Aquacise Class: No Easy Dunk in the Pool

I volunteered to go to an aquacise class with a friend from yoga because she hurt her calf playing tennis and couldn’t do any other exercise for a few weeks. I love the water, so I was more than happy to participate.

I was a bit late getting to the gym, so when I entered the pool area, the class was already warming up in the water.  A quick assessment of my fellow aquacisers told me that the average age of the class hovered around 78. I didn’t mind this because as I jumped off the ladder into the water, several of the women remarked that I was too young to be in that class, so they made my day. I don’t think I looked that young, but the fact that I wasn’t sporting a bathing cap with big, rubber flowers probably gave my true age away.

I found my friend standing between a pink flowered cap and a blue flowered cap.  I stood next to her and we started warm up exercises. This instructor was no slouch. From his perch on the deck of the pool, he shouted out exercises and demonstrated them. He worked up a sweat on dry land while his students whined and groaned (a legitimate beef in my book) that they were dying in the frigid waters of the pool below.

I paid no attention to the temperature of the water. I had given up an hour on the treadmill for this class, so I was going to get my workout. As the instructor finished up the warm up exercises, he made a few announcements, the big one being that the aquacise class holiday lunch would be in two weeks at an Italian restaurant across the street from the gym.

This, to me, was a pivotal mistake on the part of the instructor, and this is where he lost control of the class. Suddenly, the class became animated with talk of pasta and canolis. The class regulars were all abuzz over the luncheon and could not get their minds back on the exercises. But I could. As the instructor hopped; I hopped. As the instructor jogged in place; I jogged in place; as the instructor did jumping jacks; I did jumping jacks. I took a quick visual sweep of the class and found that only my friend and myself were giving the exercises any kind of effort. The rest of the people were pretending to wave their arms, but I could hear their conversations, and it was focused on the menu at that Italian restaurant.

Then, one of the three men in the class pushed himself between me and the woman to my right and started chatting.  I was polite; he was going on about problems with his ankles and knees. I think he was sort of flirting. I don’t think it was serious flirting. It was more of a “Wow, you are the only woman in this pool who could probably still give birth and I feel young standing next to you” kind of flirting. Then he said,

“The water just got nice and warm around me.”

Initially, I wasn’t sure if this was an octogenarian come on because I don’t know why he would say this aloud. To be honest, being that I was in a pool filled with people whose bladders might not be as strong as they once were, I took a quick but panicked look at the water.  He was right that the water was warm, but I realized that the gentleman was standing over one of the heating jets and it was the hot water from the jet that was blowing up his trunks. I continued to exchange a few comments here and there with him but I wanted to work out, so I re-focused on the instructor, and the man lost interest in me and left to go talk to some other chick at the other end of the pool .

I have to admit that once I tuned out the holiday lunch talk and the frigid water conversations and the flirting, I truly enjoyed this class. Will I go back? Absolutely. It was more exciting than the treadmill, and I get to go in the warm sauna afterwards. Who knows if next week goes well, I might go to the holiday luncheon too.  Maybe, I can really fit in with this crowd. I wonder where I can get one of those floral bathing caps.