And you thought I was an awkward hugger.

About six years ago Logan worked on some design and marketing materials for a Pilates studio. I remember having a conversation where I said, "Pee-lah-tees" several times ignoring Logan's cringing, because I had no clue how you pronounced it. 

Today I pronounce it, "Holy Shit This Is Killing Me".

Each week I gather with my friends at Chrissy's house for an ass-kicking/pilates session. We do this because we like abuse and also because Chrissy's neighbor teaches Pilates and needs the extra sessions for her training. Also she likes to torture people.

If I were you, Internet, I'd be really upset. I'd be upset because I obviously don't care about you at all because if I cared about your enjoyment I would show you pictures from pilates class.

I wish I could, but I really like my friends and if I did that they wouldn't be my friends anymore.

Sometimes, though, when I'm standing on my hands, or when I'm doing a back bend across the back of the instructor, I think to myself, "God damn it, if this isn't content I don't know what is."

There was one day while I did some sort of ass kicking move, the instructor looked at my face and said, horrified, "Please, relax your face."

I like to imagine what the hell my face looked like when she said that, I picture Ernest Borgnine. I make that face a lot and I can't help it. You try to keep your legs up at a 90 degree angle while squeezing a large ball between your ankles and at the same time doing 100 tiny crunches and not look like Ernest Borgnine.

It's physically impossible.

It's difficult for me to do things like, oh I don't know put my legs up in a V while reaching between my legs to hold hands with my friend who is in a similar v-shaped position, without laughing. Our pilates teacher isn't all that interested in laughing during pilates.

I think she doesn't understand what's so funny about looking at your girlfriend as you perform some bastardized lamaze move.

I think she might be dead inside. Healthy and strong in body, but dead.

I seem to talk a lot while doing pilates. Things besides, "Holy Shit this is killing me."

Our teacher says things like, "No, you absolutely can do this totally impossible thing most human beings can't do, you just don't think you can."

So I find myself saying things like, "I can lift that exercise ball with my brain power...I just don't think I can."

Because that is funny and I never get tired of that joke.

I think my pilates teacher adores me.

One of the things I say a lot during pilates is, "Gee, and I thought hugs were awkward."

Hugs aren't really awkward when compared to propelling yourself through the air to perform a handstand while your girlfriends watch you being pummeled about the face by your own breasts which are not used to this direction of gravity.

Unless you give someone a hug while you do that. That's an awkward hug.

Comments

[Renee Dodd]

My tummy is sore from laughing. Who needs pilates? I've got Suburban Bliss!

I can't do pilates at all because you have to balance on your tailbone too much, which hurts me like hell because my tailbone is very pronounced, like it thought about becoming an actual tail but then changed its mind and stopped growing at freakishly enlarged.

Would this be an awkward time to ask for a hug?

[Scraplifter]

damn breasts. making pilates AND hugging awkward.

[Mrs X]

I stopped doing pilates the day Mr X came in laughing and took a picture.
I guess the Ernest Borgnine look is required if you're doing it right.

[Missy]

I really liked Pilates the only few times I did it. I kept saying to the instructor, "Gosh, I'm not flexible at all!" She replied, cooly, "Most people aren't," like it's some sort of character defect on our part or something.

I did really like it because it revealed to me muscles I never knew I possessed in my abdominal and ass areas. I know that if I kept going I'd now have a six-pack under all of these layers of fat.

[drowninginkids]

Thank you so much. I feel like so much less of a loser now. Boobs and all. Thank you.

[Wayward Goddess]

I used to teach Pee-lah-tees and I woudl crack jokes with my students all the time. i would have loved having you in my class. We may have spent more time laughing than actually working out, but it would have been fun.

[chris]

Oh no, I think I have been pronouncing it wrong.

This post is hysterical.

[AskMoxie]

Are all Pilates instructors deadly serious?

Back when I was still single I used to try to do yoga like everyone else in New York. But instead of feeling all centered and peaceful and skinny, yoga just made me feel inadequate. I could never feel my life force flowing from my sit bone, or maintain the proud warrior stance while contemplating my chakras. And during that meditation time in which everyone else in the class was become enlightened, I was thinking about what shoes I was going to wear to work the next day, or why Rudy Giuliani even cared about what art was exhibited where, or whether it would be faster to take the 4 5 up to 86th Street and the bus across, or the N R and switch to the 1 9 at Times Square.

But then I discovered Pilates, which I enjoy because it's so concrete. Instead of worrying about what my chi is doing, I just put my body into a pretzel. When I start to shake, and the beads of sweat roll down my temples, I know I only have 7 reps left. My only problem is that the instructors are so serious about it that I have a hard time taking them seriously. And I haven't been to Pilates in almost a year, because the one time I went back after my little one was born, the instructor pulled me aside to tell me I wasn't ready for her class, and should go back to basic. And I had no babysitter for the basic time slot, so there you go. If I have no core strength when the rapture comes, it'll be all that mean instructor's fault.

[Fluid Pudding]

Why do I have a funny feeling that one year from now you'll be blogging as a member of MOMIX? (It's the logical next step, you know, because it has the word Mom in it!)

Ernest Borgnine pictures and swollen Jerry Lewis pictures will always be funny. Timeless!

[DenverDad]

Hilarious! This is why I'm so resistant to the whole yoga/pee-lah-tees thing. I don't have breasts to worry about, but I've got this embarrassingly large personal space that the FAA once used to set up a no-fly zone.

Great post!

[Meg]

I, like you, love the IDEA of Pilates. I see the testimony of people whose squishy tummies have been transformed into washboards, but I don't think my tummy could ever look like that no matter how many times I put myself through the torture and humiliation of pilates. There's just too MUCH of the squish here. And then there's like, the pain.
How are you sitting upright to type?

[Velma]

You know what I've discovered since taking instruction from a personal trainer? You know those stability balls you use for all sorts of core goodness? When you get your period, and you are sitting on the couch scarfing chips and dip, and then you go into the kitchen and get something sweet to balance out all that salt? Those balls make excellent ottomans to put your feet up on after all that snack exertion.

[Mrs Ca]

Watching my husband try to do my pilates tape with me one day was the funniest thing I've ever seen. There are classes at my gym that I'm tempted to take, but I'm working my way up to pilates and currently just take a yoga class. You want funny? Try a yoga class. When people talk about the farting that goes on during a yoga class they aren't making it up. It really happens, and is hillarious. Although, it is kind of hard to hold downward dog while laughing hysterically.

[Bella]

very funny story. I actually miss doing pilates.

[AmyinMotown]

When I was working the Job From Hell at the beginning of this whole Pilates trend, I pronoounded it "pilots." My mother? Calls it, no lie, "pooh-lah-tees." I cannnot even discuss her clas with her because I have too much trouble choking back the giggles.

[chirky]

my only experience with pee-lah-tees has been at home, in private, just my Pilates for Dummies DVD and me.

i actually like it, but i will tell you this: it belonged to my husband before we met.

[Nothing But Bonfires]

My mother goes to yogalates. Forget about DOING it without laughing, I can't even SAY it without laughing. It sounds like a pretentious coffee drink.

[Y]

And this is why I take Dance Aerobics.

I'm scared of Pilates.

[anastasia beaverhausen]

Pilates on a reformer:

Only 1 way to do the move the right way and 99 ways to do it incorrectly.

That's why I just do yoga. Although I still have to relaz my face.

[Deb]

Hilarious....
But does it work??? Is it worth it???

All my exercise instructors are too serious...why NOT laugh and have fun, Godforbid exercise become {gasp} ENJOYABLE.

Sorry for this moment of extreme sarcasm and snarkiness at exercise instructors...now back to your regularly scheduled programming.