Flexibility

 We had pilates today. Now I missed last week's pilates session, which was OK... I went to pay my respects to Iris, which is a good thing, what with her being what this is all about. Apparently, the subject of weights in pilates came up in my absence, so Richard brought his in today. He was either the only one who had any, or the only one who remembered. But we're a competitive lot, so there were a few jealous glances, and Anna said she had some she'd bring in next time (although admittedly her phraseology suggested that they were up for grabs because she wasn't intending on using them herself).

Oh, while I was messing about finishing off yesterday's, I went to play with the stats, which I have no idea what mean, but you get loads of graphs, which are always exciting to a quasi-scientist such as myself. You can get graphs per day, or per week, or per month, but they seem to have such totally different data in them that I find it a little disturbing. I expect my brother would find it a walk in the park.

But while I like looking most at the counter on the page (which tells me that it's had over 1000 hits! How cool is that!), I also have a passing glance, now and again, at traffic sources, out of interest. Bear with me on this, because I find it a little remarkable:


This is a genuine screen shot from my stats page. Now, how did my page come up in relation to this word search? I had to do some research here, so I put that exact term into Google, and scrolled through 25 pages. I am disappointed to report that I never found my blog, although pilates exercises were popular, and of course, I have mentioned both pilates and scissors, and the lack of manliness associated therein. (You don't find Dave doing pilates. Of course, we already covered lack of manliness). In all honesty, I was disappointed to not find my blog under that description, although not wholly surprised (and let's face it, only one person did - they were maybe very persistent).

Anyway, I digress. After yesterday's fartleks, I was feeling remarkably inflexible. We did the downward-facing dog today (I'm considering tagging that, I'm fascinated by what it could do to the stats), which we all enjoyed much more than the plank; in my mind I can't free the plank from the sailor's connotation of walking the plank, only one seems infinitely preferable (shark-infested waters notwithstanding). Still, for some reason, we all allowed ourselves to be guilted into doing the plank, even though Anita gave us the perfect opt-out (she's cunning like that, she knows how to play us). She said she'd save it till last, and if anyone didn't want to do it, they didn't have to. We basically all did it because we wanted to guilt Gav into doing it to, which worked a treat. And when we did butterflies, Richard lent me one of his weights, as he only needed one for that exercise. The butterfly (it may or may not be called that) is when Anita has made you do so many leg exercises that you contort into a ball of pain, and while you are lying like that, she suggests some arm-opening exercises, which you are too tired to resist. Also, they are pretty easy. However, with a two kilo-weight in the hand of the arm that's moving, it's a whole different story. It's not to say it isn't easy, it still is, but you do have to think about controlling the move (I thought I might put an extra hole in the wall, but managed to shuffle a sufficient distance away), and you can feel your abdominals engaging to take the effort. Which was very exciting!

I might do the downward-facing dog before bed. I couldn't get my feet flat on the floor in class, which I have been able to do previously: for some reason I wasn't being very flexible at all. Hamstrings like metal chains.