Musings

Musings defined: ponderings, reflections, meditations, contemplations.
I aim to share experiences, past and present, with the goal of learning and appreciating what life presents.

Monday 11 July 2011

This will be funny - someday.  I am in the pool, chestdeep.  The instructor is speaking very loudly but I cannot understand her.  I look at a fellow participant, the tall woman beside, me with a question on my face and she says, "Touch your elbow to your heel.  No, your opposite elbow."  If I did what I was supposed to be doing I would drown.  I can't even do this on solid ground, never mind wavering around in the water.  They call this aquafit.  It is aerobics in the water.  The instructor takes pity on me occassionally when I stand there doing nothing with a big question mark on my face, and gets out of the water so I can see her skinny legs and see what I am supposed to be doing.  How am I supposed to know that I should be hopping up and down with my knees together and kicking out one foot and then touching heels?  Course if I could understand the instructions it would help.  A woman comes into the pool, a little late for class, with a big genuine smile on her face and a little dance step to the blaring music, saying,"I love Monday mornings."  I can't be mad at her though because she makes me look good.  Takes almost three of me to make one of her.

I did not want to get up this morning.  Usually that is not a problem but then reading the newspaper or surfing the internet takes less effort.  I have, however, figured out why I have no energy.  I spend all my energy in my dreams.  As I awoke up at 6am I realized that the police had stopped me for riding my bicycle against the traffic.  They let me go when I apologized and told them I was cycling back to Canada from university in Utah.  When I tell Carroll she says exercise in my dreams doesn't count.  Then why does it make me so tired?

Now it is the cross-country ski stroke but with one leg.  Later I notice that the helpful woman beside me has shifted across the pool away from me.  Maybe I was looking at her legs too often as I tried to see what my legs should be doing.  Everyone heads to the side of the pool to put on waterwings and to pick up dumbells.  I like these dumbells.  They are made of styrofoam.  I can wave these around in the air with the best of them.  But they do create a lot of drag in the water.  They are mostly to keep me afloat while we continue exercises.  Only they pull me where I don't want to go.  I say to the lone fellow beside me as I nudge up to him, "Sorry I don't have much control."  "Neither do I" he says as he does even less than me.  I understand the cross-country ski glide.  Tiring in the water, but at least doable.  No time to enjoy before we're onto another exercise.  I don't manage to get my feet floating out behind me but I do manage to tighten my stomach muscles as I struggle to keep my face out of the water.  I try to look calm but I don't think I am fooling anyone, as everyone seems to know what they are doing, even the back row that talks more than exercises.  This is just like school.

So how did I get here.  My wife and children seem to think I am out of shape.  When hyperactive Darius was here with his hyperactive family, I definitely did not keep up with them.  So here I am in the water in an attempt to get a bit of a spring in my step without injuring my wornout hips or left knee.  We complete the hour with ten minutes of relaxing stretches in the large hot tub.  I like that - until we all move into the center for ballet stretches.  I let the fat lady go ahead of me and figure there is no room for me, but the instructor points her finger at me and says, "Move in".  I wonder what the lone young man relaxing in the hot tub is thinking with all these old women surrounding him.  By now I am the only man in the class with 12 old women.  I survive.  Glad to get out in the sun where Carroll is waiting to pick me up after her excercise at the nearby Curves Club. "How was it?" she asks.  "Miserable" I reply, "but now I've got another good reason for being tired."

1 comment:

  1. I think aquafit sounds like fun; I've always loved being in the water. Of course, I've never done it so what do I know?

    You won't have to worry about keeping up when I'm there; I'm often pretty sedentary.

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