Flexibility.

So I tried to do pilates.

It was like a scene from some 80s movie where the person can't bend their legs enough to sit cross-legged and falls over trying to do the tree pose. At one point I was laughing to hard I fell over and managed to trap my arm under my leg. I am so incredibly inflexible and the day before I ran 3.5 miles so I could barely walk. I could handle the deep breathing. I could handle the stretching. And then the instructor bent her body in a way that seems really easy but actually requires a significant amount of core and shoulder strength and I was done for.

I have never been flexible. I danced from age 3-16. I learned jazz, tap, and ballet. We would start every class, once a week, with stretching on those fluffy mats that can fold up into a giant block. We would try every day to do the splits. I remember being super jealous that a girl my age, Jessica, could do the left, right, AND straddle splits. No matter how many years I danced, including a year when I was eight where I did only ballet, I never managed to get even close to doing the splits. Or even  touching my toes.

Back to pilates. "If you can't keep your leg straight while pulling up from the knee, feel free to bend your free leg. You want it straight." I bent my knee. Still bent. I changed where I was pulling. Still bent. I put my leg on the ground, straight, and then raised it up. Still bent. By this point my leg was shaking, though I am going to blame that on the fact that my hamstrings were basically dead from 3.5 unasked for miles the day before.

But I finished the 20 minutes stretching pilates lesson. I laughed at myself as I tried to hold my body weight on shaking arms. I had to take a break when, at the end, they had me try and do the bridge, where you arch your back and push up on arms and legs. I used to do this every dance practice. I wasn't the best but I could do it. My teacher, Ronnie, would walk by and pretend to put a glass on our stomachs so we'd be distracted as we held it for minutes at a time. Oh how far I've fallen since I was 6.

But, I also wasn't running 5ks when I was 6. And granted, it was an incredibly slow 5k but 3.15 miles nonetheless. So maybe I can't touch my toes. So maybe I'll never be able to contort my body into strange shapes again.

Moral of the story, I guess I'm still bitter that I've never, to this day, managed to do the splits. I have never been, and I am convinced that no matter how much pilates I try, will ever be, flexible. Not in the physical sense anyway. However, I think in life I'm one of the more flexible people around, willing to change my schedule, priorities, whatever for myself or others. I enjoy thinking about things that challenge me. I am trying to become more excited and open to change. So I suppose that in all the ways that matter, I'm very flexible.

As long as it's not important that I can touch my toes.