Field Report 2:
Hong Kong - May 17, 1998

From Susie Misini's apartment, Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

By Chris Kostman

 
Hello friends:

I'm keeping my trusty Mac PowerBook 520C set on LA time, just so I know what state of being my friends back home are in. I have to say the jetlag on this trip has been a bit much. I've actually never had a problem with jetlag, but I think this case has something to do with having traveled west instead of my usual east. In fact, the plane chased the sun all the way here from LAX; we departed and arrived in daylight, despite a 15 hour journey.

Last weekend in LA I celebrated my 900th spin class (and my last for a while with my staff at Bodies in Motion) and this weekend I'm celebrating my first classes in Asia. It's an honor to be here, bringing the new yet ancient wisdom and energy of indoor cycling to Hong Kong. I've taught four classes at The Hong Kong Country Club in two days. Today it was raining during my classes, so I featured The Alarm's "Rain in the Summertime" in one of them. Of course, my students here are also learning the greatness of New Order and Yanni, among other great gurus of indoor cycling music.

My observation so far is that the folks taking my classes (from England, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and all over Asia) are the "strong but silent" type. They work hard, make a jolly good effort, don't complain, don't roll their eyes, and do all of that without too much boisterousness or hooting and hollering (with some exceptions, of course). My afternoon class today was quite a novelty: I got a standing ovation, no kidding, from the class afterwards. Thank you, HK! (And I didn't even play any New Order in that class!)

I forget to mention in my first missive from here that our host for this trip, Susie Misini, an Australian fitness pro who lives here and is responsible for bringing indoor cycling to HK, has really been promoting my arrival. The club has posters up all over the place, plus there's an article in the club magazine, all of which feature a big photo that she took in LA at BiM last Summer when she did my August 3 instructor workshop. So many of my LA friends, including bro Keith Kostman, Christina Zietsman, Pearl Fu, Jeri Martinez, and Chris and Tracey Mallett all have their mugs and sweaty bodies on display here!!! Nothing like a taste of home everywhere I turn!

Tomorrow, "due to popular demand," I'll be teaching a bonus class at 8am, then it's off to actually see Kowloon and the other parts of "real" HK. I can't wait to go to one of those crazy camera stores with just way too many cameras. (Of course, as I told my host Susie, I'm here to make money—and spread the spirit of indoor cycling—not spend money.)

Tuesday and Thursday I lead all day Instructor Workshops, which leaves Wednesday and half of Friday for running around, besides tomorrow. Linzi and I are thinking about zipping over to Macau on the hydrofoil boat so that we can check it out prior to "the handover" to China next year and also so I can notch country number 34 in my passport.

We just sat on Susie's couch watching a beautiful sunset over Repulse Bay. After the sun went down, the 100 to 200 ships offshore in the South China Sea all lit up their lights. It practically looks like another city out there! This place is beautiful, I have to say. I'm starting to see why people live here.

One last thing: I've been learning a bit about Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art and science of energy flow and blending buildings and other so-called "development" with the landscape and environment. Susie's amazing 30 story apartment building faces the water and has a giant mountain right behind it, which is very good Feng Shui. And its Feng Shui is further enhanced by there being a carefully placed giant "hole" (for lack of a better word for it) in the middle of the building, which allows one of the nine dragons (who apparently resides in the mountain behind the building) to get through, along with the energy of the water runoff. I figure it can't hurt if there's ever a hurricane here, either.

I've known of Feng Shui on some levels for years, but never, until now, realized the connection relative to indoor cycling. In our classes, I often talk about the layout of the room, where people are sitting, and the other things that affect the way the energy swirls around the room. Hmmmh.

All for now. Thanks for reading!

Out There,
Chris Kostman
 

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