Pilates

The summer vacation has started (more or less – I haven't quite finished grading) and in an effort to become a bit fitter and to help my back I have started Pilates classes. They are only twice a month, but the idea is supposed to be that you do it at home and get corrections and feedback when you do it in class.

(This is all a part of my plan to gain five kilos IN MUSCLE this summer vacation. I am flabby and underweight, and do not like it.)

Two weeks ago I had a 'sample' lesson, which I was told at the counter meant that I could watch and then decide whether or not to join the class. The teacher, however, invited me to join in, so I did. It was, I thought, pretty easy, and pretty much my speed. The only real problem I had with it was that the teacher's Japanese was quite fast at times, so I had the odd bit of cognitive overload while trying to understand what she was saying as well as concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing.

The cognitive overload reached tipping point when she told us to breathe in, and then a few seconds later to throw up. I'd been mentally congratulating myself on how well i was keeping up until that point. It was true that I wasn't understanding every word, but I was getting the general idea and didn't seem to be doing anything dramatically differently from the others in the class.

I was balanced rather tenuously on my side with one leg in the air when she told us to throw up, and that was enough to make me glance around, startled, to see whether anyone was actually following this bizarre instruction, and then to lose my balance and roll over, laughing helplessly. This led the teacher to assure me that it happened to everybody, especially at the beginning. She thought I was laughing because I was embarrassed.

I was not laughing because I was embarrassed about rolling over, but I did not tell her that. I was laughing at my terrible Japanese skills (after all these years!) that had led me to think that she had just instructed me to throw up.

Later, when I got home I looked up haku, and discovered it does, indeed, mean to throw up. It also means to breathe out. And to lie. I never knew that!

In today's class I did not lose my balance (or throw up), and I followed the teacher's instructions a little more easily than I did last time.

But I can see that Pilates is not the only thing I am going to be learning in these classes.

(Incidentally, remember I said the class seemed easy to me that first time? The day after the class every muscle in my body hurt. It was WONDERFUL. I had not done any exercise since that first class, though, so I fully expect to feel wonderful again tomorrow.)