Jai Ho!

The weirdest thing happened to me yesterday, I went to the gym and I actually had fun! I’m always a bit nervous when I go to exercise classes, because I have a massive fear of being singled out by the super fit teacher at the front for being a complete lumbering incompetent!

   My fear is slightly justified. Many years ago I used to go to a spinning class and I think the guy that taught it thought he was beasting a team of Olympic athletes as opposed to a group of people who were just trying to get a bit fitter. He would march round the class turning the knob up on your bike as high as it would go and if he caught you trying to alter it he would scream at you. He once halted the whole class because my friend stopped for a second because her knee hurt. My last memory of him is him screaming

“STOP, STOP, STOP everyone, Sarah has decided her knee hurts so until SARAH decides to start spinning again we will all sit here”

It was a little bit like that scene from “Matilda” where the Trunchball finds out Bruce Bogtrotter has eaten her chocolate cake. The room shook with fear! After that incident we never returned.

  As a result I’ve always been slightly worried that a gym instructor will single me out and make me “drop and give them 20” if I stop for a drink of water. The reality is apart from one body combat instructor who clearly thought I bought the weight average up to unacceptable level in her class, so therefore didn’t acknowledge my existence, everyone else has been lovely. (I should add I've now swapped gyms)

  I’ve probably tried every gym class going and whilst they hold my attention for a few weeks I’m soon bored. However I noticed that my gym had started a new class; “Just Jhoom” A Bollywood inspired dance fitness class. Well they had me at “Bollywood”

  I love Bollywood dancing, I’m not sure whether it’s the colours, the movement or the sheer noise and jolliness of it all, but I couldn’t not try this! 

  When I arrived everyone in the class was really friendly and most importantly so was the teacher. I was lulled into a slight sense of false security when we started with an eye warm up! I can do the moving them left, right, up, down thing, then optician makes me do it all the time, although he’s never referred to it as a warm up and I'm not sure it earns me any bonus points! That was as easy as it got and before I knew it I was doing hand movements called “the beak” and “lotus flower" and kicking my legs about like Dick Van Dyke had asked me “Step in Time”

  My favourite routines were “Jai Ho”, although I suspect I did not resemble a Pussycat Doll in any way shape or form. I think I liked this one most because there was an element of it being like a Bollywood version of “Tragedy”

  My other favourite was a track that sounded it was saying “Barbara Windsor” and wouldn’t have been out of place in a holiday resort!

  I blooming loved it from start to finish and I can honestly say it was the most fun I’ve ever had at the gym, even though by the end of it I looked like this!

Me at my most sexy!

  As I’ve still got 2 pounds to lose to take me back to the weight I was before I went on holiday, I’m really hoping I sweated some of that off!