I don't bend that way! Really.

Periodically in life, you find yourself in those situations where you can have one of two responses: you can laugh…or you can cry. When I returned to Thunder Bay I decided that I wanted to start taking classes at one of our local gyms. I haven’t been in a gym in a couple of years. I used to have a gym membership – and it turned out to be great incentive for me to work out at home. Eventually I got rid of the membership.

I have started taking these gym classes as something to do, and to help me get out of my house. Things have changed since I took “gym classes” in high school…for instance, BOSU? What in the world is BOSU? You can also take BOSU lite (appropriately spelled incorrectly), just in case you aren’t ready for regular BOSU. Add on every specialized stretch class humanly possible (they now offer classes targeted to specific muscle groups – apparently I go to the gym for an anatomy lesson). Oh and “spinning” – do you realize that I thought a spin class actually meant spinning in circles? Little did I know it is just a fancy term for stationary bikes. Ooooh ahhhh. And mental note – any class that has “challenging” in the description, really is, and is best avoided. Unless you are really hardcore about working out, and that is simply crazy.


So on Monday I decided to take one of these classes, mainly because it didn’t have “challenging” listed in the description. It was a dance class. Ok it was a ballet class (yes and if you know me, you can interject your laughter here). And during this dance class, my instructor gets herself into this cute, intricate pose that involved having her head touching the floor while her legs were spread eagle, and arms outstretched and I really could go on. What was appalling was that she expected the rest of us to follow her lead! Again, this class was not listed as “challenging”. It was at that point that I realized that there is a difference between the body of an 18 year old and the body of a 28 year old (though I’m not sure that I could have done this pose a decade ago). I could have cried (I wanted to, especially after I felt every muscle in my body protested my attempts at replicating the pose), but instead I laughed – out loud. I think I may have also thrown in a “You want me to do what?!?! HA!”.

Two days later my body is still writhing in pain. I would like to think that my muscles are inflexible due to the type of exercises that I do. Probably not, but mental conditioning is part of working out. Needless to say I will go through the ordeal again. I mean, my muscles are already hurting, so why not condition them to appreciate the pain? Or condition them to be flexible? I’m just saying…you can either laugh or cry; and that’s what life is all about.