Alien Pedagogy

It all started when Hong Kong got too hot for running outdoors. Unwilling to give up the fitness I’ve managed to achieve since September, I decided to invest in a gym membership and ended up getting a personal trainer as well.

The personal trainer has an interesting skill set, one that I think teachers will appreciate. To be a trainer, you must have:

• Knowledge of how the body works.
• A friendly, supportive, but also challenging personality.
• Observation skills in case your client is tired but unwilling to say so.
• Recorded assessment of muscle performance — every session.
• The ability to demonstrate the technique they want you to learn.

One thing that is fundamentally different about the trainer / client and teacher / student dynamic is that clients come to the personal trainer with money and pay for feedback.

It’s always a enlightening to step outside the authority position in instruction. For example, when someone smiles at you, it’s usually a good thing. However, I’ve come to realize that when a personal trainer smiles at you, it means that you’re about to experience pain. I wonder if there are any ironic gestures that we display to students.

I have finished another 10 kilometer race. My time decreased from 55 to 50 minutes.

I ran really hard during the first 5 kilometers, which made the second five kilometers truly draining.

Sadly, this run was far less surreal than my first 10 K run. My sister says I’m “chasing the dragon.”

It’s been a while since I mentioned running, but I finished the Standard Chartered Marathon this morning.

My buddy and I never did get up to ten kilometers while training and I was dreading the run, worrying that I’d not finish or that I’d have to walk because my knee gave out. But we both ran well.

The race began very early so I had to wake up at 3:00 a.m. However, it was inspiring to run through Hong Kong at night with a thousand others around me.

I am now one of those guys who wears a knee brace.

Fitness is hitting a brick wall this week in the form of my right knee. It’s not grinding, but it’s also sort of grinding after I run.

Sadly, endurance weight lifting is far less fun than trying to lift heavy things. It’s also tough.