One week down and (nearly) all is well. Sort of.
Well, what can I say, it’s been a challenging week – trying to integrate everyone back into the gym with a changed class structure as well as deal with the booking system has not been a great deal of fun…but we are *NEARLY* at the weekend and there haven’t been too many disasters.
| What’s gone wrong in week#1??
– Too many issues with the booking system. We are on top of things now (I think) and are down to 1-2 spot-fires per day, but it hasn’t been great for some people. – The “RUSHING”. Gym entrance/exit, the 5-minute break between classes, social distancing rules, no time to stretch, no PLACE to stretch, hell, you name it. Everything at Round 1 is a RUSH now…we don’t get to talk to anyone. – People cancelling booked sessions with 10-minutes to go or simply not showing up. – Limiting people who are used to training every day to 3x per week. – Bikes in, bikes out – confusion about COVID19 rules. – No real way to chat/talk to trainers – it is just go-go-go. – Same warmup every day – we did it to make things ‘easier’ but I think it has simply blown up everyone’s shoulders and made their life harder. |
So…now what. I have a few things I want to try and go through and they are going to probably be a little bit randomised but, well, let’s see how it goes.
A few people have expressed a bit of dissatisfaction with the skipping ropes hanging on each of the stations in the boxing gym and I understand. But I am curious about exactly what you would have us do. A number of people (like me) have their own skipping rope in their gym bag with their boxing gloves…and if it is important to you to have a rope that ‘WORKS’ for you, then that is the path to go down. We have sourced a solution that ‘does the job’ – if it isn’t a perfect solution for you, then bring a rope along and use it. You bring your own gloves, your own towel…strength gym people bring chalk, wrist wraps, weight belts…basically, if you need ‘SOMETHING’ to do a session with that is ‘personal’, bring it!
We are trying (hard) to fix this. You would have noticed the great job Daniel and his team from ‘Non Slip Industrial Flooring’ did with the area immediately in front of the gym – coating the concrete and making a bit more useable. Ben from Kanvas Kraft is in the process of making some shade sails to cover that area (both sides) over to provide some protection from the elements. At the moment with the back-to-back classes, the trainers probably can’t do much to help you stretch but we are trying to provide an area that will allow overflow from the groups of 20 and some protection from the elements.
Yes, I know a number of people have done more than that but in the main people have been pretty good and stuck to their 3x sessions this week. Remember, this wasn’t a ‘rule’ – it was just something I asked for given not everyone received their invite at the same time…some people had a few days head start. I am comfortable with people booking in 5x sessions per week from now on but *would* ask that you only book in 3x sessions > 1-week in advance. I am also going to say “NO” to booking back-to-back Boxing sessions until the next stage of restrictions is lifted – at the moment with only 20/session, booking back-to-back is just a bit uncool.
This is pretty frustrating right now. So far today we have run 9x classes and had 12x no-shows…7 of them were booked in for fully subscribed sessions with people waiting on a ‘Wait List’.
I know it is going to happen and people are ‘sorry’ but when we are limited to 20-people and a lot of classes are fully booked, it really does suck. I really hate the idea of applying late cancellation or no-show penalties (and hopefully an easing of restrictions will mean this is not necessary) but, what can I say…if you book in, come to class.
Don’t know ‘HOW’ to cancel? It’s EASY. Log on to the app. Go to ‘MY SCHEDULE’. Click the class you want to cancel. Click ‘CANCEL’. You can do this up to 2-hours before the class starts…If you can’t see the ‘Cancel’ icon, then that means you either aren’t logged in properly OR it is < 2-hours until the session starts.
This has been bad in Boxing and to me the single biggest issue. With only 5-minutes between stations, we all feel like we are constantly yelling at people to get in, get ready, get started…quite honestly it is exhausting for us and no doubt frustrating for you guys. All I can suggest is arrive on time, make sure your hand-wraps are done, read the white board, QUICKLY grab your gear and find your ‘CELL’…all whilst staying socially distanced. We intentionally went ‘NAZI MODE’ for a couple of days there, but hopefully everything has relaxed a bit since the middle of the week. All of that said, if you need something, honestly communicating via email or asking for a call back or whatever is the best strategy right now.
Again – Boxing specific. We tried something here – we KNEW all of the ‘get this, get that’ stuff was going to be tricky so we took the sessions that had been prepared and applied ONE warmup to them all to enable people to feel confident/comfortable that they knew what they were doing when they arrived at the gym. Well, that seemed to work…but all that dumbbell work has probably not. So…we will be adding some variety into them from this point forward.
I guess my overall message is we are trying to make it better. And maybe it is going to be another few weeks until we can get things to the point where we are all ‘HAPPY’…but it is good to be back training together, that is for sure and certain.
See you in the gym,
Michael.
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