I think I'm a pilates person

I’d always felt I had the potential to be a yoga person. I even flirted with the idea that I might actually be a yoga person a few years ago when Bikram was pretty much a weekly activity. Of course, I was in my youth back then, and sweating to the point of vomiting seemed vaguely exotic. After the allure wore off, I plunged into a lazy three-year hiatus which I only recently emerged from. Blinking in the bright sunlight as I squoze back into my too-small Lycra, I was ready to give (non-Bikram) yoga another go.

At first, I attributed my body’s reluctance to cooperate fully to my three years out of the game. My hips screamed out at the mat work. I couldn't touch my toes or bend double over my legs. But despite my ‘maybe next week’ mentality, I just never really seemed to make any progress. I would catch myself in the mirror in even the simplest of warrior poses and I just wouldn't look right. It wasn’t that I was screamingly bad. No one would have picked me out as terrible. I wasn’t embarrassed by my performance. But my back would be arching when it was meant to be straight. Or my hips would be forwards when they were meant to be back. And there didn’t seem to be much I could do about it. I would comfort myself with the whole Buddhist/Zen connection which had always been a source of interest for me, but I wasn’t exactly getting much of that in a cramped room of twenty lightly-sweating women.

But I ploughed on. I felt being a yoga person could suit me and I was determined to make it happen. One day, I had the urge to do a class after work but there was no yoga on the timetable. Only pilates. And for that reason, and that reason only, I tried it.

It was a rocky start. By rocky, I mean I was very nearly the only one in the class. The teacher didn't even turn up. I sat alone on my mat with a selection of foreign objects in front of me. A half-deflated ball, a foam roller, a metal hoop. Then (joy!) a woman came in. And another. And so there were three. They were friends and obviously came every week so I sat awkwardly, fondling my saggy rubber ball, pretending I knew what we were about to do with it. Then the teacher turned up a casual ten minutes late. No word of apology. This would never happen at yoga… I was both thrilled and appalled by this rebellious nonchalance. This was a whole different ball game.

And so began my first ever Pilates class. Just the three of us. I mean, that in itself was an immediate win. Yoga was always stuffed to the rafters. You could barely downward dog without someone’s bottom in your face. There was space at Pilates! Actual space!

Straight away I loved the speed of it. There was no agonizing over postures, trying to bend that leg ‘just right’ or ‘breathe deeper into the bend’ (has that ever actually worked for anyone?) It was a series of quick, challenging, aerobic-type exercises. And as soon as we’d done one thing it was onto the next. And then the next. We didn’t worry too much if we’d got it right or utterly wrong. It was almost chaotic in its speed but I liked that. It was like someone had pressed the fast forward button on our teacher (or maybe she’d had a few too many green teas) but whatever it was, it suited me just fine. I’m not one to dwell on exercise - I want to sprint my way through it (ideally not literally) therefore shocking my body into activity and finishing before it realizes what hit it. And speaking of my body, here’s the good part. I was sore the next day. I was never sore the next day from yoga.

It just made me realise I’d been forcing my body into a mould I though it should fit. Every week at yoga class (that’s somewhat generous, it was probably more like every two weeks) I’d think ‘Maybe next week I’ll be better’. When I get more flexible. When I get my hips loosened up. When I can touch my toes. But all those whens can get pretty boring. What if I don't need to change? What if it's not my body that’s wrong for yoga, but yoga that’s wrong for my body?

Pilates, I can do. It’s balancing and it’s building your core and it’s just throwing yourself into it. There’s no one showing off in the front row doing warm up headstands. And I get my relaxation fix from the daily meditations I’m doing these days. It’s all just so much more me. I know I’m getting all existential here, but I’ve been pondering the same thought about life in general. And it actually came up in my last therapy session. I’m always striving for something outside of myself. To make me better. Better at yoga, better at my job, better mentally, as in ‘free from anxiety’… But sometimes we’ve got to accept that it isn’t us we need to change. It’s switching from yoga to pilates, it’s switching from one career to another, one lifestyle to another. And that’s OK. Because at the end of the day, who are we trying to impress? We’re doing these things for ourselves, and if they don’t suit us, then we need to stop doing them and do something else. Sort of makes sense, doesn't it?