And an aqua section of indoor swimming pool, steam room, sauna, and jacuzzi.
Three or four times a week I check in, change, step in the steam room, simmer for 10 minutes, splash into the pool, swim laps for 20, slump into the jacuzzi, swelter for 10-15 minutes, sling back to the pool for a few more laps swim, slip into the sauna room, smolder for 10 minutes, then back to the swimming pool, the jacuzzi... you get the picture.
The steam room is a good place to start, not only because it oozes open all my body pores and gives me a good sweaty warm up, but also the foggy steam prevents me from seeing through the glass door how many swimming pool lanes out there are open that might perturb my Zen mind and make me want to rush over to the pool side before all lanes are taken up...
Ah but that was just my monkey mind thinking. The pool is never that busy, most of the time only one or two of its three-lane runway are used. And even in the rare occasions when all three are taken, each is wide enough to accommodate two swimmers at the same time. A few simple courteous words such as "do you mind sharing" would easily earn you a berth of the waterway you need.
And sharing we all do. Inside the jacuzzi pool, there is one corner where a "super jet" spout pumps out mighty streams that are 10 times more powerful than those other lame ones that most people want to get at. The unwritten and unspoken rules here are "take turns, no hogging." Or you may just ask straight for it if you really need it, like some older gentlemen do when they feel their knee or hip needs a few minutes of special massage treatment that they think only this powerful jet will suffice.
The sauna room is one place where no hissing steam engine or bubbling water churn annoys but only nice smell from fresh cedar bench pervades, that allows you to relax and do your own thing, which, for many people nowadays, you might have guessed, is looking down and playing with their phones. I am amazed not only by how modern technologies have invaded every crevice of our lives, but also the build quality of these little gadgets that acclimates them to such harsh environment of high heat and damp air. No report of any phone battery blowing up here so far.
A gym is a microcosm of the world outside, with all kinds of people coming in and out every day. People generally keep to themselves, but occasionally the ice is broken and they chat, and I sometimes engage with people with interesting backgrounds or life stories that I did not expect.
Like once I struck a conversation with a middle aged man who was flapping the door at the steam room and I interjected, and he apologized and explained to me he was fanning out the steam so to hasten the triggering of another round of fresh steam. It turned out he was a professional opera singer catered to perform only for upscale customers on their premises, for example, a royal Thai family living in the Modjeska Canyon area.
Another time I met a one-legged man who lost his leg during an oil drilling accident in Alaska and became addicted to pain-killer drugs after the amputation and had to go through rehab and was now living at a post-treatment center nearby that shuttled him here daily for exercise as part of the program.
And there was this loud speaking young man at the sauna room talking excitingly to an old business acquaintance he just bumped into about the many new business opportunities people were bringing him, asking him to help set up marijuana farms around Orange and far flung area of Los Angeles counties. That reminded me of the marijuana legalization proposition we just passed last November in California, didn't we?
Fun as it is, I must confess I was not the one who initiated this gym going thing two years ago. My wife did, quite to my surprise. For she has never impressed me as the athletic type, but after a few weeks of trial membership with this gym, she so enjoyed the aerobic dancing program she pulled me into joining it with her.
Not that I didn't try to do the aerobic dancing with her in the beginning, but I failed miserably--just didn't have the nimble body-and-mind coordination the full room of women all seemed to have. I also tried some of those hard hitting "body pump" classes, and re-activated my chronicle foot pain right the next day. As for those fancy weight lifting/muscle toning machines, I find their exercises tedious and hard to persist.
So off to swimming I go, an old habit I used to do every day when I had a pool in my own backyard at my old residence. It's low impact, full body, and fun. And this being done in a community, I occasionally get tips from some good Samaritan swimmers to correct some wrong moves I've been doing for years without knowing.
They say swimming is one of the best, if not the best, exercises in the world, I tend to agree.
Dive in!
Dive in!
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