It was a Nia class, which is apparently a combination of dance and martial arts. It sounded pretty cool, but also pretty intense, so I was a little nervous about this being my first class. I was picturing a dozen muscular models performing something reminiscent of an opening number on "So You Think You Can Dance" while I stood among them, panting and confused.
Imagine my surprise when the mean age of the class turned out to be roughly 60 and the fitness level seemed to hover somewhere around "mildly out of shape." I mean, sure, I was relieved at first, but then I started wondering whether I had accidentally joined a subsidiary of the Red Hat Society or something...surely they had noticed my lack of red hat at registration, right?
Everyone was very nice, but it was clear that they were wondering how I had found myself there. I was wondering the same thing.
The class itself was alright...it was a very loose interpretation of both dance and martial arts, but I broke a mild sweat and didn't at any point feel like I would pass out. However, I did get dizzy from the number of times we were asked to spin in a circle. Does spinning in a circle actually count as exercise? It was like "step-step-step spin!" Over and over and over. I think I was supposed to feel joyful (youthful?) while spinning, but I was really just nervous about falling into the person next to me.
And then, at the end, after all the hopping and spinning around, we were asked to lie down on the floor. The floor on which our sweaty feet had been pounding for an hour. And I appeared to be the only one who found this to be remotely gross or uncomfortable. Ew.
So it doesn't look like Nia is going to be my path to fitness, but I've still got plenty more to try. Tomorrow is ballet bar class, which seems like it would attract a younger demographic...I could definitely be wrong, but I don't think red hat ladies do a lot of grand pliés.
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