As a new, learning as I go blogger, one thing I’m definitely learning is to (when possible, which is not always the case), write about something when it occurs to me. Even if it’s just a few sentences. Because it might be enough to inspire me to keep going the next day, when I’m not really in the mood to write about that particular subject. I’ll often go to bed, and have ideas start running through my head, which isn’t exactly conducive to sleep. It’s usually when I get my great (or not so great!) novel ideas, none of which I can usually remember the next day. Or lately, blog post ideas. I do write them down when they come to me, only to later look at them quizzically and think “Huh, what was I on about?!” Organization is not my strong suit, and if nothing else (hopefully) maintaining a blog will force me into some semblance of an organized thought cataloguer. Maybe!
Anyway…I had written an unpublished post for my old blog and
not published it (I actually deleted it as I finished most of it on the blog’s
own editor – never a good idea). I didn’t publish it because I was afraid it
would be too woe is me/white girl problems sounding. I didn’t publish it
because I was scared people would think it was stupid. I didn’t publish it
because I was afraid, in short. Which is fine, maybe not every thought is meant
to be shared. But in this case I will share (the gist of it) because it’s what’s
on my mind (again) today.
It stemmed slightly from a post last year on the
xojane.com site which was widely derided. It was about an (American) girl in a yoga class, who wrote a rather dispiriting piece about how an
overweight African American girl turned up to the class and couldn’t or didn’t
for whatever reason participate fully in most of the postures. The author was
mostly whining about how this girl’s mere presence
was bringing her down, interrupting her zen yoga smugness presumably, as if
how dare she even BE in the room with the rest of these skinny yoga types,
all in the most weirdly condescending tone you can imagine. She
didn't belong there, she was out of place, her body and ability did not fit in
to the overall machine of exercise/self-worship this woman felt was so
threatened. It was so horrifically offensive it received nothing but deserved
scorn and questioning of why they published it in the first place (as it’s
xojane, much of their recent m.o. seems mostly to irk/inflame the readership.)
Unfortunately for me it kind of stirred up some of my worst
fears in terms of my own body image issues. You see, I have been attending
Pilates semi-regularly (they break for school hols) for almost two years now.
And I am the fattest I have ever been in my life. Pilates has not turned me
into an elegant, toned swan the way that the Gwyneth Paltrow et al. endorsements
assure us it will. I started Pilates because my knees were shot and it was one
of the few forms of exercise I was able to do. A block booked class I know will force me to attend as it’s pre-paid fits in well with my
needs. I did yoga semi-regularly when I was younger and was always relatively good at it (I’m bendy, but not athletic at all, really).
Pilates is not just
hipster yoga, as I initially may have thought. It is much, much harder, and you don’t feel particularly zen at
the end. I stagger home on wobbly legs. Usually my whole body hurts the next day. Myself in
particular, I get sweaty and red faced and struggle to do many of the
positions. Whereas many women in the class are zygote waifs who appear to attend
because they’ve got a gap in their schedule in between manicures. They never
break a sweat or appear anything but effortless and graceful, moving through the positions in a sleepy, slim-limbed apathy.
As the chubby (middle aged - gasp!) one
in the corner it can be dispiriting to say the least. It takes a lot of
willpower to force myself to go and not beat myself up too much for not being
the more socially size acceptable creature I once was. There is a mirror, which is the devil’s
work in any exercise class as far as I’m concerned. I have to look at myself in
the mirror and try not to compare my body with other women’s in a negative way,
which for me does not exactly come naturally. And after reading that piece in
xojane it just kind of confirmed my worst fears – some people are judging me, gasp! The horror. Of
course maybe most people are more interested in judging themselves, because I don’t
really remember judging anyone besides myself even when I was young and thin.
But still. It takes a lot for me to look in the mirror and focus on the
positive, that I have occasional grace of movement, that I can still bend into
most postures with the best of them (though definitely not plank!). My own judge-y voices are more than enough for me to contend with without having to worry what anyone else thinks of my less than perfect form.
As the class before Pilates was letting out recently, some
sort of youth aerobics hip hop nightmare, a couple of young tween girls were
sat across from me giggling. They were, in a mildly passive aggressive mean girls tone, disparaging the efforts of another girl they knew in class. “She tries her best…" mutual giggle.
And then a girl approached them, a cute, slightly chubby, red faced girl, and
effectively apologized to them for not doing better. And it broke my heart. I wanted to
say to her “You are beautiful, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
But I didn’t, because I knew she wouldn’t hear me, not really.
It’s something we can only hear from ourselves. And so I
keep going to Pilates, which starts back up tonight after a month off for winter holidays, despite having many feelings of "Ugh I feel fat and don't want tooo"; for myself, for all of the
other less than perfect girls and women who are maybe afraid to go like me
sometimes, because we deserve to be there as much as anyone else.
I miss pilates! :(
ReplyDeleteThe downside of doing the class we do is that it's in a dance studio - the place is full of super-bendy waifs. But there are plenty of people in that particular class who are not skinny and not flexible and who find a lot of the poses challenging and who ARE NOT JUDGING ANYONE BUT THEMSELVES.
Mmm...if you say so, I'm too busy concentrating on my own flaws! ;-) You are right though, many of them are probably actual dancer student types (think I mentioned in my original post but didn't work its way in here), so are therefore not technically human!
DeleteJust noticed I need to re-set my blog time, what on earth is this set to?
DeleteI sympathise. I have just started a yoga class which is suprisingly tough ( crippled for days by hip stretches). About half the class are slim girly types, whereas the other day I realised my leggings were inside out with the label showing and my tshirt was riding up to show my muffin top. But no-one knows me there so I can look how I damn like.
ReplyDeleteKeeping clothes in place while bending is a minefield! Yoga classes used to be much less trendy, I never recall feeling self conscious in them. I do want to start one again, I miss the relaxed feeling you get afterwards (though yours sounds tough!).
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