Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Gym Rat

I have been a member of one gym or another for as long as I have been able to hold my own membership to something. I have always "worked out".  This has taken on various forms over the years: Belly Dancing, Hot yoga, relugar temperature yoga,  judo,  weight lifting, water aerobics, step class, spinning class,  zumba, machine weights, and when I lived in places too remote, or when I was too broke, I would simply run. And that is not the final list. And it doesn't include biking and hiking, which are just life stuff.  I know I have left stuff out. I am a perpetual fitness class fanatic and I have never lost my ass. Not ever once. Not even for a little bit. But it's not about loosing my ass. What am I kidding? It is always about loosing my ass, but it also about that feeling of exhaustion that comes from working out really hard. It is an awesome feeling.(But only when it is over.)

I also have a need to prove to myself that I can physically support my body. That if need be, I can seriously kick some ass. Or at least haul myself out of the water if I ever fell off a boat, or climb a rope out of an erupting volcano, or wrestle a bear. I don't want to be soft and pathetic and weak. I want to be like Vladimir Putin.
 I have never been a sporto. I am not competitive with sports AT ALL. I hate that stuff. Mostly because I am slow and rather awkward and just not very athletic. (You should see my lay-up.) I have run some races, 5ks, 10k (Once and it was horrible). My sister is a super athlete and I have always been ragingly jealous of her prowes but I would never admit it. Oh whoops, I just did.

Anyway, so when my friend Katie kept telling me about this little gym she joined and how great it was, I didn't really buy it. I just thought she had probably been brain washed by a health club pyramid scheeme or was feeling the effects of too much progesterone or something. But after months, she still kept telling me how great it was. At the time, I was into this thing where I would put the kids in the bike trailer and haul all 90 lbs plus dog (20lbs) up and down big hills for an hour and a half a day, and they were starting to mutiny. "What, you don't want to have gravel spat in your face while I grunt up hills? You ungrateful little...(you get the point)!" So I went.

So now I do these classes called "Body Combat" and "Crunch" and "Body Pump" and "Sh'BAM".
and I punch and kick and lunge and do movements based on boxing and all sorts of martial arts, and also get to do a dance class where I can pretend I am a "Solid Gold" dancer.Anyone remember that show? Anyone? No? How about "Flashdance"? Are you with me now?

These in themselves are fun and different, but the real reason that I go back nearly every day is that the instructor is actually, possibly a bit crazy and kind of scary. And I realize that I need/love that particular mix of superjock/ crazy eyes / drill seargent to get the most out of me. (By the way, she instructs her classes usually in full glam makeup. She is amazing and scary.) She will call you out by your first and last name and hit you with the crazy eye and you just obey.  I honestly have never worked out so hard before. I was inspired enough to draw a few pictographs:
Her eyes


So I do this


She does more of this

I do this


She does this


I end up like this. It is great. I love it.

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