Hi, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Curtis. I’m honored to be voted as this month’s members spotlight! Although I’m just a few years removed from graduating college, I have been a member here at 212 for more than a third of my life! Seriously. This is my 10th year coming here. I started back when I was in high school, when 212 wasn’t 212, but rather Punch Kettlebell Gym. Back before I could even drive, before Colin and I had our respective knee surgeries, and back when, well actually Kerry and Sean were still bald. Let me tell you the story of how I started with 212.
Rewind to my junior year of high school, 2nd year starting for the La Salle men’s tennis team. I remember, our senior captain at the time didn’t take kindly to the fact that all these other contact sports like football, basketball, soccer etc were allotted spots to work out in the high school weight room either before or after practice, but we weren't. Apparently, the tennis team wasn't given these special privileges. Instead, he wanted us to start coming in at 6 am to run sprints, but there was no way in hell that was happening either. So he ended up partnering with our assistant coach at the time to figure out some sort of workout routine for us to build strength, stamina, and agility on the tennis court. It so happened that the assistant coach was a member of Punch Kettlebell Gym at the time. She basically told us, we had to either come in 3 days a week at 6 am to run sprints, or we can go to this gym MWF for an hour and work out with the coaches. I can’t lie, I was skeptical at first. I had never gone to a gym before, and it kind of seemed too good to be true. How did this one random high school assistant tennis coach from Rhode Island manage to get these scrawny, (or in my case, chubby) immature high school boys to work out with a former New England Patriots player 3 days a week? I remember my first class there, it was a makeshift workshop with Kerry that every new member goes through, I physically could not do the Turkish getups and left the first day thinking “wow I don't know if this is for me.” I couldn’t quit though because if I did, I would’ve had to do those wretched early morning sprints. The thing was, and I kind of guessed this from the start, once the junior year season ended, that assistant coach who set us up, and that senior captain who pushed us to work out, both left. I became the captain senior year but I didn’t mandate going to the gym. AKA, no one from the tennis team went anymore, except for me. After a full year of working out there, I was addicted, I couldn’t not go. But this one class just for LSA’s tennis team that Kerry gave us, morphed into the high school program that it is today. Senior year I would work out with other high schoolers around the state and even did that program until about freshman-sophomore year of college. By that time, I felt a little too old to continue with that program so I stayed just with open gym until graduating college as a new pharmacist. However, once I graduated college, I actually moved up to the Boston area where I thought I’d be living for at least 5-10 years. I thought that was the end for me and 212.
Then COVID hit.
Everything hit the fan, and after 1.5 years I ended up moving back to Providence and was like, well I should probably start going to the gym again. 212 welcomed me back with open arms. And that’s kind of where I am today. I’ve lived in a couple different apartment buildings post-Boston, one of which even had a gym, and the others with gyms much closer than 212. My friends would always ask, why are you driving ~20 minutes to the gym, you can literally walk to one.
212 is not a regular box gym. I learned that quickly, and it’s the reason I couldn’t stay away, after tennis season ended, or when I moved up to Boston and back. The gym feels more like a family than a gym. After 10 years, the staff is the same. You can’t say that about most businesses. I feel like I have a good relationship with every one of the trainers and staff. I’ve worked out with Kerry, Sean, Colin, Alicia, Kim, Heather and each one pushes me differently. I always hear from them “How did you get so old? How did I get so old? It’s been nice seeing you grow into the person you are today.” But truthfully, everyone says that, what’s really nice, is seeing how far 212 has come, and grown, including all the trainers and staff that go with it. Here’s to at least 10 more years of doing MORE BETTER.
GO!!!