Who the hell thought up "yogalates"?

My friend and fitness trainer is a very sweet man with a perfect physique and an evil glint in his eye. He's ten years older than I, and a perfect specimen. If I didn't like him so much I'd hate his guts. About five years ago I made a commitment to reasonable health and fitness. For the most part I've been pretty good, with better diet, cycling and some weight training. My trainer, who owns the gym, has helped me along the way, showing me how to work out safely, and responsibly, with acceptable results. He also has a mean streak. I can only believe he takes deep personal pleasure in my chubby, inept humiliation.

As I relish the sensation of my body aging and decaying, I notice little warning signs. Lately it's been my lower back. It's not really a problem, just an occasional twinge after I've shoveled a bunch of topsoil or something. But... I think back to the massive moose of a man who used to be our neighbour when I was a kid. This guy has such serious back problems that there are times when he is forced to spend days lying on a flat plank in his living room. No lie. All things being equal, this is an eventuality I choose to avoid for myself. So... I admitted to my small twinges with my friend and trainer at the gym.

"Oh, Tim... what you need is to take the Yogalates class. It starts in five minutes. It'll sort you right out." He watched my face fall as I remembered the time he talked me into attending a Boot Camp session, which was a near vomitous experience for me. I considered resisting, but then I saw the look on his face. It was clear that I'd just be a big fat pussy if I copped out.

Now, as you may guess, Yogalates is a sassy mix of yoga and pilates. I know nothing about such stuff, but in retrospect I think the class might be more appropriately named "Humiliation for Sweaty Old Bastards "or "Crow Eating 101".

To begin with, it's very popular among the female demographic aged 20-30. Doing the math, I realize that means I could easily be the father of a lot of the women in the class. These realizations make me feel a bit bad about my lustful thoughts, but only a bit. As the proud owner of a penis, I was half of what made up the 15% male portion of the class, (meaning there were two of us). The other 85% were lovely, fit, young women of varying degrees of curvaceousness. "Hell," I thought, "How hard could it be?"

It seems Yogalates is all the rage these days.The studio was packed by the time I convinced myself to follow the stream of yoga-panted women into the semi-dark chamber. New-age music chimed softly as I stumbled and tripped amongst the roses, looking for somewhere to learn all about it. My damn trainer pointed out that there was a single spot remaining in the front, right-hand corner of the room. I grabbed one of those paper-thin mats and headed off into the darkness, trying not to tread on anyone's little fingers, nor to ogle too obviously the curves and contours of my youthful classmates. I made eye contact with the only other male in the room. He was short and a bit hairy and had a slightly yogi-esque look to his lean and rippled physique. "So, what exactly is Yogalates?" I asked in a brotherly way. He smiled the honest smile of the converted and said, "Torture."

I found my little spot in the corner and grunted around, laying mat, removing shoes and socks, and realizing that even just sitting on my ass, legs forward and spine straight, felt like a pretty good workout to me. To my front I had a lurid view of my lovely self in the mirror, to my right, another view in another mirror, which helped me remember to cut back on the home-brew. To my left there was a tallish, clean-limbed specimen with brunette pigtails and distractingly wide hips. Behind, where I could not really see, was a willowy blond. My first problem (yet, alas, not my last) was clear even before we got started. In the dark, trapped in a corner, with a complete lack of knowledge, I could see sweet-fuck-all except for the writhing fineness of the woman to my left. "Oh well," I thought, "I guess I'll just have to copy the moves from her. Not such a hardship, actually."

And so it began. I broke a sweat just trying to imagine the mythical abdominal muscles I was supposed to visualize and move to the centre of my pelvis. Apparently my navel was supposed to migrate down, through my back and into the floor. I don't think it got there. As things moved along I found it more and more difficult to keep up. There were crab-walky stances and raised legs and bizarre pelvic-tilt roll-ups. I was sweating freely by the time we were 15 minutes in, doggedly trying to keep up while stealing glances at the young dear next to me. Sadly, she didn't seem to be too familiar with the moves, but her expansive pelvic girdle and generous breasts made it difficult to peer past her, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to anyways.

Then there was the move that actually required *magic*. Somehow we were supposed to lie on our backs, flat as a board with our arms limp at our sides. Using non-existent abdominal strength, and *magic* we were supposed to roll up to a sitting position without using our arms, like some crazy marionette being pulled up by a string. Let me tell you here and now that I am nobody's puppet. It didn't happen, but I made quite a spectacle of myself as I flapped my arms trying to get up.

Half way through the session I was toast, but I couldn't countenance the humiliation of thrashing my way out of my little corner. I was bathed in sweat and dripping on the yoga mat. The mat was too thin for my deformed tailbone, which felt like it was drilling a new route to China every time I was forced to lay on my back and put my legs up in the air. When I performed said maneuver my legs (which I think are very buff and sexy, due to cycling) trembled and jiggled like the limbs of a newborn foal. I had removed my glasses because they kept sliding off my rosy, sweat-drenched face. Thus I was also semi-blind in my dark, sequestered corner and could no longer see to my left effectively for instruction. There were moves that I ignored completely and laid on my back, trying to pretend I was invisible, and not the sad, fat, creepy old guy in the corner. I cursed my trainer three times in my mind and resolved to never return to godforsaken Yogalates.

Then I heard a guttural moaning to my left. Not a sexy sound, oh no. It was plaintive. Behind me the mystery blond began keening quietly to herself. It was the unmistakable sound of someone in pain, who is lost. I snatched my glasses and held them in place. Looking unashamedly around me, I saw that the lithe neighbours were flailing, bailing and failing, thank the stars above. I may have been old enough to have fathered them, but they were suffering, too. My self-loathing began to abate.

The rest of the class was a bit of a blur, but the hardest stuff was over. The final stretches and cool-down moves were something I was actually capable of doing. My new girlfriends floundered around, but we soldiered on together to finish the class. We didn't actually speak to one another, but I felt some telepathic commiseration going on. My trainer made sure to offer me a few quips about my lack of flexibility as I sopped my sweat off the yoga mat with handfuls of paper towels. Ha ha. Very funny.

The next day by lower back was perfect, with nary a twinge to be felt. My bastard trainer buddy was correct, as usual. I had been sorted right out. So had my ego. A little core strength never hurt anyone, as long as you don't kill yourself getting it. I have decided to continue going to Yogalates through the summer to see if I can learn the *magic*.