The inspiration came from mom, but maybe not in the manner one might imagine.
When you’re a youngster and your mother suggests you’re too fat, it can cause some keiki to retreat, hold back or feel a damaging level of shame.
It wasn’t anything like that for Layne Luna, an arts and ceramics teacher at Waiakea High School, because his mom was a dedicated body builder.
“She was really good and she was guiding me, in a way, I always understood what she meant,” Luna said this week, “but, yes, she would poke me in the back and say, ‘You’re too fat,’ and I knew what she meant, it was an inspiration for me, not a bad thing.”
That was in the early 1980s, when Luna started weight lifting and body building that led to his first competition in 1985, when he came close as a rookie in his first competition but didn’t bring home a medal.
It was a long way from that disappointment to winning the overall masters physique competition last month on Oahu, while Waimea’s Kaneala Ablao brought back a novice body builder championship. Luna has competed in and won many physique championships, with one more he longs for on the horizon next month on Oahu.
He will enter the Paradise Cup in November at the Blaisdell Center, with an opportunity to win the triangular Gold Pendant symbolic of the highest level of ability in the state. Those rings that they all talk about playing for in basketball, baseball and football? The Gold Pendant is the same symbol for Luna.
“That’s exactly it,” he said, “it’s the thing some of us think about when we train and put in all this work to achieve in our sport. It’s a symbol of success we all want.”
Luna competes in the Classic phase of body building, that is, the look that includes a thin waist — at 54, he stand 5-foot-8, weighs 165 and has a 28-inch waist — and muscular, but not blown up musculature.
“My inspiration came from mom, but after that first contest, I had to put it all in the back of my mind because I had school, then after getting my degrees I became a father and I opted to do the good dad thing,” he said. “I trained on and off, I always intended to get back into it, but I was invested in (daughter) Hillary.”
His daughter won the BIIF judo championship at 125 pounds in 2011 and after that he began focusing more intently on training.
These days, training is nonstop, with a seven-days-a-week schedule. Luna gets up at 4:30 a.m., starts training by 5, rushes to a shower by 6:30 and out the door to school, after which he puts in another 90 minutes in the afternoon at Penn Fitness. Along the way, he makes and packs his own food for the day, which becomes important since he is on a regimen of eating five times a day.
“It’s a very, very strict diet,” he said, “you can’t just go grab some fast food, but I have great coaches with Sodie Kabalis and Nos Racoma who keep me on schedule and I probably couldn’t do it without them.”
He has no intention of joining the body builder circuit.
“What I do is all about the aesthetics of the body,” he said. “That’s why they created the Classic competition, to reflect back on those looks that have you looking like well-shaped statues, not the bodies pumped up with hormones and whatever else to make those puffy, freaky looking bodies.”
He has qualified for National competition, which he looks forward to, but first there’s that gold pendant to track down next month on Oahu.
Elders in a pickle
Most senior citizens, golden agers, old folk, whatever you want to call people of advanced age, realize a certain amount of physical activity is good for their longterm health, but it’s not always a simple matter to find an exercise regime that meets their schedule.
If you’re 65 or older, maybe not in optimal health, walking sounds great, but if you live in town and have to deal with rain, cars and such, it might not always work.
Don Besse has a solution. An ambassador of USA Pickleball, Besse and friends will be on hand Oct. 18 when the Department of Parks and Recreation holds the 19th annual Akamai Living Health Fair at the Edith Kanaka’ole Multi-Purpose Stadium in Hilo, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
This is the game you can play at any age and it’s just as compelling a challenge for an 8-year-old as it is for an 80-year-old with the additional bonus of indoor play if the sky is crying.
“We will have demonstrations inside and outside the stadium,” Besse said, “with the intent of teaching this game and some of its finer points to people who don’t know about it, or want to know more about it.
“We know, at a younger age, the way to stay healthy is to be active, but sometimes we tend to forget that as we grow older,” he said. “I can’t say it enough, and everyone I know who tries it agrees, this is easy, it’s fun, and once people try it they want to do more, simply because it’s fun.”
You can forget about doing something good for yourself, just set that aside and have fun. You’ll feel better during play and after.
The Hilo pickleball group meets every Friday from 8 a.m. until noon at the Panaewa Gym and is intended for people of all ages, including seniors.
Hilo Parks and Recreation is providing gift certificates so Besse promised to devise some games which will provide training, fun and gift certificates for the winners.
Pathway to Fun Run
The Ironman renewal is about to take over the island, if not the state once again, but that comes later. This year, the schedule calls for the PATH 5K and 10K run near Kona to start the week off Saturday morning with one of the oldest running events on the island.
It’s the 33rd annual time this event has been a part of Ironman week but one of the first times it has led off the event. Registration is still open today, if you happen to be on Kona side, by visiting Big Island Running Company in Kona from 9 a.m – 5 p.m. or you can late register Saturday morning between 6 and 7 at the event itself.
“Its a kind of tradition,” said race director Joe Loschiavo, “and it take you pretty much along the same course as the Ironman itself, so you can maybe get a little feel for what that’s like.”
It’s and out and back run with ocean views all along the way. Loschiavo said he expects at least 400 entrants, and reminds family runners there is also a keiki run scheduled.
Send comments or suggestions for upcoming events to barttribuneherald@gmail.com