Grandma and Bruce Lee

by Ozzie Boves
(Woodhaven, NY, U.S.)

One time I was asked to write a memoir in class regarding food. The memoir ended up being a story about how my grandmother nourished my life with nutritious and healthy meals. The second part was an explanation of how my life was changed and disciplined by learning about Bruce Lee, thus getting involve in Martial Arts and his unconventional style of Jet Kune Do.

My grandmother just like Bruce Lee, knew the art of simplicity. She never learned about Bruce Lee and certainly never practice martial arts. She inspired the Art of Simplicity by feeding us simple, organic and natural edibles much of which she cultivated herself.

My life was defined by Grandma and inspired by an athlete.

I am not a personal trainer. I am a bodybuilder and martial artist indeed. Not long ago, I've made a decision to become a personal trainer. I am currently in the process of researching school and learning about this practice. It surprised the fact that we can be certified without acquiring extensive knowledge. I was relieved when I located at least two schools offering substantial training programs with hand ons training in a real classroom, with realistic amount of supervised training hour.

You are probably wondering: What does all this information have to do with the BEST about being a personal trainer? Indeed, there is a direct correlation between my short story and the main original question.

While training at the Gym, I have seem many wrongdoings. I've seen some trainers who do not appear to be well informed doing many exercises and assisting their clients in order to truly help them become the person they want to be. This observation have made me very upset several times. I have personally hired trainers who are not informed about nutrition (the core of fitness) and do not posses the ability to learn and research information. It is not fair to "the people," who guided by the truth factor, trusted their income and moreover their health to someone who is suppose to be a professional in this field. Nevertheless, I have personally witness and experienced that many times this assumption is questionable and uncertain.

Being able to know you can make a difference in others people's life and not taking an approach it is as unethical as misleading them thru deception. I have trained some of my close friends because they asked me to help them to learn how to train. The only sign of trust for them was my personal achievement. I knew I was able to train myself. I have no idea how to communicate that to other people. I self-taught myself many of the basics of assisting others in fitness. One of my good friends was able to bring blood pressure under control after loosing 15 pounds while we were working together, and we had a lot of fun. We implemented a proper workout for his age, he was 52 at the time. He was very successful.

Personally, I enjoyed to see people smile, I know they smile when they feel better and smile a little more when they look better. I think that is the best part of personal training. The smile of satisfaction. I feel I can help other people be better, feel better about themselves while improving myself. This is the reason why I've determined to become a certified trainer.

After all, if Grandma and Bruce Lee were able to inspired me; why should I not assist others? specially if I know I can.