Charles has been a Ritual client since December 2013. He was kind enough to write his first post in December 2014, which you can read here, and in this post he expands on his thoughts about what keeps him coming back. Enjoy!

Ritual – My Third Place

The term “third place” refers to the social space in a community separate from the two usual social environments of the home and the workplace. It could be a favorite café, a pub, a park, the zoo, etc. – different folks, different strokes.

Hi, my name is Charles and Ritual is my third place.

As a gym, much has been said of Ritual. It didn’t become an award winning gym by being mediocre. As far as gyms go, Ritual has all the right boxes checked. Efficient and effective programming – go as hard as you want in a safe environment, experienced coaches, personal convenience (shirt/shorts/towels/hair gel/moisturizer etc. are all provided), awesome locker room/showers, nutritious and delicious post-workout smoothies and the most excellent customer service.

BUT…

Ritual is more than just a gym.

I joined Ritual back in December 2013 and while the purpose for joining was purely self-serving – to get in, lose weight and get out – after nearly 3 years, I must say that Ritual has become a big part of my life. While the purpose of hopping into Ritual each day is to exercise, what has kept me around through the years is the community.

From the familiar faces at the front of house who welcome you by name when you walk in, to Uncle Rahim (at the Raffles branch) who always has a smile for you, to the shake whisperers who remember your go-to shakes (used to be a PB&J aficionado, but Doc Brown for the win!) and of course, the coaches who take you out of your comfort zone each time, but bring you back before you fall off the edge.

Ritual has changed the way I look at fitness. I am not the most patient person when it comes to achieving a goal. If possible, I would want to achieve 8 hours of rest with 1 hour of sleep and that impatience carried over into my fitness (in my case, weight loss) goals. I wanted to be visibly fit fast, operative word being visibly. I jumped from gym to gym, personal trainer to personal trainer, fad diet to trendier diet and at one point took pills that claim to incinerate fat! Nothing really worked and the little that did work didn’t last.

But Ritual worked. Why? Maybe it’s the scalable, efficiently programmed workouts. That’s probably a large part. But to me, the differentiator to why Ritual works is the community around the programming. While the programming is excellent and gets you well set up on your fitness journey, it is the community that keeps you going. Who you travel with makes or breaks the journey. The best destination with the worst company would suck, but fortunately for me, my fitness journey over the past 3 years with my Ritual family has been an experience I would not trade for another.

I posted a before and after back in December 2014, and I wanted to add a third frame to that picture. So from left to right: September 2013, September 2014, June 2015.

While I am not yet where I want to be, I am definitely closer than I was yesterday, and am looking forward to tomorrow.

As Ritual expands and opens up in Holland Village, I couldn’t be happier for the Ritual family – keep doing what you do, as no one else does it better.

See you around.

Be Brave,
Charles