Flashdance Mess Your Pants

"I really don't think I need buns of steel. 
I'd be happy with buns of cinnamon."
  ~Ellen DeGeneres~

If you've ever seen me, you know at first glance that physically, I'm built for pleasure, not for speed.  In other words I have lots of, well, let's just call them soft spots. Despite my natural propensity for food, wine, merry-making and what I'm sure boils down to having blue blood from a past life somewhere in my all-Canadian veins, I do manage to get out to the gym a few times a week.

This may seem like an unrelated bit of information, but trust me it becomes important later in this blog post.  I also like to bake. Each week I bake on Sunday night or Monday night.  It's my child's choice, and ironically this week the request was for raisin bran breakfast muffins.  Stick with me here folks.

As is reflective of my personality, I love to be surrounded by people provided they don't bother me, or are at the very least entertaining without making an effort.  Fitness class allows this combination of social indulgence. Sweating and losing my breath is a very private pursuit, best shared at a distance if it's not brought on by multiple glasses of wine and masculine charm.  Before the classes start, there's a bit of chatting, and at the end of class, we all dissolve away home and leave our acquaintance at that.

I've just been back to the gym for a week.  I let it lapse during the summer so I could accommodate my child's busy sport schedule...that and I'm a lush. So, tonight I was chatting up the woman who had the bad fortune of assuming her place directly behind me.  Right before the music started, we noted that yet another substitute instructor had been brought in, and my friend's last words were, "Trish, as long as I sweat, I'll be happy." 

Boy did she sweat. Tonight even the dorky squash players who hang out just outside of the women's fitness class sweat just watching our new sub.  She was a gristled up piece of Caucasian  protein the colour of brown shoe leather,  sporting chap-like wind pants.  There was no eye contact with anyone in the class, and it was clear she had heard her calling from the creator to punish us all into the same state of gristleyness.

Before I go to the gym, I make myself as ugly as possible. Well, not intentionally, it just works out that way. I'm hopelessly clumsy, so all jewelry comes off except for the rings that remain on because they're premenstrually attached to my fingers. I put my hair back with a giant elastic band, wash off my makeup, and dress in my spandex. 

There are lyrics to an Aaron Lines song that go, "...even when her hair's messed up and her make-up's gone, you can't hide beautiful".  Well, it's not quite like that when I go au naturel. I'm not hiding beautiful under my make-up and hair-do, I'm at the very least hiding homely if not downright frightening!  I get suspicious of anyone who can maintain eyeliner and lipstick and huge pieces of jewelry around their jugular while flailing around and sweating.  I'm convinced these people are secret aliens, somehow aligned to take over the human race along with pug dogs and persian cats.

Tonight when the music started, and the instructor started speaking, I almost laughed out loud. Clearly, CLEARLY, by the tempo of the music, and the shouting it was evident that she had mistaken this hi/low yoga class as bootcamp.   As we "LIFT(ed) LEFT!RIGHT!LEFT!RIGHT, WORK(ing) THAT BOOTY!!!", the reflections of shocked women stared back at me in the mirror.  I have a broad sense of humour that is often not shared in crisis by the people around me.  I couldn't help but laugh out loud. As my heart rate became dangerously high, I realized that I had an hour and a half of this to go and I'd better pace myself.  Collapsing on the floor in a fit of giggles was not going to be cool, or appreciated. As I lifted and kicked a la '80's style dancersize, I watched as my classmates looked as if they were going to either smack the instructor, or burst into tears.

When Miss Booty, who was wearing dangly earrings and pearls - Yes, that's right, pearls in a fitness class- called out, "Are you ready to really work it?!", I couldn't help but yelp back the expected, "WOO!!!". I was the only woo-hoo-er. If anyone had any energy or nerve enough to vary from the booty-camp regime, I'm sure they would have turned and glared at me. I was laughing at my own shock as much as at the evident horror of my innocent classmates.

As a teenager I often filled in for the fitness instructor who came to my little town to teach evening classes in the school gymnasium. I was 5'8" and barely 100lbs.  I could kick, jump, squat and move like the wind.  I was never going to be the unfit-35-year-old-tired-out-full-time-working-mom that I've turned into.  Tonight I was vaulted back to those days in the late 1980's/early 1990's as each song pumped itself out of the speakers. I'm not sure which song made me want to laugh more, the I'm-on-cocaine-120-beats-per-millisecond version of, "You Sexy Thing", or the same hyped up style of "La Bomba".  The moves matched the music.  A room full of spandexed chubbsters squatting and kicking like my mother and I used to do to Richard Simmons's "Sweating to the Oldies". 

About twenty minutes into the class three people, mopping their faces with their delicate little towels, left the room.  "KICK IT UP TO YOUR BOOTY!!!", the instructor barked into the mic.  Booty? Really?  There's nobody in here under 25! No one here uses that word in their regular vocabulary! Heck, at this stage of my life, the word "booty" is kinda porn-ish.  I relate more to pirate ship booty than to anything that I'm going to shake if you know what I mean.  I'm at an age where I really only want one man to check out my booty, and that's by flattering candlelight after he's had enough to drink to make the puckering smooth itself out.

We did cardio, arms, legs and were moving on to abs before yoga. I hadn't done some of those moves since I was a kid.  The last time anyone called the "bicycle" the bicycle, I'm sure I was in public school. Although, one brutal she-man-wanna-be-gym teacher that I had in high school may have made us do that, but I've blocked that trauma from my long-term memory. 

After the bicycle (and the traumatising memories that brought back) we were instructed to roll over and "swim". You know, lift your arms and legs and flail around like fish out of water.   I'm not sure whether I was horrified or relieved when my raisin bran breakfast muffin announced it's arrival in my colon.  I was praying there would be no applause for this arrival by any other part of my digestive tract.  So, as disappointed as I was to miss out on the entertainment of watching this woman take us back to the eighties and the reactions of my classmates, I decided to play it safe and waddle home with my aching muscles and bran filled booty.

I ache tonight. I actually feel like I've worked out, and I kind of hope this woman comes back to push me a little harder than usual.  I respect her. I am reconsidering my baking though.  Clearly I should just stick to cookies and and my other favourite gooey baked delights so it doesn't get in the way of my favourite hour and a half fitness class. I'm a genius. Pass the chocolate.