Reflection on fieldnotes

There are many things I've noticed while observing "World Gym" that I've never actually thought about. The biggest thing I've noticed while observing the "World Gym" is that among the big/athletic people in the gym, there are competitions between all of us. When I say "All of us", I am  including myself, the reason there is competition between us is because we want to be better than the person working out near us. Since this is the case we even make it a competition among ourselves to see who can lift the most weight with the best form.

I've been doing this for years but just recently realized exactly what it was that I am doing. For example, a person would be bench pressing decently heavy weights and my next workout is to bench press too, so I do my work out in the bench right next to him. I feel as if everyone in the free weight section is so similar and intact with each other that we can make a competition on lifting the most weights with just a simple look toward any person. Since I personally have a lot of experience with this, I can honestly say that if you lose not only do you gain a lot of respect for that person but you also gain a lot of motivation to push harder and better yourself.  In the beginning when I would lose against someone else I would hate the feeling and get mad.  Now I’ve learned that it cannot be like that. I have to be able to accept it and try to better myself.

When I observed for the first time that I have competing like this for years and did not even know it, I laughed at myself.  I feel that it just became second nature for us to just look at one another and compete. While you are in the moment you block everything else and just focus on not losing, which for me is fun.  Other people seem to like the feeling too because when they are working out they seem to always be looking around for someone to out lift.

Lately no one comes next to me to challenge me which I find weird because I would always have at least two people daily. I guess it is because I have nearly beat everyone who goes around the time that I do.  Now when I work out and lift heavy weights all I get is stares from everyone and people coming up to me to give me credit and compliments. I love the feeling of having so much respect but I still do miss being able to compete and trying to out lift the person next to me. Do they not challenge me anymore because they are scared of losing? Can it be because they do not challenge people anymore? Whatever the case may be I will keep observing and ask questions to better understand why this is the case. I hope soon enough there will be someone to challenge me again so I could shit on them real quick. If by chance I ever lose again, I will have my motivation to better myself and work out harder, which I have been lacking and really been needing.

-Junior V