Pilates Of The Carribean, Arrrgh!

Well… the time arrived for my second foray into the Pilates Pit. Yes, whenever enough of my bones break playing basketball and my hip and back ache from trying to keep up in some way another with twenty year olds my ancient wisdom brain brings me to the darkened cave at my gym I know only as the Pilates Pit.

It is a cave filled with women of all ages who can bend, contort, and generally make you feel terribly weak and uncoordinated within the first minute. Although they smile and tell you that they are glad you are there, they have that same tone I think the witch had when welcoming Hansel and Gretel into the candy house.

I thought Pilates was developed by a ballet teacher but ever dependable Wikepedia informs us that it was developed as a way to help rehabilitate soldiers after World War I. Personally I think it was developed by former ballet dancers that were injured in World War I and still wanted to show that they were tougher than anyone else in the world.

Now, the premise of Pilates seems to be that you keep every muscle tight in your body except…your…face. Now the premise of keeping your face loose seems to be that you can smile at any guys that have entered their lair and say, “Hey, this is easy, why are grimacing?”

Among the other oddities is the skill you build in drawing with your toes. Yes, you lie on your back and draw baseballs, then soccer balls, then the whole earth with your toes. If I ever get paralyzed from the waist up I will still be able to find employment painting the walls of sports fields with my feet. I am also working on my math skills by doing figure eights, although mine probably currently looks more like pictures of hammerhead sharks.

I’d give myself an “A” for attendance (staying until the Pilates Master says we are dismissed), a “B” for effort (after a while I just quit trying to keep up with the Pilates Princesses), and an “F” for form (my legs are bent like a witch’s nose and I grimaced way too much!) I must be doing something right, though, because I’m walking like a penguin to get some aspirin and put some ice on my hips. And tonight I’m working on thinking about doing Pilates without grimacing from just the thought of it.