Had my 1:1 pole class, at Pilates on the Pole, tonight. Wasn't quite what I expected but that's not a bad thing. The instructor, Nicole, kicked my ass (I'm already getting sore) but in a way I respect and can handle... hard workout but also respected my limits. I know she thought I was going to be a total bitch of a student, especially when I complained about her poles being uber-slippery (worst I've been on; even my new miracle hand stuff barely helped. I later realized that's cause the poles "sweat" in humid conditions and the studio is 1 block from the beach) but we finally clicked and had a good time after that (well, I did). She asked if one of her new pilates instructors could join us and I said sure. It was fun to be able to do a couple things better than the girl who'd never done them before. It sucked that less than an hour later she was better than me.
But what really sucked was MIRRORS - EVERYWHERE. I don't know what the deal is with mirrors: I swear I'm size 2 (with huge tits - this is SoCal, that's important!) in real life but, put a mirror in the room and all of a sudden I'm a size 20 while everyone else is still a size 2. What's up with that? (and have you noticed that most doctor's scales are 100 lbs out of calibration!?!)
I totally cracked up and lost control in the middle of a pole slide when I got a glimpse of myself and realized I looked like a giant smooched up marshmallow. Seriously!! - White tank (never again!) over a body all scrunched up (because of the pose) so my stomach was bulging out, with big breastessses sitting on top of that, and big fat arms framing a big fat face. Smooshed.Up.Marshmallow! It's gonna be REALLY hard to undo the mental reality check this class is going to embed in my visual memory (I am sooo not sexy - physically!). But it might be just what I need to get motivated to loose some weight. (I'm not holding my breathe on that.)
On the other hand, I kinda liked having visual proof of how my size fucks up a lot of the moves for me. Like when we did a floor move, rolling away from the pole - the instructor was about 1' away while I was about 2.5' away, which made the next move (a pole grab) impossible for me. And there were moves where the instructor pointed out that I'm throwing my head backward - but it's totally sexier (and better for the neck) to tilt the head in & down. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that because my arms don't leave enough room for my face to squeeze through. (how sad is that?!) Thank gawd I have acceptance of what my body really looks like - and a REALLY good sense of humor!!
I appreciate that Nicole is into focusing on positive reinforcement. That's a big deal for me - go ahead and tell me what I fucked up, I want that info so I can improve, but finish with something that I did right. Or, in this case, merely telling me I did "really good" overall (only 1/2 lie).
She wanted to sign me up for a 10-class package but I decided to wait cause we both have schedule issues that could create problems - plus I still have other classes to check out. But I did prepay for another session - tentatively scheduled for next Wed night. She also teaches Pilates machine and I can see that's definitely something I should check out for some serious body reshaping (plus, I think it's cheaper) - if not with her then somewhere else.
While I enjoyed the class and the attention, I missed the familiarity of S (and not being treated as an ultra-beginner). On the drive home, I almost had myself talked into seeing whether I could still enroll in Coco's Sun night class, while still planning to continue the Wed 1:1 classes (2 workouts a week is good!), but reality kicked in and I remembered that I'm not a millionaire.
So... overall, a good experience. But whether or not I'll get hooked on it remains to be seen.
