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(Anna Reynal/Dane's Body Shop)
While COVID-19 may have had an impact in the sheer number of gym memberships last year, one thing it didn't affect was the usual increase in active gym-goers in the first weeks of the New Year.
Across the country, the pandemic has led the fitness industry to face its own unique challenges of the year—and Austin's fitness industry is no exception.
Despite the drastic restrictions that most local Austin gyms have implemented, people continue to sign up for new memberships in the new year.
"More than ever people need things in their lifestyle that contribute to healthy mental wellness," Cody Butler, founder and owner of Heat Bootcamp, located in South Austin, said. "Exercise is what we're doing, but the benefits that we get from it are so much more than just how it changes our body, but how it provides mental wellness."
Cody Butler is the founder and owner of Heat Bootcamp. (Heat Bootcamp)
According to a 2018 study by the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, 12% of all new gym memberships occur in January. Every year, people begin the year in search of the physical benefits of exercise, however, as 2021 begins, people are in search of ways to improve their mental health through such turbulent times.
Jane Butler (unrelated to Cody Butler), an avid gym-goer, says her experience attending a gym during the pandemic brought her out of a "depression sinkhole" and kept her from feeling so alone.
"It gave me that mental clarity and refresh that I needed," she said. "I think everyone needs that during this time."
One of the primary reasons Jane feels comfortable attending a gym is because of the precautions the staff and other members adhere to.
At Heat Bootcamp, Cody has kept the fitness center at 35% despite other larger fitness centers jumping to the state-suggested 50% in early 2020 and 75% later in the year. In 2021, gyms are now mandated to keep capacity at 50%due to increased COVID-19 hospitalizations.
"Revenue is obviously very important to provide a business, but safety has been our main focus over packing people into classes and increasing revenue," he said.
As gyms reopened their doors last May, Heat Bootcamp implemented the same strict precautions they have in place today. According to Cody, these precautions, such as the 35% capacity, mask enforcement, 8-10 feet of social distancing, and individual workout pods, will stay in place in 2021. However, there are some less tangible things that will be different in the upcoming year.
"Our coaches have really had to dig deep into their creativity bags and create workouts that are just as fun and challenging as they were before when we didn't have to be in individual stations," Cody said. "So I feel like moving into 2021 we have a greater sense of community here."
Although many may be deterred by so many added precautions, Dane Krager, owner and founder of Dane's Body Shop said getting members on board was fairly simple.
"Whenever you set rules and you stick to them and your team is all on the same page and we're all following the same rule, it all trickles down," he said. "And whenever our members come in and they see us being so diligent with wiping equipment down, wearing our masks, how far away we're staying from people, they're just absorbed in that as well, and it just became more of a natural thing."
Dane's Body Shop turf area. (Dane's Body Shop)
As we begin an already turbulent 2021, many are looking forward in hopes of a brighter future.
Krager spoke about utilizing the gym's new location off Capitol Court in the new year as something he and his staff are looking forward to. He also wants to continue connecting with the community through various gym events.
In order to continue providing these events, however, discussions around the staff and members' safety are ongoing.
"It comes down to the respect that people have for each other and the love that people have for each other as a community," Krager said. "It's whenever you get loose on those rules, that things can tend to fall apart."
While 2020 brought challenges, some people have found solace in their fitness communities.
Krager said, "I truly couldn't have done any of this without my staff and community. . . I'm looking forward to making this business stronger in 2021."
Popular
Radhia Gleis bore the tales of Buddhafield life in her book, "The Followers," and the documentary, "Holy Hell." (Holy Hell)
Although it was Buddhafield, a movement that has been called a cult by a host of ex-followers, that brought Gleis to the Hill Country, the group's Austin presence has diminished to almost nothing. After over two decades in the group, Gleis revealed it all in her first-place PenCraft award-winning book, "The Followers, 'Holy Hell' and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders" in which she talks about the dangers of groupthink and the impact that spending years in the Buddhafield cult had on her.
Gleis now works as a clinical nutritionist and is working on healing through her art. (radiagleis.com)
From a "well-to-do" family in California, Gleis was learning how to make cocktails for wealthy dinner guests shortly after she learned how to walk. She grew up emotionally distant from her parents and only brother; Gleis vividly remembered being called "dopey" by her father, consistently forgotten by her mother and held at knifepoint by her brother.
Needless to say, Gleis grew up without secure connections. On top of that, she grew up in the 1960s and '70s during mass cultural upheaval, the free love movement and obsession with Eastern religions.
"There were these desires to expand your thinking, expand your consciousness as opposed to the 'Leave it to Beaver' kind of paradigm," Gleis told Austonia. "There was a rebellion, a schism in the culture."
She had become interested in the idea of nirvana when she was in high school, so when a friend told her about spirituality sessions with a beautiful woman named Malila who claimed to have experienced God directly, her interest was piqued.
Her experiences with Malila threw her into the spiritual realm. Gleis met Jaime Gomez, the would-be leader of the Buddhafield cult who went by many names, in the early 1980s through a friend of Malila's in California. Gomez, a native of Venezuela, was known to often wear only eyeliner and a speedo in his prime and when Gleis met him, he was clad only in a golden tan, skin-tight jeans and a small vest.
The Shakti scam
Gomez originally began guiding members through an independent spiritual journey but flags were raised when he began to see himself as a godlike figure. (WRA Productions LLC)
Her initiation was subtle—it started as just a group of friends who followed Gomez, a young yogi with a small but growing following, to learn techniques of "The Knowing" that he possessed. Members were initiated via "shakti," a godly transfer of power that opened your third eye. Members would "pranam," or deeply bow to show respect, to God during the first four years of Gleis' time with Gomez.
The initiation started as a relationship between the individual and their "divine birthright" through God.
"Generations were trying to get Shakti from him, they were trying to get his energy," Gleis said. "He was like, 'Whatever you experience in your initiation is between you and God, it has nothing to do with me.'"
Things started to change at the next initiation when Gomez had new members pranam to him and connect to his love, not the divine love they had come seeking.
"He would say, 'Well, Radhia, some people, not you, need a living person they can touch and see and talk to, I am just being that for them,'" Gleis said. "So he considered himself now a living deity like Jesus or Krishna or Buddha."
Although she did not support the pranam to Gomez, the shift was harrowing. While Gomez was a "skilled sociopath," Gleis said, he was also her friend and she was his close adviser; he knew all of her' hopes, dreams, fears and how to keep her around.
"If you go to Disneyland, it's a fantasy, but you're willing to forgo your disbelief for the fun, for the ride," Gleis said. "But what if you don't know it's fake? What if all your friends and all your family are in on it? And the one person that you revere the most is creating the illusion?"
It would take years for Gleis to learn Gomez was secretly taking advantage of members in the group.
The domino effect
The Buddhafield waltzed into Austin from West Hollywood in the late '90s after accusations against Gomez came out, Gleis would later learn. She found out that later that multiple members alleged that Gomez sexually abused them, and it was a pattern of his to jump ship and change his name once people started speaking out.
There were a few reasons the group chose Austin: their new home had to be in a warm climate, near a body of water, full of rich culture and jobs.
Having been in the cult for over a decade, the Austin move had triggered a need to build a life outside Buddhafield for Gleis. The connections she made outside the "family" she had made for herself led her to visit the home of an injured member of Buddhafield, where she says she was greeted by two men who told her tales of Gomez's transgressions.
Tales of Gomez attempting to hypnotize male members of the group into removing their clothes, which Gomez would deny, and his penchant for using the AIDS crisis to scare members into silence came to light. It was a feat in and of itself to tell a single soul about the things the victims had experienced, let alone make formal charges.
Among the victims was Will Allen, who released the documentary "Holy Hell," made from hours of his own original footage, in 2016 to detail his experiences.
The women in the group were untouched to Gleis' knowledge and some of the victims took years to gain the courage to speak out.
"Now it was like dominoes, it was like this was our #MeToo movement. When this guy came out, now all of a sudden, I'm getting phone calls because the rumors spread," Gleis said. "It was very heartbreaking—I started hearing all these stories of what (Gomez) had done and all the secrets that all of these men had been holding, these traumas that they had been holding in for years."
That was her line in the sand—so, at 55 years old, Gleis left Buddhafield, "alone and forsaken." And she has learned a good deal about herself since then—she works as a clinical nutritionist but left all of her friends behind, with no one to fall on but herself.
It has been 15 years since her departure—15 years to ponder how she was manipulated into that place. Gleis often compares those two decades of her life to Trumpism, where Gomez had tapped into her preconceived notions and led her to believe what she wanted to believe.
As someone who grew up not knowing love, it made sense to jump headfirst into the sense of community and protection that Buddhafield offered.
"We have to be careful when we use words like 'brainwashed.' We went willingly. Jaime didn't torture us. He didn't brainwash us," Gleis said. "All he did as a narcissist—he figured out what we were all thinking about and he became that for us. When you pranam to him, which we did, then he becomes bolder. That's what a sociopath does."
Gleis details her story of what led her in and out of Buddhafield in her book, "The Followers." Gomez and certain members who are still connected to Buddhafield have moved on to Hawai'i, but Gleis remains in Austin and is currently working on a children's novella.
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