By: Daiyu Tang
Photos: Daiyu Tang ((AI Used to strengthen overlay effect of text, original SL photo and digital editing in Lightroom))
There are some interviews where you sit down and go, ‘Hey… let’s talk…’ You open a notebook, ask a polite question (or in my case sometimes a bratty one), and receive a tidy answer, polished for a profile so that it can be filed in the Observer, neatly, and with decorum under ‘University Professional With Sensible Shoes’. I mean, Lucian already is taken the ‘sensible’ to the extreme, so I was hoping for a bit more bite to my next interview, especially after Sunday was just so… relaxed and kind!
Then there are interviews where a professor opens by suggesting that the meeting may be a ‘date’, produces a protein shake involving creatine, milk and avocado, and explains that this is the best first-date meal currently available. I am not entirely sure I was convinced, at-fucking-all. I can think of about 100 things I’d prefer to eat before that, and some of them might be illegal.
But, what can be said though is that Professor Danzig Lewandowski, is not boring. He may need to speak to Coach Nara and have her vet what his fitness routine is, but if the two of them agree on it, then God help all us unfit people around campus.
Wrestling Classes
Students may already know Danzig from Columtreal’s wrestling classes, where I previously observed him supervising a session that involved cardio, grappling, Newton’s laws of motion, and his outfit of choice that left too little to the imagination. You can read previous reviews of the sessions HERE and HERE. I’d like to suggest that the classes were popular with students and spectators. I’d also like to suggest, carefully, that there was some doubt in my mind as whether whether everyone attended for the educational value? It may well be that is a matter between them, their conscience, and possibly their search history (yes, I am aware that adult wrestling videos exist), but as the class continues, we’ll give Professor Danzig a pass for now.
Interview
This time, however, the focus was less on the wrestling ring and more on the man behind the coaching voice. Danzig teaches P.E., Computer Science, Philosophy, and also coaches sports. I worried as he told me that it sounded like someone saw a course catalogue and decided to collect subjects like they were Pokemon… But there was more thought behind it than that. Thankfully. The last thing we need is a jack-of-all-trades and master of none… got enough of those in some of the frats.
I asked him to pick his favourite and he did not hesitate.
“Well, my favourite is definitely P.E.,” he said, “but not the kind where I just put on a tight shirt and tell everyone to sweat.”
Now, dear reader, nothing is wrong with a man in a tight shirt telling people to sweat. We know how to hydrate and muscles look good. But I felt that Danzig’s real interest is not just the visual side of physical training, however much certain students may appreciate the academic scenery… His focus is the science beneath it: formulas, mathematics, macronutrients, basal metabolic rate, nutrients, efficiency and precision.
“I’ll show you exactly how much you can eat without all that nutritional terrorism,” he explained. “No more ‘you can’t eat burgers, no fried food, no this, no that.'”
It caught my attention, not because I am about to trade fish, tofu, salads and a certain amount of self-respect for a fast-food bulk plan, but because Danzig was making a serious point through a slightly ridiculous lunch example. He told me he had eaten a full kilo of chicken with bacon and still remained in a large calorie deficit, and while looking at him I did see all the muscles, I didn’t feel qualified to judge whether he needed more. Anyway, his argument was that people often struggle with weight not simply because they are lazy, but because they do not have access to proper information and that was what he was going to help CU with. Good. I’m slightly dubious that this will just make Daytona happier (more of his ‘type’) but much more importantly, healthy eating is safe living.
The wrestling may be loud, physical and occasionally over the top, but his actual approach to physical education is not just ‘run until your soul leaves your body’. He wants students to understand, learn and develop proper, sustainable fitness.
Computer Science Comes Second
His second favourite subject is Computer Science, for a slightly darker reason…
“Mostly because everything’s going to be replaced by it anyway.”
Cheerful? Not exactly. Wrong? Also not exactly. Between AI, automation, app-based everything and students who think a machine writing half (all) their song lyrics makes them the next great rapper or country star, Danzig may have a point. If P.E. is where he wants students to understand their bodies, Computer Science may be where he wants them to understand the systems coming for the rest of their lives. Resistance is, as they say, futile, but adaption is possible.
Finally, there was Philosophy, which entered the conversation through his chosen quote like I ask all faculty for. Asked what line he would put in the profile, Danzig selected Marcus Aurelius:
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
As a journalist, I am legally, morally and professionally required to argue with at least half of that (most of it to be honest). Facts do exist. Truth does matter. If everything becomes perspective, then half of Hathian will immediately use that as an excuse to say the knife in their hand was merely an interpretive object and that they were performing on the ‘greatest stage’. They’ll also call the HPD fake cops, determine the Observer to be fake news and declare that might is right and start another purge… so let’s not go that far this year…
Still, I do understand why Danzig chose it. There is a teacherly warning there: do not confuse the first thing you hear with the whole matter, and do not assume that what you see is all there is.
Wrestling With The Conclusion
So what should students know? Professor Danzig is confident, certainly. Flirty, yes. If he says ‘date’, check the context as it might be a movie and motel, rather than a classroom time. He is also more serious than the first impression may suggest, especially when talking about fitness and nutrition.
He may teach wrestling with a touch more theatre (and boobs and bulges) than strictly required, but he does appear to teach. He wants students to understand how their bodies work, how systems work, and perhaps how to think before mistaking a perspective for the whole truth.
