It was foggy this morning, and I allowed extra time to drive to my Pilates lesson, which turned out to be an unnecessary precaution as the traffic through Colchester was extremely light, and people were driving sensibly. I hadn't seen my teacher for a couple of months, since she took a break from teaching over Chrismas. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I know that the exercises are good for me, indeed that they are all that stand between me, with my congenitally bad posture, years of life spent on trains and at desks, and current gardening habit, and a disastrously bad lower back. But there is no denying that with the Christmas celebrations, and then starting the New Year with a bug, I had not practised so much as I should have done. My teacher was kind about it, but there is no doubt that she could tell.
Part of the point of seeing a personal trainer for whatever fitness regime you've signed up to is that the knowledge that you've paid for this stuff, and the prospect of submitting your individual efforts to close scrutiny, drive you to greater and more diligent efforts than you would make otherwise. Well, they do if you are naturally non-athletic and opposed to all organised physical activity. Where your own resolve falls short of the task, your teacher's may spur you on, a sort of outsourcing of your conscience. My homework for the next month is to practice standing on tiptoe, heels together, toes turned out, and rise up and down in a controlled way keeping heels together while moving or not moving my arms in a coordinated fashion. It sounds ludicrously simple, and is much harder to do than it looks.
Still, I can now stand on one leg on a wobble board without holding on to anything, and a year ago I would not have believed I could do that. Wobble boards are brilliantly simple and fiendish devices, consisting of a board mounted on a semicircular axle so that it is free to tip in either direction until the edge of the board hits the floor. If you have your weight directly above the axle you can theoretically stand there without tipping for hours. I expect my teacher actually could, though I wouldn't pay for the full hour to watch her do it. If you are me you can stand on the board with a certain amount of wobbling, and even step on to the board without a handhold, on a good day. You can arrange yourself so that the board tips backwards and forwards, or from side to side. They are used in the rehabilitation of stroke patients, to help them recover their balance.
I'm happy to work on my sense of balance, as well as the strength of the core muscles in my lower back. It will come in handy as I get older, to help me avoid falling over, and it is a handy skill for gardening. Working your way into a packed flowerbed, putting each foot down in a considered manner so as not to squash anything, it is useful to be able to take your time, pausing on one leg if necessary while you consider your next move. And for pruning, even with a secure scaffold or ladder that's been properly arranged and tested to check that it's stable, it's good to have a powerful reflex to stay upright as you take the weight of whatever it is you're cutting off. The alternative is to let it crash unimpeded on to whatever lies below, and there are times working above a border when you don't want to do that.
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