A Truly Remarkable Experience

Well, Carl and I have joined a gym. It is akin to 24 Hour Fitness out west, but it is called The Rush.

Everything there is really nice. .. except one thing. . . Patti. We decided to try out a Zumba class together last week. In case you have never heard of Zumba, it is basically a really high-energy Latin dance aerobic class. I tried this class out when we were in Utah, and I thought it was really fun. They turned the lights almost off, and they played all kinds of exciting Latin music, and no one could really see how uncoordinated I was, even though the room was PACKED with people. It was a fun class and I got really sweaty and raved and raved about it to Carl until he finally agreed to come with me to this class at The Rush.

Here are the things that were different about this class at The Rush. . .

1) Carl was THE ONLY male (which seems to be common in exercise classes here)

2) There were only 6 of us total.

3) The music was really quiet, and I could hear myself breathing.

4) The instructor, Patti, came in, and I thought she was a student.

5)Patti was AT LEAST 65 years old, about 20 pounds overweight, and REEKED of cigarette smoke. She had a smoker's cough as well. She wrapped a scarf with little chimes all over it around her hips. I was amazed by the smallness of her range of motion. If she were not an aerobics instructor, I would mistake her for a greeter at Wal-Mart. Needless to say, our heart rates never went above 70 bpm.

6) Pattie would say things like, "Now, you can try to get lower and touch the floor on this one, but it makes it real hard to get back up, so I'm just gonna stay up here." Also, she kept drawing attention to the fact that Carl was the only male, and it started to sound like she was mocking him. At one point she said, "Come on boyfriend! Flip that skirt!" She would draw attention to each of us individually and say, to the group, what we were doing that was not to her liking.

7) When it was over, we were glad.


This experience made me very grateful for my own ability to improve. If I take this experience to heart, perhaps I will not end up a burnt-out, low-energy "aerobics" instructor at age 65.

To show the beauty of self-improvement and development, I have included a video of Jude taking some of his first steps of his own volition. I give you self-motivation!