THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 7
WINGNUTS, WATERLOO, AND CLASS A TRAINERS
If you’re wondering what happened to the client that propositioned me in the park…I said NO. I was already seeing Sophie and if you become THAT trainer that sleeps with all of your clients (we all know a few of these), then you’re done. Doesn’t matter how good you’re, that’s what people remember for you for. I said no, and Maggie the client flew away for forever to Dubai.
At this point I’m still in Kennington, working at Bootcamp Pilates, Training people off a tree in the park and doing home visits. Business was booming so I was able to work in at least a little time off now I’d calmed down from working every hour and sleeping in my car.
Then I found the TV series The West Wing. This series, along with the original hits like The Wire and The Sopranos, is still to this day the best piece of series writing I’ve encountered. Once you watch and GET The West Wing you become an addict, worldwide we are called Wingnuts. We, probably sadly in your eyes, watch the entire 7 seasons annually. This first time of watching severely impeded on my work and my social life. I would cancel social engagements and sometimes move clients just to get two episodes in. It was bad.
One of these such clients was Neena. She lived in a beautiful apartment in Waterloo and became a good friend after leaving the UK. Whilst she was here though, she made me homicidal. She’s the type of client to count the missed minutes for me travelling up 11 floors in an elevator and walking to her door, and then try and add it on. It’s a service industry yes, but there’s an understanding between PTs and clients that sometimes one of you will be late. Not Neena, no no no. Every second accounted for. This wears thin. I’m actually glad we became friends and trained less because besides wanting to throw her out of the window, she also had the most powerful right hook I’ve experienced on the pads from a female client. My joints were suffering.
I’d hang my TRX off her apartment door to train her. In fact, the weird places I was now squeezing myself into were multiplying rapidly. Doorways, corridors, lampposts, trees, cages. That’s the one thing with TRX. If you’re a mobile PT you’re unstoppable. Gym based PTs are limited to the gym. They need that bevvy of equipment to be able to fill their sessions. Even now as they’re reading this their back will be up saying yeah weights are better mate. Only for some people guys. Open your mind and your skill levels.
One such location was the little bandstand/pagoda thing in Hyde Park. I would take my two lovely clients, Anya and Helen there each Saturday. I’d whip up two TRX off the same water pipe and we’d fill the hour with inane chat and total body workouts. Lovely stuff. One Saturday we were setting up all I can hear over my shoulder is;
“I got out a prison…fucking blitzed it mate….fuck it”
I turn to see this huge brute of a man. three times my size, shaven-headed and unable to speak in complete sentences without linking the words with the word FUCK. This guy is a PT!
He and his client and set up in the bandstand opposite us. This thing is about 8 metres wide. He may as well have stood on us.
Anyway, I crack on with my session and this moron and his client start setting up with head guards and boxing gloves. What the hell!? They start sparring. I say sparring, what I mean trying to annihilate each other in the shortest time possible. My poor clients, and to be honest me too, are slightly unnerved and scared by this. It’s violent as hell. Next thing, WHACK. The client catches the PT right in the ribcage, winding him. Everyone in that bandstand knew instantly that a mistake had been made.
The PT flew into a rage and fired a barrage of very accurate punches at the client’s body and head leaving him with a broken nose and surely a broken rib. The client was bleeding from his nose and spitting blood from his lips. They packed up patting each other on the back whilst my clients basically stood there freeze-framed for 5mins in disbelief…
Fast forward 2 weeks and I’m in the Electric bar and diner, Notting Hill queuing for a drink at the bar. The guy next to me turns and looks at me at the same time as I do him.
“The boxing client!” I say.
“The TRX guy” he acknowledges.
“Mate, your PT is mental, he kicked your ass!”
“Let me tell you, something mate. I absolutely fucking love it. I work in car sales. I’m stressed as fuck and I ask him to kick the shit of out of me. I love it and I love him.” He was nuts.
I told him he looked hungover before his session. How does he do it?
“It’s ok he gives me a line every time we train.” I’ll let that hang in the air whilst you absorb that.
A line. Cocaine. Coke. Snow. Naughty Salt. Nose Candy. Before a session. Some of my clients to this day turn up knackered sometimes because that’s life. I don’t give then bloody stimulants and then try and explode their heart in the session. The lunacy of this is staggering. A good story. But good lord.
There was a photoshoot coming and I had to start prepping…