Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Harrison.
Hi Jason, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m from Dayton, Ohio, and in 2016, my wife and I moved back to our hometown. We didn’t exactly move back to open a gym, but I was a personal trainer in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., so when we landed in Dayton, I started trying to build up my client base.
Over time, I had enough clients that it made sense to open up a space of our own, and that’s how the brick-and-mortar studio, Present Tense Fitness, was born. PTF, as we call it for shorthand, continues to operate in Dayton as we expand our services in New York City. About half of the work that we do is with professional and preprofessional dancers, and the other half is with general population clients.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
What an interesting question to ponder. I’d say the road hasn’t been exactly smooth, but it has been rewarding and fulfilling.
Dayton is a city that is underserved in so many myriad ways. It’s deeply segregated. It is in the midst of an ongoing health and wellness crisis. And even our neighborhood was the site of one of the innumerable mass shootings that happen with sickening regularity in this country.
But it’s because of and not despite all of those headwinds that we’re proud to have our studio in Dayton. It’s a city full of talented artists and wonderful people, and we love being able to serve them with what we hope is a world-class gym.
We’ve been impressed with Present Tense Fitness, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Present Tense Fitness operates in Dayton, Ohio, and New York City. We train professional and preprofessional dancers, as well as general population clients who are interested in training with detail-oriented, rigorous, and empathetic coaches who will not judge, body shame, or participate in the toxic diet culture that plagues so much of the fitness industry.
I’m proud that Present Tense Fitness is at the forefront of bringing team-sports-based strength and conditioning to the dance world, which remains decades behind other athletic endeavors in terms of adopting and implementing best practices for cross-training. We have a small but committed group of followers all around the world, and I’m really proud that we’ve accomplished all of that from Dayton. Now that we’re expanding to New York, the Dayton studio remains an anchor for us and all of the dancers and clients that we serve.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
In 2016, I had a roster of around 30 clients. We decided that we could afford a commercial lease, so we met with a building owner downtown and paid an architect to do initial drawings.
In anticipation of opening the gym, I put together a cart worth around $10,000 to purchase equipment and build out the space. For whatever reason, the building owner we thought we were going to be working with was really slow in producing a lease for us to sign, and I didn’t want to take the risk in buying the equipment before I knew we were “official.”
Finally, after a few weeks of waiting, we decided to eat the cost of the architect and walk away from the deal. We found another great location (where we still operate today)! But the luck part of this story is that in the time it took for me to walk away from the deal, the equipment company from which I was going to buy all of our equipment went bankrupt!
Had I made that purchase, we almost certainly would have lost all of that money and probably never opened. I still get anxious thinking about this turn of events today.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.presenttensefitness.com
- Instagram: @presenttensefitness
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/presenttensefitness
Image Credits
Shon Curtis,
Sarah Rose Cusson
