i love bad pilates

Did I ever mention how much I loved my pilates instructor in Chicago? She was really apologetic for being late every single time, talked a lot and kept her itunes mixes on the entire time. Some of the classes took place in the gym at the Y...and while the ventilation system rumbled, she would shout out the instructions. The volume would be just right and then Hard Days Night would burst on, super loud and crackly. Every class was exactly the same and I went religiously for about a year.

The Y on Irving Park Blvd in Chicago was full of lead paint and residents in jeans doing the elliptical machines. There were never enough mats and the hand weights were covered in dingy rubber, bits peeling off exposing the metal inside. Kids would be playing basketball minutes before our class...their gross tennies rubbing all over the floor. But it was my routine and I kept going.

Then I moved to Brooklyn, walked around a lot, walked past bakeries, ate pastries, got a little soft. Finally decided to try out the pilates classes at the Y a few blocks away. How bad could it be?

The instructor looked like a lollipop. Like a head on a stick. She walked in wearing a skin tight tie-dye long sleeve half top and stretch pants. I was surrounded by a bunch of ripped, tattoo covered, woody-allen glasses wearing, rockabilly hipsters, pissed off that my mat was too close. On the other side of the room, women in expensive track suits exercised with ease. Special equipment, squishy mats, polished floors, no music. It totally kicked my ass.