On Being the Bigger Person

So I recently rejoined a gym, this time LifeTime Fitness, which contrary to popular opinion doesn't seem particularly crowded with Gym Bunnies. I've been going to the St. Paul location, which is in the old University Club, so it has this sort of dilapidated swankiness that I really dig. It looks like a converted hotel, and in fact very well may be. The pool, which is what sealed the deal for me, to be honest, is a national historic landmark. It looks like something out of an old Ethel Merman movie, all this really intricate inlaid tile and floor to ceiling marble pillars. It makes me actually want to go work out, which is saying something. Of course, the other swimmers become distracted by my intricate underwater routines, but they are welcome to join me in my Golden Years of Hollywood fantasy.

Last night I went to a yoga class, which kicked my ass as they always do. The same thing always happens when I go to a yoga class: I start out really excited to go, and then half way through the class I get this sinking feeling in my stomach and all I can think is "this was an intensely bad idea". This thought usually occurs to me in the middle of the 4th Sun Salutation, when I've been in the Cobra asana for what feels easily like 8 years. For the uninitiated this is a pose where you support the full weight of your body on your hands and the tops of your feet. Fun! Right about when I lose all feeling in my upper arms I realize that I am not cut out for this kind of workout. But this is always how I have to work out, I have to sneak up on it. I have to trick my body into thinking it's not that big a deal until I am already in the middle of it, sort of like the way you lure a dog to the vet, or a small child to get a tetinus shot. I tell my body we're just going for a drive, maybe for some ice cream, then I swing a hard right and before my body can say a word I'm in yoga, contorting it into positions it didn't even know existed. Yoga is great like that- every time you finish you're like "i didn't even know I had a muscle in the bottom of my ass". At least this wasn't a "hot yoga" class, where they crank the heat up to 115 degrees and kick your ass for a straight hour and a half. That was easily the most intense physical activity I have ever encountered, and while it felt great, a small part of me is pretty sure it was the closest to death I've ever been. It was this class that made me realize that my favorite pose is Corpse Pose.

Last night's class was good, but as always it was a little disconcerting to look around the room and being the largest one there. That happens to me a lot. I don't know if it's that I didn't get the memo about segregated skinny and non-skinny activities, or that people my size don't think they can do yoga or pilates, which really bums me out, because nothing will get you lean and tone faster than those two things. I spoke with the instructor after class for a while, and she remarked that I had better form and was more flexible than most of the people in the class, which goes to show you that physical size isn't the issue, it's perception. The one good thing about being overweight pretty much my whole life is that I generally do not feel inhibited by my size. I have always done and worn whatever everyone else has, because I was never taught to be ashamed. Is it hard? Sure. Am I at the gym in the first place because I want to lose weight? Of course. Do I let that stop me from doing something that I think could be fun and interesting? Never. In this culture we are taught that only people who look a certain way or weigh a certain amount can do certain things. Our activities are segregated by size and shape, and people buy into it. I think that is bullshit, personally.

(As a somewhat side note: it's important to remember that body issues are body issues, and everyone has them. Everytime I talk about people that are overweight, friends of mine that are very skinny talk about their own pain of trying to gain weight and feel normal in what is perceived as an overly slender body. Everyone thinks they are ugly and awful, and we can't assume that one type of self-loathing is better than any other. )

As I got to thinking about all this last night, I realized that there is something ultimately empowering about being the largest person in a yoga class. It shows them and me that the only limitations people have are those that are put on themselves. It makes me feel good that people in the class can look at me and be envious of my skill and form, can maybe even wish, however fleetingly, that their body had the power and grace that mine has. All my life, I've heard comments from people to the effect of "For a big girl, you sure don't act like one", and I always want to say to them, for a "small-minded asshole, you sure don't come off that way". What does a comment like that mean? What do they think a "big girl" should act like, that I should shroud my size 14 frame in a muu-muu and apologize for existing in their slender world? And what constitues "big" these days? How is it defined? Big can mean many things to many people, and I choose to believe it means I am a bigger person, which will stay the same no matter how much weight I lose. The next time someone says something like that to me, I'll invite them along to a Yoga class and proceed to kick their scrawny ass.