"Clan Fitness"

I survived my first and last Italian workout class today. I've been feeling a bit "fluffy" around the midsection lately, so I finally bit the bullet and decided to try this new form of public humiliation. I normally avoid exercising in public like the plague, since it never ends well for me, but I really had no other choice: the weather in Torino has been frigid and rainy for the last week, so I am more or less confined indoors. I did make a few solid attempts at hiking, but I prefer not to become a human popsicle if I can possibly avoid it. A gym began to sound more and more appealing, despite the fact that I knew it would be full of tiny, perfectly made-up Italians.

I should have known something was off the minute that I read the name of this particular gym; Clan Fitness. I don’t care who you are, that just sounds creepy. But it was close to my apartment, and they offered a lot of different classes, so I decided to give it a try. I showed up in my baggy sweats to find that my first assumption had been right: the gym was full of beautiful, skinny, perfectly composed Italians in expensive, clingy workout gear. I looked down at my shabby outfit (usually reserved for sleepwear) and noticed that I had a big chocolate stain on my sweatshirt. Typical.

The next class that they were having was called “Total Body.” I didn’t really know what that entailed, but I figured that I could use a whole body workout, so I signed up for it. Just my luck, it turned out to be a step class, which as we all know is a klutz’s worst nightmare. Seriously, I can’t imagine anything more torturous than trying to maintain the appearance of coordination while being instructed to jump around an unsecured box on the floor, arms flailing, to the beat of a bad pop remix. Sounds fun, huh? Oh, but it gets worse.

The trainer happily bounced into the room (the prerequisite five minutes late, of course) sporting a pair of workout pants that could have been painted on, and a low-cut tank top complete with spaghetti straps across the chest to further emphasize her, ahem, assets. Naturally I disliked her immediately. I was prepared to be entertained, though, as I was curious to see what would happen to all of these perfectly poised Italian women once they actually had to sweat. Would they call for a break to go fix their makeup? Would they freak out and leave the class? Or would they compromise their flawlessness by staying and sweating it out. Well, they did stay, and they made it through the class with infinitely more dignity than I did, unfortunately.

Someone had tipped the instructor off about the Americana in the class today, so she wasted no time pointing me out to everyone right from the beginning. I had been hoping to discretely hide in my corner until the hour was up, but luck was not on my side today. I was obliged to tell the entire class my name, where I was from, and that I didn’t speak a lot of Italian. This was followed by what I am assuming were numerous jokes at my expense, but I didn’t catch most of it. I did understand, however, when the instructor shouted out “Lei non capisce niente!” (“She doesn’t understand anything!”) during one of the frenzied pop-techno songs that she persisted in playing. Silly woman! I may not know much Italian, but of course I know how to say that I don’t understand Italian. Ironically, the next song that played was the highly inappropriate “I wanna f#%k” which is very popular in the clubs these days. As our trainer sang along to the explicit chorus I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. And she had accused ME of not understanding- at least I wasn’t coming on to a room full of people!

Don’t get me wrong; this was all delivered in fun, and I’m sure it wasn’t intended to offend. It was the combination of that and being forced to see myself exercising (naturally the room was covered in mirrors) that made me want to crawl into a dark hole and never come out. I have never understood how aerobics instructors do it; they somehow make these complicated series of exercises look easy and graceful. No matter how hard I try to emulate them, I come out of it looking like the bull in the china shop. Even if I hadn’t been the only non-Italian in the class, I would still have been one of the “special” students. I am always told that my posture, positioning, and timing are off during these little lapses in sanity that I call working out in public. I’m fine as long as they stick to one movement at a time, but unfortunately it’s rarely that simple. In today’s class we were expected to somehow dance on and around the boxes while simultaneously waving our arms around like it was going out of style. Who can blame me for falling off of the step a couple of times? The instructor traded off from trying to help me to just laughing at my natural inabilities, which is totally understandable. I was laughing at myself most of the time, so I can’t really fault anyone else for doing the same. Finally the hour came to an end, and I felt bruised and broken, but still alive. The Clan hadn't gotten to me this time. The instructor came up and asked what I thought of her class. “Era facile,” I replied in Italian. Piece of cake.