The Joy of Movement through Humiliation

I enrolled Vaughn in one of many summer classes at the local community center. The class only lasts about an hour and a half. I figured rather than driving home and then basically turning around and driving back again I could continue on my get-fit quest by enrolling in one of the community center's exercise classes that was happening simultaneously. This is how I came to find myself participating in a drop-in Nia class. Nia is one of the newer (within the last 15 years, anyway) fashionable phases of fitness classes that incorporates some martial arts moves, some yoga, some world dance, but largely involves just moving around looking as ridiculous as is physically possible by, in this particular case, the over-30 female set. I've decided to continue with the class in an effort to connect with my inner woman (not my inner child, which has been far too prominent in my life of late and needs a severe time-out for reasons best only known to me). I spend the majority of the class with my eyes clenched so I don't have to witness my grotesque gyrations displayed accusingly in the floor to ceiling, room-length dance mirror placed strategically in front of me. Right now, they are doing construction on the community center where the class is held, so on the neighboring wall not inhabited by the gargantuan mirror is a room length window looking out over the construction area through which the manly construction workers can be treated to a site befitting a gynecologist's exam room, minus the stirrups. To give you a general idea, there are portions of the class where you “free dance,” and the motto of this particular exhibition is self-expression: "Remember, it’s your dance. Be yourself. Free yourself. Just let yourself go. Do whatever, however. Just MOVE," on the floor, off the floor, on the wall, off the wall. It doesn't matter, just make it BIG and as SENSUOUS as possible, which is a little disturbing considering three-quarters of the class is over the age of 70, but like I said, I keep my eyes wide shut.