Me and The WTC...

Jim,

No, I did not feel you hijacked my page; it's just that I wanted to make a statement about the true meaning of aloha there.

I did get your instant message and choose not to respond immediately because I was quite angry at / with your comparison between giving a child cancer by letting them smoke and those who choose to volunteer at The Ironman World Championships despite their dis-ease with the WTC as not exhibiting the true spirit of aloha. I was deeply offended by it.

For when you live out on a rock in the middle of the ocean and your ohana is taking part in the race you are there to support your family, you know that they might not have a problem with the WTC so you want to be there for them, regardless if you have a problem with the WTC as you're doing it for them not the WTC. No amount of business model discussion or analysis will ever be able to put a price on that. It’s unfortunate for the world more don’t get it.

I know you talked to Jane about UltraMan Hawaii and I hope she mentioned the foundations of ohana, kokua and aloha which make up the spirit of UltraMan Hawaii. Family, to give help or aid, and love are how I see these words and they are not separate, they are intertwined. You can't put a price on that either. You just value it.

In 2006 my wife Clar Baldus and I were asked by Jane Bockus and Sheryl Cobb to crew for an individual in UltraMan Hawaii. We didn't know the guy but we knew Jane and Sheryl and said yes.

Crewing for UltraMan is no easy task and this person made it even more difficult. The rules state the entrant is responsible for a car, lodging, food and etc. during the 3 days of the race. This guy was not on with the program despite having an impressive race resume and contacts with others in the ultra-community.

* He didn't have a car. So we used our rental car. We drove him to the store prior to the race to get supplies; He criticized our car because it didn't have power windows.
* He handed me a big bag of gear for the race, all jumbled and asked me to set it up. Then he asked me for a pre-race massage for free. Which I did because that’s how I see it.
* He used a race food he had never used. He told me he wanted 1000 calories in a bottle. I did as told; it was like white glue in there. He threw, not tossed, threw the bottle at me and told me I had mixed it wrong.
* He threw a banana back at Clar, telling her it was too heavy to carry up the hill.

That was Day One. The tip of the iceberg, even here in Hawai'i. We could have walked away but we had made a commitment to the spirit of Ultraman Hawaii.

On Day Three he went out too hard and blew up. I don’t take aspirin when I race so I didn’t have any so I asked another competitor for some and they shared. The other competitor asked our guy how he was and he shrugged his shoulders and grunted.

He wanted to drop out and I said if that is what you want OK but you could walk it in and be an Official Finisher. So that’s what we did. I walked 7 hours on the Queen K Highway with a guy who was total jerk to Clar, me and the spirit of UltraMan Hawaii.

At the finish line he never said thanks and while he paid for the food and the like during the race it took several months for him to pay us for 3 days he used our car.

Would I crew again for someone I didn’t know? Maybe, maybe not, that’s part of the caution towards people now in my life I have mentioned to you. However if Jane asked me my gut says I would.

Around the islands you will see bumper stickers on cars that say Live Aloha. Now I'm not a big fan of bumper sticker philosophy in general but I'm using this to illustrate a point in that it says LIVE Aloha, not just "aloha", it is a union of ohana, kokua AND aloha. You live it every day here, not just when it is convenient. I do it back home on the mainland.

NOW as for getting a petition or a meeting with the WTC to air concerns that perhaps their business is not as ethical (and maybe that’s not the right word here) as it could be I’d like to tell you an experience I had in the fitness industry, of which the WTC and LAVA are part of.

In 2005 I, along with Clar, was kicked out of the first of three fitness clubs for publically expressing my opinion that the “fitness industry” was partially responsible for America’s obesity epidemic”. I am a very good personal trainer and group fitness instructor, not only based on the letters written about me by PT’s, supervisors but by the fact my classes were always full. In addition those with whom I have worked and have chosen to truly work with me have met their goals. (There’s a little more K. Anders Ericcson there for you, it ties in with the 10,000 hours rule we have discussed)

Again I digress.

The new club we joined immediately began asking me if I would teach there, primarily Group Cycling and Yoga. I declined at first. Then a bone was dropped in my lap, a challenge, as the Director of the Mind Body Program asked me to help them build solid Yoga program.

I picked up the bone and ran with it. Within 16 weeks I had full classes, a waiting list, people asking me if I was going to add more classes.

Then I mistakenly touched the owner’s money.

The Yoga studio was adjacent to the Group Exercise class where they began conducting a HipHop dance class at the same time my Yoga classs was being held. The lyrics and the beat bled through the walls and my students were unhappy. I listened to their complaints, not responding as I had been instructed and instead forwarded them through the proper channels as I had been instructed to do.

They fired me. For as my Iron Maiden had noted, “You touched their money”.

It was shortsighted on their part. See if they had cancelled the HipHop class or moved it to a different time they would have lost money. Instead they fired me, brought another teacher in who was willing to teach while hearing the “mindless love chant” (Nobel Prize winner Alvin Shockley said that about rock and roll, it seemed to fit) bleed through the walls.

In the same light I seriously doubt the WTC is going to want to sit down and talk about how they should change their business model, to align with perhaps the writings of Buddhist scholar David R. Loy in his book Money, Sex, War, Karma – Notes for a Buddhist Revolution.They don’t and certainly wouldn’t want their money touched.

Perhaps we have been discussing two different issues here and they have muddled things. Business is business and feelings are feelings – and so on. I see the WTC as unfeeling. Many of us do.

As you know I signed up for IM KY, a WTC event. I’m going down there only because I walked away from it in 2008 and I’m looking to close a door. It will be my last WTC event. A good friend of mine from Canada, a member of the UltraMan ohana did IM WI last year with a friend who had cancer and after the race he told me he felt numb, he wore the medal for a couple of minute and took it off because it felt stupid. He’s done with WTC events.

And so Jim, I end this thread, I could rage on but have come to find while the rage is relentless the RAGE reminds us to take the power back. For me to take the power back is to call my wife, ask her how her day is going, tell her I love her after asking how the dogs are (order is a priority) and enjoy the energy that is contained within The Big Island of Hawai’i.

Malama pono,

CJ