Mrs Oldlady would have been so proud

I fell in love with pilates last year.

I feel bad - like I’m going about this all arse over tit, actually (not pilates you should feel good if you manage to get arse over tit in pilates because it is how some of the positions are performed). I feel bad because, in order to do this blog right, I feel like I should be starting from the beginning and relating to you what it was that made me start wanting to lose weight, how I feel about being a woman naturally prone to podginess, how I worked very hard to get rid of several stone and how I’m so unbelievably annoyed that I’m stuck at the last third of the way that I could just spit. All those things I need to talk about; but they’ll come in time - I just need to get the disappointment of today off my chest first.

See, I fell in love with pilates last year - I found a class in London, in a drafty church hall near work, with a nice northern woman who walked constantly around the class, placing calming hands on trembling backs and correcting tiny wrongnesses, occasionally saying ‘Good!’. After two weeks I noticed that my gym workouts - mainly based on boring cardio and fixed weight training - were becoming more effective, all due to the focussed muscle-toning powers of the mighty and simple pilates, and my mighty and marvellous teacher. In the third week she told me I was a natural, and had a ‘very strong core’ and I immediately decided I loved her and texted my beloved informing him I was becoming a lesbian and leaving him for a bendy northerner. Sadly, she had to leave the class to save the world elsewhere, and shortly after the class came to an end. Then I went freelance and …well, the story gets a bit dull for about a year after that. Needless to say, though, I evangelised the miracle of pilates wherever I went.

And then I went to another class today. And promptly fell out of love again.
You can find out why if you like by clicking

I always knew that pilates was used quite a lot in ballet to strengthen dancers muscles. That that was where it was primarily used, in fact. But it seems the class I went to last year was, perhaps, far more distantly related to ballet than others might be. In that class the emphasis was on smooth but targeted exercises, muscle control, all of those things.

Today, however? I was made to plié. Seriously. I mean, I know when someone’s trying to sucker me into classical dance, and this was one of those times. See, I did ballet for about a year approximately 23 years ago, in another drafty church hall far far away, under the iron rule of an old lady called Mrs Oldlady (I think). I was crap at it then, and I realised, as a floaty and ineffectual Australian instructed me into what I suddenly realised were the five basic foot positions this lunchtime, I’m still not that great at it now.

And I’m annoyed. Because I’d found this thing I really enjoyed doing last year. I found a class that I liked and I was brave enough to go in even though I didn’t know anyone, and keep going back too - and I’d managed to do that because a good friend and I had summoned up the courage jointly together, then, and though it ended, I’ve been secretly wanting to get back to it ever since.

But now, I go to the gym on my own. I’m shy, and I’m scared of talking to people who might conventionally have taken the piss out of me for being fat and unfit - and though I go every day, I’ve never before been to a class.

However, starting this blog, and with the encouragement of my fellow porketeers I finally braved it.
And it was horrid. Yes I could do it. Yes I have no doubt that some bits of it worked - the bits that weren’t pobsy basic ballet poses in disguise - but it wasn’t anything like the class I had wanted so very much to get back to.

And they made me stand in front of a mirror for an hour.
Me, who can’t look in a mirror for more than thirty seconds without feeling disappointment that borders on disgust.

When we finished the class, rolled up the mat and put it away, went downstairs and did an unplanned half hour on the crosstrainer to clear my mind and make me feel like I’d done something positive, rather than just trying to avert my eyes and failing to for a solid 60 minutes. It worked and didn’t work. Granted, it probably worked off a pancake or two in advance of tonight - but I’ve been utterly miserable since.

Sorry. This blog is meant to be funny and that wasn’t funny.
I just had a sad and disappointing day, and I’m cross, and I’m sad, and I needed to get it off my chest.
That’s all.

Does anyone know which one of those things pilates is supposed to be like, by the way. And if it’s really like my favourite, the former kind, I don’t suppose anyone knows of a class in Brighton? Without mirrors? No? Bit of a long shot, possibly.