Side note: this is phase two of the mini series – the Ipod trio

Phase Ten of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything.”

 Don’t: Play the drums or rock out profusely at the gym (with or with out an iPod)

    Now I thought that this was completely harmless (and damn it if I don’t catch myself doing it once in a blue moon) but I saw first hand what can happen when this gets out of control. Drumming and head banging ravenously or jumping around and flailing your arms about is just not meant for the gym – or for the public eye in general (but sometimes it’s hard to help). I personally think it makes you look like an idiot, but that alone should not matter to anyone – who cares if you look like an idiot, right? But it isn’t looking like an idiot that puts people out with this distraction; it is the actual physical disturbance that can derive from the air band performance itself. This one is actually funny because it happened to me for once, as opposed from me always seeing it occur to others – I got to experience first hands the ill effects of this lord of the dance “C. Diddy” air guitar uproar. I was in mid set of doing military pull-ups on the bar between the cable-cross over machine, when I felt someone strike me in the right leg, rather close to my groin. It immediately made me stop my set, let go of the bar and hit the ground with a rather pissed off look on my face. The guy to my right had this look on his face like when Smalls (from The Sandlot) realized that he hit his step dad’s “Sultan of Swat” autographed ball into The Beast’s lair. He instantly became apologetic, and exclaimed, “holy shift I am so sorry.” He then took the two little white head phones out of his ears and told me “dude I lost my balance…this song is incredible.” I was of course like, “no problem man” but I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. Then I saw him walk to the drinking fountain like two minutes later with his head phones back in, swinging those invisible drum sticks like he was Travis freakin’ Barker. I then realized that he had hit me in the midst of a, unaware of his proximity to me, rock out session. I wasn’t pissed off or hurt from this encounter, in fact I got a chuckle out of it, but I can’t say that it is not annoying to be sporadically perturbed mid set.  I then saw the same thing happen the very next day to a guy doing some shadow boxing dance moves and definitely getting seven shades of hyphy to whatever song he was listening to. He was not aware of how close he was to a guy doing hammer curls and bumped into the back of him. The guy looked a little more pissed off than I did about having to interrupt his set. Meaning things: one that this can be hazardous to people around you if you are doing this, because in some rare occasion you can loose your balance from doing something moronic in a place you shouldn’t be doing it in, and bump into someone doing some strenuous activity and end up causing them extreme frustration or in some cases injury. And two that this can be hazardous to you if you continue to do it, because judging by the look on the dumbbell man’s face, he was about two seconds away from doing his own shadow box dance on that guy’s face.
 Do’s: Just work out without dancing around, rocking out or shadow boxing or take a pilates, dance, or personal workout class where you can dance about

    This stuff proves its hilarity to me on a regular basis but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t frustrate the likely hood’s of others to no avail. Just remember this the next time you feel compelled to strum an air chord to ‘Master of Puppets’  or jump around to an old school “Red and Meth ” joint or scratch the wind turntables. I still have not had a chance to talk to people that actually commit these so called offences at the gym only the phones who look peeved that these offences occur in their presence. So with that being said I don’t truly know the psyche of our air band heroes at the gym who feel it is still appropriate to continue on with these prancing antics even after they have knowingly disrupted other’s around them. Maybe they just listen to music that they can absolutely not resist the urge to get down and boogie to, I don’t know. What ever the reason though, they or you or me – whoever finds themselves dancing around, drumming along, or boxing forward at the gym – should be mindful that it can lead to negative effects upon others.  Once again this is simply my opinion, take it or leave it.