Chapter Four

I can't walk. Seriously. It hurts in places I didnt even know I had.

There were no sandbag warm-ups today. It was straight into the torture of abdominal contractions. I think she took us to complete muscle fatigue in that area. And if that wasn't bad enough, we then learned how to warm up our glutes and hamstrings. My groin hurts.

"Start with your legs crossed pretzle style. Actually, you're supposed to have your toes pointed so that you're not squishing the sides of your feet, but since you guys are just beginner beginners, we'll just relax our feet. Now, sit up on your "sits" bones in your butt, press your shoulders down, rest your wrists on your knees with your fingers pointed out, and do that same contraction you did on the floor with your stomach."

unnnnnnnggggggghhhh, my stomach already hurts, I dont think I have one more "contraction" in me!

She continued with her shrill voice, "Now we're gonna drop our chin and touch the tops of our heads to the floor, round your shoulders, and start to scoop with your head upward, into that contraction, press the shoulders down, and you're finished. Lets do the other side, switch legs and now cross your right with your left."

Wait! I dont think I have it yet!

"Alright, lets do that a few million times to music and you can see how this becomes a dance move!"

Oh Lord, help me! My body wasnt designed to go into these crazy positions.

I thought that was the worst of it. I was wrong.

Next we learned some positions that I think might have permanently prevented me from walking like a normal person. We had to straddle our legs as far as we could and point our toes. Why point the toes? So our legs will remain in one place and not move while we twisted our torso around. I struggled and fought with my unlimber body to even make half a straddle when the prof announces we have to sit up on our "sits" bones yet again which might mean pushing the groin muscles forward. This next part began looking like some kind of recognizeable stretch, but I was wrong. We did a side bend to one side, then moved our arms to look like we were jumping a hurdle (one in the front one in the back) and the twisted to the other side all in a fast fluid motion.

Not too bad, I think to myself, though just sitting here in this position is killing me.

Next came the torturous part, all the twisting and swirling around rapidly while in this straddle, otherwise known as second position, was really beginning to hurt. My inner thighs have never screamed so loudly for me to stop. We learned all three "moves" in this position when she announces, "Ok, now we're gonna speed things up and put it to music, you know, up to tempo"

Is she insane? That was already so fast I was hardly keeping up! Groans resonate throughout the gym. At least I'm not the only one, I think to myself. I tentatively raise my hand, "Um, is it supposed to hurt this bad in this area (pointing to my inner thighs)?"

"Well, yes," she says matter of factly, "You're having to push those groin muscles forward which are probably very tight just to do this. See, I only feel it in my hamstrings." I heard whimpers escape from someone behind me.

The music began. She started taking us through the moves again with our arms, even though we've yet to move our legs out of this near split position. My arms began to falter from fatigue. My legs were giving out. I'm downright positive I was no longer sitting straight up with my shoulders pressed down. I heard giggles and groans throughout the class as everyone struggled to keep up with the teacher. I was going left. The teacher's going right. Her arms are up. Mine were down. I could no longer feel my groin muscles. Was that a good or bad thing?

Finally, finally, FINALLY, class is over. "Clap for yourselves ladies, we always clap at the end of each class for making it through! Now get up slowly and try and walk back to the locker room, if you can." If I didnt know any better, I'd have thought she was smirking as she said that, and possibly might have even broken out into an evil laugh after we all left the gym. I'm so grateful I have until Monday to recover.

One week down, four more to go before we begin... ballet!

** note** the above picture is not a picture of our class, of course, because they are all able to make the pose, plus this class in the photo isn't taking place in an old decrepit gym. This is just a picture that I came across while looking for something similar to what we were doing today. ***