“Surrender to the hill!” she screamed through her rectangle glasses and headset microphone. All 9 of us were panting slowly pedaling up an imaginary hill. Slowly.
I was thinking about Triplets of Belleville and wondering why Peter wasn’t in class. How could he miss the comical hippie-instructor on this rainy day?
Back to surrendering myself. I tried to hear the whistle from Triplets of Belleville again. “Brrrpt brrrpt brrrpt brrrpt.”
Whew. After the hill, during our cool-down, the hippie instructor cooed in a calm chatter -
“You might remember I told you earlier to surrender to the hill”
Us nodding and pedaling, some giving a slight “uh-huh” like a tired Baptist.
“Well this doesn’t mean give up, or turn the resistance down. This means stop fighting it – stop fighting and fearing the hill. Surrender your souls, stop asking questions. Feel your body and bike.”
I thought about this and I thought “damn. She is so crazy.”
She continued. “Can you imagine if everyone stopped fighting and fearing? We would live in a different city. I recently began talking about this with my therapist”
Oh. She has a therapist. That makes sense. So we all kept pedaling, listening to her talk about this cocktail party she attended last weekend, and how everyone was out of shape.
We moved on to stretches.
“Yes. Breathe deeply. Remember – your body is your house. Your body is the house of your soul. This is all you have. Give yourself a hug.”
Giving my sweaty body a hug. I start thinking about my phone, in hopes that someone had called or at least sent a text during the past hour.
“Well guys I just wanted to tell you that I will be subbing next week on 86th St. I won’t be here next week. So if you like my classes – check me out on 86th.”
Then she started chatting about the position of her foot on the pedal.
Frowning at my silent phone, I started thinking about what I would say if I had a spin class.