Hooped! (repost:back next week!)

Not the hula I was thinking

Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance? I scolded myself.  I was staring into a wall length mirror with 5 other women.  Good job Karen, really nice work.  I stuck my tongue out at my reflection.  The woman on my right caught my eye and looked over her shoulder.  “You ready?” Her accent was thick, Russian perhaps?  I smiled weakly, “Sort of!” She leaned in, “Don’t worry, you are going to love it!”  She turned back to the mirror and started clapping, “Come on now!”  Hopping up and down, she pumped her arms to the music, “Let’s go.” 

She was clearly a keener.* 

Friday afternoon was grey and rainy.  The girls and I spent most of the day inside, reading and staying busy.  By tea time, they were getting restless and my oldest suggested we go to the YMCA for a quick workout.  “Really?  The Y? Now?”  One of the challenges of raising children is the constant demand to model functional adult behavior.  When a teenager says they want to exercise, health experts recommend you drop whatever you are doing and join them.  However, today I was sorely tempted to talk her out of it.  The fantasy of crawling into bed and having a nap was evaporating, I gritted my teeth.  “You know what?  That is a great idea.  Healthy!  Let me finish my tea and we can go.” 

I considered my options.  Running on the treadmill seemed too ambitious.  I was so tired if I got in the pool I would sink.  “Someone pass me the exercise schedule,” I shouted while I packed my gym bag.  “Maybe I can grab a class.” 

“The only class is hot hula fitness!” Yelled my daughter.  Hula fitness? I flipped through my mental dictionary and came up with nothing.  Dashing from the room I glanced at the class description “total body workout, isolates larger muscles groups…. Works your core. Sounds good,” I declared to the room and gathered my things.

There, my friend, was my first mistake.  Somewhere in my head, I was visualizing a gathering of people using hula hoops to workout.  People at my YMCA are an enthusiastic bunch of community-minded folk.  Exercising is a big deal to them and I have grown used to the myriad of ways they try to raise my heart rate.  I’ve even done some prayer work and forgiven them.  So when I read hula fitness, I didn’t even bother questioning it.  I just assumed I would be in a room full of women whose tank tops matched their water bottles.  I would be wearing one of my husband’s tee shirts and someone named Cheri would hand me a hula hoop.  We would do strange crunches together, sweat and I’d spend an hour feeling mildly self-conscious.  No big deal. 

That isn’t what happened.  

The small class size should have been the second tip off.  It wasn’t.  Walking into the almost empty studio I felt awkward and reverted to my best Canadian self.  I walked up to the instructor, apologized for being on time and introduced myself.  She was ridiculously happy to see me, suspiciously so. (Third sign seen flying right over my head.)  Four more women walked in the room, “Oh great, another dancer!” said a senior citizen in a tank top. 

Blind panic.

“Karen, if you would like, some of the ladies use a sarong tied around their waist.  It makes it easier to see your hip moments.”  The panic passed quickly and was replaced by delightful, euphoric hysteria.  I started laughing.  I was trying to pull it back but it was too late now, I was grinning like a dolphin and managed to reply, “Oh how kind of you.  My… that is yellow and …flowers...  Goodness!  I think I will stick with plain clothes today thank you so much for offering.  Oh look that one matches your sneakers, wonderful!  I don’t want to call attention to my beginner status.”  My protests were met with rounds of affirmation and then the music, which featured mostly drums, started to pound. 

I was learning the Polynesian hula.

Polynesian dancing is amazing.  It has been taught for countless generations and has been a means to pass on stories, legends and cultural identity.  Expressing the environment of the islands, the moments are fluid and representative of earth, sea and sky.  It is beautiful.  I knew this in my heart and despite this knowledge I was begging God to let me do crunches.   I can’t say I have heard the audible voice of Our Father, but I’m pretty certain I heard him laugh.  Let me be honest, Polynesian dancing is really about moving your hips…a lot….non stop really.

(isolates major muscle groups works your core – IDIOT!  How did I miss this!)

Turns out, I was about to destroy the hula.  I started by turning beet red.  It is not physically possible for me to gyrate in public without feeling some form of shame.  I think this is a good thing.  Not like I gyrate in public much, but you understand my point.  However, the tiny woman with the microphone was starting to teach the dance, I had to put aside my mortification to keep up with her.  She was fast and really wiggly. 

I did a great job of matching pace with the instructor during the teaching part.  Then the tempo increased and things began to get dangerous.  My instructor sounded like she was calling sushi orders, “Ami, ʻAi ʻami, Ami ʻôniu!” It was horridly awesome.   All the time, hips are flying everywhere.  The instructor looked fabulous, sensual even, radically inappropriate but amazing.  I on the other hand couldn’t recall the last time I had tried to move like this. 

(Totally untrue.  I had a flash back to being 20 and intoxicated, tripping over a sprinkler while being chased by geese on my sister’s friend’s farm.  Half of me was rolling down the hill and the other half was staying still due to a hose that had me pinned.  This was mimicking the pain and humiliation quite nicely.)  

Every now and then she would shout out confusing requirements like, “Make a square with your hips!”  What does that even mean?  I wondered to myself.  Nothing about my hips are square.  In fact, there are no angles on my person whatsoever.  I’m mostly curves and wrinkles.  I tried to turn off all self-analysis.   I was in it to survive. 

Sixty minutes I endured.  I could write you through the entire mortifying class but it would be unfair. There are some things you can’t share with people.  Things you don’t want to share but you end up sharing because wherever there is an embarrassed middle aged woman in exercise gear there is a 14 year old boy peeking in the window and mocking her (demon child, I hope you trip.).  

By the time the hour was finished, I was euphoric.  My time of penance was over, I had conquered.  Oxygen deprivation will do strange things to your self-esteem.  The instructor assured me I was fantastic and she was thrilled to have another dancer in her class.  I lied my face off in order to get out of there. I was so delighted to be done I thanked God as I staggered to the waiting room to find my girls.  “Wow, Mum!  That was a totally weird class, were you actually doing the hula?”

“Yep, pretty much, did you watch it?”

“No, it was too embarrassing.”

“Chicken!  You should have stayed and learned something.  I was totally amazing.”

Praying that you too, are totally amazing this week.

xoxKaren

Hooped= caught in a situation that has no obvious solution

*Keener= Canadian term informal

a person who is who is extremely eager, zealous, or enthusiastic.