Boy, was I wrong when I claimed that spin classes at my gym got easier as the week nights progressed. Going along to the Tuesday night class, this week, I expected nothing more challenging than a medium-level workout, being that Monday nights reek of Tour de France aspirations and Wednesdays are for invalids (and me. I usually fake a limp as I walk in). What I hadn't counted on was the fiery little woman instructing, who I will now forever know as.. The Spin Nazi. What she lacked in size, she made up with terrifying intensity. Her top heavy body looked built for taking and dishing a punch and even without a mic, she managed to fill the room with her Lleyton Hewitt style, "C'MMMON!"
Although on time, the class was already well underway when I arrived (Interesting that the regulars knew to show up early, no?) and I was left to take a star-pupil spot in the front row. I realised why the front was so undesirable when we warmed up with a standing sprint and I breezed into my dainty, boppy pedalling; the Nazi gave a clear look of disgust over my style (later to be replaced with the more direct command "FASTER!!!") and I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
As the Australian Idol judges insist, song choice is everything. Whilst your regular instructors like to throw in the odd sadistic track like, Highway to Hell (tell me about it..), Spin Nazi's choices were truly disturbing. She hit us up with Addicted to Love early into the piece, so that we were left to visualise Robert Palmer's slinky women swaying with ease as we, on the other hand, strained against adequate resistance to match our pedalling with the slow bass line. Mere sweating and grunting does not sexy make.
Apparently, I even grunt daintily, though, and when I pushed through the pain to go "HARDER!" in obeyance of my master, I felt a twang in my butt and waited for something to snap (and not just the nose [let's hope that's all it was] of the guy sitting behind me, who was somehow way too close!).
The Nazi's next move, confirming her Nazidom definitively, was to take down the clock, flashing me a cheeky smile as she did so (being that I'm a chief culprit of clock-watching. Or, as I like to call it, 'when-can-I-get-the-fuck-out-of-here-ing'). I wondered, if I was to take her over my bike and spank her now, would that add the sexiness we were lacking earlier?
The moment that more passive mode of escapism was removed, our eyes all moved to the door. We watched the merry and free passers-by with longing, for we knew, "I was once like you!" Those pedalling close enough to the windows wrote "Help me!" in the sweat induced fog. But, it was to no avail. We soon became immersed in our slog until pedalling was all we knew. In fact, without a clock, who's to say how long we were there? I'm convinced that in our hard-working trance, we were all shipped off to Thailand and used as slave-labour for several months. We were forced to generate power by pedalling in factories, then returned to our bikes none the wiser.
No, it so happened that my seat in the front came in handy, as I was able to sneak a look at the flattened clock every time we got into a standing pedal. Naturally, the Nazi was running us overtime, and just as I decided I'd be leaving at the scheduled moment, she pulled out this little chestnut: "The next number will be a competition between the boys and the girls." Dammit! She knew my weakness: feminism. And proving I'm better than everybody. (Naturally, I won. And those that I didn't beat, I beat down later in the parking lot).
By the time our 45 minute class had turned into an hour and I'd lost all feeling in my body, I waddled out of there with all the other stunned fools who had just paid to be subjected to unspeakable torture. It's ok, though. I unwound when I got home with a nice, warm cry in a nice, cold shower. Ahhh....
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