I’ve been drawn in to a secret world, full of mystery, intrigue and gemstones. Every week I enter a small room, endure physical punishment and pay £18.00 for the ‘pleasure’ but it’s worth it. I need the fix.
Much to my surprise I find myself totally addicted to Reformer Pilates. But it’s not the pilates I’m addicted to, that’s just a slightly irritating side dish to the main course. It’s the mini-drama unfolding around me which is sucking me in. The torture chamber studio can accommodate 4 people at a time but, to mix things up a bit, the teacher (let’s called him Bob) has students arriving and leaving at different times throughout my allotted hour on the rack. So it’s an ever changing cast of characters and I just can’t get enough of it.
Mostly it’s ladies ‘of a certain age’, wealthy and coiffed/painted/bejewelled within an inch of their lives. A couple of men have infiltrated but they are mainly ignored. They get on with their routine while the women chitter chatter and flirt with Bob (nearly 60) whilst attempting to outflash each other with tales of their latest cruise/holiday/gem acquisition/replacement hip. And Bob wafts around, King of the Chamber, dominating his ‘bitches’, flirting and imparting local gossip while the rest of us try to coordinate complicated breathing, talking and hanging on his every word all at the same time. It’s fair to say that Bob is universally adored by all his female victims. Even though he looks like a frog.
So far I’ve been the youngest ‘victim’ in the chamber by about 200 years. I seem to be the only one not on a permanent diet. Much of the morning chat focuses on being ‘good’ with your diet, whether the victims have ‘kept the weight off’ and the relative merits of giving up chocolate v wine. ‘Victoria’ has high cholesterol but has a penchant for croissant but only when she’s at her holiday house in France as they are ‘less buttery’ there apparently. She’s high on botox and completes her routine in full (and I mean FULL) make up. Never seen without perfectly painted nails she knows every spa in the land and their relative merits. Loves Bob more than life.
Enter ‘Margaret’. She’s ancient. She’s probably a national treasure. She can hardly move but, hey, since when has that been an impediment to exercise? The phrase ‘helmet hair’ is daily redefined by her ‘do’. She’s so dripping in gemstones that Bob is considering reinforcing the floor. Her hobby is buying the national gemstone of every country she visits on her 25 annual holidays. She buys them, brings them home, has them set in gold (“platinum is so shabby”) and let’s Bob lick them. She creaks, he licks. It’s a love thing.
Meanwhile, silently, ‘Dave’ is training for some kind of serious Sporting Event. We ignore him.
Every 15 minutes an alarm sounds. More gemsones for ‘Margaret’? Good guess but, no. Time for Bob’s cup of hot water. His body is a temple. Feel free to worship at his altar (£18.00 an hour!).
Today a 149 year old woman chastised me for not wearing a vest. Then we discussed pensions (and the Equitable Life hoooha), dying by falling down stairs (happened to a local doctor), liquid oxygen, high waisted jeans, nail varnish, some little know gemstones that I can’t remember…etc etc. What enthralls me the most is how ‘Bob’ can talk to all of us, keep four different strands of conversation going, and yet keep us all going with probably 20 different routines without ever dropping a beat. He never says, ‘Just a minute’…nor does he ignore something someone has said…he’s the most accomplished communicator I’ve ever met. And he has that gift of making you feel like you’re the only person on the world when he talks to you. I’m smitten. But not like that.
But this is what puzzles me. Pilates is all about the breathing. It looks like you’re just lying down doing small movements, or lying on a hospital bed with varied instruments of torture attached to it. It doesn’t look like hard work. But it is, it’s really really hard work. And a huge part of it is the breathing; breathing in at the right point, breathing out at the right point.
So, how the HELL do these women talk and get the breathing right? I can’t do it. I can either talk OR do pilates. It’s just not physically possible to do both. ‘Bob’ knows that. So is he just indulging them while laughing all the way to the bank? Or are they so old they need to talk to give themselves a break from the torture? Last week Bob called out to me, quite firmly, ‘Spud! What are you doing?’. “Um, I’m having a rest”, quoth I. “Well”, said Bob rather tartly, “there’s no need to use four letter words in MY studio”.
My back is pain free for the first time in years and years and I couldn’t be happier about that. Yay for pilates! Better, I’ve immersed myself in a weekly mini-series. I can’t wait until ‘Margaret’ is back from her cruise. Apparently it’s black diamonds this time. Skippy!
Who needs TV? I’ve got pilates.
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