Spin Away to a Fitter Life
Do you love hopping on the bike to get a good exercise? But face limitations because of the seasons? Don’t worry we have a type of exercise for you which you will love and seasons won’t affect that. Yes! We are talking about spinning. Here is a small interview with Sujit lavlekar who is a spinning certified instructor and a partner at The Room, Pune.
Read on to his interview to know more about his journey from an instructor to a successful entrepreneur.
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1. Did you believe that spinning was to become your career and get you success?
- I had no idea that spinning was going to be my career until I started teaching it. And from the moment I stepped into this field, I loved what I was doing and that became a definite goal.
2. What was your childhood ambition? Was fitness even an option?
Right from childhood I was participating in different kinds of sports and winning medals. As a childhood dream, getting into the army was my goal! But somehow things did not go that way. But if you realize, fitness and sports is still a big part of army, so somewhere I was always driven by these two factors. As life built up, it took me to the right direction towards what I love and what I can give my best at!
3. How and when did you choose this to be your career? How did family and friends respond?
If you look back 8–9 years ago, I wouldn’t really say that fitness or rather being an instructor was seen as a very great ‘job’ or ‘ambition’. For the society, the best life that you could have had was by being a doctor, engineer or by getting any other higher degree. Also for a fact, fitness wasn’t such a big industry as it is today. But none of these were my reasons to choose fitness as my career. So when I happened to join the industry, I absolutely loved every aspect of it, right from training others to myself. All the people, whom I have trained, were enjoying it to the fullest. This gave me the push each time to go deeper — in terms of knowledge, training and service. I believe, to be successful in this industry largely depends on the satisfaction of the people you train. I had a lot of positivity from people throughout my journey and that is how this became my career.
4. What were the challenges you faced?
Basically the challenge I faced was to transform myself from being an instructor to an entrepreneur, finances were a big challenge. Good will from a lot of people stayed with me and I got my chances!
5. What inspires you and where do you see yourself few years down the line?
Spinning has a lot give, in terms of training as well as education. I love to learn more and more, be it from the program itself or from my partner Peter Pastijn, other fellow Master Instructors Or other instructors. Each ride is different, like a journey. By learning from others, you learn to see their way of life, their stories. Plus, like I said before, my members, my people have been the most inspiring aspect of my journey as well. We go hand in hand. Whatever I learn and teach, they reciprocate with a lot of appreciation. That’s what keeps me going.
6. How do you see fitness change in your city and India?
The fitness scene has definitely changed a lot over a period of time. The percentage of women in gyms or other fitness activities has gone tremendously high. In my opinion, this is a very good change in the society because women are the backbone of their families. They can set the discipline in their families with regards to daily habits, exercise and diet. These are the key factors for setting the correct or a healthy lifestyle.
7. Please can you mention a few of your fitness/spinning achievements?
My journey started as an instructor who used to teach ‘indoor cycling’. Continuous exploration led me to know about the official indoor cycling program called Spinning. From then on in about 2 year’s time with a lot of exams and education, I was selected to be at the Master Instructor Training Camp. I successfully completed it to become India’s first Spinning Master Instructor. I travelled around to different events around the world and met a lot of Master Instructors. I was then invited to present at Proud2b Spinning in Belgium, Abu Dhabi and hopefully many more to come! These collaborations led me to meet my Partner Peter Pastijn, Master Instructor of Belgium. Now we have started his international chain called THE ROOM Fitness and Lifestyle Clubs in Pune.
8. Any message you would like to convey to your City/Nation?-
Health and prosperity go hand in hand. Fitness is the only source to keep your mind and body healthy. Train regularly and effectively; give just one hour in the day for yourself and your body. The body supports us all while long and we need to equally take care of it for it to function well! People come with short term goals to lose weight etc. But that is not the right attitude. Respect your body; respect what you have been given. Fitness needs to be integrated as a daily ritual. Make fitness and diet a way of life. That which defines a healthy lifestyle!
3 Cheers for Sujit!
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To know more about BYG, visit our website: http://byg.co.in/
