Examining the gym timetable for something less strenuous than Strength and Conditioning class and populated by people closer to my glorious vintage, I spotted aqua classes and quickly, before the urge left me, I signed up.
It was definitely more my tribe; in fact I was at the younger end of the age spectrum. Result! Looking around at my fellow pool mates (all female bar two exceptionally brave men) I was fascinated by the immaculately made-up lady with a beautifully coiffured hairdo, who managed to stay exactly just so throughout. Not a drop of water on her for the entire 45 minutes.
According to my friend Gloria, the instructor was worryingly known as ‘The Sergeant Major’. She certainly put us through our watery paces. I thought aqua would be gentle, however more times than not the water was used against us as we bent, stretched and wobbled our noodles (not a euphemism) and attempted to push our harmless looking floats this way and that. My friend Gloria was enthusiastically doing everything 100% and I attempted to follow. This was not always possible as I’d taken out both hearing aids and had left my specs in my gym bag, so as a result just heard a dull roar of instructions and saw a slightly blurry little figure dancing up and down the side of the pool. I desperately hoped that all the bubbles I was generating would disguise what my dyslexic feet were doing underwater.
Just as we were approaching what I was totally convinced was the cool down (I had been clock watching), our sadistic instructor inserted 5 mins of cardio. What a mean trick to play! However we all survived (just about) and gratefully (not gracefully) sloped off to the delights of the steam room, Jacuzzi, sauna, and café to recuperate.
Fiona Lau
