Aerobics- Take One

Recently while visiting with Sidnei’s Aunt, she mentioned that she was starting a water aerobics class. Since I have been feeling rather homebound lately, I decided I would join and invited my MIL to come with us as well. I figured that this was a good thing for me, as I have been rather inactive lately. (Read: Couch potato) Not only that, but it’s been HOT, and I couldn’t think of anything better than getting in a pool!

So this past Monday, we all dragged ourselves out of bed…Israel’s Mom now stays home with him, so he hasn’t been here…and thus we have taken full advantage by going back to bed after the men go off to work. It has been full of wonderful, heavenly, lay in the middle of the bed spread eagle, sleep. But never mind that, off we went because our class started at 9. We arrived, stripped down, and hopped in the pool. The water was absolutely delicious at that time in the morning. I was thoroughly enjoying myself as it has been quite a while. Though the pool rapidly became FULL, we had about 30 people in the water. Almost everyone was 50 or older.

So first, let’s start out with the obvious. I am WHITE. And everyone here notices and is always concerned. Did I put on sun block? Where is my hat? I really need to shade my face. And my eyes are sooo beautiful, but my light eyes need to be shaded from the sun, I need to use sunglasses! Okay, they were right about the sun glasses, I completely forgot and was pretty much blind with the rising sun. I did use sun block…70 spf. And for only being in the pool for one hour, I still burnt my shoulders and back a little. At 9 AM. Now don’t get me wrong, in the states I burnt pretty easy as well, however, it was usually after a couple of hours, and somewhere between the hours of 12-3.

The actual workout was not challenging AT ALL. Which is alright, it was challenging for a lot of other people there, including my MIL, and I am glad. Part of the problem is the teacher. She only had about 5 different exercises, which we just repeated over and over and over. And over. So I was pretty disappointed by that. She rode in on her motorcycle (literally), she is very fit, and looked very promising. Maybe she doesn’t do more because the women are older? That is very likely, but I still think she could have included some different exercises. Really the only thing we did, was running in place. To the front. To the back. To the front again. And then the opening and closing of the legs…all the while using our arms to push the water.  And I am sorry I don’t know more technical terms for these exercises.

Anyway, truly I was slightly disappointed. I had done water aerobics back home and it had surprisingly (for me my first time) kicked my butt. I was hoping this would do the same. But anyway like I said, it helps my MIL who has a lot of back pain, and if I go, she’ll go. And plus on Mondays and Wednesdays, I get to play in the pool. When it’s over, everyone scurries out, I do a couple of laps, play around like the little fish I used to be and climb out happy!