Pilates for Dummies 1, Amanda 0

So it's almost noon and I'm hungry, and I figure I can watch my new Pilates video while I eat lunch as a sort of mental warmup. I sit down on the couch with some leftover barbeque ribs and baked beans and hit the on button.

The host(ess) is a perky-looking blonde named Michelle. She's sitting on a mat on the floor. "See, look!" I say out loud to absolutely no one (yes, I work from home and I talk to myself a lot). "Just like what I use for strength training! This'll be a piece of cake!"

The dogs politely feign interest in my babble and look earnestly back and forth between me and my plate.

Michelle talks about "the powerhouse" (basically, your abs and lower back muscles) and "the box" (the area between your shoulders and hips--don't normal people call this "the torso"?) and earnestly reminds me how important it is to have control over these areas of your body at all times. I nod equally earnestly. Sure, Michelle, bring it on!

And she does. The first exercise is called "The Hundred." (All the exercises have goofy names, a trait Pilates apparently shares with yoga.) And then she demonstrates it and promptly implores me to do ten of them with her.

I stop and stare in mid-chew. Just like she promised, Michelle contorts herself without her "powerhouse" ever moving. She looks like a mannequin where someone comes over and yanks on the extremities. Holy cow, this looks hard! I've been doing strength training for close to a year, but I doubt I can look half that good. Heck, I wonder if I can do the exercises at all.

As if in response to my thought, a little sidebar pops up on the video: "If you want to make this exercise easier..." and shows a modified position.

Michelle hundreds merrily on, unaware of my deepening sense of horror. And on she goes through a whole raft of exercises, which include things called "Rolling Like A Ball," "Swan Dive" (I groaned in pain just watching it), and this series of side-kick exercises that make me wonder how legs can even move the way she's making them move without the use of extensive special effects.

By the time she gets to "The Saw," I realize why the exercises have goofy names. They're euphemisms. Otherwise they'd have to be truthful and call them things like The Exercise Where Your Thighs Spontaneously Combust or The Exercise Where We Make Your Legs Re-Enact That Scene From The Exorcist.

I was so shaken by this display of athletic prowess, and my sneaking suspicion that I am not going to be able to move tomorrow, much less run three miles, after doing this video, that I make an hour's worth of work take all afternoon. (See how that works?) And now I have to walk the dogs, so there's another hour I can procrastinate.

However, when I return, the bell will sound for Round 2. I am going to get in touch with my inner badass and do the video! Yaaaaaargh!