foray into my (nontoxic) fitness era
fitness isn't life and the surprising elements I was pleased by the Japanese fitness culture.
three recommendations as always on the bottom of the reading section! If you ever so please to read through it and then enjoy some extra yum!
I have a funny relationship with fitness, or exercising I guess. I used to semi-professionally play tennis for six years and with some change. Semi-professionally sounds very ‘real,’ but rigorous training was involved and being in the top 8 schools all of Tokyo for playing in matches in 10th grade was a thing ー so yeah, I guess I was pretty serious about it. I had a good build for a tennis player, tall and strong but I was out of breath very easily. I hated running and it was what made my tennis career the determining factor as a great one or a good one: and I was just a good one. Every summer for training campーgod it was the dreadful week of my life especially since it was during my birthday every god damn yearー we went to Yamanakako lake in Yamanashi and we had to run one whole circle around the lake on the last day of camp. What a conniving tactic! They wanted us to run a marathon after a six day intense training in the scorching sun, almost every kid fainting from heat strokes, and the mental drainage from our senpai’s being mean to us. It’s about a 15km run and for people who don’t take breaks, it takes about an hour or so to finish it. For me, I hated it so much that I honestly blocked it out of my memory but I was always the last one to finish, which put me in to finish after more than two hours of running. Because I took so long to finish, the coaches just let me run half of it lol To be fair, there were other kids who got this special treatment, but it was not a great look to ‘skip’ the last hurrah, and as an athlete, this meant that I wasn’t pushing myself and I remember feeling a ton of shame for it.
All this to say, exercising and being an athlete is not foreign to me and I did go to gyms sometimes as well in my late 20s too. I liked the idea of taking care of my body, sweating and pushing myself ー the hustle mentality stuck around since I was 13.
I recently joined ClassPass in Japan. A fitness app that allows you to join as many classes as you like if you have a certain amount of credits on your account; yoga, crossfit, pilates and even massages and facials if you fancy! It’s been very interesting to have a look into the gym culture at this age with the knowledge I have and not easily buy into the #fitspo marketing because I know better. Not just #fitspo but to resist thinness as a ‘look’ and not make that my primary goal as well has been refreshing and energizing.
One really interesting thing I’ve noticed is that in Japan’s gym culture, friendliness and confidence wafts together and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it. These two things are not what Japan is most known for, which some foreigners might disagree with me on this, especially the friendliness aspect of it. But as I wrote in this piece a few years ago on Polyester Magazine, Japanese people are friendly to foreigners when they are asked for directions or questions because the alternative of walking away from those questions will be perceived as rude. It’s not because we are fundamentally friendly people, gosh, I would never describe Japanese people as that ーmaybe when they had one too many drinks at an izakaya sure but otherwise we want to stick to our own businessー it’s just that we don’t want to hurt your feelings or be rude is all. Can you see how that’s different from being innately friendly to being friendly out of shame?
I digress.
I was saying that gym people are nice and confident, yes. When I went into my first crossfit class or my yoga class, not just the instructors but the rest of them also greeted me saying hello, which again casual pleasantries like that isn’t as common I would say. One absolute #gymrat girl also guided me to the lockers and explained to me where things are. Crossfit by nature seems like you have to work in pairs, so maybe you end up developing a friendliness through that but I’ve also enjoyed some chit chat with the woman I was paired with too. Everyone seemed like they were friends because they joined the same class every week and it’s like their gym friends, which I kind of enjoyed witnessing. I was also emboldened by the women too. These women who carry themselves with poise, straight backs and tall posture. It was something I lacked, still. Especially in places that feel unfamiliar to me, I get nervous. I shrink myself so no one will see me, leave me alone and let me workout in peace! (Jokes on me because I didn’t know crossfit was a pair thing.) The women will workout, scream if they have to to push through, and once they sweat it all out, they take a shower in the locker rooms and get dressed to tackle on with their day. A woman with a mission is a sight to see.
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My one concern or worry I had by joining yoga classes or fitness classes was,
Will I feel like I don’t belong here?
I don’t subscribe to thinness, and my objective to working out or joining ClassPass is to build flexibility and strength. More specifically, I’m recently taking my Type 1 diabetes seriously, (after nearly 10 years of being diagnosed!) and by building muscle, I’ve learned that you improve your insulin sensitivity. Meaning, my insulin injections will correspond in the way it’s supposed to! My friends and I are in our early to mid 30s and talk about fitness as strength building, not for aesthetic purposes. It’s never about losing weight, which I appreciate.
I have never been one of the teenage girls who got into weird food obsessions for the sake of diet culture nor was I ever a “getting on a scale everyday to check my weight” person. But that’s not to say that I was never self conscious of my body, if anything I was very much so. I knew that I already had a very different body type than my Japanese friends; my big ass and thighs didn’t fit the jeans I wanted to buy in 109 Shibuya. I was unfortunately too self aware that I was ‘chubby,’ so going on the scale didn’t make sense. I know I’m already chubby, why would I need more confirmation? This is by the way, during my tennis athlete days. Training almost everyday, aside from Sunday because it was the lord’s rest day, absolutely made me more active than the average teenager but I still had this body dysmorphia.
Whether to worry if I fit in the gym culture or not is a valid question I think, and as someone who has not been to a gym in a while, I forgot what you do, how to dress or be in gyms. There’s a certain look and attitude you must present in gyms I feel: confident, unyielding, and solitude. As a spineless people pleaser, I wanted people to know that I too belong here. You don’t have to know that the last time I was in a gym was in 2018. Honestly, what am I supposed to do when I’m waiting for my class to start? Use a prop to stretch my muscles or ligaments? I don’t know how this prop works. Sit on the ground and start stretching and claim my space when there are men and #musclemommy’s everywhere acting so … committed?
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It is worth noting that doing yoga or Pilates classes in Japan wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it would be. At least from my perspective, when I joined a yoga class overseas, the way everyone dresses with their cute little lululemon wear with dusty pink tones and their dainty butts flying in the air, while their floppy straight blond hair sways side to side is a form of intimidation from a non Westerner. Sure, lululemon is a great contributor to the classes and there are some women here and there that are so flexible and lean that they practice their ‘peak pose’ ー the pose you work towards in the one hour yoga class, but surprisingly it’s not that intimidating. It could be a huge attribute to where I am now physically and mentally that I workout not because I aspire to be a certain look or that I’m wanting to become them. I don’t want to be like Bella Hadid or Kylie Jenner, the “homogeneous ideal” that the Independent also argues. Sure, a flat tummy and being all bendy and shit is cool, but I’m honestly not even convinced that the flat tummy big ass look is… hot.
written by , which is one of my favorite newsletters here on Substack that looks into body types and images around culture and media and critiques what is wrong about the messaging, argues something astute on Pilates here. Since our culture’s hyper fixation on womanhood and femininity has skyrocketed over the past few years, she writes,Pilates culture suggests that its participants are not only “long and lean” (read: thin) but also ultra-feminine and, most crucially, youthful.
Not just Pilates, but any gym participants make it feel like you need to subscribe to a certain lifestyle. These are something I’m already seeing myself googling or asking around my friends because I feel like I need to ‘fit in’ this particular group of people.
What sort of protein do you drink?
What’s your daily protein/sugar/micro intake?
What’s your favorite gym shoes? Clothes?
Where can I get some post workout smoothies?
It’s always fun to be a part of something new. It’s exciting. Building a community outside of what you are familiar with is maybe what we crave in this hyper digital era. Forcing adults to have no screen time for at least an hour is a great way to connect with the real world and people. Maybe that’s why everyone says hi to each other in gyms because we are not looking down at our phones and preoccupied with something else. I love that I’m finally at 32 getting back into moving my body with no #fitnessgoal and it’s never been so freeing.
I just don’t get Emily Gould’s style of writing. Maybe some love it, but I don’t get it. She wrote another confessional on The Cut on How I quit having a grudge against Lena Dunham.
Hena sent me this article by NYT, She fell in love with ChatGPT . I just don’t think I will ever be this person, but I also am very sympathetic to those who have the need to create connection in ways like this.
Upon writing up this piece, I read The Pursuit of thinness never went out, actually. #proana(pro-anorexia), which is a hashtag that went around Tumblr and Tiktok to show women who are paper thin is in my capacity to understand the headspace around it, but I certainly don’t want to believe that our culture is as this bleak.
One last extra thing. I baked these brown butter walnut choco cookies from Sohla El-Waylly . Absolutely YUM