First Pilates Class

So I saw this picture on Katie’s blog yesterday that describes perfectly my feelings about yoga:

Ha ha! But seriously.

Last night I went to my free pilates class that I won at bfit and I have to admit, since it was a beginner’s class, I was a little worried it might be too much like yoga for me.  My past experiences with pilates are as follows:  2 grit classes, which were really hard – I enjoyed them, but my fitness level isn’t quite there at the moment, and the pilates for dummies video, which I’m pretty sure I was doing wrong because it made my lower back hurt pretty badly.  So I didn’t really know what to expect from this class, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be a bunch of laying around stretching and meditating and listening to ourselves breathe, because that just stresses me out.  I’m way too type A for that and start immediately mentally going through my to-do list and thinking, why am I laying on the floor when I could be doing…?  But the class totally exceeded my expectations!  There were supposed to be 3 students, but I was the only one who showed up.  I just assumed the instructor, Tara, would cancel the class, since it was just me and she wasn’t even going to make any money since it was a free class for me.  But she said that we’d just go ahead anyway, so I got a one-hour private beginners pilates lesson – awesome!  She made sure to start at the very beginning and corrected my form and had me focus on breathing at my own pace.  By the time we got to the end of class, my abs and legs were screaming at me!  I had gone running the day before, and I don’t know if that had something to do with it or if my muscles just aren’t as strong, but my hip flexors felt like they literally could not lift my leg one inch by the end of the leg exercises.  I don’t know about how pilates compares to weight training, but I do think that it would really help my running by strengthening my legs and my core so that my posture and breathing and everything would improve when I run.  I won’t be able to make next week’s class because I’ll be out of town, but I definitely want to come back!  I would highly recommend Tara’s beginner pilates class (as well as Claudia’s grit class if you’re looking for a TOUGH challenge) to anyone in the Fayetteville area.

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