present tense fitness

Susan and I (Jason) were living in the Washington, D.C. area back in 2013, and I was in the midst of teaching at a public middle school. It was, without question, the worst year of my professional life. I took a job serving students in a neighborhood cut off by highways, by American racism and neglect, and by inequalities only a morally bankrupt system would allow. 

I took that job over the summer, and I knew by the beginning of October that I wanted to leave. Not because of the students—but because of the way the district and school leadership thought of and treated the students. Expulsions and suspensions without due process (with attendance numbers doctored to hide this fact). Students with special needs in overcrowded classrooms so that the highest achieving children could perform well on standardized tests, raising the school’s profile. A general disregard for and even embarrassment of our most vulnerable young people. Despite knowing I wanted to leave, I stayed the entire year because that’s the commitment I made—and I took notes of the illegalities along the way.

Within the midst of that, Susan and I went to see a band that has meant a lot to our lifelong partnership: Pearl Jam. They were playing on a Sunday night in Baltimore, which meant that I would have an especially rough Monday morning to look forward to, but there was no way I would have missed the opportunity to see them perform and experience the joy of a live show.

By 2013, the year of this concert, I had been training off and on for almost ten years, but I had always avoided making it a career. I knew, however, that this school year and the vast discrepancy in my values and those of the school district would be the end of my 9-5 life. I wanted to start something in fitness, to reclaim it for myself and take it seriously, but I didn’t know what to call it. 

Then we went to this show. Sunday, October 27th in Baltimore, Maryland. Sixteen songs in, the band played the song “Present Tense.” (Here is some grainy footage taken by a fan that night. If you’re interested, here’s a well-produced live version the band performed for David Letterman.)

“Do you see the way that tree bends?

Does it inspire?

Leaning out to catch the sun's rays

A lesson to be applied

Are you getting something out of this all-encompassing trip?

You can spend your time alone, re-digesting past regrets, oh

Or you can come to terms and realize

You're the only one who can't forgive yourself, oh

Makes much more sense, to live in the present tense”

Even ten years in, I didn’t consider myself to be a good technical trainer. That would come when we officially launched the first iteration of Present Tense Fitness in 2014. But up until that point, my superpower as a coach was emotional intelligence, getting people to notice their own progress, and helping people understand that they needed to be, well, present with their bodies in order to develop a better relationship with intentional movement and recovery. 

The opening chords of the song struck me right away, and I turned to Susan during the show and said, “I think we should call it Present Tense Fitness.” A few months later I would write the first blog post under the Present Tense Fitness name, and then a few years after that we opened a brick and mortar in our native Dayton, Ohio. 

Now we have that flagship studio in Dayton and are also training people in New York City. But the origin story begins with teaching and a live show.

Thank you very much for being here.

Jason