The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs . . . 200 hundred pounds is always 200 hundred pounds.” – Henry Rollins.
It is the quintessential assessment of an individual’s mettle. The pathway through the human condition is a veritable gauntlet of resistance in various forms. A touchstone of success and happiness is an individual’s ability to handle that resistance. Those of you for whom weight training is a lifestyle and not merely a three to five times a week activity on your schedule will get it. Mr. Melitus Sidonie was such an individual. His fortitude and stick-to-it attitude at the gym mirrored the way he lived his life.
He was known to many as Jama. Others called him Melitus. And there are those to whom he was always Mr. Sidonie. To me and several other members of the Sidonie Brothers Gym, he was simply “Coach”.
The first time Coach laid a hand on an iron bar was in the late 1960s, when he was eighteen. It was love at first rep. A torrid love which cut against the grain of back-in-the-day conventional wisdom with no knowledge of bodybuilding. The Iron was a demanding lover. A stubborn mistress that insisted on absolute dedication and sacrifice. Over the years, better to say throughout his life, the man who so many would come to know as Coach remained ever faithful.
When I first met Coach I was an insufferably arrogant teenager. I was self-convinced that the two or so years of weight-training I had under my lifting belt, boosted by what I’d read repeatedly from cover to cover in several issues of Flex, had rendered me an expert. I was not receptive to any workout or dietary advice—until I met Coach.
I vividly remember my first day at the Sidonie Brothers Gym all those years ago. It was a scorching Sunday afternoon when I made the first of many treks from my residence at Barnard Hill to the Sidonie Brothers Gym in Cedars.
On my arrival I was welcomed by Coach, his face lit up by his trademark beaming smile. He regaled me with anecdotes of misadventures he shared with my mother before stepping aside to observe my routine. I attempted to put on a show. I shoulder pressed and shrugged, upright rowed, lateral raised every pound I could. After I was done with my ostentatious plate-banging and grunting display, I confidently sauntered over to Coach, my breathing laboured, drenched in sweat, muscles screaming—in great anticipation of Coach’s acknowledgement of my efforts. What I got instead was a lesson in humility and a not so subtle reminder of how little I knew about bodybuilding. He explained the key difference between weightlifting and bodybuilding and the importance of stretching before and after my workouts. I emphasize: he did so by aligning his criticisms with my expressed goals, without coming off as pedantic or judgmental.
That’s who Coach was: one of the boys. He was a fixture at the gym. His love for the gym culture was clear every time he joined us unplanned in a workout, during which he offered advice or demonstrated the proper performance of an exercise.
I remember a particular workout with Coach. I had arrived at the gym before him and taken the liberty to set up a barbell for bench presses, with what I considered a warm-up weight of 150 pounds. Coach’s first words on arrival: “You’re not going to warm up?” When I informed him the weight on the bar had been set up for a couple of warm-up sets, he burst out laughing, then requested I follow him to the elliptical machine on which, after I gassed out after less than five minutes, he spent thirty or so minutes during which his breathing hardly elevated. “Working out is about a lot more than strength, my boy,” he said. It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
He was a founding father of bodybuilding in Saint Lucia and actively fought to keep the sport and lifestyle relevant through his activities with the Saint Lucia Bodybuilding Association. He judged numerous physique contests and even took part in a few during the latter part of his life, in the Masters category. But his passion was for mentoring and motivating other bodybuilders at all levels.
Coach was also a dedicated family man. I regularly saw him with one or more of his fifteen children and/or several grandchildren, particularly Milano who regularly accompanied his grandfather to the gym.
A distant third love of his was singing. He seldom missed Saturday Karaoke Night at his favourite Castries watering hole, where he confidently belted out his favourite country songs.
We thought he would outlive us all. How wrong we were. On Monday of last week Coach passed away in consequence of a blood clot lodged in his lungs. When I was informed of Coach’s passing, the best I could do was stand for several minutes in silence as I tried to convince myself I was in the grip of my worst nightmare. Later, I talked with Shanta, his daughter. The profundity of her lamentation was clear as we discussed her father’s passing. “It has not quite sunk in that he is gone,” she said. “It feels as if he went away on a vacation. Every day I see his workout gear and other clothing at the home we shared. I deeply loved my father. He took pride in taking care of his family, helping those in need…I will miss him. A lot.”
Coach left an indelible mark on the fitness landscape of Saint Lucia. He will be remembered as the loving patriarch of the Sidonie family, an unapologetic champion of fitness as well as for his infectious joie de vivre. Rest in peace, Coach.
