A Crying Tear From Huo?

KL has been drenched in rain for the past two weeks, and everything looked so down and gloomy, especially for me.

While I was hanging out in a gym in Chin Woo Athletic Association in Bukit Chin Woo, KL one day, I was told that effective on 1st of January 2008, there will no longer be a gym as it was said to have stood in the way of progress.

For about a year I have found a place in the heart of KL in which I called home. Whenever I'm free, I'll drop by Chin Woo, pump some iron before calling it off as a day,assured that I will wake up with even more vigour and energy the very next day. Located right below a stadium,the small place, about 35m X 15m was infested with mosquitoes and I couldn't even walk straight without touching the ceiling but I didn't mind. I met a bunch of funny men, all of them have great physiques and all of them enjoy talking rubbish, just like me. Charging only a mere Rm12 a month, I thought that I have found paradise.

The gym, a former bathhouse-turned-exercise-facility, owed more of its existence to its members than its administrators. During the hey days of Chin Woo, a few poor bums started a gym by welding each exercise tools, such as benches and racks into place, the steel coming from nothing more than a garbage dump site. In spite of all the deficiency and half-past-six equipments, Chin Woo Athletic Association has contributed a fair share of national representatives of weightlifters and body-builders, my coach being one of them. Hopefully, in the next article I'll show you some pictures.

Nevertheless, due to internal politics and power-mongering individuals that knows how to fight for a post in an organisation but don't know what to do with it, Chin Woo has been losing its shine. The recent act of axing gym from its continuation is the ultimatum that death is knocking on its doorstep.

As you will see, iron weights do not rust easily and the gym has been running over 10-20 years with '0 cost' maintenance. What cost Chin Woo is the electricity bill which is more than covered by the gym membership fees. Undoubtedly, the biggest lost-making asset in Chin Woo is the swimming pool. In fact, according to many sources, everything is making losses and the gym is the most profitable of them all.

So, why the death certificate to the gym? Apparently, the gym has the least participants of all its ongoing activities thanks to the gym being at the back of the stadium and the lack of promotion from Chin Woo's administration. Who will thought of gym when Chin woo is mentioned to them? It was in the hope that sacrificing people like me allows for further developments for the piece of real estate, such as a few more parking space(:s). Since when commercialising is part of Chin Woo's dictum? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the gym is sacrificed to that other activities can be sustained.

As you can see, Chin Woo has lost much of its spirits of sportsmanship. People take charge of Chin Woo just for the namesake and personal gains. People no longer want to put effort into something just for the love of it. Everything must be '$' that comes to mind. For everything else, there are plenty of scapegoats. Anybody here heard of Chin Woo doing promotion and membership recruitment drives in schools and colleges?

Mismanagement has caused Chin Woo a gym. I wonder what will be next. Anyway, the gym will formally cease operation on the 28th December 2007. If you guys want to have a real taste of what it is like, come quick. Opening hours from 5.00p.m. to 8.00p.m., weekdays only.