The other day I went to the gym to try out a new class they were offering. It was called Street Party and the concept while good, produced a bunch of sweating women staring around at each other with a deer in headlights look in their eyes. It is an aerobics class based on urban dance moves. Now, I like to think I’m a pretty decent dancer. I can find the beat and do the goth, rave, industrial thing with the best of them but this made me feel like a huge, awkward girl with no rhythm.
Imagine if you will the heroine of the story (me) a 5’10 girl of plus size proportions that is trying to better her body. A friend from the same gym is raving about a new class that is going to start and it’s basically dancing! Perfect, the heroine thinks to herself, an aerobics class that I might be able to do!
So she heads to the gym and does some warm up stretches, while secretly checking out the competition…err other women. They are all pretty average like myself, I mean your heroine. Various age ranges, a couple of perfect bodies but nothing too intimidating. And then the heroine stands and realizes that all the other women in the class come up to her chin. So now I’m, I mean she, oh screw it, so now I’m standing in a sea of short women with my pale white face shining like a beacon because I’m already slightly sweaty from my stretching. Two seconds later the instructor comes bouncing out and she’s a 5’2 Spanish dynamite!
Five minute into the class I realize I’m lost. It takes me about 10 seconds (which is about 5 hours in aerobics time) to just attempt to get my left leg in sync with hers and when I finally do she changes the moves on me! That’s ok I think to myself, simply do the March in place until you try to make sense of the instructions she is screaming at us (left, slide, kick, back, back, crossover, body slide, shake your bootie girls!!) watch what the hell her feet, arms and hands are doing and then try to get my now very large and awkward body to do what she is accomplishing without a bead of sweat on her forehead yet.
I’m seriously about ready to just bust out my own moves in the corner when I look around, well down, at the other women and take some solace in the fact that most of them are struggling as well. One woman to my left is simply nodding her head, another woman has fallen over because she is trying to do the Michael Jackson point/body slide followed by a moon walk. Of course there are a couple of women who are right at the front that are the “Superstars!” Presenting the instructor with a perfect imitation of every move she does. The rest of us drink our Gatorade, stagger over to the side during a brief pause in the music to catch our breath and adjust our wedgies from all the bootie shakes we’ve been attempting and these girls continue to March with variations of clapping and twirls.
I’ve decided that I hate these women. These perfect women who are made for aerobics, made to follow the leader. That’s really my problem; I have a very difficult time allowing someone else to lead. Hell, even my father will no longer dance with me because I won’t let him lead. I was raised to be a very strong independent woman that could do anything and then giving that control up throws my brain into panic mode. This mode apparently produces the tallest, sweatiest pale tower of no rhythm in an aerobics class. So next time you see this girl, allow her to stand at the back behind the poll so that she doesn’t have to see her awkwardness reflected back on her 180 times.
Oh and for those that care, I will be going back to that class, and I will conquer those moves. Why? Because it is a contest and I don’t like to lose.
