Power Pilates. I should have known. Actually, I did know. How could I not? Teacher said something like, “This is just like a mat class with many of the same exercises, but we’ll be doing it standing up, without the mat.” But I did not diva-strut out of the room. Yet.

I stayed through the hyper-speed reach-reach-reach-reach-side-bend-now-contract. I modified the knee-slaying plie-plie-plie-plie-bend-forward-in-plie, but I still felt a twinge in my knees. What up with the bouncy side lunges? I don’t remember doing anything like that on a mat. I remember stuff like that from crippling jazz-class warm-ups; from hateful pseudo-ballet warm-ups designed by people who don’t like (and hence, probably don’t entirely understand) ballet. She didn’t call them tendus, but we were supposed to stretch our feet to the side; my Achilles tendon twitched. Then she said “battement” and I had had enough. This was not what I signed up for, and if I wanted to take a class that required me to make movements with French names, I’d take class with the venerable David Howard, Ph.D., not some 20-something chick with a fitness certificate.

Actually, I never did do a diva-strut. I just picked up my mat, carried it to the closet, tip-toed back to my spot to gather my sneakers and towels, and I left. I plopped myself down next door in the stretch room, where I performed my usual non-Pilates-day 100 reps of ab exercises… lying down… on a mat.