Arrrgh!!!

My doctor assures me that exercise is good for me. In fact, she was specific about kinds.....resistance, cardio, weight lifting. I was quick to assure her that I DO exercise. Three days a week I go to a morning class, and it's led by this wonderful, goofy, loveable incarnation of SATAN!

Lynda has spent her life in the pursuit of things physical. Specifically, she has learned almost every Asian exercise method, and what she doesn't know, her husband does.

We were skeptical at first when she came to lead our class. We didn't quite know what to expect. She kept a smile pasted on her face for the first year as we adjusted, and then we began to tease her, and she started teasing back.

She's slipped a lot of yoga into our cardio session, in the stretching and balance exercises. I've learned to pose like a tree, or something like that, and surprisingly, having to rise up to my toes is making my feet MUCH healthier!

We use lightweight poles for arm exercises, and 2 to 7 pound weights. We have two types of resistance bands: a small ring, and what looks like an elastic jump rope. We stretch almost every part of our bodies during warm up and cool down, and Lynda is likely to add two pound balls, basket balls, bean bags or anything else she can find into the mix to get us to use our muscles in a variety of ways.

She must feel that she's been successful in her efforts, because lately she's been slipping new moves into the routines. I've found a number of muscles I didn't know I had, and a few I wanted to forget about.

And through it all, she just smiles this inscrutable smile. I think that when she is wound up and can't sleep at night, she plans which muscle mass to attack the next day!