(upbeat music) - [Tom] This week on Arizona Illustrated, keeping the community intact through fitness.

- [Chris] We trust our community is strong and it's not a false bravado, it's not a false confidence, like I believe we're going to be okay.

- [Tom] The passion and path of Tucson's chess king.

- Rook G8, king here and then I checkmated him.

I couldn't believe, it was crazy.

- [Tom] And discovery through failure and FIREBall.

- [Erika] The main guy came down from where they were doing their work.

And he was like, "We think that there's something wrong but we're not sure."

And then about an hour later they came back and they said, "We think there's a hole in the balloon."

(bright upbeat music) - welcomed To Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We're here at Tahoe park near Grant and Campbell taking in the beautiful side of snow on the mountain.

You know, we had intended to film yesterday but we were snowed out.

I haven't been able to say that much since I moved to Tucson 25 years ago but most of Southern Arizona woke up to the beautiful scenes of the Sonoran desert covered in a fresh layer of snow, a rare and beautiful sight.

And we should file it away for five or six months from now when those triple digit temperatures return, sorry.

As always the ACPM crew and I are wearing masks when appropriate social distancing.

And now we bring you an update on Arizona's COVID-19 situation.

Arizona remains a national hotspot even while its rate of new cases continues to level off.

Healthcare officials warned that the state's rates are still higher than the surge last July and the worst COVID-19 diagnosis ratings in the U S over the past week.

Arizona's department of health services recently announced that 518,000 people have received the COVID-19 vaccine and that 79,000 are second doses.

For information regarding vaccinations visit your local County or tribal website, in Pima County visit pima.gov.

(soft music) Navigating the effects of the pandemic including following mandatory measures to create a safe workspace has been a major challenge for locally owned small businesses some have limited their hours.

Others have changed their business model dramatically.

Still others have laid off employees or gone out of business altogether.

For Tucson entrepreneur Chris Gartrell, sustaining his business has also resulted in strengthening the community by finding fitness during COVID.

(soft music) - We had an exceptional year in 2019.

Everything started to click, you know, social media, coaching, all of it.

And then we hit 2020 and we had some big goals and some things we wanted to do we talked about a second space and then stuff happened.

- [Reporter] confirmed COVID 19 cases in the US tops 11,000 the US hunkers down to fight an invisible enemy.

- Back in March, we were the first gym to close in Tucson.

We made that right out of the gate.

We didn't know what was going on.

There wasn't a lot of information in the CDC yet and we didn't know what to do.

We didn't know how serious it was.

There wasn't any like idea of how COVID was really going to affect people moving forward.

So we just bit the bullet, shut the gym down until further notice.

(soft music) And maybe we can't prevent the spread everywhere, but if we can help our people and protect our people, that was a decision we decided to make.

And they ran with that.

And we started to put out equipment 'cause if the gym is going to be closed, it's just going to collect dust.

(claps) Chris is here checking in again, guys we've got Wednesday work today.

We're gonna go six and six.

Right?

That's going to be from the floor.

Checking in for day two of our quarantine workouts.

During the shutdown we really just wanted to keep our community intact, post a video, here's the workout, tag us.

On our jumping jack, just like you did in high school.

And just trying to help everybody feel like we were still connected and doing things.

Start from the side, come up from the top.

It ended up being a little over 10 weeks, it was a long time and I was definitely like, a little bit tense there.

I didn't know it was going to happen.

(soft music) (indistinct) Right away.

We cut classes down 50%, 25% in some settings.

It was as strict as it could possibly be I mean like, we had a class of 12 and they were back squatting in.

We had every weight taken outside and we were bleaching everything and really above and beyond.

And then thankfully we started getting more information from the government CDC and we didn't have to do all that stuff.

But we were doing the most as like kids would say.

(upbeat music) We push fitness here.

But over the years it certainly like evolved into something more.

And the feedback we get all the time is it's just a great community and it's very much a tribe.

And I'm just trying not to mess it up.

(upbeat music) It's not necessarily about being the strongest or being the fastest, but it's just the pursuit of something and that's our definition of fitness and everybody in here has to pursue it.

it's a culture of effort in every sense of the word and that's what we push, it's just effort.

(upbeat music) Physical fitness and community have just this gigantic role in our overall health, your body perceives stress the same way, whether it's emotional, mental or physical stress, it's all same.

So if we're sitting at home, isolated stressed out about not seeing anybody your body is treating it the same way and your immune system is reacting accordingly.

So get out and get some sun and be active and converse the people that you love.

And if you're scared of hugging them maybe don't give them a hug yet.

You don't give him the elbow but don't neglect the things you need.

- 198?

198, let's go.

- [Chris] You know it is a refuge and is a place to come and de-stressed and kind of unload and just check out for a little bit.

- 275 Yahudo, good job dude.

- [Chris] We're just trying to keep that love and feel alive.

- Have a wonderful day, Good job today guys.

- [Chris] We had to put it to the test, like we couldn't be open and we couldn't do this and we couldn't do that and I've understood humility, but I've never felt more humbled in my life than when all those people decided to continue paying and like, yeah we're just going to keep it open and the community carried it.

(soft music) They have cleaning supplies, protocols when they come in, there are protocols when they leave, we're constantly staying in contact with everybody in regards to like wearing masks.

When they're in there stand area, eight feet apart they don't have to wear it when we're doing like really hard exercise work.

(soft music) We open up the doors, we're lucky to have a kind of an open air place and we haven't had to close for any major exposures or anything like that.

We're still lucky we have two locations and our positive COVID tests in two gym locations with almost 200 members is still in the single digits since March.

(soft music) The people here walk outside and they get vitamin D and they work out and they probably have amazing immune systems but I feel like as long as we're operating safely and we're communicating with our members and asking for them to communicate with us we can absolutely operate safely right now and make sure we're protecting other people outside of here.

(soft music) And I do think that, obvious the craziness is contagious too, like so is called a calm, calm is contagious.

And we've been really calm and really forthcoming with that.

And as a result, our community is calm too.

We're really trying to protect people, and I think they feel that and I think they're on board with that as well.

(soft music playing) The businesses living kind of check the check right now.

I have friends that close and they'll never open again.

You know, it's really unfortunate.

(soft music) At its worst, we were probably operating at 30% revenue from what we did before which was tough.

But we were able to keep the coaches paid and keep the bills paid at the end of the day, that's all we wanted.

Then we really had to shift focus and the focus was just like Keep the community alive.

(soft music) And I just love it.

Like I love to do this and I would do it for free if I could, I absolutely would have a non-profit gym for free and you could only work out here if you try really hard all the time, If you show up every day.

like I would love to have that.

(soft music) There's just so much intrinsic value that you get from seeing somebody grow.

You know, like the hardest thing in the world to do is walk into the gym.

(bright upbeat music) You learn so much from those moments where like you want to quit and you don't and it can just be a Wednesday ride for me in the hills and I'm riding really hard up a hill and I just want to stop or want to take it easy.

And you just say, no, you're almost to the top.

Just go and you switch a gear and stand up and try even harder.

And I love that feeling of accomplishment.

(bright upbeat music) It's time to interject some new routine, write some new priorities and really work on just making ourselves healthier as a whole.

(upbeat music) We can go for a run.

We can go on a hike, we don't need equipment.

We can carry some heavy stuff.

Your body will feel better.

Your immune system is strengthened through that.

And your body's going to do the right things.

(ball thumping on the floor) We trust our community is strong and it's not a false bravado, it's not a false confidence, like I believe we're going to be okay.

We've got to go through a little bit right now, but yeah we'll see each other on the other side of this.

And one thing or another will happen.

And even if Jim 244 closed, if we were closed for two months and we couldn't manage, that's just something that happened and we'll see each other somewhere else.

(soft music fades) (upbeat music) - Inspired by the recent Netflix hit the Queen's Gambit.

Millions of people worldwide are getting into the 1500 year old game of chess, chess.com reports chess playing is up 66% over pre pandemic times.

But 17 year old, Jonathan Martinez passion for the game started long before the series was even filmed.

(bright upbeat music) - [Jonathan] Right when I started to play, I just loved it right away.

I don't know what it was but it made me feel something that I'd never felt before.

(bright music) (indistinct chatter) - [Student] This one is like -- - [Student] Hey guys, have you seen that?

- Guys, can you pay attention real quick?

So I'm going to do a quick lecture on how all the pieces move.

Just so everybody here knows how they all move.

So the pawn can move either one space forward or two spaces forward, pawns can never go backwards and they can never go sideways.

- I can't find my -- - [Student] Can I play?

- You want to play her?

Okay.

I like teaching.

It's really fun.

And it's really rewarding for me because you kind of have to like be able to put your thoughts into words.

And sometimes it's hard because you know it but you can't really say it.

- I'd beat you in this game.

- I know, you're too good.

I was eight, my mom taught me how to play.

After a few weeks, I started to beat her.

So she found a website called chesskid.com.

I stayed up all night playing on that website.

And that's how I knew I was hooked on chess.

(upbeat music) This one is definitely the most important.

This is The State Tournament.

- In a clear first place, Jonathan Martinez.

(audience cheering and capping) - The fating that you start out with is unrated.

Then after you play a tournament, you are 100.

And then it goes up from there.

And I'm an Expert, Masters are above Expert and then FIDE Masters above Master and then International Master and Grandmaster.

Grandmasters, I don't really even know, they're just so smart.

And like I don't even know how you could become a grand master.

It seems so far away from where I am now.

(car hoots) Can you click on the bell?

Click it one more time.

Yeah, click that one.

- Oh, there He analyzes my games, sees where I went wrong or right.

And so that's what we're doing basically here.

- Well, we met at the Amateur West.

I was a tournament director there, which means I didn't play but I helped solve disputes, do award ceremonies, all that stuff.

And he was playing and we had a mutual friend I guess he liked my teaching style ever since that, so... My question is, why didn't you put Knight here?

- That's a good question, yeah.

But what am I going to do if he brings the pawn there?

- Like you're kind of cramped right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- I know.

- So when you're cramped what do you do normally to be, to like free yourself?

I think that chess can bring people together from all different backgrounds, all ages.

Our relationship is just like a perfect example of that.

I've met a lot of people through chess.

I don't know how to explain it.

They think like a chess player, we kind of attract each other because we out the same mindset, planning ahead, being confident in your decisions.

Also being confident, just in general, we kind of like understand each other I feel like on a different level (plane engine roaring) I've traveled in the United States like New York, Tennessee, Alabama, or no, I've never been to Alabama I don't know why I said that, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Colorado California, Montevideo, Uruguay, Santiago, Chile, Cuba.

(upbeat music) One of the games I played in Cuba was against a FIDE master.

His name's Ernesto Piedra.

So basically this is a simul game where there are all of us playing against one guy.

So this is a printout of the game.

And he played this opening called the Italian, which is one of the oldest openings dated back to like the 16th century.

Everybody else just got demolished very quickly.

And then it was just me and we were the only ones playing.

So I got a breakthrough.

I played F5, take this pawn, sacrifices bishop, double-check the King.

So he's trying to make as many threats as he can so he can slow down my attack.

Rook G8, king here and then I checkmated him, I put him away.

which was crazy.

(upbeat music) And that would have never been there if I had not played chess.

(upbeat music) I think chess is such a great game.

And I would have never met the people that I met if it wasn't for chess.

So I try to bring that to people.

(Spanish song playing) - [Tom] While in-person chess nationals were canceled last year, online chess has grown dramatically.

Jonathan, now a junior in high school continues to teach chess, now virtually and was named one of junior achievement of Arizona's 18 under 18 and 2020 for his chess work in the community.

Astronomer, Erika Hamden says there's one consistent facet about her work, failure.

She fails all the time.

Just like most people who work in her field and like most she keeps going.

Why?

Because that's how discoveries about our universe are made.

Discoveries like mapping faint UV emissions from circumgalactic medium around low Redshift galaxies using face intergalactic medium redshifted emission balloons known as FIREBall.

(soft music) (loud footsteps) - You spend 10 years of your life doing Something and then it doesn't work.

And like, what then?

(soft music) I thought about all the other people who have built anything and the difficulties and disasters that they've had to go through.

But that really the, the important thing is to keep going.

(soft music) My name is Erika Hamden.

I'm a professor of astrophysics at the university of Arizona.

Usually when people think of professors, they're like, Oh you teach and you sit in your office and think about things.

But my real passions are in creating something.

A lot of astronomy, you can't run experiments and you can't really go to the places that you would like to observe.

So a lot of times you're dealing with just data and like pixels on a screen, but there has to be someone who actually builds the telescope to collect all that data.

And so that's what I do.

(soft music) In general if you can avoid building a new telescope you should do that (laughs) because it's really complicated and difficult and expensive.

So there are a lot of like fantastic telescopes.

There's all the telescopes that are outside of Tucson on Kitt Peak, and those are great but sometimes people have like a science question and there's no way to answer it with existing telescopes.

And so basically that is the only reason that you should ever build a telescope, is because there is no other way to get the data that you need.

(soft music) So for me the subject that I'm most interested in is these very, very, very giant and very faint clouds of hydrogen that are outside of, we think most galaxies.

And the "we think" is the important part because we don't really know, but we know that all this hydrogen was formed in the big bang.

And then it starts to condense and collapse and in places where it collapses, that's where it forms galaxies.

But we also know that if that were the end of it the galaxy forms, then it makes stars, there wouldn't really be any stars left 'cause that process would have been over.

(upbeat music) And so we know that there has to be more hydrogen coming into all of these galaxies to just keep them alive.

So FIREBall, the telescope that I helped build, is designed specifically to just look at that hydrogen.

Okay so, FIREBall stands for the Faint Intergalactic Medium Redshifted Emission Balloon (laughs) which is a lot although I think FIREBall is a really good name but the acronym is like pretty tortured.

(laughs) (upbeat music) It flies on a high altitude balloon out of New Mexico.

The balloon is because the wavelength that we're looking at is totally blocked by the earth atmosphere.

And so you either have to put your telescope in space in orbit or put it on a balloon where it's above most of the atmosphere.

So we get pretty good transmission if we're up at like 130,000 feet, which is where the balloons go to.

But then because it's on a balloon, it's not, it only stays up for one day.

And so we do one night of observing and then it comes down.

(soft music) I've been into space as like a general thing basically my whole life when I was a little kid I was in like second grade and my mom told me that there was a contest on television that scientists wanted people to come up with a new name for the big bang.

And I looked at her and I was like, well I don't know what the big bang is 'cause I was in second grade and she was in the middle of making dinner so she was like, "Oh, go look it up."

And I went upstairs to our encyclopedia and I looked up what the big bang was and I was like, "Oh my God, this is so cool."

And I had never thought about the universe or space or anything and I remember reading it.

And then in the back of the encyclopedia on the last volume, there was an Atlas.

And at the back of the Atlas, there was like a map of the solar system and then a map of the galaxy and a map of the known universe.

And I remember looking at the page of the known universe and being like, "Oh my God, this is crazy."

(soft music) I really liked school and I like learning and I was like a pretty nerdy kid as you might (laughs) not be surprised to learn.

(soft music) I want it to be an astronaut.

And so when I was applying for college, I wanted to go to MIT because like lots of astronauts go to MIT.

MIT has felt like this place of all sorts of discoveries and science and I got there and I had a really terrible time.

And it was like pretty heartbreaking in a lot of ways.

MIT at the time was a lot more of like a pressure cooker.

I started getting these like panic attacks and anxiety which I'd never experienced before.

The day after Thanksgiving, I called my parents say I was like, "I don't want to be here."

Then I spent the rest of that year kind of like rebuilding my sense of self 'cause I felt like, Oh, I've really failed.

But I went back to college the following year.

And I made it the number one priority to like be happy and to do make decisions that were focused on like what did I want and what did I care about and not really what everybody else thought I should be doing.

I was a postdoc at Caltech for four years.

And the professor that I worked with there actually came up with the idea for FIREBall.

By the time we got out to the field to do the flight campaign I was running the entire project.

(soft music) We all got to the airport where we do the launches at like 11:00 PM and then we worked all night to get it ready and then you just wait.

Around like 10:30 in the morning, They started inflating the balloon which is sort of the point of no return.

At that point I remember feeling like, "Oh my God, this is really happening."

Like it had been so long and so much effort, but you work on something and you kind of feel like it's never going to go anywhere.

(somber music) And then I remember like, standing there watching the balloon fill up with helium and then they released it.

And then the telescope flew into the air.

It takes a couple of hours to go up to the altitude.

So the balloon is illuminated during the day and it gets pretty hot from just the light of the sun.

And then at night it will cool off and as it cools off, it shrinks a little bit 'cause the gas inside also cools off and then it typically it loses altitude.

But normally like 10,000 feet of altitude.

Sunset happens and it's dropping and then we're starting to take data and I would check every so often and read out what the altitude was.

(somber music) And it kept going down and I was like, "This seems kind of weird."

But I don't know, I have too many other things to think about.

And then around nine o'clock the balloon people, so there's a whole separate group of NASA people who just do the balloon launches, so I call them the balloon people, the main guy came down from where they were doing their work and he was like, "We think that there's something wrong but we're not sure."

And then about an hour later, they came back and they said we think there's a hole in the balloon.

(somber music) And I remember them when they told us and I just felt like, Oh, I do not have the emotional range to run this and deal with this news at the same time and so I didn't really feel bad about it until the next day after we all went home and then I woke up and I was like, "I cannot believe that this happened."

That was like the best day and the worst day of my life (laughs) I think.

(somber music) There's some very experienced scientists who have done other flights, other balloon flights, and one of them, the next day he said to me, "So when are we going again?"

And he was ready the next day.

And it took me a little longer to get there.

(soft music) What keeps me going is making sure that I'm happy in the stuff that I'm doing every day.

It's very easy to push through kind of a bad experience if you're like, "Well, way in the future or sometime in the future, there's going to be a payoff."

(soft music) I think I've learned just from like even really early days of working on things that that payoff is not promised.

And so if you're waiting for it, that's a bad idea.

What you have to do is like be happy with how things are each day.

So that even if the payoff never comes you can still keep going or you still feel like it will have been worth it.

(soft music) I have a very serious yoga practice.

So I do yoga every day for about an hour.

And that makes me feel really good.

I'm trying to be able to do a handstand like a freestanding handstand in the middle of the room, which is very hard.

But one day I'll get there.

In an ideal world failure will be present in everything.

I think that there's a lot more latitude for failure in science because it's such a huge part of the scientific method and like the philosophy of science.

Ultimately failure is trying something new and then it not working out and just because it doesn't work out, doesn't mean that trying something new, wasn't a good way to go or that you shouldn't keep trying new things.

And I think that kind of philosophy of exploration and discovery is really, could be really valuable in all sorts of aspects of life.

(breaths in deeply) Even talking about it as failure like is sort of an, a misnomer I think for what you're actually doing.

You can like phrase it in a positive way and not necessarily that it didn't work out.

It only doesn't work out if you stop.

(music fading) (upbeat music) Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

See you next week.

(upbeat music)