Why does everything involve so much exercise?
Before last week, the closest I’d ever come to joining a gym was joining a hip-hop dance class when I was 11.
It took me five years to realise that the “private lessons” I was offered before every performance were not a chance for my teacher to mentor a hip-hop prodigy, but rather a desperate attempt to get my flailing limbs under control before I paraded them around in public.
I was heartbroken.
I decided to boycott all forms of exercise for the rest of my life.
But a week ago, after many years of being successfully sedentary, I joined a gym.
Maybe it was #fitspo. Maybe it was the three cupcakes I ate for lunch that day. Maybe it was the realisation I had spent more money on those cupcakes than I’d be paying for a fortnight’s gym membership.
Whatever it was – it was a terrible decision.
I chose yoga as my first class because it seemed really relaxing and simple. I had dabbled in yoga during my high school years and, from memory, it was at least 80 per cent lying on the floor with your eyes closed imagining a lush green field and a cool blue stream.
Things were looking up when I arrived and saw that my fellow yogis were all women over fifty. I was embarrassingly overconfident. I did not take water into the class because I thought it would be unnecessary. I was starting my gym career off slow and steady.
Look, I don’t want to spread lies about my high school yoga instructor, but I’m pretty sure we weren’t doing actual yoga AT ALL.
I had no idea what any of the moves were (are they called moves? I couldn’t hear the softly spoken instructor over the sound of my laboured breathing).
As women twice my age moved seamlessly from position to position without breaking a sweat, my arms developed such a spasm that when we were asked to hold a backwards plank, I crashed unceremoniously to the floor.
Which was quite lucky, actually, because it was the only lying down I got to do in the whole class.
Sometimes we got to rest in Downward Dog, which was a real shame, because it made me feel like my arms were going to fall off.