I skipped my Pilates class this week. I had a fairly decent reason: my kitchen was a mess and my toilets needed cleaning and I was expecting company on Friday after work so the cleaning was justified. I am still feeling like I let myself down somehow and my muscles are more sore now than if I had tortured…sorry, exercised and stretched them for an hour in a structured class.

I’ve never been much of a “group exerciser”, lately, I’m not much of an “exerciser” at all. I decided to give this Pilates class a try for a couple of reasons: the time of day and week was amazingly open for me and my back has become a desperate mess. It was suggested that I need to strive for more flexibility and that stretching and stomach exercises would help the most. Walking seemed to be making the pain in my back and hips worse.

Pilates sounded like a perfect fit by definition and we now have this wonderful opportunity right here in town with “Fit on Main”, so I’m giving it a whirl. Of course, before I started I did my usual Internet information prep and I was happy to find out that Pilates is basically, entirely low impact. I secretly thought to myself; “How tough can it be, you’re laying down for pretty much every exercise, even I can handle that.”

I realized that I had some sort of mental block when it came time to participate in very public, group exercising. The hardest part for me, was overcoming the self-consciousness that accompanies the idea that I might not be able to keep up or even just the fact that, in some of the exercise positions, more of me might be hanging out than I can personally accept as appropriate. When you are walking around town or going out to eat in front of your acquaintances, friends, and people you do business with everyday; you aren’t generally clad in Lycra-wear with your head between your knees and both of your feet in the air. It’s a hurdle, I’m sure we ladies all struggle with at some level, I don’t care who you are or how hot you look in your yoga pants. There’s just something about lying on your back with your legs spread wide that is taboo for some reason, or well, I guess that depends on how you look at it.

I summoned the courage, braved my insecurities and signed up anyway. At the first class, I think I counted 30 or so women and I’m sorry to say, though it’s nice to have more room to stretch out, the numbers have dwindled. Rebecca is fantastic! She’s the perfect motivator for me because I respond well to the pleasant mixture of her boundless energy and her Pollyanna-sunshiny-attitude mixed, delightfully/refreshingly with grating, realistic sarcasm. I couldn’t be more entertained and in pain at the same time. I can tell she really cares about us as she demands we breathe to her count and keep our feet “up, up, up….no drooping”. We stare at her pleadingly for the “…and relax” command, as we attempt to keep our shoulders off the mat and our straight, quivering/convulsing legs inches off the ground. She just keeps talking and telling jokes, can’t she see we’re dying down here!?! Maybe that’s the point, though sometimes it’s hard to deep breathe and laugh at ourselves at the same time…..but we try.

It’s not for the weak, don’t let the horizontal positions fool you. For some of us, when we recline, gravity takes hold and with all of that up near your face, with your knees, pulled obligingly into your chest; it’s a challenge to keep from turning purple, much less breathe with any sort of rhythm…and still we try, because all you can do is try and keep trying.

I remember, in the beginning, we ladies were meeting each other at Mini Mart and other places around town for weeks asking each other, sympathetically, about our aching stomach muscles; our “natural girdles” as it were. We’ve bonded in more ways than that I’m sure; I think we are all standing up straighter, sitting less, and we are all making our “imprint” in this world every chance we get, now that we know and feel, how important that can be.

I’ll try not to skip anymore. We all deserve at least an hour each week to focus on our personal “core”, whether that be in the corporeal sense or the spiritual. It’s our time and we should never allow earthly, mundane tasks like washing dishes or cleaning toilets get in the way of our inner peace.

Namaste everybody!