7 December 2024
One would think, in a country that both invented the English language and a country whose ground exists in a (largely) permanent state of damp & mud, its citizens could understand a simple instruction:
... but this concept eludes a significant enough percentage of English leisure centre visitors that changing villages / locker rooms often become a muddy-watery mess.
I'd like to send every offending English person to Fitness Facility Finishing School, which would, of course, be in Canada. Canadians have a very strong understanding of the difference between "outside" and "inside" and understand at the core of their being that these two environments require different approaches to footwear, particularly when it comes to visiting another person's house and when heading to the gym/pool/fitness center. For Canadians understand that their outside world can be messy - snow in the winter, dead leaves in the fall, mucky mud in the spring - and that said mess should not entered hallowed halls.
When visiting someone else's home, a Canadian's first instinct is to strip off their shoes at the door. Savvy Canadians will often have brought along a bag from home containing their slippers to keep their feet even cosier than just walking around in socks.
Canadians will take this respect for others' environments to the next level when they rock up to their gym/fitness center/pool:
Very often, you will find shoe racks outside of the locker rooms where people strip their shoes off and leave them there for their entire workout, trusting the community to keep them safe.
Even when Canadians do bring their shoes into their locker rooms (always in their hands ... see my "how-to" picture), they will either leave them on the floor outside of the locker or they will have brought a shoe bag to put their shoes inside the locker. Both approaches keep the insides of the lockers clean for the next user's clothes, etc.
For those fitness goers heading to a part of the center that requires shoes**, the Canadian will have brought a separate pair of sports shoes which only ever get used inside!
These concepts are not difficult to understand, and many an Englishman and Englishwoman "gets it" (including all of my fabulous Barnet Copthall Masters Swimming teammates), but this simple approach to cleanliness and respect for others eludes enough people in Muddy England (I cannot yet speak for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) that requires some kind of country-wide intervention.
Spread the word.
Or just ask a Canadian.
** Someday, I'll understand what it is people do in these mysterious places away from the pool deck
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