The "geezer" at the gym

I was dripping sweat.

 Feeling pumped and invincible after my cardio workout, I waited in the hall of the gym for the "core strength and stretch" class. I felt especially spry as I watched a scruffy, old, man hobble slowly down the hall with a dirty backpack swung over his tired shoulder. I almost pitied him, thinking he must be at the gym for recovery or therapy purposes. Imagine my shock when I saw him take his place at the front of the room to teach the class!

A mother and her teenage son were the only others to take the class with me. I overheard the woman telling a passing friend, (to her son's obvious embarrassment,) that he needed the stretching in this class to help with his recurring "groin injuries". Ah, mothers and their talkative ways.

We three spectators watched the knobby-kneed fellow waddle to get a mat, lay it down and, with effort, place his rump precariously down upon it, only to mutter gruffly to himself, "towels... everyone will need a towel.... I'll get some towels". Slowly he heaved himself off the floor again and practically limped across the room to accomplish his said task. Every step and gesture was as rusty and deliberate as those of elderly women who take up an entire aisle at the grocery store, and, with squinting eyes, carefully inspect every single orange to find the perfect produce.

We laid out our mats, doubtful that this geezer could give us a workout worth paying for. Little did our abdominal muscles know, just how traumatic the next hour of their lives would be. This class was being taught, not by a cripple, not by an old man, and not even by a normal human being; this class was being instructed by a machine.

Just to give you an idea of the kind of torturous monotony we endured for an hour, I'll explain one exercise set we actually did. I should say, "what he actually did and we attempted". Laying on our backs, we extended our legs out straight, barely hovering above the floor. (That alone is pain. Just try it!) From this position he did fifty leg lifts with the right leg, followed by fifty on the left, followed by fifty with both, followed by that entire pattern in reverse (legs starting up in the air and lowering them to the hover position.)...!!!

Being the ex-dancer I am, I started the series with confidence and perfect, straight-legged form, but by the third set, the burning muscles in my legs and stomach were screaming "if you don't stop this nonsense, we're going to blow up!" so I continued with weaker and increasingly pathetic form as I simply struggled to survive. The woman next to me took many breaks to rest her legs and by the end of the series, her breaks were twice as long as her spurts of exertion. The boy gave up completely on the first set.

Meanwhile, the machine plugged along just as in the beginning, without a hobble or a hiccup.  There was even a moment in the class where he did a headstand and expected us to follow along as if it were a clap of the hands. All the while, he mumbled seemingly senseless, out-of-order, numbers, which made the experience all the more troubling. Even when I discovered that he did have a pattern with his counts, one couldn't always distinguish his husky "five" from his mumbled "nine", or his whispered "three" from his rattled "fifteen". I once found myself wondering in desperation, "Are we in the fifties or the twenties? What are you saying mister?! My limbs and sanity depend on it!!"

Like all trying events in life, the torture session eventually came to an end. The clock actually had been moving the entire time, incredibly, and the hostages, though greatly maimed and debilitated, were set free at last. What did the captives do with their first few minutes of freedom? We laid face-down on the mat to recover from whatever it was that just happened to us! That's what!

We watched the "geezer" get up, roll up his mat and put his things away with the same slow but able movements as in the beginning of class. I'm sure my fellow pupils felt just as much respect for the old gentleman as I did,  for now we were the teetering, grunting invalids, and he the spry body of strength.

Another set of humbled whippersnappers exited the gym.