Gita Sjahrir

When a person hits rock bottom or faces a daunting obstacle, there are two options — to get back up or to give up.

Indoor cyclist practitioner and instructor Gita Sjahrir will always choose to get back up on her feet no matter what gets in her way.

Some 13 years ago, no one in their wildest dream would have dared to bet that Gita would become one of the best fitness studio leaders in Indonesia. At that time, she had just been diagnosed with a rare disease that practically immobilized her.

“I was diagnosed with Still’s disease, which [has symptoms] common to autoimmune disorders, back in 2004 during my college years in Chicago,” the 36-year-old Gita told The Jakarta Post at her indoor cycling studio Ride Jakarta in the Sudirman Central Business District (SCBD), Central Jakarta.

One of the main symptoms of Gita’s illness, which is only found in one in every 100,000 individuals, is systemic rheumatoid arthritis, a condition in which the immune system attacks the joints.

“So think of having extreme pain in pretty much every joint. We are talking about the knees, fingers and elbows and pretty much everything. At that time, I found it very hard to walk,” Gita said about what it felt like to live with Still’s disease.

It was a very tough period for Gita, who led a pretty active and healthy lifestyle prior to being diagnosed. The daughter of late renowned economist Sjahrir had trained for 12 years since she was a toddler to be a ballerina.

She quit ballet for around three years and gained a lot of weight. When she turned 18, she hated the feeling of being sluggish and tired all the time due to her weight gain and decided to take matters into her own hands to live a more active and healthier life.

“At that time, any type of activity I did was based on whatever that I thought was healthy. So I started running, lifting weights, eating more vegetables, fruit, lean proteins and just doing my best. A healthy lifestyle has kind of stuck with me ever since because I really like the feeling,” she said.

“You’re a pretty optimistic, happy person if you’re fit just because your endorphins rise and you know your body can do a lot of things,” she added.

Being fit also came with the development of mental strength and determination, she said. This is probably the main thing that helped her cope with her personal ordeals with Still’s disease.

The disease forced her to use a wheelchair and crutches for about a year. After that, Gita told herself that she had had enough. She wanted to be fit and healthy again.

“If you really want something in life, you will start making choices so you can get there. I did not want to be sick all the time. I said f--k this and started doing things differently. If all I did was just lay there, it would mean that I didn’t want to recover. Say I didn’t get better, at least I tried, right?” she said.

She started eating natural foods and made an attempt to become active again regardless of the pressure that she put on her body.

“For people with arthritis, when I say exercise, I mean like walking for 10 minutes. And that was already very painful. So after doing a lot of therapy and taking medication, one actually a type of chemotherapy, I became healthy enough to lead quite a normal life,” she said.

Gita earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago and a Master’s in business administration from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

After going into remission, she took jobs in the finance and business world in the United States. Around five years ago, she found herself working on Wall Street in New York, where she was first exposed to indoor cycling.

“I lived near an indoor cycling studio. I got curious and was wondering what it was like. I took a class and I didn’t like it at all because it was hard. But I believe you need to try everything at least twice because your first time might be off or you might just have a bad day,” she said.

The second and third attempts saw her fall in love with the exercise.

“I just love the feeling because the music is loud and you have a lot of people working out with you. It really felt like I was lost in the moment and that was something I had never felt before. You don’t realize that you are exercising. It was just fun,” she said.

Gita became so addicted to indoor cycling that she eventually went after Schwinn certification. Today, she is the only indoor cycling instructor in Indonesia with Schwinn certification.

She even decided to abandon her career on Wall Street and return to Jakarta and open her own indoor cycling studio in April 2015.

People might wonder why she left a very prestigious career in the US to start something new in Jakarta, but for her, the decision just came naturally.

Gita said she was an entrepreneur at heart. It was another passion in her life besides living a healthy life. She is a willing risk-taker and is not afraid to fail at all.

“There is no safe path. Safe doesn’t exist. So if you want something, then just go for it. The only way for you to fail is by not doing anything,” she said.

It is also fair to consider that Gita pretty much knew what she was doing when she decided to open the first indoor cycling studio in Jakarta due to the fact that she spent a major part of her career as a consultant for startups that needed business plan development.

“So when I made this [decision to open an indoor cycling studio in Jakarta], I treated it just like any other job I had in the past, which was to make sure that all the planning was in place and that I was building something as professional as possible,” she said.

Her family was also very supportive and very confident about her decision.

“I am pretty blessed to have a family who honestly doesn’t really care what I do as long as I am happy,” she said. 

— Tessa Randello, an intern at The Jakarta Post, also contributed to the story 

— Photos courtesy of Gita Sjahrir