Shaking butt
I like to think I can shake my butt with the best of them, but these days the trouble is that my butt keeps shaking long after the music has stopped and less flabby people have gone home. I may exaggerate the duration, but the act is fact, unfortunate but true. I joined a Zumba class last week, primarily because it was cheap, and I can take the kids (the whole family can enjoy the hilarity of playback as enacted by my children, joy!), and it’s close to home, and the winter weight is telling, and I’ve been meaning to get some exercise …. so, lots of reasons to go.
Anyway, I arrive, water bottle and hand towel at the ready. We are a mixed bunch of people, and at this point I’m feeling a little smug (read: I’m not the fattest). There are a couple of youngsters (twenty-somethings) with a full face of make-up on, making eyes at the instructor (who is all of 18) – but not for long. At least 1 bows out half way in a bid to retain what mascara remains and to retire to the bathroom to fix her hair (smug, again). There’s a girl and her mom, allegedly on holiday from Holland (I think it’s a plot myself). There are some overweight ladies, apparently ready to make a change (am not sure what they think the Energade will achieve – probably more calories in a bottle than you can burn in 45 minutes) – you can see I am setting myself up for some well-deserved slapping down can’t you?
I probably made a good 15 minutes of uncoordinated effort to keep up, little realizing that I had an unattractively red face by this stage and it was obvious to all that I wasn’t able to follow the instructor’s “breathe through your nose, exhale through your mouth” – my lungs were bellowing, no chance to close my mouth! In the corner of my eye, the daughter and her mother happily persevering at a steady but unfaltering pace (it may seem trivial, but I will come back to this later). I did not give up, but I was the only participant (read: contestant) that had no water left by the end of the session. You catch the drift.
The next day I was happy to note that I had no muscle pain (smug), so I rolled into the next Zumba class with the mistaken belief that I couldn’t be as unfit as I thought. This week more youngsters in hot pants and make-up, (word is out that the instructor is a hottie and will chat to you after class even if you have ducked half the workout and spent the time in the toilets like a teenager …. what am I saying, he IS a teenager!). Me? I drag my sweaty pits home as quickly as I can pack up the children, this is NO time to hang about, perspiring and red-faced and with barely sufficient breath to shout for the kids, never mind conversation! Anyhow, I see the daughter again and ask solicitously after her mother (read: smug) and blow me down with an anchovy if she doesn’t say, “Oh, you mean my grandmother …” – who is apparently game viewing in Hwange and has therefore missed her weekly workout, the one she attends when she’s not cycling (as you do, Dutch and 80 in the shade) or judo or swimming. Enough said.
All I know is, if I can do that amount of jumping up and down at her age, without the assistance and protection of a nappy, I’ll be …SMUG (was going for grateful, but honesty won out).