"Your Place or Mine?" - Book Excerpt

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The following excerpt is from my upcoming fourth book, I Can See Your Underwear: My Journey through the Fitness World. It describes my first in-home private training client in 2010. I was a new Essentrics® instructor, and completely naive about how to navigate the fitness world. 
(copyright Amanda Sterczyk 2019, all rights reserved)

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My very first private session was probably my scariest encounter. And it actually kept me away for privates for a few years after that. A woman had contacted me about an Essentrics standing and floor workout in her home. We’re talking early in my newfound fitness career, circa 2010. You know, pre-iPhone (for me), pre-social media checkins (for me), pre-Find My Phone apps (yup, you guessed it, for me). When you went somewhere, no one knew where you were. Unless you told them beforehand. That was my first mistake.

I arrived about two minutes before our scheduled time. My first doorbell ring went unanswered, while my second one had me greeted by a face peering past a chain lock. After introducing myself, my new client unlocked the door and revealed her workout clothing. It included a very see-through top, minus a bra for support. At least that’s what I think, as I looked away fairly quickly.

When I did look away, my gaze fell over her interior. It appeared as if every square inch of floor space was filled. The technical term is hoarding disorder. My client backed up so I could enter the small, crowded foyer. As I was removing my shoes, she closed the door. I was still assessing the space in front of me, trying to determine if how one, let alone both of us, would have enough space to exercise. That was my second mistake, and we’ll circle back to it in a moment.
My client invited me into a beyond-capacity living room. I had already determined that the floor portion of the workout was no longer feasible, so I was quickly assessing in my head how to modify the workout to be standing-only. You’ll recall that I was a very new fitness instructor, with limited instruction time under my belt, so thinking on the fly was a skill I had not yet acquired.

I stumbled over my words as I explained to her that we’d be doing something a bit different. Then I asked her if we could move the coffee table so we could face each other in the room. She balked at the idea, so I quickly offered to stand in the hall while she stood between the sofa and the table.

Let me explain a bit about Essentrics here before I continue: the workout is a non-impact, bodyweight routine that uses large, flowing movements in order to work the joints through their full range of motion. In addition to having space on your exercise mat to move, you need space in the air around so you don’t bang your hand or arm on anything. As you can well imagine, the current configuration was making it difficult to complete circulate movements in a flowing manner. I banged a few things as we were “moving” through the workout, something that was causing distress in my new client.

I realized that this was probably going to be my one and only visit to this client’s home, a fact that wasn’t disappointing in the least. At the end of the thirty minutes, I turned to leave. And the door wouldn’t open. It turns out the client had locked the door from the inside, and thrown away the key (so to speak). But seriously, the door was locked, and the deadbolt was missing the required key.

I looked around the cramped and messy vestibule to locate the key — I was suddenly feeling very uncomfortable and wanted some fresh air — but to no avail. Did I mention that, even though it was the height of summer, every door and window was shut tight, every curtain and blind was drawn. And, it would appear, every door was locked. A wave of panic rolled through my body.

Shit, shit, shit. What had I gotten myself into? I was seriously questioning my new career, not at all comfortable in this current situation. Was she going to let me leave? Why was she taking so long to get to the door? Right, ALL the stuff blocking her path. I turned around just as she arrived by my side. She leaned over a small table with multiple, identical drawers. She opened one and extracted the key for the deadbolt. How had I never noticed her remove the key and place it in the drawer upon arrival?? Short answer: I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things in her house. Long answer (sort of): I was so trusting, that it never occurred to me to imagine a negative outcome; and yet, no one knew I was there.
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When the client finally unlocked and opened the door, I exited and headed for my car as quickly as possible. I drove home with all the windows open, taking lots of deep breaths along the way. And it wasn’t just for the fresh air. I had to calm my rattled nerves. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that this client never contacted me for a follow-up session. That was fine by me, because I would have refused. The entire incident scared  the bejesus out of me. So much so, that it took several years until I was willing to entertain the thought of additional in-home private sessions. I would stick to group classes in more public spaces. Pretty ironic, don’t you think?