Status: work in progress. This note records the discussion and material for a new piece of poetic feedback for Kendall/Kendal Green at David Lloyd Bristol Emersons Green. It is deliberately background and drafting material rather than a finished poem.
John wants to submit another playful poem as positive feedback for Kendall. Previous poetic feedback went down very well and apparently circulated among staff, so this should feel like a fresh follow-up rather than a repetition. It should be warm, funny and recognisably about her, not formal praise or a generic instructor tribute.
John had gone to the club intending to swim while his wife was doing Aqua/Aquarobics. Kendall's aqua class was not full. Kendall spotted him and called him over along the lines of “come on, come and join the class”, so he unexpectedly joined the class in his swimming trunks and had fun. This sort of spontaneous recruitment has happened before.
A useful comic/friendly angle is therefore: beware of Kendall — you can arrive intending to do one thing and somehow find yourself doing one of her classes instead. It captures her ability to draw people in without merely calling her 'inspiring'.
The poem should not be only about the one Aqua incident. Kendall also teaches Rhythm Cycle and BodyPump, and John has attended several of her classes. At the time of the discussion he expected to have a Rhythm class with her roughly an hour later. He would also have done her BodyPump that day, but it was full.
Class popularity/capacity, particularly Saturday-morning BodyPump, may provide a very gentle secondary joke or positive nudge: the problem with Kendall's classes can be getting a place in them. This must read as evidence of popularity, not as criticism or a complaint about the club.
Two Spirit Sound Bath sessions also appear in summer (19 July, 2 August) — confirmed as good potential material, a calmer counterpoint to the high-energy classes, though optional given the note elsewhere about not overloading the poem.
Google Calendar bookings Jan–Sep 2026 confirm BodyPump and Rhythm are near-constant, roughly twice a week each, all year — not occasional classes. So 'a class he sometimes gets to' is not the right framing for BodyPump; he's there most weeks. Aqua only shows 3 booked sessions all year (1 May, 12 June, 3 July), but John notes this undercounts it: those are only the times he booked in advance, not the times Kendall spots him and calls him over on the spot (as happened again the day before this note was updated). The spontaneous-recruitment pattern is more frequent than the calendar shows and is the stronger material — the booked figure is a floor, not the true count.
Kendall recently hurt her foot but was still making sure she could do as many classes as possible. John would like a light hint of this persistence — she keeps going even when circumstances make it difficult — without making the injury the subject of the poem or becoming sentimental.
Playful, affectionate and slightly mischievous. General positive feedback rather than feedback on one class. The previous poem already leaned on Kendall being 'inspiring', so avoid simply returning to that language or idea. The new piece needs a fresher observation about what she actually does: enthusiasm that is infectious enough to alter John's plans.
Do not overplay the injured foot, capacity issue, or any notion of pressure to join classes. The invitation to Aqua was welcome and fun; the humour is that Kendall has a knack for getting John involved.
Potential recurring ideas: going in for a swim and being diverted into Aqua; 'beware' of passing one of Kendall's classes; plans mysteriously changing in her vicinity; Rhythm, Aqua and BodyPump forming a sequence or escalation; a class being so popular that joining it may require getting there before everyone else; keeping classes going despite the foot injury.
The strongest unifying idea from the discussion is probably not 'Kendall inspires people', but 'Kendall gets people doing things they had not intended to do — and they are glad she did.'
Hard limit: the final submitted poem must be 1000 characters or less.
Before writing the final version, look for any older Kendall/Kendal poem, limerick, song or gym-feedback material in Notes so the new poem can avoid repeating its jokes, vocabulary or structure. The main Poems index did not currently contain an obvious Kendall entry when checked.
Unpolished. Lines are placeholders for ideas and shape, not finished verse. Rhythm, scansion and rhyme all still to do. Currently around 800 characters, so there is headroom under the 1000 limit.
I came for a swim. That was all I had planned —
a towel, some lengths, and a lane of my own.
Then a voice from the poolside: "Come on — join in!"
and there I was, trunks and all, in the front row.
Beware of Kendall Green.
Tuesday it's Rhythm. Saturday, Pump —
if you're quick enough off the mark to get in.
The places go faster than I can decide,
which tells you more than a review ever would.
Beware of Kendall Green.
She's been teaching on a foot that's telling her no,
and still she turns up, and still she counts us in.
Beware of Kendall Green.
Arrive with a plan. Leave with a better one.
Make the refrain evolve rather than repeat. First occurrence a plain warning; second with a wink ("and book early"); final one turned inside out, so the reader sees that 'beware' has meant 'you will enjoy yourself' all along. This builds the warmth structurally instead of relying on tone alone.
Give Kendall a voice. One more quoted line beyond "Come on — join in!", ideally something she genuinely says in class, so the poem is recognisably her to the staff who read it. That recognisability is likely what made the first poem circulate.
Sharpen the swim opening with one concrete detail from the actual class rather than an adjective — the contrast between the quiet solitary swim he planned and the class he ended up in. Needs a real specific from John: something Kendall had the class doing.
Keep the foot stanza at two lines. Its force comes from being the one place the poem stops joking; expanding it would tip into sentimentality.
Drop the 'tells you more than a review ever would' line from v0. It is self-referential, since the poem is itself a review, and the popularity joke works better shown than explained.
Sound Bath earns a place only if it delivers the whiplash joke — gasping on a bike at nine, lying still in the dark by ten — and only if it fits inside the character limit. Otherwise leave it out cleanly rather than squeezing it in.
Draft v0 above is kept unchanged for comparison. v1 applies the revision principles; metre and rhyme are still not worked. Two lines are marked PLACEHOLDER and need real detail from John before this goes anywhere near a final version — they are invented stand-ins, not things Kendall said or did.
I came for a swim. That was the plan.
A towel, some lengths, a lane of my own.
Then, from the poolside: "Come on — join in!"
And there I was, trunks and all, second row,
learning what the float was for. [PLACEHOLDER — replace with a real detail from the Aqua class]
Beware of Kendall Green.
Tuesday it's Rhythm. Saturday, Pump.
"Last eight — and I want to see you smiling!" [PLACEHOLDER — replace with something Kendall actually says in class]
The places go in seconds. I've missed a few.
I've stopped pretending I get to choose.
Beware of Kendall Green — and book early.
She's teaching on a foot that's telling her no,
and still she turns up, still she counts us in.
So beware of Kendall Green:
you'll arrive with a plan,
and leave with a better one.
Optional Sound Bath couplet, to slot in before the foot lines if it earns its place:
By nine she's had me gasping on a bike;
by ten I'm flat on my back in the dark, being chimed at.
Draft v1 is roughly 620 characters without the optional couplet, about 720 with it — comfortably inside the 1000 limit either way.