"Step, ball, change"... huh?!

In the vein of becoming the Amy of Yesteryear, I have been going to the gym on a regular basis for the last couple of weeks.  I’ve taken almost every class offered so far- Zumba, Aerobics, Step Aerobics, Kickboxing, BodyPump (which is an ass-kicking cardio weight class)- and I must say that for a lady who hasn’t seen the inside of gym for well over 2 years (and who looks like it), I do a pretty damn good job of keeping up and holding my own. I can follow most every class and actually have the endurance to get through them.  I even throw in an enthusiastic ‘WOO’ every now and then. (Don’t judge, I get into it.)  But, don’t let that fool you into thinking that I’m one of those gym bunnies in their little aerobics ensembles who leave the class looking as immaculate as they came in. No, I enter the class a mess (seriously, who gets gussied to go the gym?), and leave a purple, sweaty, she-monster… but I get my workout on!

Anyway, today I had the misfortune of taking ‘Step Interval’ at 10:30 AM. I hadn’t taken a 10:30 class prior to today (I usually do noon or night classes), and I’m pretty sure I won’t be taking one in the future. Much to my dismay, just as I walked into the gym, masses of uber tan (please, it’s January), uber skinny, perfectly coiffed (pre and post workout), spandex-clad Stepford Wives, (many toting young children- making my ‘I just had a baby’ excuse irrelevant), showed up in cliquey little droves.  And, lucky for me, these she-witches (who obviously exist for the sole purpose of  making folks like me feel like fat, messy, frumps), all walked into my class. 

I’m cocky though, always have been. I thought: 'F!%@ em, I got this'. Though I might not have spent a fortune on head to toe designer work out gear (my pants were $11.99 at WalMart- thank you very much) and I was rocking some pretty serious bed-head, I felt highly confident that I could bounce with the best of these bedazzled bunnies... Insert humiliation. 

First, I grabbed my step and risers. I noticed many people getting just two risers, but given my obvious aerobic proficiency, I got four (rationalizing that these skinny bitches must not really want a work out). Then the class started. No intro. No basic or V-step. Just skip, hop, jump, flip, tap, kick, backbend, quadruple lutz, repeat. (OK- not really, but it felt like that, and I had no clue how to even do the most basic steps they were doing.) The instructor hardly muttered a direction and the whole tightly toned tribe bounded into action. Swirl here. Turn here. “Grapevine” apparently means multiple turns and a kick. Who knew? And I tried. Really I did. But these size 9 clod hoppers (which grew almost an entire size during pregnancies- due, apparently, to mass weight gain- a fact my MIL nicely pointed out) refused to do anything close to the actions of this twirling troop. They swirled left, I kicked right. They did a box step, I did an L step. They sashayed and I, well, after 35 minutes of missing every damn step, I threw in the towel!  For the first time ever, with my head hung low, I slinked out of a class- mid cha-cha. (I even left my step and risers right where they were, a gym crime of the highest caliber!) Oh the shame! 

And I did feel like a class A idiot for a good bit. However, I have decided to not let this circus of stick insects get me down. I have decided to learn from this experience and never look back upon their overly buffed buttocks. First, from now on, I will go to the gym during normal people gym hours (lunch and after work) to avoid the orange-tinted Stepford crowd completely. Then, I will be sure to double check the nature of all ambiguously named classes. And, most importantly, I will remind myself to not take things too seriously. There will always be ballerina beauties masquerading as everyday people, but if I can laugh at myself (some days it’s much too easy), and be truly grateful for what I have (warts and all); I am the one with the total package!  

booyah bitches!