Same Movement. Different Purpose.
Why the same behavior can mean completely different things.
I ran the same program with two men at Equinox.
Same leg press. Same bench press. Same basic squats.
Same gym. Same coach. Same blue shirt. Same twenty-something former gymnast making it up in real time.
But the work was not the same.
With one man, I became an engineer.
With the other, I became the steady guide.
Same movement. Different purpose.
The Blue Shirt
It was 2007. My dad sent me an article saying personal trainers were making six figures a year. That was the first time I thought, oh. This could be something I could do.
I found an opening at Equinox in downtown San Francisco, inside the historic Pacific Coast Stock Exchange building on Pine Street. From the outside it looked like a bank. On the inside it was a modern, high-end gym with new rubber floors and that specific Equinox scent they used as part of their cleaning products. I remember walking in and thinking, this is kind of next level.
There was something about working in the financial district that made it feel like a real professional job. Not just coaching. A career.
I had no experience in traditional strength and conditioning. The only gym I had ever trained in outside of gymnastics was a bodybuilding gym one summer as a teenager when our facility was closed. That was it.
They handed me clients and I figured it out as I went.
Two of my first were assigned to me for their complimentary session when they signed up. Both of them signed up to train with me. A blue shirt with no credentials beyond a gymnastics background and whatever instinct I was running on.
Their names were Charles and Kai.
Charles
Charles walked in and shook my hand. His hand was cold. He could barely look me in the eye. He was overweight, very pale, and so quiet I was not sure he wanted to be there.
We walked up the stairs to run his body composition test and fill out his intake form. He started sweating before we reached the top.
He was jittery. Shaking. I remember watching him try to stand still, rolling front to back on his running shoes. He could not find stillness in his own feet.
This was the most uncomfortable person I had ever met. In his body. In his own skin. Everything about him said I do not belong here but I am going to try.
I made a decision right there. This guy needs me to be a gentle but firm guiding hand. That is what I was going to be for him.
I did not have to try to be anybody but me. Just a human hanging out with another human.
Kai
Kai walked in with a warm, yet extremely serious, smile and a firm handshake. Pitch black slicked back hair. Shiny white teeth. Bronze skin. Piercing eyes.
He was not tall. But he had presence. He knew the importance of showing up fully. Good posture. Solid stance. He had already decided how the room was going to go.
Controlled. Confident. Direct. He wanted to get better at golf and have his rotational strength dialed in. He told me exactly what he was after before I had a chance to ask.
The Engineer and the Steady Guide
We started on the same program. Leg press. Bench press. Eventually, free standing squats, though Equinox at the time did not believe in full range of motion squatting because it was considered too dangerous.
Then one Saturday morning, Kai and I were on the leg extension machine, just following the program. And he looked at me and said, how is this going to help my golf?
It caught me off guard.
I probably gave him an answer like, “Oh yeah, this is good for developing quad strength, good accessory work, building the muscles around the knees, could give you some stability.” But I remember going home that night and thinking, wait a second. These are not transferable skills. I need to up my game. If I cannot meet him where he needs me, I am not doing my job.
So I stopped following the program. I started doing kettlebell work with him. Unilateral loading. Free weights. I started incorporating my gymnastics core strength work. And that lit his brain up. He started to feel like we were actually collaborating. Not coach and client. Two people working on a problem together.
That was the biggest shift. The moment it went from program to partnership.
Kai grew up in Hawaii. Humbly. He wanted to work on Wall Street in New York. He applied everywhere until one day he got a call. If you can be here tomorrow at 8 AM, the internship is yours. Hawaii and New York are far apart. In less than 24 hours he made it there and got his position. He started getting coffee and sandwiches. Eventually, he learned the business and became a senior financial advisor.
That is who Kai was. When there was a target, he found a way to reach it. Golf was no different. Neither was training. He treated the training like a tool to get where he wanted to go. And I mean that in the best possible way. My job was to be precise, ready, and keep up.
With Charles, the work was never about precision.
I became the steady guide. The person he could be his awkward, sweating, uncomfortable self around and still push. He did not need engineering. He did not need kettlebell swings or rotational strength. He needed someone who was not going to flinch at how hard it was for him to just be in his own body.
And he worked. Quietly. Relentlessly. He was the most consistent client I had. He showed up every session. He did every rep. He never complained. He was one of the least physically prepared people I had ever worked with yet one of the most impressive.
I remember the moment I first noticed it. He was getting slimmer. And not just slimmer. His biceps were starting to pop out. I remember thinking, “Oh, wow. It is happening.”
One day, I encouraged him to get new workout clothes. And when he walked in wearing them, I found it so endearing. It was almost like a proud dad moment. Which is ridiculous because I was in my mid-twenties and he was older than me. I had no business being his dad. But as his guide, I felt really proud.
I think I loved that man.
What I Could Not See Then
I ran the same program. I coached the same exercises. I showed up as the same person. But the work was not the same.
For Kai, the work was precision. Understanding. Mastery. The body as a vehicle for performance.
For Charles, the work was trust. Safety. Permission. The body as a place he could finally belong.
I would say it like this now: coaching is part engineering and part art. Kai pulled the engineering out of me. Charles pulled the art. I did not choose which coach to be. They revealed it.
They Followed Me
Both of them followed me out of Equinox.
First to a place called Breakaway Performance, a private training studio where I could run my own business and stop being an employee. Then to San Francisco CrossFit. Which was in a parking lot.
To see these two men go from the financial district to a grungy parking lot just to keep working with me spoke volumes. About their loyalty. Their willingness. Their trust.
And it was at that parking lot where Kai started to change.
He opened up. He started to guide me. Almost like a mentor.
He had this phrase: “Everybody is right, everybody is wrong.” Context matters.
He would also tell me, “You have to elevate yourself.”
He did not say it as criticism. He said it as investment. As if he believed I could be more.
He took me on a trip down to the Titleist Performance Institute. Not because he needed me to learn something for him. Because he wanted me to grow so I could help him grow.
He was developing me so I could develop him.
That was one of the most powerful coaching relationships I have ever been in.
And I was supposed to be the coach.
Opposite Directions
Funny enough, they were both in finance.
On paper, they looked like two versions of the same demographic. In the room, they could not have been more different. And over time, they both changed. But they changed in opposite directions.
Kai, the guy who walked in like he owned the room, became softer. More open. More willing to show the big heart he had underneath all that polish. Precision gave him a place to stop performing and start feeling.
Charles, the guy who could not make eye contact, became someone who stood in his own body like he trusted it. He did not become loud. He did not become someone else. He became more of who he already was, just without the weight of believing he did not belong.
Eventually Charles moved to Atlanta. But when he came into town, he would come visit me and we would do a session together. That stayed with me.
Kai moved back to Hawaii to take care of his mom.
When our coaching relationship ended, I did not lose anything. I just gained. And I hope they both know how much they shaped my coaching and my thinking.
Behavior Always Has Context
I understand now that behavior always has context.
What looks like resistance in one person may be protection in another. What looks like intensity in one person may be mastery in another. What looks like confidence may be armor. What looks like weakness may be a body asking for enough safety to try.
This is not only true in the gym.
Silence is not always withdrawal. Sometimes it is peace. Sometimes it is punishment. Sometimes it is protection.
Intensity is not always confidence. Sometimes it is mastery. Sometimes it is fear. Sometimes it is devotion.
Resistance is not always laziness. Sometimes it is confusion. Sometimes it is self-protection. Sometimes it is someone saying, I do not feel safe enough to move from here yet.
The mistake is assuming the visible pattern tells the whole story.
It does not.
The behavior is the movement. The purpose is what the movement is serving. The position is where the whole thing starts.
Before I Knew I Was Being Taught
I think about Kai and Charles more than they will ever know.
Not because the training was remarkable. Especially in the beginning. It was basic. Leg press. Bench press. Squats. Nothing special.
But something was already happening that I did not have words for.
I was not just coaching movement. I was responding to something underneath the movement. The position each person was starting from. The need each person was carrying into the room. The purpose the work was actually serving.
I did not call it that then. I did not have a framework. I did not have Position. Movement. Purpose. written on a whiteboard. I was just a blue shirt at Equinox trying to be useful.
But years later, when I finally put those three words on a piece of paper crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, I realized they were not new.
They were what I had been doing all along. I just could not see it yet.
The Pattern and the Purpose
This is what most people miss.
They see the behavior and think they understand it. They see silence and assume it means one thing. They see intensity and assume it means another. They see two people doing the same exercise and assume the work is the same.
It is not.
A squat is never just a squat. A conversation is never just a conversation. A reaction is never just a reaction.
The movement is what you can see. The purpose is what it is serving. The position is where the whole thing starts.
You cannot change a pattern you have not learned to read.
That is what Kai and Charles taught me before I knew I was being taught.
I like this article very well written its almost like being a parent raising kids each one responds differently they learn different and yes as a parent you learn from your kids if your really working with them. Thanks for sharing this weird that my kids would pop in my head while reading this article lol anyways ✨
Hui. What an article. Thank you for sharing it Carl. I tried to identify the emotions and thoughts that arose while reading it. The word that came to mind multiple times was "raw." I don't know why. It must be the way you write and describe all these layers of what it means to be human.