding Sea Turtle Eggs than a Poacher” 

Caitlin Sullivan is an avid world traveler with a passion for helping others and the proud dog-mama of a three-legged dog.  She is moderately tattooed and immoderately strong.  Caitlin Sullivan is also a completely power-mad despot who seeks to end Body Shop liberality as we know it.  Read the chilling words below for entertainment, but also as a stern warning of the reign of terror she seeks to unleash upon us all.

Caitlin: We need to talk about why you are writing on the last page of your notebook instead of the beginning.

Chad: I couldn’t find my notebook, so this is actually my wife’s work notebook.  So I guess depending on how racy this interview gets, you might see me ripping out the pages and burning them.

She doesn’t need to know…

So I asked the management team for questions they wanted me to ask you and one of the  things that immediately came up was travel- that you travel a lot is actually one of the only things I know about you-

I don’t think it is that much.

 How much do you travel?

I try to do two international trips per year, but it sort of depends on the year.  Last year was a good year- I did three.

John had a really interesting angle in how he framed the question- he wanted to know how it started?  What caused the travel bug to take hold?

Oooh!  So, I had always wanted to but didn’t have a ton of money growing up, but my family was willing to sacrifice a little and I had the opportunity to travel for a month to Turkey in high school.  It was a really cool trip because you spent the whole (previous ) semester learning about Turkish history, reading Turkish authors, and learning a little bit of the language, so by the time you traveled there you appreciated it more than you would otherwise.  I went with like 15 other high school girls and when we would walk down the streets of Istanbul, that would turn heads.  The culture shock was really big compared to if you went to England.  We stayed long enough that we were able to see a lot of the country and meet a bunch of people and we had some crazy stories.

I want to go down two different paths with that answer- one is do you have any silly teenage girl stories from that trip you are comfortable sharing?

I have two crazy stories that were so wild that I still remember them.  So our first day we were walking through Istanbul and were on the metro and no joke, there was this guy who just took his dick out and started chasing all the girls on the metro with it.  So we were all screaming and everyone else was just looking at us like “we’re not helping these dumb American girls”.  Our guide had to come like shove the guy off the train.

Whoa!  And you had no idea that Harvey Weinstein would be in Turkey at the time did you?

No, I had no clue!  Yeah, he was pushy.  Crazy story number two: my best friend from high school went with us and there were all of these spiral staircases at the hotel.  To this day I am freaked out by spiral staircases because my friend fell down the stairs, hit her head, had a seizure, and turned blue.  So I went along because I was her friend with two teachers in a taxi and my friend is like speaking in tongues and I’m crying.  We went to one place and for some reason they couldn’t help us so we went to another place and people are all just sitting on the floor and smoking cigarettes.  We got put in the emergency area and my friend gets on a gurney that had blood on it-

Someone else’s blood?

Oh yeah- it wasn’t clean at all.  She needed an x-ray and so we went into the bowels of the hospital and there were leaking pipes and some guy in a wheelchair by himself.  They were like taking x-rays and no one was wearing any protective gear.  When she was released, the teacher had me wake her up all night every thirty minutes to make sure she wasn’t dead… but the rest of the trip was great!

So I’m doing the math because you told me your age and this had to have been 2006 or 2007?

Spring of 2007.

That is the other direction I wanted to go in with this-  that is not too long after 911.  What was the vibe like traveling to the Middle East not that long after 911?

That is a good point.  *thinks for a minute*  I think it was another perspective.  If you listen to like Fox News in America, you’re kind of fed this idea that muslims are all terrorists and they can’t stand for our way of life.  But Turkey was interesting because it is a secular country- granted if you go into a mosque you have to cover your elbows and knees- 

And the areas between your elbows and knees right?  I’m picturing you going in wearing a bikini with roller blades and knee and elbow pads.

Yeah, they didn’t so much like that.  *laughs*  So I think it was cool to see a different side of things.  I’ve gone to Morocco as well and it is cool to go to Islamic countries.  The other trip I could have gone on was Italy and that is cool- I’ll probably go there at some point- but why not go outside of your comfort zone while you have all this support from your school and everything is kind of planned?  It felt like a good opportunity to see something different.

I feel like I could turn off the recorder and we could spend like seven hours talking about where you’ve traveled.  In the interest of time, can you zero in on one travel experience you’ve had that you feel bursting out of you and want to share?

Yeah!  I went to college at a small liberal arts school in upstate New York;  I studied biology and Spanish and had a dream that I was going to train exotic animals.  Everyone throughout college was advising me that I wouldn’t be able to put biology and Spanish together so I didn’t know what I was going to do.  I knew I wanted to travel, so I ran a couple sea turtle conservation programs in Costa Rica.  That was really interesting because I was living in villages of like 50 people- dirt floors and no refrigeration.  You would work with people who used to be poachers- you would convert them into people who would save the eggs.  They were great to work with, because who is better at finding sea turtle eggs than a poacher? 

Ugh, now that I’m thinking about it I have so many travel stories: someone got in a machete fight and like killed somebody, another time there was flooding and we almost had to get food air-lifted to us because we were not connected to the outside word-

That is going to be a great sound bite right there. I need to have you in class more so these stories can just casually come up in conversation.  Another thing John and Mitch were curious about were your tattoos.  Remind me where and what you have?

I have roses on my arm, I have lily of the valley, and I have script on my foot.

Would you like to talk about the significance of any of them?

Sure!  The first one I got was the one on my foot.  Costa Rica was a really impactful life experience- getting me out of my comfort zone;  I think I run a little anxious and it it helped me chill the fuck out.  I wanted to get a tattoo to help commemorate the experience so a couple of us went to Panama to spend Christmas and New Years together and we all really wanted to get tattoos together.  We spent the entire day at this tattoo shop and everyone got something meaningful.  The day before we were going to go I still didn’t know what I was going to get and on the wall of the hostel we were staying at was a painting that said “Lo que sera sera” which means whatever will be will be.  So that is what I went with.

Do you have any overarching philosophy toward the ink you put on your body? 

That it has to mean something.  So the lily of the valley is for my grandma- she is still alive and was an important figure in my childhood.  She would sing me a lullaby every night called “Lily of the Valley”-

I’m not familiar with that one-

Well I’m not going to sing it because you’re recording, but it is a lullaby.  This one on my shoulder is for death and rebirth and new beginnings.  And this one (points to a prickly pear tattoo) is for all the growth I’ve had in Texas.  And more to come!

Another question John and Mitch came up with was for you to pick three people at Dane’s Body Shop and assign them a tattoo.  You probably should give Mitch and John one-

Mitch would definitely get a sneaker.  He’s the sneaker guy.

He’s kind of the style guy in general.  Where on his body would he get the sneaker?

I think it would have to be like a side profile on the side of his foot so that he is always wearing cool sneakers!

*Laughing*  That is brilliant, I love that!

Um John…  I can’t wait for him to listen to this.  I would have him get a watch because he can never stay on time- it’ll be like twelve minutes into class and we’re still talking about the warm-up.  *shouts into my phone as it is recording* You hear that John!  

Let’s be emphatic on this one Caitlin.  One of the great joys I have in these interviews is roasting John a little bit.

Oh, I take every opportunity I can!  Oh, he could also get a mountain or a garden.

Do you have placement ideas for John’s tattoo?  I think the watch would have to be like a teardrop tattoo under his eye- like they just let him out of prison for holding up class too long.

*loudly laughing* Yeah!  For the mountain?  let’s say back of the arm.  And okay, let’s talk about this *sits up straighter in her chair and adopts a stern tone*.  Dane would get a little espresso cup because I recently saw that there is a giant fucking espresso machine (in the storage closet at Manor) and I think we pay enough per month that we should get a cup of coffee when we come to class in the morning!  Barista Dane!

Caitlin, this is one reason that we call this a Danetatorshop and not a Danemocracy.  Well reasoned!  So the tats and travel was a great jumping off point, but now we need to spend at least a little bit of time talking about the more rote gym questions.  Like how did you come to be at Dane’s Body Shop?

That is a good question.  Honestly I think it is because I am lazy.  I moved into this house and I started looking at gyms within a mile of my house and I think Dane’s is literally the only one.  

That is actually how I ended up coaching at Dane’s.  We moved from Chicago and I didn’t have a car, so I literally walked past Dane’s every day on my way to work at the shitty gym that I initially got hired at-

Oooo… The Hyde Park Gym?  What kind of beef do you guys have with them?

No, no, no.  It was called Fitness 360 in The Triangle and they were so shitty that they don’t even exist anymore.  We actually have a great relationship with The Hyde Park Gym- we do group stuff and they do more individual stuff, so I refer people there all the time.  I like to think they do the same for us.

Oh!  Well that is really boring.  But aren’t there coaches (at Dane’s) who do individual coaching?

Oh sure, but we don’t really market that- we let the coaches find their own clients.

How do you like that?!?!  The interview is reversed now!  Are you sweating?

I’m going to start crying at any moment.  Damn it Caitlin, I’m going to take control of this shit right now!  So… when you came by Dane’s what was that experience like?  What sold you?  Who did you interact with?

Dude- I have the worst memory in the world.  Literally.  I can’t remember anyone’s name.  Actually I want everyone to get their names tattooed on their face! 

Okay, you heard that- everyone has a month to get their names tattooed on their face or their membership gets cancelled.  That’s the power of the Athlete of The Season- you have despotic power that you can really crush with.

Dane did say, “with great power comes great responsibility”.  My decisions during my reign could be felt for generations.  This could be it.

Every person I have interviewed so far has been very gracious with their power-

Uh-uh!

It seems like this is where we are finally going off the rails.

Sure.

Okay, so what were your first few weeks or months at The Shop like?

I remember it being really tough.  Particularly as a woman- you don’t always do barbell work and strength stuff; you’re more inclined to go on the elliptical or do yoga. So it was tough at first (at Dane’s), but I really liked that the emphasis was on being strong rather than being really skinny.  I think society tells you that is your value in the world- being pretty and skinny.  Like don’t take up space, literally or figuratively.  It felt really accessible because it didn’t seem to matter if you had been there a long time or were brand new, people were very welcoming and happy to teach you things.

Do you have a person in particular that helped you to feel welcome in those early days?

I mean John definitely.  When you initially come in, I was all like, “What do you mean I have to come in and do an hour ‘tour’?  Ya’ll get off your high horse!”.  But John is very personable and likes to chat with everybody- it wasn’t just like take your money and then get in and get out and hope that you never actually show up.  All the coaches, I think, really know when you are new and are able to fit helping you on your form into the regular classes.

Any particular accomplishments you are proud of at The Shop?

I think it has been really cool to see how much I can lift.  Granted, we have some really strong women at the gym, so I have some improvement to go, but when I hit 200# for my deadlift, that was super exciting.  It is cool to be able to see progress over time. I like that you never get bored.

Looking at your life outside the gym, have you noticed any impact from your fitness pursuit?

I think confidence.  I like sledgehammers and flipping tires and people don’t always expect that- I’m in H/R and people think that is boring, so it is cool to have a hobby that is out of the mainstream.

And you are working for that egg company right?

Vital Farms!

I bought my first dozen shortly after talking to you about them.  Those are fabulous eggs.  Is there anything about your job that really excites you?

I really like mission-driven companies.  I’ve come back to working with animals too!  You can work for a place that makes the world better, or a place that makes the world worse.  At the end of the day, what you do is probably just work and not what you are most passionate about, so if you can find a positive place to work for it makes it better.  I like the start-up world; it is wild and crazy. 

In these interviews, I feel like it is important to entreat on the reasons why you are here and talk about some gym-related stuff, but I also think it is important to just get into some weird questions.  This is actually a question I’ve never asked before- why do you think you were nominated to be Athlete of the Season?

Dude, I think you guys knew my reign would really just change the face of Dane’s Body Shop forever.  

You’re a total fucking demagogue aren’t you?

*Wild Laughter* What is Democracy?!?!  Russia helped me with this election-

Yeah you actually weren’t supposed to win Athlete of the Season.  All the bots went in for you which is a really bad sign.  One of my standby questions has always been, if you were to think of someone in the DBS community to run for president, who would it be and why?

Ooo… Wow.  So I can’t choose myself?

You can, and based on how this interview is going, I am guessing you will…

I don’t know that I’d really want to do that job- I like sleep too much, so I don’t think that is for me.  Honestly, I think you would do a pretty good job?

Me?

Yeah,  I think we would have a lot of allies.   Not a lot of drama, we wouldn’t go to war- I think you’d be really good post the current president-

Well, I am glad that is the bar I’d be trying to clear.

No, I think we have a lot of repairing to do with the rest of the world and I think you might be up to that challenge.

Thank you for not holding all of the orange he has against all of the orange I have.  You could have really profiled me on that.  Thank you Caitlin, that is very kind of you.

I’m just pandering to you so that I come off well in the interview.

Good call, I could really fuck you over on the edit!  If you were to be a superhero, what would your name be, what would your costume look like, what would your power be?

I’d be “Atomic Sass”-

Ooo… That’s good.

Yeah, you like that?  My costume?  It’d definitely be fucking latex because it has got to be latex if you’re a superhero right?  Catwoman style for sure.  

CaitWoman?  I’m sorry, that is a terrible suggestion-

Yeah, but it will probably stick now…  I’d definitely want a mask.  And my super power would be to break people with a sentence.

So you would just cut them down and they would wither?  That has actually happened to me five times during this interview already-

*more wild laughter*  My resting bitch face is super strong.  I can also disappear people just by not knowing their name.

Like if Thanos was a bitchy high school girl-

Yeah, but I’m nice too so put that in there.

*speaking deliberately and nervously into the recorder*  Oh yes guys, she is very nice.

*speaking deliberately and menacingly into the recorder* I’m fucking nice!

Call help please!  *laughing*  We’ve covered fitness, travel, tattoos, and eggs- are there any other surprising interests that you have?

So my dog and I- she is retired now- we used to do therapy work.

Tell me about your dog.

She is a three-legged pitbull named Jeanie.  She is the sweetest dog in the world.  We used to do therapy work at St. Davids, Austin Children’s Shelter, Helping Hand Home-

That is awesome.

Yeah, people might be surprised that evil Caitwoman, who can shrivel people with a word, might also care about people.

Our eleven pound chihuahua/terrier, Moose, absolutely loves pitbulls.

They are the best.  I want to have kids while she is still alive because she would be great with them- they are the original nanny dogs.

Can you talk about the history of pitbulls a bit?  I think it is fascinating.

Yeah!  Pitbulls have a pretty bad rap in today’s America- hello Denver BSL, fuck you- but back in the nineteen hundreeds, not too long ago, they were known as nanny dogds and were like the number one dog for people with kids because they were sweet and protective.  Now they are really unfairly labeled as aggressive and dangerous.  I hope that changes at some point- that was a lot of the work that we would do in therapy programs.  People would ask if she was a pitbull and I would go out of my way to say yes and show them what a pitbull really is.

That is really cool.  Okay, so if there were to be a film made of your life who would play you-

Let me stop you there.  There would not be a film made of my life because it would be so boring.

I don’t know about that.  Do you have a celebrity you’ve been compared to or that you would like to play you?  This is a little bit about your taste.

Oh my gosh.  So this isn’t totally related but I have a face where people think they know me.  Like every week or so, someone will come up to me and start talking to me and we have never met before.  So I’ve never really been like I look like a celebrity because I constantly get that I look like somebody.  I think it would be cool to have Jennifer Lawrence play me- hello Katniss, hello you can be any size you want in Hollywood-

She is a Goddess.  Another question I’ve been throwing out recently is, you walk into a room and everything just stops and it is this cinematic moment and-

And I trip.

Yes, you trip because I tripped you.  Because I know all the evil you are up to now.  No, what is the song that plays.  You walk into the room and people are looking at you, what is the song?

Um… that Sarah McLachlan song from the animal commercial?

*I start singing “I Will Remember You” even though it was totally “Angel” that was used in that commercial*… That’s a weird choice.

Yeah, that would not be the right song.  I don’t know, right now it might be a Lizzo song or something from Beyonce’s “Lemonade”.

Any figure in history that you could have an evening with to just talk, have dinner with, get it on with, who do you pick?

Get it on with?  George Washington’s wooden teeth get me hot, but I’d probably pass on that.  I’m always going to be a sucker for Barack Obama- could I get a twofer?  Maybe a little Michelle and Barack threesome?

Okay.  Just a nice dinner and maybe things progress from there?

A nice dinner and a nice dessert.

And we will leave what “dessert” is open for interpretation… she has really great arms-

*laughing* she really does!

It is always fun when I get to conduct one of these interviews with someone that I don’t know very well and this conversation was really fucking charging- I genuinely enjoyed myself.  You’ve already said some really thoughtful things, but I always like to close these by letting the athlete say anything else that is on their mind.  Is there anything you’d like to convey to the people reading this interview?

I just hope they understand that I am ending term limits on Athlete of the Season and that I will be continuing my reign indefinitely.

Wow!  Breaking news: Manor Athlete of the Season, Caitlin Sullivan-

Athlete of the Year.  Soon to be of the decade.

No athlete of the season any more at Manor.  Dark times- sorry guys.

*laughing* I just want to thank everyone for their support.  Particularly Putin and all the bots.  I’m really looking forward to being reelected.

We all are Caitlin.  I can’t imagine a better hegemon for life.  *interview ends with both of us cackling*

When someone recommends a dish or a cocktail around town, I add it to a running list and try to get to it when the perfect situation arises.  For the January make-up interview with Manor Road Summer Athlete of The Season Victoria Harvey, the highly recommended, perfectly balanced, refreshing, sweet, and salty margarita at Workhorse on North Loop was a natural choice.  Victoria is one of many delightful athletes who are now established veterans and pillars of society at The Shop and yet new to me as they arrived after I left DBS in 2017. It was humbling and magnificent to verse myself in the life and times of this extraordinary woman to the soundtrack of 80’s and 90’s country hits after a Sunday Community Workout.

“George Strait is from Texas, so You Should Probably Move to Texas”

My family always makes cinnamon rolls for Christmas.

That sounds wonderful- do you make them from scratch?

Yes.  Yes…  And my little niece helped out.

How long does that take?

Like three hours, but you’re not baking the whole time because you have to let the dough rise.

How did you come to be such a prodigious baker?

I always loved to bake and then when I moved to Austin, I wanted to find ways to meet people, so I used to take classes at Make it Sweet.  And that is where I learned more recipes and got into it even more.

When did you move to Austin?

Five years ago.  I was living in the bay area at the time and I had always lived in Northern California.  I didn’t want to stay in the bay area because it gets kind of packed so I just looked out for something different.  It was actually going to be here or North Carolina and my mom decided that North Carolina was just too far away from her.  My mom loves George Strait and she said, “George Strait is from Texas, so you should probably move to Texas.”

That will probably be the title of this interview.

She is also a big Spurs fan so she is very happy that I live here now.

Does she visit often?

She does.  She asks me a lot of questions about The Shop- she asked me if we have a sauna *laughs*

Did you tell her that sometimes in the summer it feels like a sauna?

I took her by The Hyde Park Shop and then she understood- I used to work out at Lifetime Fitness and so I think she was confused about what The Shop is.

How did you come to be at The Shop rather than Lifetime?

I actually received a Shop membership in a silent auction package from Junior League.  It was actually four months- so thank you- but it was long enough to get me hooked. John (Gates Whiteley our esteemed Director of Operations) always gives me shit about this, but it was the last item in the package that I used.  That was only because it was the furthest from me and it had no expiration date. I used to work downtown so it was easy to go to Manor on my lunch break. Now I say that I saved the best for last.

Nice way of spinning it.  What is work for you?

I am an electrical engineer.  We design test equipment for the military and military contractors.

What do you enjoy about your work.

I’m really into analogue circuits-

Can you break down what an analogue circuit is?

Right, because people won’t know unless they’re an engineer… So a digital circuit is binary- a zero or a one.  Analogue is everything else- basically all of your power circuits, the circuit that controls your battery, your audio is analogue-

Even if it is an MP3?

(Very patiently humoring me) So an MP3 is a digital signal that goes through a decoder and the actual output is analogue.  I mean, you don’t really want to listen to a digital signal.

Interesting- what sort of project would you work on with an analogue circuit?

A lot of what I have worked on is called power management circuits, which really should be called, for non-engineers, battery management.  Basically it is my job to try to make sure a battery lasts as long as possible.  

That’s cool!  As I record this on an iphone…

Everything I have is apple.  When I go home I don’t want to be an engineer anymore.  I do have to fix things for my mom- that is the side effect of being an engineer, everyone is like “Hey, this isn’t working, can you fix it?”  This usually leads to me googling it and then just pretty much turning it off then on again.

What is the weirdest thing you’ve had to fix?

So my mom is a farmer- I grew up on a vineyard in California- she doesn’t even have an email address.  I have to fix the internet a lot for the internet providers back home.

Really?  You have to help the internet providers back home in California?

*mild sigh*  Yeah.

We’ve got a lot of engineers and technologically inclined people at The Shop, do you think there is something about this style of workout that particularly appeals to that kind of person?

I like lifting because there are a lot of numbers involved.  Kelly Foster and I talk about this a lot because Kelly likes numbers- so you can plot your one rep max and like see the trends.  Him and I both like that.

Have you plotted your numbers?

I have a chart.  Yeah!  

That is amazing- what does the chart show?

You really shoot up at first and then you plateau a bit.  *pulls out her phone* I don’t have my chart with me, but I’ve got my numbers- I have my macros and my PRs here.  You can see that my deadlift shot way up but my front squat stayed pretty consistent. I only started tracking in my phone like a year after I started at The Shop, so it doesn’t include the first time I went through Community Gains.  The first time I tried to max my deadlift I think I only went for like 150lbs because I had never really lifted heavy before and it is such a weird feeling.

Can you talk about that weird feeling- is it anxiety?

There is definitely a lot of adrenaline in it, but I think you have to do a lot to know when you can do more (weight) and when you can’t.  In your every day life, you’re not a farmer, you’re not lifting heavy weights all the time- my mom does… My mom is one of the strongest people you could meet- but she has terrible form.

I think you should bring your mom during the Summer and have her sign up for the Strong Person Mini-Meet.

She would probably win it.  She pushes literal tons of grapes around, so yeah she would probably do very well.

Oh!  Daisy is running away.  For those of you reading along, Daisy is Victoria’s tiny dog that looks like a little 8lb wizard and she is currently sliding under a four inch opening at the bottom of the fence on the patio here.

And that is nothing- she could probably get under a two inch opening.

So you talk to Kelly about numbers, who are some other people you interact with often at The Shop?

I started off going to 11:45am classes so I partnered with Rachel Maguire- but now I’m a 6:30am person so I’m sad because I don’t get to see Rachel anymore.  Jake Simpson-

Fabulous mustache.

He’s a great guy and I have a nephew named Jake and a cousin who is a fireman.  And then John (Gates Whiteley) and I are both Pac12 people, but he is a terrible Trojans fan.  Stanford is the best school in the Pac12.

As a University of Arizona man, I might disagree… but I won’t.  Because we suck.

But I’m meeting lots of really cool people in the 6:30am class, so that is great.

I’ve subbed that class a few times and there really seems to be a great energy in that class.  

Yeah!  Surprisingly so, because I feel like we’re all still half asleep.  But we’re all still going for it.

What causes that bonding and energy at that hour?

I feel like with Shop workouts in general, compared to every other place I’ve worked out (and I’ve done pretty much everything out there), The Shop changes it up more.  Like I always get bored at other places. With lifting you always feel like you’re progressing- with other places I felt like I got a workout, but I never felt like I was getting progress.  Part of being an engineer is that you always want to get better at something-

You want the numbers to back it up.  Is there a number or goal you’re particularly proud of?

I think just doing Strong Person and Push & Pull was pretty cool.  And I got 3rd place in the sled push which I was not expecting!

Had you competed in anything like that before?

Um… I used to raise pigs and I would show my pigs.  I was in 4H.

*at this point in the interview a random woman at another table shouts out “Berkshires forever!”.  She and Victoria then proceed to dive into a fascinating side conversation about the different types of markings and colors on pig butts!*

So, showing a pig is a lot like a body-building competition.  But, like, you want more fat on a pig because you want your pig to taste good.  You don’t eat humans…

Typically.

*laughing* Yes, typically!

*The other pig-raising woman on the patio jumped in again to have a spirited conversation with Victoria about 4H and to congratulate her on being athlete of the season.  Never one to miss an advertising opportunity, I invited the woman to our next Community Workout… shameless*

So the 4 H’s stand for head, heart, health and hands:  I pledge my head to clear thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my health to better living, and my hands to larger service.  My mom would be so proud that I remembered that!

I’m very impressed!

So I was in 4H from the time I was 4 years old until I was 18- you can’t start raising pigs until you’re 9.  You can have bunnies and chickens when you’re little, but I just waited and went straight to pigs because my older sister did pigs-

The title of this interview now could also be “my older sister did pigs”.  Just throwing it out there.

*laughing nervously*  so yeah, I know lots of weird things about pigs if you ever want to know anything.  So that is why I am in Junior League now, which is how I ended up at The Shop.

What exactly is Junior League?

Junior League is an all woman’s charity group- we do things all over town.  Last year I volunteered at Thinkery and this year I’m doing something called “Food in Tummies”.  A lot of kids on assisted lunch plans don’t get food on the weekends, so we put together bags of food for them for the weekend.

Here’s a question that comes up often in these interviews- do you have a least favorite exercise or movement?

I have a weird knee, so I hate anything that involves jumping.  Box jumps are my least favorite thing. I also have vertigo.

*The other 4H alum/former pig raiser sitting on the patio chimes in telling us that she completely skinned her shin because a trainer pushed her to jump to a box at a height she wasn’t comfortable with.  I assured he, we do no such thing at Dane’s Body Shop and Victoria went full-on shill for The Shop, touting our reasonably-sized classes, considerate coaching, and accommodating programming. Thanks V!*

Do you have a favorite lift or movement?

I really like power cleans, back squats, and front squats- any leg movement.

You are a pretty regular 3-4 times a week member, have you noticed that regularity with your workouts influencing anything about your life outside of the gym?

I’m definitely a lot stronger- particularly my back.  I always had really bad shoulder problems and it has definitely helped that out a lot.  A stronger core- I live on the third floor and I can carry more groceries up now. My upper body is much stronger- I spend all day at a desk probing circuit boards, so this has really helped my shoulders.  That is one of my goals- to do a pull-up. Just one. Then I’m going to walk out the door and you’re never going to see me again.

You’re running a long-con on us!

*laughing* No… the thing that I like about The Shop is I think you get a personal training experience without having to pay the price of a personal trainer.  And you get to meet lots of cool people. I was talking to a guy recently who was saying he felt like women could be more social when they workout because they go to classes and men just hang out by themselves in weight racks.  I told him, “Not at The Shop”.  

 I always encourage talking at The Shop- even if it is members talking while I am trying to coach; I’ll playfully yell, but I like to see people talking.  Okay, lets get in to a bit of speed round. I know we talked about Vogue’s 70 questions and I don’t have 70 for you, but I think I’ll get some fun answers from you.  So, what is your favorite holiday?

I’ve always liked Easter because I like the colors and it is around my birthday.  I really like decorating Easter cookies.

Do you have a favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever deployed?

I like the cheerleader that Daisy and I did at The Shop.

That was really good.  What are you good at making?  Aside from baked goods…

Anything.  I’m an engineer, so I can make anything.  

So does that mean you would be a handy person to have around in the event of a zombie apocalypse?

See the thing is that I create everything on a computer and then it gets sent off to China to be actually built.

So I need to find the Chinese person that you are sending the designs off to for my survival team then?

Yeah.  My mom calls me an academic airhead.  I was really good in school and stuff, but normal people things, I’m not so good at.  My mom might be who you want.

I’ll have you give me her address off the air.  What was your first pet?

My first pet that was mine was an orange and white cat named Mickey and then I had a big fluffy Chow named Patrick.  My mom claims that we went to the pound looking for a dog and then Patrick was just in the car. I just took him.

You kidnapped the dog?

Yeah.  But then my mom signed the paperwork-

Just trying to un-commit a misdemeanor?  I get it. Did you have a favorite pet?  Aside from Daisy of course.

I loved all of my pigs even though they weren’t “pets”.  I named them all after berries.

Do you eat bacon?

I do.  It is weird when you grow up (on farms) because I always went to slaughterhouses.  So I knew what meat was. I think it is just really different when you grow up around it.

Do you have a favorite book?

Alice in Wonderland.

Favorite Movie?

Good Will Hunting.  I was super in to the math part of it even as a child.

Ya nerd!  Do you have a go to dance move?

I am a terrible dancer so I am this type of person *makes an awkward smile and begins nervously shuffling her shoulders*

Do you have a favorite place to go out in Austin?

The Shop.

The Shop?  You suck up!  My goodness…  Do you have a favorite place to grab a taco or another favorite food?

Oooo… Valentina’s.  It is down south off of Manchaca and it is Tex Mex Barbecue.  My favorite thing there is the tortillas.

If there was a song that played every time you entered The Shop or some other room, what would it be?

Oh, that is really hard.  I’ll have to think about that.

We can come back to it.  If you could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be?

I’ve thought about this one a lot.  I would want Nicola Tesla and Dolly Parton.  I love country and I’ve actually decided on my entrance song.  It would be George Strait’s “Not Here for a Long Time, but Here for a Good Time.”  I just feel like (Tesla and Dolly) are polar opposites right? But I feel like if I were to write an autobiography it would be called “When Dolly Met Tesla.”

So if someone were to make a movie version of “When Dolly Met Tesla”, who would play you?

I’ve been told that I look like Liv Tyler.  I have a friend who compares me to Cher from Clueless-

You have a very California cadence to the way you speak.  On the note of your appearance, I’ve been dying to ask… the grey streak in your hair-

It’s a birthmark.

I love it so much.  I love your hair. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

I saw a Ricky Gervais sketch once and he said that he’d want to have the power to call bullshit on things.  He would just pop up and say “bullshit” and then leave.

That is great.  And finally, do you have any words of wisdom that you would like to bequeath to the Dane’s Body Shop community?

Just try it.  I would say just do it, but that’s Nike right?  For me, there were so many things that when coaches were demoing it and I was like, “I’m not going to be able to do that.”  You just have to try and see what happens.

Well Victoria, we’re about to go off the air.  Thank you for your time- Daisy, thank you for your time.

Like John Elway or Daniel Day Lewis, Chelsea and Robert left the scene at the apex of their accomplishments.  Before their official term as Athlete of The Season had even expired, these two beloved DBS athletes moved to New York City.  I caught up with them for a make-up interview over video chat many months later in the dead of winter. Though it was bitter cold in their new city, Chelsea and Robert’s warm feelings for The Shop emanated so tangibly that Austin reached a high of 80 degrees only hours later on that day.

“Imposter Syndrome”

Well, lets just jump in here- I’ll record and transcribe this, so if we get into any tawdry personal details, you can just ask for it to be off the record.  The first thing I want to ask is, you both look great, what are you doing for fitness in New York City?

RM:  My workout routines are not what they were when I was in Austin going to Dane’s- sadly.  Graduate school has chipped in to that, but I have a gym a block over from my school building and over the last year and a half I’ve gone there a lot and done a lot more cardio and bodyweight exercises.  When I’ve gotten really pressed for time, I have a workout app on my phone that programs little workouts to do at home- push ups and squats and wall sits.

CB:  Unfortunately, with the added commute time we have in New York, we aren’t able to workout together any more.  In Austin, we really consistently worked out together- went to Dane’s a lot together. I knew that coming to New York, it was going to be really hard to find something like Dane’s.  Ugh… but what I didn’t realize is that it was actually going to be impossible.  So I’ve been doing a mix of strength and conditioning classes through my work and then putting in a lot of cycling classes that have a weight lifting component- I have classpass.  I found a couple “strength” classes, but the most weight we lift is like 15lbs- I pick up the 15lbs and people are like “Oh my god! That girl is lifting 15lbs!”-

Pee check her- she’s on steroids!

CB:  And those were like the lightest weights at Dane’s- so it is different for me.  We miss Dane’s a lot if you can’t tell. *laughs*

Needy ex-boyfriend question: what do you miss the most about The Shop?

RM:  *laughing and then pausing*  You know, you came back just as we left and that was exceptionally cruel.  You were like our first coach that we really bonded with-

CB:  I must have told you this at some point, but when we first started I took a couple classes and I was like “I don’t like this, it is too hard.”  Everyone was being incredibly nice and welcoming, but I just had imposter syndrome. We went to your class and you made a joke about a stretch being really great for when you’re playing Mr. Mistoffelees in your local production of Cats.  We left class and I was like, “Okay, I’ll keep going, but only if we go to that guys class, because he’s making musical theatre jokes and I finally don’t feel like an imposter.” We only went to your classes for a while-

RM:  We went to the Chad Ramsey Wednesday night class.

CB:  Yeah!  Until we finally got comfortable and I felt less imposter syndrome.  But now what’s great is after being at Dane’s so long, I never feel like I don’t belong in a gym setting.

So you’ve carried that confidence with you?

CB:  Definitely in class settings.  Working out just on my own, there are too many dudes trying to tell me which weights I should be using- I’m like “get out!  I know what I’m doing!” The other day I was deciding which kettlebell to use- they weren’t label and all the weights are the same size- so I went for the heavier one and a guy was like, um- I think you want this one and pointed at the lighter one.  I said “no, no- I want the heavier one.”

Bro please!  When did that imposter syndrome go away at Dane’s?

CB:  *Looking at Robert*  I don’t know, did you have imposter syndrome?  That might have just been me.

RM:  I don’t that I felt imposter syndrome exactly.  I do remember the first couple weeks just being in agonizing pain and muscle soreness.  We started with a few introduction classes with John, just learning the movements like kettlebell swings- which I never felt like I got the hang of. (He LIES dear reader!  I can attest that Robert’s kettlebell swing became delightful indeed within a few months of practice!)  After that we had a class where we did this cycle of like forty pull-ups-

CB:  I don’t think we ever had that many pull-ups in a class again.

RM:  So, like just not being able to extend my arms.  The soreness wore off as we became more accustomed to doing the moves.  It is a great community at Dane’s, so once we’d gone to a couple Steak & Wine Nights and gotten to know some of the regulars in our classes- you start to see a lot of the same faces in a given class time- we had our 6:30pm weeknight crew that we got to know and started to feel like part of the community.

CB: Yeah, that’s a good point.  For me, feeling at ease came with feeling more confidence with the movements themselves, but then also just the community.  The people were really nice- seeing the same faces and feeling encouragement.

Do you have any memories of the first people you connected with or times where you had a good interaction with another member?  Or an awkward interaction- those are always fun.

CB:  Ooohh… Awkward interactions.  Off the record? *laughing*

RM:  I remember at one of the first Steak & Wine Nights getting to chat with Matt and Michelle McCartney.  Getting to know them as people with lives outside the gym. At first pass, when you’re first introduced to (the gym) setting, people at the gym can feel a little anonymous.

CB:  Matt and Michelle and Fabiola and Juan and Mark-

Yep, the PM crowd.  I was partying with Juan and Fabiola last night actually-

CB:  Woah!  Jealous!  Juan travels so much, I’m hoping they’ll swing through New York some time soon.

I wanted to take a minute to talk about the two of you as artists- you’re in New York for film school right Robert?  What was the specific degree you’re pursuing?

RM:  Yeah, it is an MFA in film directing.

Can you both just talk for a minute about your artistry and what you do?

CB:  You go!

RM:  So I’m studying at NYU to be a film director; it is a great program with a rich tradition in the film industry.  I get to learn from a lot of great professional filmmakers and it is training us through making films of our own.  Last year, I wrote and directed three films. This year, I write and direct just one which I shot in the fall and now am editing.

Is there a film that you have worked on that you are particularly proud of or intrigued by?

RM:  I really enjoyed the experience of making the film that I’m editing now; it is a psychological thriller set in New York.  I got to work with some very talented actors and a wonderful crew. It was a great experience and I am excited to finish it.

That is really cool.  And you Ms. Bunn, can you talk about what you’re working on?

CB:  In Austin, I was doing quite a bit of improv.  I actually had quite a bit of support from folks at Dane’s!  In New York, I’ve actually shifted gears a bit to focusing on screen-writing.  Working at google is still my day job, but my creative pursuit has been screen-writing.  I’ve also been taking classes at Upright Citizens Brigade to sort of work my way into the community there.  I’m hoping to get more involved in the improv scene. It takes time to earn your way in.

That is very interesting and was a genuine question- I really didn’t know what it was that you were working on creatively in your new city.  I’m always curious how fitness and art interplay. For instance, when I started working out seriously in my mid-twenties, it just opened up a whole other set of characters I was comfortable playing.  I was just more confident in my body and the way that I moved. I was able to play bad guys much easier. On your fitness journey, have you noticed that influencing your art at all?

CB:  One of the last shows I did in Austin before moving was “Funny Ladies of Rassling” which was an improvisational comedy show where we had rassling personas and we actually had a match at the end of each night.  That was the first time I was able to really fully bring fitness into improv and informing a character. That was a fun experience; I briefly thought about throwing comedy away and joining an independent wrestling league- apparently a pretty big one- in New Jersey, but I don’t know if I can hang with that commute.  So I might stick with the soft arts of improv comedy. I would say also that having helped on Robert’s film shoot earlier this year, just having the stamina to get through a long day on set-

RM:  Yeah, filmmaking is a super physically demanding activity, so being in shape is crucial for that.  You are on your feet and moving constantly, so you don’t want physical fatigue taking the edge off of your ability to make creative decisions.  Working out also definitely helps in the more solitary aspects of the process; the writing, the planning- working out on a regular basis just helps just keeps you fresh mentally and helps you to sleep better and just perform better all-around.  I would add to that, that working out- particularly with knowledgeable coaches- provides a great model for developing skills. Working out is just a great metaphor for trying to improve in an enterprise like filmmaking where you are working on improving lots of different skills and repeating them over and over.  Getting feedback and trying to raise your level of performance.

That is a really good point.  I’ve thought about that a lot- as I’ve gotten back to The Shop and been focused on my work there, I have spent less time on my artistic endeavors.  I have had moments of frustration when the juices aren’t flowing, but I’ve had to check myself and remind myself that my lifts would all suck if I weren’t doing them regularly, so of course my writing has not been great because I haven’t been picking up the pen and paper regularly.  You’re right, it is a very good metaphor.

RM:  The idea that any skill is a muscle that can be strengthened is a great life lesson.

That is a very thoughtful observation.  So this is your first time living in a city the size of New York- how has that adjustment been?

RM:  *Looking at Chelsea*  You’re fresh-

CB:  Yeah, you’ve got a year on me.  I would say the thing that has helped me the most has been establishing routine.  One of the first things I did here was to get a gym pass. I didn’t really like the first classes I went to, but I went to keep some semblance of routine and what my life was like before the move.  Honestly, I feel kind of like I’m on some kind of extended work trip or vacation- it doesn’t really feel like home yet.  Routine helps it to feel more like home.  Manhattan is like the world’s best adult playground.  The difference is really just that, outside of daily routine, when you want to go out and have dinner or go to a show, you have some of the world’s best at your fingertips.  There are amazing restaurants and shows- I went with a friend to a broadway show just on a whim. Off the record- or on- I think Robert is giving much better answers here. Just attribute my name to some of them.  *laughing*

RM:  Um… *smiling*… New York is a very exciting place to live.  I definitely miss a lot of things about Austin- the friends, and the food, and soforth-

CB:  The weather…

RM:  Yes, the weather.  Having your own space.  In New York, you can never escape being around other people.  You’re just constantly surrounded in buildings, on the sidewalk, on the train; it is just tough to get a moment to yourself.  But there are so many exciting things happening as Chelsea was saying. You can experience the best of the best.

This is the point in the interview where I just quickly go through some random questions with you- sometimes they have nothing to do with anything and sometimes they have everything to do with everything.  So… if you were on death row and you had a last meal, what would that last meal be?

RM:  Oh wow.

CB:  Oof.

You have to go to that dark place Chelsea.

CB:  Agh… this is such a morbid question.  Really I should say something intelligent about the prison industrial complex and how people don’t actually get last meals.  Theoretically, I get one last meal?  You know what, I’m homesick so all the stuff that comes to mind is from Austin.  I would probably have my last meal at Uchi Ko or Foreign & Domestic, which are two favorites in Austin that I’ve been missing a lot lately.

RM:  Yeah, I would say Uchi and particularly singling out their 72 hour braised short rib.

Do you have a drink of choice?  For me, it is an up Manhattan.

CB: Really?!?!  Bourbon or rye?

Oh, rye.  And yours Robert?

RM:  Oh, we just had Manhattans last night!  Vodka martini with an olive.

Chelsea?  Lukewarm PBR?

CB:  Cowboy cold!  Um… I guess maybe vodka martini with an olive.

You guys are just adorable-

CB:  Actually, bourbon on the rocks is good for me.  I’m amending my answer from cowboy cold PBR to bourbon on the rocks.

Amendment accepted. What is a surprising thing that really annoys you in the world?

CB:  That’s a tough one.  Lots of things annoy me- Robert doing better at interviews than me…

You’re doing fine Chelsea.  He is doing really good though!

CB:  If we’re talking petty annoyances, then people talking on their phone in the bathroom.

Public bathrooms or any bathroom?

CB:  Public bathrooms.

Oh good, because I’m actually sitting on the toilet right now.  It is just out of frame.

CB:  Well you aren’t in public, so it is fine.

RM:  When people smoke cigarettes on subway trains.

I think that is aggressively annoying-

CB:  Like too aggressive.  If my answer is people talking on phones in public toilets and yours is people smoking on trains, then I am going to need to one-up you!

If you had a chance to have dinner with or spend an evening with a historical figure, who would it be?

CB:  *after a surprisingly short pause*  Ann Richards- the former governor of Texas.  I should say someone in entertainment so that I can ask advice, but Ann Richards would probably be a lot more fun to have dinner with.  I actually always thought George W Bush would be fun to have dinner with.

RM:  People say that he is a lot of fun.  Um… Yeah, I would probably say some president.  Like Obama.

That’d be a good hang.  Do either of you guys have a surprising celebrity crush?

CB:  Surprising?  My celebrity crush is Gael García Bernal, but there should be nothing surprising about that.  *slightly nervous laughing*. I have kind of a crush on Phoebe Waller Bridges, but again- not that surprising!

RM:  That is great- I don’t have one on hand, so Chelsea can have mine.

CB:  I’ll have two…

In a similar vein, who would play you in a movie- actually, you should cast one another!

CB:  *zero pause*  It has to be what’s his name from Rushmore-

RM:  Jason Schwartzman?  Sure, I’ll take it.

CB:  Cast me- it better be cute (proceeds to distract Robert by striking various cutesy poses for a delightful uncomfortably long amount of time)

Is this the question that ends your relationship?

CB: Yep, nine and a half years gone!

RM:  *continue to very carefully consider*  Lets just say Tina Fey.

CB:  The last improv show I did, someone told me I reminded them of Owen Wilson.  And I think they meant looks like too.

RM:  I don’t see it…

How many vodka martinis had that person had?

CB:  It was 1pm in the afternoon, so a very sexy time for comedy.

Chelsea, this dovetails with what you talked about earlier regarding professional wrestling- entering in to the ring or just a random room, what would your entrance music be?

CB:  I actually did have an entrance song, but it was for a really weird character.  *thinks for a long moment*

I think I’ve said this in interviews before, but mine would be- and I don’t know why it is this, but it definitely is this- “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick.  I think I’m just an emotionally very needy person and the song also just rips.

CB: *laughing*  I would maybe say something by The Scissor sisters… or maybe Rico Nasty.  I think maybe “Big Dick Energy” by Rico Nasty. You should look her up.

RM:  Um… Hmm… Maybe the song “I” by Kendrick Lamar.

Good call!  We’ve been talking for about forty minutes here, so I think we’ve covered some excellent ground, but I always like to give the Athletes of The Season- even though it is a couple seasons past in your case-  a chance to impart some words of wisdom to their minions. You are now in the Pantheon of great Athletes of The Season.

CB:  Oh my gosh…  What an honor!

Yeah, your words carry great weight, so any advice, or warnings, or admonishments- this could be the airing of the griefs.

CB:  *long thoughtful pause*  I just don’t think I have a succinct way of saying what I want to say.  Off the top of my head, I like to bring a playful attitude to the gym; whether that is pretending I’m a bear when doing bear crawls or trying to encourage the people around me, I think it is good to not take ourselves too seriously.  I think it is important for adults to play and I think the gym is a very safe place to play like a child on the playground. That has really worked for me and made workouts feel like a space where I belong and can bring my full self. I would also say something to the effect of it is good to be competitive with yourself and not others.  That took me a while. I would get too caught up with something like “that person is ahead of me, but they aren’t doing a full push-up”.  It took me a while to learn to not compare myself with others.  I still do it- I was in the gym today and was looking at other people’s watts and was like “hell yeah, I’m working harder than any of these people!”; I have to fight that urge to compare myself to others.  I feel like I get more competing with myself versus with others. I get more when I bring my full self by being playful.

I think that is an important thing and you definitely brought it to class- that sense of playfulness and not being overly self-important.

CB:  It is so nice to hear that.  Also, the coaches that we were drawn too, like you and Autumn and Keith were all very playful people too, so that creates space for those of us who need the space to be a little silly from time to time.

RM:  I’d say, just appreciate what a great place Dane’s is.  Not having it has really reminded us of how amazing it was.  I would also say, check out Strength class. The last two years I was at Dane’s, I really loved having the balance of Fusion and Strength- I thought it really rounded out my fitness routine in a great way.  And just keep going consistently- as consistently as you can. I broke my ankle the summer before I left for school and even while I couldn’t walk or put weight on it, I still went to Dane’s. I didn’t let the routine slip and that was a huge part of my recovery.  Even though I wasn’t able to do all the exercises, the coaches were really amazing at accommodating me. Keith really went the extra mile creating special workouts and adapting the day’s workout to what I was able to do. I will always be grateful for that. When I got out of the cast and was able to start working out again, I hadn’t let the routine slip.  Just being mentally prepared to set the time aside to go to the gym each day. Even though my muscles had a lot of work to do to rebuild, the consistency was still there.

You guys, those were both killer last answers!

CB:  We can say so many nice things about the community and the coaches and our experience there; the individuals and the collective whole.  It really changed my life. If we had moved to New York before going to Dane’s I would not be like “okay, I’ve been here for a week, I need to go to a fitness class.”  It totally reprogrammed my brain.

That is one of the ways that I can tell you two are staying in shape.  You both look great, but you’re also able to just drop in to class any time you are back home.

CB: I’m going to be there in a couple weeks and I am terrified to come to classes because I just have no sense of how much weight I can lift.  But I know there will be other things I can do to keep up.

RM:  Yeah, every time I go to Austin I email John like six weeks before to make sure stuff is set up so we can take classes.  Shout out to Dane Krager.

Dane Krager… Who dat?  

Before leaving The Shop in 2017, conducting our Athlete of the Month Interviews was one of my very favorite duties; getting to take those reins back from the big fella was one of the reasons coming back was a no-brainer for me.  What a nifty interview to come back to!  In addition to a genuinely engaging conversation with Dom-Dom, I was introduced to an amazing new spot to grab a brew and a bite to eat.  Shouts to Sour Duck on the east side and eternal high fives to my new Houston home girl!

I asked Coach Mitch for a question to ask you when I was leaving Manor just now.  He wanted me to ask how many tattoos do you have?

Oh, okay!  *silently counting for about 15 seconds* I would say roughly 15 and I’m going to keep adding more.

Do you have a favorite current one?

I’m really obsessing over this piece *points to a large mostly floral piece on her arm*.  I’m getting it done at a place called Modern Heart Tattoo on Burnett and it is a girl called Karina; her specialty is flowers and she’s really amazing.

I’m going to have to get something from her because that is exactly what I like.  Okay, so I’m a movie executive and we are in an elevator together and I want you to give me the pitch of what a movie about your life would look like and why it would be compelling before I get off the elevator. 

Originally from Houston- really big Houston sports fan.  I came to Austin and have been a preschool teacher for ten years.  I am now on the cusp of being a travel nanny consistently with families.  I have traveled to Australia, The Hamptons, and a lot of other places this upcoming year.  So like going on vacations with families while watching these children but also getting to explore other countries.

So the film would be about your exploits traveling across the globe?  I think I would greenlight that.  How did you end up working out at Dane’s Body Shop?

I became really close with Stellen and Duke, Dane and Ryan’s sons, and Dane would often propose that I come to The Shop.  I went to a couple free community workouts and the gym that I was at just wasn’t inspiring me.  I had big goals and I felt like Dane’s was the best fit; the community is really amazing and all the coaches are really awesome.  I’ve seen major progress!

So what have you noticed in terms of progress and changes?

I’ve definitely lost weight that I can see.  I feel a lot stronger when running or biking or even walking and hiking.  My mood has changed entirely- I feel a lot more energetic.  I feel like I’m finally taking care of me and that feels really nice.  It used to be a dread to go to workout and now it is a pleasure.

Did you have dread when you first started at Dane’s?

I did because I always got nervous working out around other people.  The things that you think would happen in a workout class that you have nightmares about just didn’t happen.  I felt more comfortable with myself and being around others helped me to feel motivated to push myself harder.  People started telling me that because I was pushing myself to go harder they went harder; so we were motivating one another.

That is cool how that happens.  I had the same experience; when I first started taking classes, even as someone working in the fitness industry, I was terrified of the workouts.  I would come home, go straight to the bathroom, and just wring the sweat out of my clothes over the bathtub.  It was terrifying initially, but like you say then the motivation happens.

It’s the motivation!  I’ve had to step out of comfort zones at Dane’s.  It used to be that I would be shy about partner workouts or getting my name called in class, but now I walk in there with my head held high and I’m just like f*** yeah, let’s do this!  Like it is going to suck, but it is going to be worth it.  I feel like it has helped with a lot of relationships I’ve had.  People see me doing this stuff, people at work or back home in Houston who are asking me for advice on various fitness things.

You’ve brought up the community at large at the Shop- in my experience any athlete of the month or athlete of the season has particularly strong relationships within the community.  Can you talk about some of the relationships you have with people in the community?

I’m going to definitely have to call out Beth Felker because I got paired up with her on some barbell exercises during my 2nd class and I was very concerned that she had asked to partner with me because she is ripped.

She is kind of ripped.

We were doing power cleans or deadlifts and she just kind of took me under her wing and has always been my go to for personal and workout related things.

It kind of blends together doesn’t it?

Yes!  She helped me to realize I could “do it”.  Very motivating and good at giving me pointers.

And that was before she was a coach?

Yeah!

Is it weird that she is a coach now?

No, I love it.  I’ve gone to a couple of her classes and it makes me so happy.  I feel so much more comfortable in class when I know the person I am getting coached by or working out with.  Another person I would say is Coach Beth-

Beth #1?  Beth Reyburn?

Yes, Beth #1!  Another person who would just open up conversations about anything and everything.  I felt a little shy at first but then I put myself out there with her and tried to talk about personal life stuff.  She’s a great person- always checking in on me- and I feel like I need to give her big credit for being a major person in helping through my journey at The Shop.

She was intimidating for me.  I was a new coach and she was just a member, I don’t think she was certified as a trainer or anything yet, but the first class I had was 5am and I couldn’t even process it.  I was like, I don’t know if I’m worthy to be in the same room as this human!  She’s amazing.  Anyone not named Beth you’d like to shout out?

The Kragers of course.  Ryan would always be my partner during workouts.  She and Dane are really amazing people that I’m so happy I’ve gotten to know at preschool and at The Shop.  Stormie is great too and another person who is on the same level as everyone else- doesn’t think she is better than anyone, just there to teach and guide and workout.

Do you have past or current goals that you can talk about and also how you approached those goals? 

I had one goal to be the Body Shop Athlete-

So that is one goal accomplished!  How did you make that happen?

Manifesting it really hard and just constantly getting my face out there.  My next goals are losing a little bit more weight and toning up- so keeping up with strength classes.

Can you talk a little bit about the difference between Strength and Fusion in your experience?

 The way that I explain it to people is that Fusion has more kettlebells and HIIT workouts whereas Strength is more based just on two or three major barbell movements but like really stacking on the weight.  I love both of them.  I love Fusion because I love kettlebells and I appreciate the mixture of yoga and cardio and full body workouts.  I love Strength because I’m curious about the barbell movements and I have weight goals I want to hit.

Do you have any off the top of your head you’d like to share?

Yeah!  Last Community Gains, I shot for 225lbs on the deadlift and I got 210 so this year I’m going to shoot for 220 and will be okay with 215.  I’m just trying to go up in weight- that is why I’ve been going to Strength more.

We touched on your job and we’ve talked about The Shop- what else do you do when you’re not working or working out?

I like to hike, I babysit, I like to go to local art shows; last week I went to a crafts market, just being out in Austin and getting to know the city.  Spending time with my dogs-

Tell me about your dogs- what are their names, what kind of dogs are they?

Soybean and Maddie.  Soybean is a black and white shitzu and Maddie is a white maltese.  Soybean is 13, so he is a senior but he acts like a teenager- he is the love of my life.

I like to round out these interviews with a series of random questions with no relationship to The Shop.  The first one I think you might have just answered- doggies or kitties?

Both!  I’ve come around to cats because I’ve babysat for a lot of families who have cats and those cats just so happen to really like me.  I told myself that I cannot get a cat because I already have two dogs- you can’t let the animals take over.  If something were to happen to one of my dogs (heaven forbid!) I think I would get a cat.

You’re open to both?  You are good swinging both ways?

I am open to swinging both ways and they just have to accept it.

As long as everyone is open and honest with one another right?  Okay, if you were to have a song that would be your entrance song any time you walked into a room, what would that song be?

That’s so funny!  It would be Django Jane by Janelle Monae.  There is a lyric- “sassy, classy, Kool-aid with the kale”.

That is amazing!  I love Janelle Monae- I’m a big fan of “Pynk” off her newest album.  Earlier I asked for the elevator pitch on a biopic being made of your life.  Have you thought about who would play you?

Oh gosh!  I would say Brittany Murphy, but she’s not with us.

I could see that- pour one out for our homie Brittany.  Maybe we could resurrect her? 

I used to have red hair-

And you’ve got similar large eyes.  I like it- she would be great.  It is a shame that she isn’t around because I think this movie is getting made.  If you were a vegetable, what would you be and why?

I would have to say a carrot because there are so many colors and they’re delicious whether you steam them or eat them raw.  They mesh well with different dipping sauces.

Great answer!  We talked about the Shop community earlier and this is a very specific lens for looking at the community.  We’re in primary season and we just had a debate; of all the people at the Shop- coaches or members- who would you nominate to be president of The United States?

I would have to say coach Beth Reyburn.

We can go with that as a thought experiment, but unfortunately she was born in Canada so she isn’t eligible.  I think she would be great though- would Beth Felker be a runner up?

Oh yeah!  I could have called her out as well.  Oh, and Mark Hernandez!  He was the one that I initially told that I would get my name on that board (as Athlete of the Month) and he kept encouraging me and was one of the first ones I told.  He gets along with everybody-

My first reaction is that this is the best answer I’ve ever heard when asking this question, but thinking about I think my honest thought is that he is too good to be president. 

Yeah, because he like gets along with everyone!

That man has a special place in my heart.  Okay, so expanding the focus a bit, you have a chance to have a night out with any person from history alive or dead- dinner or drinks or whatever.  Who do you choose?

 Wow.  This is a big one.  I would probably want to sit and listen to Eckhart Tolle.

Oh yeah- “The Power of Now” right?  Is he a big influence on you?

Yeah, I love motivational books.  I love his view that the present moment is all you really have because I used to always be someone who would think about the future and stress about it and I would also live in the past.  I didn’t realize how much I had been missing until I started being more present- being more like I have to take advantage of now because the future might not be.  So since then I’ve said yes to a lot of things I wouldn’t have said yes to and I’ve probably made some of the best memories and met some of the best people.

That is a very thoughtful answer Dom!  A couple more quick ones- do you have a favourite taco in town?  Me coming back to town I’m trying to get as many tacos in me as possible.

The Baja Shrimp at Torchy’s and there is one at Taco Deli, a breakfast taco, with sirloin steak in it.  You have to add the mashed potatoes to it!

Oh wow!  I will throw that in to my next order at TD.  If you were a super hero, what would your power be?

Telepathy.  Although I think it would get a little stressful and I would want to be able to turn it off.  So maybe teleportation?

Anything that is tele… do you feel like you maybe have a little bit of telepathy? 

Sometimes… but sometimes I think it is just the universe manifesting what I was thinking about.

The last thing I like to ask is, that as the athlete of the month/season, they are all looking at you… all of them-

*laughing* Don’t say that!

What words of wisdom do you have for them- your loyal subjects?

*thoughtful pause* just what I tell myself- just keep pushing yourself.  You’ll be thankful in the end-  it is worth it!  Just keep going.

“Keep Going”, that is great.  It will probably be the title of this interview.  Awesome, Dom- high five!

*while high fiving* That was a lot of fun!

I count myself particularly lucky to have pinned down the jetsetting Manor Athlete of the Month for a spirited and insightful interview at Central Market on a lovely late October evening.  A top notch commercial real estate guru, Ben travels frequently and had just a small window of time in between out of town work trips.  The interview, as you will see, was a dream in a bucket.

The first question I like to ask is to think of an elevator pitch- you’re in an elevator with a movie producer and you have to sell them on making a movie about your life.  What does the pitch sound like?

What I think about is, what is my purpose?  I think about how I can make a positive impact in a community- that could manifest in my work, which is commercial real estate; it can manifest in other communities that I’m involved in as a leader, like the Jewish community; and it can manifest, hopefully, in the fitness community.  I’ve always been involved in fitness in one way or another and one of the things I love about Dane’s- and I’ve been here for almost two years now- is the community.  Although I don’t think I’ve done anything extraordinary in that particular community, I do show up and participate in things like The Field Day (mini-meet) and encourage people.  Just generally getting to know people.

I could see that having the bones of maybe like an Erin Brockovich thing.  Can you talk about something you are proud of in another community?

In the Jewish community, I’ve co-chaired and chaired events for 300 and 500 people and raised significant amounts of money.  There is a national organization that picks one leader from each community for a five year commitment, and now I’m representing Austin.  That will have us traveling quite a bit- last year the group went to Russia because we give money locally and a portion of that money gets allocated to other communities around the world.  This year, we are going to Paris which has, unfortunately, had a lot of anti-semitism going on.  We’ve created this network of people so that when something like the shooting in Pittsburgh or hurricane Harvey happens and the community needs something, we already have relationships in place so that we can be a support group for one another.

So circling back to The Shop, you said you have been year for around two years- how did you come to be at The Shop originally?

I heard about it from two friends- one of them was a coach named Courtney-

Oh Courtney Sugar!

Yeah, we were actually neighbors.  Then I moved to the east side and was looking for a new place to work out and this place was just really close and convenient.

Have you noticed any differences in your life since starting at The Shop?

I feel strong and healthy.  I live a healthy lifestyle- I mean you didn’t think I was 37!  I like routine and this is part of my routine.  For example, being out of town for a week, I wouldn’t say craving, but I was really missing having that camaraderie first thing in the morning.  I’m kind of dreading not being in a position (going out of town) tomorrow and not being able to have that.

I do want to talk about travel and fitness in a bit, but I also noticed when I was subbing your class this morning that you had a high degree of sociality around you.  The 6am and 6:30am time slots tend to be the least social because people have just rolled out of bed.  What do you talk about with people at that hour?

Just everything; we talk about travel, and their kids, and nutrition.  We talk about meeting up for drinks sometimes.  What was I shooting the shit with Sam about this morning?  Just ribbing each other-

Just good natured bro stuff?

Yeah!

This is really just me pointing out to our people in those early classes that it is okay to be social.  Take Ben’s lead and talk it up!  For traveling, do you have any secrets for maintaining fitness inertia while you are away from The Shop?

No.  I struggle when I travel.  I attempt to eat super healthy, but that can be a failure.  I attempt to do this bodyweight workout that I learned a long time ago.  I don’t have any tips- I struggle big time with that.

That is good to hear.  It is useful for people to know that someone who really has their shit together still struggles.  I was impressed when I saw you in class today.  I know that you just got back the day before and you are leaving again tomorrow.  I think most people would have skipped the workout.

I was excited about it!

Another thing I wanted to touch on was the Field Day Mini-Meet that you competed in last month.  Was that the first meet you have competed in?

The second, the first one was at Manor and I think it was a Field Day meet as well.  For this one I signed up last minute because of my travel schedule and they paired me with three other random people and we had a blast together.  Let’s see it was Barrett-

Oh yeah! Barrett and you also had Mark Hernandez and Jacqueline Hummel on your team right?  You were my favorite team!  You had such a great spirit and were so supportive of one another.  It was the right mix of being good at the events and having a good time.  You came in second place right?

Yeah, we were tied at the end and then badminton was the tie breaker.  I’m really good at badminton.

Have you hopped in on any pickleball matches yet?

Yeah!  I love that that is a thing.  I just invested in a racket and shoes; I see posts on the instagram and I go if I can.  7:30am on a Sunday is a little bit of a stretch…

Did you play tennis in high school?

I used to be a tennis instructor as a matter of fact- while I was at UT.  I taught kids and college students.  I was head instructor for the UT Tennis Club.

I’m always curious to hear how coaches react to being coached.  Do you like being coached?

Yeah, being held accountable and having someone thoughtfully produce programming that I find makes sense for me and my body.  I enjoy that and I enjoy the people; all the coaches are super nice and well-informed and qualified.  I’ve been to other gyms where we lifting weights I would constantly get injured-

Less injuries at The Shop?

Totally!

I guess that is kind of important.  The most important question though is do you have a favorite coach in terms of music selection?

Mitch is always playing rap or trap music- Post Malone type stuff.  Stormie has a good mix, Beth has a good mix, you had a good mix this morning!  I like how you triggered “Eye of The Tiger” just as we were getting in to an AMRAP.

Is there anything that you’re particularly proud of in terms of accomplishments at The Shop?

*long thoughtful pause* I pr’d (my 400m) by like one second this morning.  Sam and I were neck and neck three fourths of the way through and he was just like “let’s go!”.

Sam has that extra gear where you see him do something and you’re a little worried for his mental health-

He’s very committed.

That actually wraps up the substantial gym-related questions, but I like to round out these interviews with some more light hearted random questions.  Doggies or kitties?

Dogs.

Do you have an ideal dog?

One that doesn’t shed.  One I can run with- probably a golden doodle.

So wrestler’s have entrance songs when they come to the ring- if you had an entrance song for any time you entered a room, what would it be?

I love music- it’d be something super upbeat like Ghostland Observatory.  My favorite karaoke song is “Friends in Low Places” *sings the first couple lines in a lovely little baritone!*.

Are you a singer?

I dabble.  Music is a big part of my life- right now I am relearning piano.  I try to spend 5-10 minutes a day practicing.  I’m also trying to learn Spanish as well.  I try to meditate 5-10 minutes a day.  If I start my day that way, it will set the course for an awesome day.

So you’re a bit of a polymath?

Like a jack of all trades, master of none?  Yeah, that’s true- except for commercial real estate!

You’re a commercial real estate savant!  That was another question I wrote down- do you have a secret sauce for fundraising?

Yeah man, it is all about relationships.  My mission is to create a lasting impact in the community and that is through building relationships and being involved with the community.  Contributing and finding ways to give back as well as getting other people involved.  Secret sauce?  Working hard, showing up, communicating, and having integrity.

Going back to the elevator pitch of your life as a movie- who would play you in that film?

Based on looks, I like to pretend like it is Dean Cain.  I’d like to be Superman.

Yeah!  He’s a bit long in the tooth at this point, but mid-nineties Dean Cain?  I could totally see it!  If you were a vegetable, which one would you be and why?

I like spaghetti squash, but does it describe me?  Hard on the outside and stringy on the inside.  I don’t know…

I could see that.  Put a fork in you and pull you apart in little noodle shapes?

Maybe a tomato.  It is a unique flavor and it is the vegetable that is on every pizza.  It brings people together.

If you were to nominate a person at The Shop to be president, who would it be and why?

I’m torn right now between Mitch and Ben (Sledge).  Very different options- I respect Ben’s service in the military.  He’s always working hard even though I’m sure he’s tired because he has an infant at home.

Would you put the two of them on the same ticket?

There you go!  Ben for president and Mitch for vice because he’s going to bring some great music and energy and make sure I don’t hurt my back.

Do you have a favorite taco in town?

I like El Chillito down the street.  I do a Cherrywood with no bacon.  If I want to treat myself for a good workout, that is more often than not where I stop.

Very nice.  The last question I like to ask is do you have any words of wisdom for the community?  You kind of answered that earlier in the interview.  

I could rattle off several.  In no particular order: It is better to copy genius than create mediocrity, life is not fair- fair is made up, all we have is the present- let that shit go.  I don’t know if you want to write this or not, but I recently relearned the phrase, “No fucks given”.  What that means to me is not giving a fuck what society says about what you should or shouldn’t do or what you should be doing at a certain age or how much money you should have.  It is all fucking bullshit.  I don’t know if you want to write that, but those are some lessons that I have relearned recently.  This is our life to live.

I am going to put that in the transcript because I think that is an important lesson.  It is actually something I’ve struggled with over the past couple years.  If we were to ever launch a Dane’s Body Shop podcast series, I think we could devote an entire episode to learning how to cultivate that mindset.

It isn’t easy and I don’t have it perfected, but I talk about it more and more lately because I see people holding themselves back because of what they should or shouldn’t be doing. If there is something you want to do, choose it and just go for it.

One final thing I wanted to bring up with you, and I guess we just officially met in class this morning, but I observed you during the Field Day Meet and you were incredibly diligent in thanking people for volunteering.  This and other things people have said about you have made me think “that guy’s mom raised him right”.  Did your mom raise you right?

Yes!  I have amazing parents.  My routine is I hit the gym then go home and take a shower and call my mom when I’m on my way to the office.  She’s just incredibly supportive and loving and wise.

One final thing I wanted to say is that I love being able to share my knowledge with people, so if there is anyone in The Shop community who wanted to learn more about investing and real estate or passive income, I would love to be able to share my knowledge.

For a reasonable hourly fee right?

No man, for nothing- I love what I do.  This is a community I want to leave a positive impact on.

Well, I will probably take you up on that then!  Thanks Ben!