Alon Z / Art / Grind house

Looking from the street level into the gym area, Grindhouse may offer a misleading impression of a space where you might find something more than your own fitness goals. Maybe it's the notion of community that will make you feel that you are among friends, potentially even friends you never met. Two sets of gray stairs will lead you to the lower level of the space slowly unveiling its vastness, ahead of you you’ll see in the distance rows of bikes, treadmills and elliptical machines, to your left there’ll be a set of upper body equipment where some people will be doing triceps exercises and pull-ups. To your right behind a dark wall you’ll get a glimpse of a gymnastics like area with a row of hack squats machines. This is where you’ll find me today, the friend you never met.

Roughly about 16 feet ahead of me, a tall gentleman is doing one leg lunges with his feet on the wall. In the past I heard that these are called Albanian lunges, though the man performing them could be from any number of unknown origins. A closer look will reveal the fact that instead of traditional dumbbells the man chose to loop a large metal chain around his neck and use it to further enforce gravity on his muscles.

I gaze at the man but he doesn’t acknowledge me, our friendship never materializes. We keep coexisting in solitude in this proximity. A large drawing of the American flag situated on the wall in front of us, hinting that there might be other dreams for us to dream about today.