The Group

You met the trainer in my last piece, in a fashion. Now I would like to introduce the GROUP.
When people exercise together, they do it for several reasons.
They may know each other and add support to the endeavor. They may be romantically involved and see this as just another form of “togetherness”. They may have been thrown together and over time developed an easy relationship built on the knowledge of each other’s abilities and may even serve as an external monitor so that when you feel like skipping, your first thought, “What would the Group Think”.
This was the group that I suddenly joined. They appeared to have bonded over time. They were comfortable with each other and the interchange was relaxed and easy, that is until I walked in.
The room became quiet and I was scanned. I was by far the oldest person in the room
Initially intimidation was strong but finally curiosity won out and I “joined” the group. The Ambassador was there to help me struggle through those first few sessions. I didn’t realize the multiple tasks I would be asked to accomplish, the heavy weight of being the timer, the feeling of complete and utter hopelessness on many occasions and the sheer exhaustion I would encounter early on. But the group never let me down, “ you had better pick it up out there, you are the timer and we don’t like standing on station so long”, “C’mon can’t you run faster”, “You (implied-the old guy) just do two laps”, “ if you lay that punch off again, I am going to hit you upside the head”, “why do you jump rope backward” and finally “oh, you’ll get it” (Ha, Ha, Ha).
And then came the breakthrough. A song was playing in the background at a level slightly less loud than a F-16 in the room and I was trying to pick up the lyrics. My hearing isn’t all that good but the song seemed loud enough to interpret and the guy sounded like he was screaming, “ and my Monkey had come down wid da sickness”.
So I said to the no one in particular, “why is this guy singing about his sick monkey”?
I can still hear the guffaws and the laughter and someone else repeating the line.
I was later informed he wasn’t talking about his monkey and the sickness but it was a lyric that even today I can’t decipher.
Maybe I am not supposed to but it got me over “my sickness”.