I'll start with a confession: I don't like sports. No, sorry, that's not entirely true. I hate them, and if I could write in metre-high letters, that's exactly what the third word of this sentence would be. The most I can do in terms of sporting achievements is place a bet on the World Cup.
I'm not ashamed at all. Not even a little bit. I'm not ashamed because, despite my hatred of sports, I still do them. Because there's white matter inside my skull, and it tells me that movement is absolutely essential. And, of course, it's useful for body sculpting, too.
So I go to training. Every time I force myself, words can't describe how much. I'd rather sit with a book on the couch, but here, you see, I have to go and pretend to be a wounded doe, jumping and waving my legs in all directions. And if I happen to miss a training session, then, oddly enough, I feel guilty. And this guilty conscience tells me that since I missed a training session, like a lazy girl, I should at least make it up at home. You know, waving my arms and legs, turning my head, blinking my eyes. But just blinking, you see, is boring. Even if there's music, it blinks without much enthusiasm.
So we decided to somehow add some variety to our home workouts. To somehow help our bodies perform calorie-burning movements. So we went to a sporting goods store. And lo and behold… My dear mommies! I don't even know the names of the equipment they sold there. And there was everything there. Right down to constructions that looked like medieval torture devices. As it turned out, they were a device for abdominal exercises. Well, I don't know. If guests came over and saw such a miracle in your room, you wouldn't be able to talk about anything else except this thing.
So, we wandered around the three floors of the sporting goods store, wide-eyed, and approached the checkout, gently clutching the hoop to our chests. A regular one. A gray one. We brought it home. I started going on dates with it in the evenings. The dates were sluggish, without much optimism, so we decided to buy another hoop, a bigger one. Thicker, heavier, with spikes. Not spikes, of course, but with these… um… bumps, or something? Basically, it had special protrusions along the inside diameter, designed to… I don't know, probably create a waist that even Lyudmila Gurchenko didn't have in “Carnival Night.”
How can I tell you? If they'd handed us these hoops at practice and told us to spin them, I'd have done it, of course. Of course, I wouldn't have gone to that practice later, but I would have honestly done the required number. But I couldn't bring myself to spin this 9-kilogram abomination at home. It's as heavy as a giraffe sitting on the back of a hippopotamus standing on an elephant. The hoop was sent to the balcony to cool.
Next up was a spiky ball, or, scientifically speaking, a fitball. What a bargain! It's perfect for lying on when your back hurts. It can serve as extra seating when hosting a large group of guests. It's a great way to keep the kids occupied if they're there with them. Finally, it works great as a door stopper, which, without a stopper, tends to close, which makes the cat curious—what's that empty spot behind the door? And the spiky ball scares her off.
Jumping rope is awkward in an apartment. And on the street, people get nervous when they see a little boy whose mother is jumping rope. I developed such a dislike for rollerblading that I was fit to be featured on a “most ridiculous falls” show—I was a real star when they pulled me out from under a bike rack. And from under bicycles, of course. Skates are just like rollerblades, only it's cold outside.
But one day, I bought the best piece of exercise equipment in a bookstore. Yes, that's right, a bookstore. A yoga manual. Rollers, jump ropes, balls, and other dangerous equipment were instantly forgotten. I gave my heart and soul to yoga. And it still hasn't given it back. And I don't regret it.
