Saturday, May 26, 2007

Pilates O' Death

Pilates is a form of exercise long touted by the svelte, celebrity set. A couple summers ago I bought a DVD of 'beginners' pilates off a discounted book rack. Tried it at home exactly twice. Actually made it half way through the dreary dialogue put one by two, highly toned, tanned and blonde Aussie bimbos. Bimbettes? Bimbii?


Fast forward to here and now and after 1.5 months of sitting on my ever-widening ass at Boeing all day, I decided to join a gym. So I'm going to this 24hr Yuppie Gymboree and today I tried my first real live pilates. Like, in front of other people. Dear Gawd.

The instructor was this friendly, cheerful Asian guy of indeterminate sexual orientation (read: half the male population of Puget Sound) but as soon as the crooning Enya CD started, he turned mean. (Right after it hit me that I was THE oldest, fattest one in the studio).

I vaguely remember him saying something about lying on your back with knees tucked and bent and arms near your head and doing this NIGHTMARISH variation on a stomach crunch. I was supposed to flex my left ribs down toward my left hip and then again on the opposite side. I don't know about most of you, but on me, that part of my body (lats?) is nothing but 100% cellulite.

It wasn't so much a matter of using muscles I didn't know I had as trying to use muscles I haven't had since summer 1996 when I was a lean, mean USFS firefighting machine.

But that's okay because I have wine. Oh, yes. And I have aspirin and ice packs. And I just got the seventh season of "Buffy" on DVD today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I took pilates for a while in a class last year. I liked it, but it kicked my a@$!!! at first. If you keep at it, it DOES get easier. Promise. ---Femblogger.

Anonymous said...

I felt the same way when I attended my first Yoga class with the wife.