The Weight

About a month ago, I started attending a weight class. I'm well aware that as I age, things can start to break down. Unfortunately, the warranty on my body parts is long expired. I checked in with the God department and got the standard answer, the kind you never read online when it says, do you accept this policy, and you always says yes, otherwise you can't use the site. Two knees per person is apparently the standard. Wouldn't it be nice if it were different?

I also go to Zumba, and out for walks, but apparently, I haven't been doing anything for my core. When Tracy told us during today's session that all the work with kettle bells and rings would really help, I felt some self doubt. "I think I left my core at the Haufbrau House in Germany, back in the seventies," I said. I don't think she believed me. "No, it's in there," Tracy said with her usual cheerful smile. She's possibly the most chipper task master I've ever met. "Okay, one hundred squats and then you're done."

But it's not always true. Just when you think the class is over, she'll pull a little something out of...well. Not her hat. "Hang on to the rings and let's work our glutes!" She sets a timer and everything. The thing we all dread is the personal inspection. Our motto is to look busy all the time, because if she stops to check, her suggestions about posture correction could take a while. "But I was already finished," whimpered someone nameless. (Okay, it was Penny Grove.) We all gave her sympathetic looks while being willing to throw her under the bus if it meant diverting Tracy's attention from ourselves.

It's like going to a spa at the Gulag. Or being stuck in a Gary Larson cartoon about doing leg lifts in hell. 'One million and one! One million and two!' I get the feeling I've been here before, and though I've never believed in previous lives, I get strange flashbacks while I'm busy groaning, sweating and lifting.

a. I was once a slave on a galley ship, rowing for hours through stormy weather and dark nights.

b. An indentured servant in a coal mine working sixteen hour shifts every day.

c. Or, somehow I've mistaken myself for someone who actually enjoys physical pain.
When I leave class I have a vague feeling I should be asking for my prison bucks. And then I remind myself that I pay for these classes because they're good for me.

We all start the morning as confident women, stretching, laughing, happy to begin our day with some vigorous exercise. But a part of me now believes that purgatory, that old Catholic standby, may be real, and Tracy may be in league with you know who to give us all a little well deserved chastisement. When she says into her mike, 'Is everyone finished their hundred kettle bell lifts (it has a better name but I can never remember it) we all holler, 'yes!' Some of us may be lying through our gritted teeth. But its true. We are finished in the best sense of the world. I told my daughter, who was starting a class with Tracy, don't be surprised when you leave it all out on the floor. By that, I mean you are literally collapsed on the floor, wishing someone would put your coat and boots on for you and carry you to your car.

One of my problems is that I'm very unaware of how all my parts should be working during these exercises. 'Tuck in your butt,' Tracy says. 'Drop your shoulders. Belly button in and lined up (what the???) Don't turn your feet like that, Judy.' It's as if while lifting that 20 lb. kettle bell over my head for the eightieth tine, I'm also required to do math.

Having said all this, I have to admit this one very positive thing. I get a feeling of euphoria after class that can last for hours. It may be a 'Wow! I can't believe I survived!' kind of moment. But still. It's a real thing. And I find that my stomach flattens itself out for a while. Apparently, if I keep going, it will last longer. And even though it feels like I'm stuck in the Braveheart movie and being torn apart by four horses, this class is actually good for my joints.

With all my heart, I wish it wasn't. I want it all to be a lie so I can go back to lifting my eight pound weights at home while sitting on my balance ball and watching 'This is Us.' Apparently, I was doing everything wrong, because no one was there to tell me to tuck in my tummy and my butt and straighten my head and don't jut my neck and be careful about my feet because it will save my knees. That's Tracy's job, and she's damn good at it.

So if you see me on Main Street and I seem glum, know that I'm on my way to weight class. If I look like I just won a trip, it means I'm done for the day. And some time soon, I hope I will find my abs, and my core will show up, having drunk enough beer at the Haufbrau House in Germany and willing to take her share of the beating. But not yet. That's an equation that needs a little more work. In honour of all the women in class, those hard core nuts I deal with, I'll leave you with this song, suitably called 'The Weight.' And yes. Do put the weight on Annie. Or Penny. I'm so okay with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo