Sunday, June 03, 2012

Small Poppy

Just when I think I'm actually getting good at Pilates, I have two classes in a row that totally suck.

Saturday's class was all about balance and long, sustained stretches (mostly on one leg).  We used the big medicine ball a lot too and I am just so clumsy on those things.  I had to concentrate a lot but with each wobble and topple, I started to get cross with myself and then lost motivation to keep concentrating.  It doesn't help when you have a small class, and you feel like the only elephant in the room.

As a result of all the stretching yesterday, I woke up this morning with really sore glutes and hamstrings.  Walking gingerly around the house, I tried to stretch my legs out in preparation for my 2pm class.  The walk to the studio helped with this somewhat, but I think I was still out of sorts from Saturday's class so I really didn't go into today's lesson with the right mindset.  And when the teacher asked us to do ab work on the foam roller, my brain knew what to do but my body wouldn't comply.  I just couldn't balance well today.  My lower back was sore, my brain got grouchy, and for a couple of exercises I just laid there and stared at the ceiling while the other students obediently bent and stretched.

The good thing about doing Pilates on both Saturday and Sunday is that I sleep really well for the weekend, and I wake up feeling like I've worked out and actually done something. I've actually come to the end of my latest pack of 10 Pilates classes, so I'll be taking a break from the studio for a while.  My gym has a couple of Power Pilates  classes - focussing on abs and lower body, as well as another class that just focuses on arms and back strength.  Plus the gym still offers the ballet Pilates that I love, so I will likely keep myself busy doing those for a while.

It's not that I have to be good at everything, it's just that I like the idea of being good at something that I really enjoy.  I guess the old adage 'practice makes perfect' really does apply here, at least in my case.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's an old joke still going around that talks about the body parts all coming together to elect a leader. You see they thought it important that there be a leader to provide the right guidance to the body parts and then ergo, the human.

Needless to say, the brain was right there demanding to be the leader but you know who in the END became the leader and WHY.

So, I think the moral to this anecdote is ..... brain, more of this (ssshhhhh) and drink more wine.